Life was tense on minesweepers

The U. S. Navy fired more rounds in Korea than was fired by all the ships of all the navies in World War II, says Barrett R. Wilson. “Over four million rounds were fired in Korea.”

“For example,” he added, “the city of Wonsan was fired on daily for two and a half years.”

Wilson, a resident of Charlotte, was a radarman third class aboard a minesweeper, one of the ships that saw some of the roughest action of the war, in which at least three were sunk and a large number of their crews died while sweeping mines to clear the way for other warships and transports.

A Naval Reservist, Wilson’s unit was activated during the Korean War. He was called for two years of active duty and served aboard the minesweeper USS Waxbill, AMS-39, based at Yokosuka, Japan.

A manuscript written by Wilson tells the story:

The Waxbill conducted minesweeping operations on both coasts of North Korea with numerous excursions to the war zone varying from 30 to 50 days. “Between trips we often recouped and replenished at Sasebo, Japan, on the west coast of Kyushu,” he said.

Wilson describes a minesweeper as being a ship with keel, hull and decks made of wood, mostly of northern red oak. Only the essentials of machinery, equipment and fittings were metal — all in the interest of producing a low magnetic field.

The vessel was 136 feet long, 24 feet wide and displaced 318 tons with twin screws, each powered by a 500 horsepower diesel engine. The crew averaged 35 enlisted personnel and four officers. The captain of the Waxbill was a lieutenant JG (junior grade). The ship, however, was a “flagship” for a group of sweepers and carried a fifth officer—a commodore, with the rank of lieutenant.

“Since we didn’t have a rated radioman at the time, I was assigned to send and receive all the commodore’s voice radio messages,” Wilson explained.

The vessel was unique in another respect. It had an experimental sonar gear instead of sound. The pulse produced a “picture” on a screen similar to radar. Although Wilson was a radarman , he had undergone a six-weeks cram course in the operation of the sonar gear at Little Creek, Va., before going overseas aboard the Waxbill.

With such a small crew, the ship had only one two ratings in each category, so it was necessary for the men to become somewhat proficient with all the various functions of their respective divisions — operations, deck, and engineering.

One of the most heavily mined areas was the harbor and environs of Wonsan on the east coast of North Korea. “We were there often,” Wilson said. “We could sweep in the day or night time — all day or all night, whatever the case might be.”

The crew got very little sleep during these times and the fatigue was numbing.

“In May of 1952, at Wonsan, we swept for 28 straight nights without a break. I don’t recall how many mines we accounted for during that stretch, but Wasbill tallied 25 moored type and one magnetic mine while I was on board. Some of the other sweepers cut more than 50 mines.”

The sweepers always had a gunfire support ship, mostly a destroyer nearby when sweeping. When the sweepers came under fire, which occurred rather often in the day time, they called for their guardian ship to silence the shore batteries.

“These destroyers were carryovers from World War II and they were fast and deadly,” Wilson declared.

In addition to their main armament of six 5-inch guns in three twin mounts, they had several twin mounts of automatic 3-inch guns, plus a score or more of 40- and 20-millimeter guns.

On the night of Aug. 20, 1952, the Waxbill scraped her bottom on a rocky reef off Chin Cho, in Haeju wan, Korea, on the west coast north of Inchon. It destroyed the sonar and damaged one screw and drive shaft. The ship limped back into Sasebo on one engine, a harrowing four-day journey made worse by the punishing backwash of a typhoon that had passed only two days before.

“This was some of the worst sea conditions I ever experienced,” Wilson said. “Sleep was virtually impossible. You couldn’t stay in your rack. The ship was pitching and bucking like a wild bronco. The crew was tossed around like loose cargo. You had to hold on to something or wedge yourself in somewhere constantly. It was extremely dangerous to be out on deck.

“No food could be prepared. Our cook couldn’t keep anything on the galley range, but he strapped on a large ‘soup’ pot, and we ate soup and cold-cut sandwiches for the entire trip. And, of course, the coffeepot was always going.”

Since he didn’t have any duty the first day after the ship reached Sasebo and went into drydock, Wilson hit his rack at 1200 that day and got up at 1500 hours the following afternoon after 27 hours. “I was so weak and hungry I could hardly stand,” he recalled.

Wilson later wrote a personal narrative about all of the adventures aboard the Waxbill entitled “A Korean Cruise — Magic Moments of Life, Love, and War.”

A copy of his work was placed in the Military Collection of the North Carolina Division of Archives and History at Raleigh, along with a picture of the USS Waxbill, the crew, and copies of assorted personal pictures and documentations connected with his Korean War service with the Navy.

In his narrative, Wilson describes the action of the decoy invasion at Kojo, Korea, that took place in October 1952, in which he lists the names of all the AMS minesweepers that participated. A picture with the caption “Operation Decoy” appeared in Stars and Stripes (a military newspaper). The picture was taken from the USS Bausel, DD-845.

Two pictures also accompanied an article by Harold Lavine that appeared in the Jan. 12, 1953, issue of Newsweek Magazine.

“Lavine rode on our ship one day at Wonsan. The pictures would have been taken from our gunfire support ship, whoever it was on that particular day.”

Of the many destroyers that aided the minesweepers as gunfire support ships, Wilson especially recalls the code names of two of them. They were Baserun and Ghostlike.

“I’ll never forget them, because they saved our lives on more than one occasion.”

Three minesweepers sunk during the war mentioned by Wilson were the Pirate, Pledge and Magpie.