CONTRIBUTIONS TO NAb I HIST~Y.. I . NO. 4 

l -- D mn the Torpedoes” I 

‘ AShortHist f U.S. Naval 

Mine Countermeasures, 
Stallion helicopter practices minesweeping techniques in the Persian Gulf, 

December 1987. 

DN-SN-88-0386 
-- . 

“Damn the Torpedoes” 

CONTRIBUTIONS TO NAVAL HISTORY. . . NO. 4 
I 

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“Damn the Torpedoes 99 0 . 

A Short History of 

U.S. Naval Mine Countermeasures, 

1777-1991 

Tamara Moser Melia 

R 

Naval Historical Center 

Department of the Navy 

Washington, D.C. 1991 
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 

Melia, Tamara Moser, 1966- 

Damn the torpedoes : a short history of U.S. naval mine 

p. an. - (Contributions to naval history ; no. 4) 

Includes bibliographical references and index. 

1. Mines, Submarin-United States. 2. Mine sweeperscountermeasures, 1777-1991 I Tamara Moser Melia. 

f ISBN 0-946274-07-6 

United States. I. Title. 11. Series. 

369.9’383’0973-dc20 

V866.6.U6M46 1991 91-16918 

For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office 

Superintendent of Documents, Mail Stop: SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-9328 
Secretary of the Navy’s 

Advisory Committee on Naval History 

(As of 1 January 1991) 

William D. Wilkinson, Chairman 

CAPT Edward L. Beach, USN (Retired) 

David R. Bender 

John C. Dann 

RADM Russell W. Gorman, USNR (Retired) 

Richard L. Joutras 

VADM William P. Lawrence, USN (Retired) 

Vera D. Mann 

Ambassador J. William Middendorf I1 

VADM Gerald E. Miller, USN (Retired) 

Clark G. Reynolds 

Daniel F. Stella 

Betty M. Unterberger 
DUDLEY KNOX UBWY 

WvRL POSTC? WUATE SCHOOL 

mREY 3 A 93943-5101 

i 

__- 

From A “reatise on Coast-Defence . . . by Viktor von Scheliha. 
Mich 

Contributions to Naval History Series 

el A. Palmer, Origins of the Maritime Strategy: 

American Naval Strategy in the First Postwar Decade 

Thomas C. Hone, Power and Change: The Administrative 

History of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, 

1946-1 986 

Gary E. Weir, Building American Submarines, 

191 41 940 

Tamara Moser Melia, “Damn the Torpedoes”. A Short 

History of U.S. Naval Mine Countermeasures, 

1777-1 991 

Michael A. Palmer, On Course to Desert Storm: The United 

States Navy and the Persian Gulf 

Jeffrey G. Barlow, The “Revolt of the Admirals”: 

The Postwar Fight for Naval Aviation 

1988 

1989 

1991 

1991 

forthcoming 

forthcoming 
The Author 

Tamara Moser Melia earned her doctorate in historical studies from 

Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, where she assisted in editing six 

volumes of the Papers of Ulysses S. Grant. She has been employed as a 

historian for the U.S. Navy at the Naval Historical Center since 1982, working 

on a variety of early and contemporary naval topics. In addition to her present 

assignment as the Center’s Fleet Liaison, tasked with documenting current 

naval operations, she also is an adjunct professor on the faculty of Georgetown 

University and an active member of the Surface Navy Association. Her next 

project is a special study of mine warfare in the Persian Gulf since 1980. 

viii 
Preface 

In July 1987 supertanker SS Bridgeton, under the protection of U.S. Navy 

warships in the Persian Gulf, was damaged by a simple contact mine of 1907 

design. Responding quickly, the Navy hurriedly dispatched all available air, 

surface, and undersea mine countermeasures assets to provide protection for 

American-flagged ships transitting the gulf. Most Americans seemed 

surprised to discover that these assets consisted of a few 30-year-old surface 

ships, most from the Naval Reserve Force; aging helicopters that suffered 

greatly in the gritty gulf environment; and mine countermeasures specialists 

recalled from retirement. As political cartoonists lampooned the Navy for its 

seeming unpreparedness to counter mine warfare in the gulf, analysts began 

to probe the history of the Navy’s mine warfare program in general and its 

mine countermeasures efforts in particular. 

I observed these events unfolding over the course of the summer and fall of 

1987 from my desk in Washington, where I was employed as a Navy 

Department historian. In October, Dr. Ronald H. Spector, then the Director 

of Naval History, asked me to produce a short, unclassified narrative history 

of mine countermeasures. What he originally envisioned, a brief synopsis with 

large appendixes of original documents, proved impossible to produce because 

of large gaps in extant original documentation and a lack of previous focused 

study on the subject in the available literature. The assignment soon evolved 

into a short, strictly unclassified narrative of episodes in the history of mine 

countermeasures, to be written solely from secondary sources. 

I made several discoveries along the way. The first was that the subject 

deserved far more than a brief, episodic survey. The second was that there 

was no shortage of unclassified, secondary material on the subject. Indeed, 

sorting through the sheer mass of extant material, much of which was 

unindexed, haphazardly organized, and of varying quality and treatment, 

brought me to a third realization: to relate accurately the history of the study 

and application of mine countermeasures over the past two hundred years, I 

would need access to original source material, classified or unclassified, and 

to as many of the people involved in the science and art of countering mine 

threats as I could possibly find. 

As this manuscript grew to over double the intended size, the only part of 

the original plan that remained intact was the book’s focus. Although mine 

countermeasures cannot be divorced completely from the broader subject of 

mine warfare, the primary focus of this book is still the history of the evolution 

of mine countermeasures within the U.S. Navy. Due to the limits imposed on 

this brief study, it was not possible to include every relevant technology, plan, 

xi 
policy, asset, or operation in complete detail. Neither was it possible to name 

all the many people who, at one time or another, did much to advance mine 

countermeasures within the Navy. While I have made no attempt to fix blame 

or attach glory to any individual or circumstance, I have attempted to trace 

those people and events that affected mine countermeasures and to discover 

why events unfolded as they did. 

During my search for material, I found masses of documents, files, reports, 

studies, and correspondence on mine warfare and mine countermeasures in 

all periods of history in the National Archives; the Naval Historical Center’s 

Operational Archives; and the technical library of the Fleet and Mine Warfare 

Training Center in Charleston, South Carolina, which holds the archives of 

Commander Mine Warfare Command. While there is no shortage of original 

material available for additional studies on mine warfare and mine 

countermeasures described in these pages, researchers should note that the 

select bibliography ending this study does not by any means indicate all 

sources consulted and reviewed but is a listing of primarily unclassified, 

secondary studies useful to this subject. Indeed, those interested in writing 

further on mine countermeasures should be encouraged by the number of 

subjects for which the bibliography has few listings. 

The purpose of this book then is not to provide a definitive interpretation 

of any one aspect of or operation involving U.S. Navy mine countermeasures 

activity or to make recommendations for the future but, rather, to put the 

whole subject into historical perspective. My ulterior motive is to encourage 

further writing by those who are interested in the subject or who have 

experienced life in mined waterq. Several of these individuals have materially 

assisted me by describing, correcting, suggesting, and redirecting my efforts 

to understand their experiences and to put them into the proper context. 

Although their efforts are responsible for markedly increasing the quality of 

this manuscript, all views, errors of fact and interpretation are my own and 

do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of the Navy. All corrections 

and additions to the story are welcome, both for inclusion in the holdings of 

the Naval Historical Center and for future revisions of this book. 

Tamara Moser Melia 

Xii 
Acknowledgments 

This study would not have been possible without the assistance of literally 

hundreds of active duty, reserve, retired, and civilian surface, aviation and 

undersea experts who patiently explained their specialties and the intricacies 

of mine countermeasures. I deeply appreciate the opportunities I have had to 

work with the fleet, and particularly want to recognize the men of Adroit, 

Avenger, Fearless, Iowa, Leader, Tripoli, mobile sea barge Wimbrown 7, 

HM-14, HMS Brecon, HMS Hecla, BMS hire, HrMs Zierikzee, Mine 

Squadron 2, the many EOD detachments, and the successive staffs of the 

Persian Gulf MCM group commands and the Mine Warfare Command 

(MINEWARCOM) for taking the time and effort to educate me. I am also 

greatly indebted to many officers on the ships and on the staffs of the allied 

minesweeping task groups operating in the gulf in 1991, particularly 

Capitaine de Vaisseau Ph. Grandjean and Capitaine de Frigate Philippe 

Convert of the French Navy; Commander (s.g.1 Bob Cuypers of the Belgian 

Navy; Commander Klaus Saltzwedel of the German Navy; Commander Mike 

Nixon, Lieutenant Commander Mike Croome-Carroll and Lieutenant 

Commander John R. Staveley of the Royal Navy; and Lieutenant Commander 

Robert Gwalchmai of the Royal Canadian Navy. 

I am particularly grateful for the advice and information provided along 

the way by Vice Admirals John W. Nyquist and Joseph S. Donnell; Rear 

Admirals Robert C. Jones, Donald A. Dyer, Raymond M. Walsh, and William 

R. McGowen; Captains Charles J. Smith, Paul L. Gruendl, Cyrus R. 

Christensen, Donald E. Hihn, Jerry B. Manley, Frank J. Lugo, Richard W. 

Holly, Paul X. Rinn, Larry R. Seaquist, Robert L. Ellis, Bernard J. Smith, 

Richard S. Watkins, R. A. Bowling, James Chandler, Paul A. Cassiman, 

Anthony J. Kibble, Bill Hewett, Mike Rogers, David W. Vail, and Bruce 

McEwen; Commanders Tom Beatty, Daniel G. Powell, Robert S. Rawls, 

Richard L. Schreadley, Jim Aaron, James Y. Gaskins, Greg Greetis, Peter E. 

Toennies, Bruce E. Dunscombe, Dave Stewart, Leonard P. Wales, R. B. Jones, 

and Craig E. Vance; Lieutenant Commanders Steven A. Carden, Brad 

Goforth, Jake Ross, Rod Scott, Mike Steussy, J. D. Cope, Elliot Powell, Jr., 

Paul S. Holmes, Francis X. Pelosi, Justin M. Sherin, Jr., Kelly M. Fisher, T. 

Scott Wetter, and Mark B. Yarosh; Lieutenants David E. Halladay, Terry 

Miller, Daniel F. Redmond, Paul F. Burkey, Rick Muldoon, James M. Speary, 

and Frank Thorpe; Lieutenant (jg) Geoffrey B. Bickford; Master Chief Bobby 

Scott and Boatswain’s Mate Wilfred Patnaude of Iowa; Chiefs James G. 

Richeson, M. K. Thulis, and W. J. Walters; Petty Officer Second Class Joe 

Bartlett, Dave Belton, Jeffrey Bray, Harold Langley, Charles Myers, Philip 

xiii 
K. Lundeberg, Jack Combs, Patrick A. Yates, William Yohpe, Scott C. Carson, 

Tom McCallum, and Donald Zweifel. 

Rear Admirals Byron E. Tobin and William W. Mathis, two successive 

commanders of MINEWARCOM during the preparation of this book, provided 

me with valuable information and corrected many of my errors. Several of 

their staff officers also read all or part of different drafts of the manuscript 

for accuracy and security review. Of these I would especially like to thank 

Captains Franklin G. West, Jr., and Richard Fromholtz and Lieutenant 

Commanders Richard Leinster and Robert McMeeken for their comments 

and suggestions. Lieutenant Commanders Steve Nerheim and Joseph 

Tenaglia of Surface Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, gave a careful and critical 

analysis of the manuscript, as did Dr. Ray Widmayer at OP-374 and Jan Paul 

Hope, Assistant Director of Naval Construction, Office of the Assistant 

Secretary of the Navy (Shipbuilding and Logistics). Captain Spence Johnson 

patiently read several drafts of the manuscript and made important 

contributions and suggestions. I am particularly grateful to Commander 

Robert B. O’Donnell of the CNO Executive Panel for critical editing of the 

final draft. 

Several historians and textual reviewers also substantially added to the 

value of this volume. I am especially grateful to Virgil Carrington “Pat” Jones, 

whose epic three-volume Civil War at Sea broke the code on Farragut’s 

minehunting efforts in 1962. In addition to those previously mentioned, I also 

appreciate the work of Drs. William S. Dudley, Thomas C. Hone, Lynne Dunn, 

Edward J. Marolda, William Braisted, Allan Millett, and William N. Still; 

Rear Admiral Charles F. Horne 111; Captain Richard Wyttenbach; 

Commander Robert McCabe; Major Charles Melson, USMC; Scott Truver; 

and A. T. Mollegen, Jr., who reviewed one or more drafts of the manuscript 

and suggested improvements. 

This manuscript was prepared under the supervision of two Directors and 

two Deputy Directors of Naval History, Drs. Ronald H. Spector and Dean C. 

Allard, and Captains Charles J. Smith and A. J. Booth, to whom I am grateful 

for their advice and encouragement. Janice Beatty, Charles R. Haberlein, 

Kathleen M. Lloyd, John C. Reilly, Jr., Dale Sharrick, Judith Short, and Gary 

Weir of the Naval Historical Center; Iris Rubio of the Fleet and Mine Warfare 

Training Center Technical Library; and Richard Von Doenhoff of the National 

Archives provided valuable documentation above and beyond the call of duty. 

Captain Steven U. Ramsdell provided me with substantive editing and 

technical advice and went to the mat for me on several major issues, for which 

I am truly grateful. Ms. Doyle’s assistant, Akio J. Stribling, and the staff of 

SSR Inc. capably copyedited the manuscript and indexed the book. Charles 

Cooney is responsible for the excellent graphics, design, and layout; and Joan 

Frasher typeset the manuscript. 

I owe a personal debt to friends and supporters who believed in this project, 

xiv 
especially Norman Friedman for information, advice, encouragement, and 

general mentoring; and to Rear Admirals Anthony A. Less and Raynor A. K. 

Taylor for unprecedented operational opportunities in the Arabian Gulf in 

1988, 1989, and 1991 with both American and allied MCM forces. John Y. 

Simon, Judy Randall, and Alfred Khoury were there when I needed them. 

Paul Gruendl deserves more than a generous share of thanks for the 

documents, photographs, maps, guidance, and corrections he provided. I 

found additional inspiration in the command histories of the late Captain 

Felix S. “Hap” Vecchione, an articulate and realistic spokesman for mine 

warfare, widely believed to have been the Navy’s best hope for a mine warfare 

admiral before his untimely death. 

Finally, I owe great thanks to my family, particularly to my husband, 

Patrick, for his faith, and to my son, Grant (USNA Class of 2012 hopeful), for 

inspiration. 
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~ 
Contents 

Page 

ix 

xi 

xiii 

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Preface . . . . . . , . . . . , , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Acknowledgments . . . . , . . . , . . . , . . . , . . . . . . . . . 

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 

7 

41 

67 

91 

Conclusion . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 

1. A Matter of Efficacy: 

2. A New Menace: 

3. The Wonsan Generation: 

4. New Lessons Learned: 

Countering Contact Mines, 1777-1919 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

The Operational Use of Influence Mines, 1919-1945 . . . . . 

LessonsRelearned, 1945-1965. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

The Impact of Low-Intensity Mine Warfare, 1965-1991 . . . . 

Abbreviations. . , . . . . . . , . , . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 

Notes ................................. 143 

SelectBibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 

xvii 
Illustrations 

Photographs with NH and NR&L numbers are held by the Naval Historical Center. Washington. 

D.C. 20374-0671; those with 80G. 19N. K, and USN numbers are held in the Still Pictures 

Branch. National Archives. Washington. DC 20408-0001; and those with DN numbers are from 

the Department of Defense Still Media Records Center. Washington. DC 20374-1681 . 

Map of the entrance to Mobile Bay .................... xxii 

Confederate mines ............................ 11 

Gunboat Genesee with torpedo netting .................. 12 

MonitorSauguswithtorpedorake .................... 13 

Farragut Window in the Naval Academy Chapel ............ 14 

Mine explosion near Commodore Barry ................. 17 

Admiral George Dewey .......................... 25 

Oropesa Sweep diagram ......................... 31 

World War I-era paravane ........................ 32 

Spanish mines from Santiago Harbor .................. 23 

Map of the North Sea Mine Barrage ................... 35 

Fleet tugs Patapsco and Patuxent .................... 37 

Fleet minesweeper Tanager ....................... 38 

PairedminesweepersintheNorthSea ................. 39 

"Asweepformation ........................... 46 

"LLl'sweep ................................ 47 

"G" sweep formation ........................... 48 

Notable .................................. 53 

New Mexico's crew deploying a paravane ................ 54 

Osprey ................................... 55 

Tide sinking off Omaha beach ...................... 57 

Skeleton crew of a "guinea pig" ship ................... 59 

MotorminesweeperYMS-362 ...................... 62 
Map of MCM channels in Wonsan harbor ................ 7 1 

Catamount off Chinnampo. North Korea ................ 72 

Rear Admiral Arleigh Burke ....................... 75 

Underwater demolition team from Diachenko ............. 76 

Influence minesweeping diagram .................... 78 

PBM Mariner near Chinnampo ..................... 80 

Destroyer minesweeper Thompson ................... 81 

Ocean minesweeper Dash ........................ 89 

MSB on the Long Tau River ....................... 93 

Drag chain used in the Long Tau River ................. 96 

MSB-40 with magnetic sweep gear ................... 100 

Planning map for the clearance of Haiphong harbor .......... 103 

Members of Mine Countermeasures Force. US . Seventh Fleet .... 104 

Mining of Korean YMS-516 ....................... 77 

Catskill with MSLs on board ....................... 84 

Captain Felix S . Vecchione ........................ 105 

CH-53D Sea helicopter lifting a Magnetic Orange Pipe ........ 106 

Task Force 76 in the Tonkin Gulf .................... 107 

Mine explosion at Haiphong ....................... 108 

Magnetic hydrofoil sled .......................... 112 

Mine countermeasures command ship Avenger ............ 117 

SS Bridgeton underway after hitting a mine .............. 120 

Interior of an RH-53D helicopter .................... 121 

Divers from Illusive ........................... 122 

Illusive’s acoustical minesweeping device ................ 123 

Diagram of Zowa’s bowsweep ....................... 124 

Barge Hercules deployed in the Persian Gulf .............. 125 

Captured contact mines on board Zran Ajr ............... 126 
I 

EOD diver with a LUGM contact mine ................. 128 

fiipoli’s mine damage .......................... 129 

Bottom influence mine with floatation balloons ............. 130 

SQQ-32 advanced minehunting sonar ................. 130 

Leader and Avenger in the Persian Gulf. 1991 ............. 132 

Cartoon by Stewart Carlson ....................... 135 

I 

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Introduction 

istorians often describe their art by using the German terms historie and H geschichte. Historians collect historie, or the story of what happened, 

from raw materials such as memoirs, lessons learned, command histories, 

letters, recollections, oral histories, traditions, legends, and sea stories. They 

then question each source, analyze its significance, and try to discover 

geschichte, or what actually happened. Such historical truth cannot be 

discovered without sustained application and continued analysis of lessons 

learned, as well as thorough study of the real effects of both failure and 

success. 

In order to examine why the U.S. Navy, with all its capabilities, has not 

sustained an effective interest in mine countermeasures, we must look beyond 

legend and, step by step, attempt to discover the lessons learned and 

unlearned along the way. What we may well find is that lack of mine 

consciousness and adequate historical perspective has often led the Navy to 

remember the wrong lessons from its mine warfare experience. 

Rear Admiral David Glasgow Farragut’s dramatic entrance through the 

mine line into Mobile Bay in 1864, for example, has become an enduring 

legend of naval history and an important lesson used in the training of naval 

officers. The incident is also an object lesson in the history of the Navy’s 

attitude toward the subject of mine countermeasures. The image of Farragut 

created by the popular press, that of a daring man who risked an unknown 

mine threat to defeat the enemy and become the most honored officer in the 

Navy, influenced generations of naval officers. In terms of both Farragut and 

the mine threat, however, the Navy has remembered the wrong lessons. What 

actually happened is a lot more interesting than the legend. 

Between Mobile’s Forts Morgan and Gaines, Confederates had narrowed 

the deep-water channel approach to the bay with underwater pilings and 

three staggered rows of approximately 180 moored mines about seventy-five 

feet apart, leaving a clear passage only under the guns of Fort Morgan. More 

than two-thirds of these mines were cone-shaped tin Fretwell-Singer mines. 

These mines, planted in May 1864 by Confederate Army torpedo expert 

Lieutenant Colonel Viktor von Scheliha, were fired by direct contact between 

a ship and the mine’s cap and trigger device. A few other mines, mainly 

Brigadier General Gabriel J. Rains’s keg-type wooden ones with 

ultrasensitive primers, had been planted since February. On the bay’s floor 

lay several huge electrically-fired powder tanks that were controlled from 

shore. Farragut observed Confederate Admiral Franklin Buchanan’s men 

remining the bay daily, noting that “we can see them distinctly when at work.” 

1 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

When the Confederates extended the minefield further east, marking the 

easternmost point with a red buoy, the open path forced ships under the guns 

of Fort Morgan; Farragut decided to find a path farther west. While probing 

the western obstructions in preliminary forays in early July, Farragut’s men 

quietly began pulling up sample mines, often called “torpedoes,” and passing 

them among the fleet for study.’ 

Late Sunday night, on 31 July 1864, as one witness recalled it, Lieutenant 

John Crittenden Watson, Farragut’s flag lieutenant and personal friend, set 

out on a curious expedition to Mobile Bay. Heavily armed, Watson and his 

men rowed quietly into the bay with muffled oars. Unobserved by the enemy 

on this particular occasion, they proceeded with their nightly mission of 

examining a field of these moored Confederate contact mines blocking much 

of the entrance to Mobile Baye2 

Although this foray through the mine lines is the best documented example 

of Watson’s minehunting activities, surviving ship deck logs and memoirs 

attest to his repeated attempts to gain information for Farragut on the extent 

of the mine danger zone. Watson took picket boats out from Farragut’s 

flagship, the sloop of war Hartford, on the nights of 30 June, 25 July, and 27 

July; on 25 July he had been accompanied on an extended survey by boats 

from gunboat Sebago and sloop Monongahela. 

Each night Watson and his boat crew methodically worked down the three 

lines of mines and found that many of the Fretwell-Singers, which were 

anchored or suspended from buoys about ten feet below the water, had 

deactivated during the long immersion. Watson’s crew drilled holes in the 

buoys to sink them, removed them, or simply cut them adrift. What Watson 

found did not surprise Farragut. Earlier in the campaign, in February 1864 

at nearby Fort Powell, Farragut had discovered that the percussion 

mechanisms of the vaunted Fretwell-Singer mines had been deadened by 

marine worms, allowing Union vessels to cross the mine lines without 

in~ident.~ The similar leaky condition of the mines recovered by Watson at 

Mobile reassured Farragut that “only a few were very dangerous.” 

On 28-30 July, side-wheel steamer Cowslip towed Watson and his boat crew 

around the bay, marking safe passage with buoys. Farragut sent Watson out 

again on 1-3 August with orders to sink the rest of the buoys holding up mines, 

“as he thinks they support what will otherwise sink,” clearing more unmarked 

paths through the minefield. Watson reconnoitered so close to shore on one 

expedition that he was able to bring back five deserters from Fort Gaines 

under the guns of the Confederates’ mightiest forts. On 3 August, on his last 

expedition, Watson was accompanied by pilot Martin Freeman and Farragut’s 

personal secretary, Alexander McKinley, who later recorded their assiduous 

efforts to sink the mines. Farragut observed Confederate crews laying 

another ninety mines, probably of the keg variety, on 3-4 August and noted 

their placement carefully.‘ 

2 
Introduction 

In his battle orders Farragut assured his fleet that the mine line had been 

thoroughly surveyed. “It being understood that there are torpedoes and other 

obstructions between the buoys, the vessels will take care to pass eastward 

of the easternmost buoy”; which he knew from Watson’s reconnaissance 

should be “clear of all obstructions.” 

At high tide on the morning of 5 August Farragut entered the bay. 

Farragut’s officers had persuaded him to allow the sloop Brooklyn, hastily 

rigged with a rudimentary torpedo catcher on the bowsprit, to lead the 

advance in place of Farragut’s flagship, Hartford. Contrary to Farragut’s 

orders, monitor Tecumseh moved west of the red buoy where it struck and 

detonated one of the newly placed mines. As Tecumseh quickly went down, 

Brooklyn suddenly stopped and backed, stalling the fleet’s ad~ance.~ High in 

Hartford‘s rigging Farragut watched Tecumseh sink and Brooklyn hesitate. 

From Hurtford‘s poop deck Lieutenant Watson heard the admiral’s exchange 

with Brooklyn: “Farragut hailed again and all that could be distinguished of 

her reply was something about torpedoes. ‘Damn the torpedoes!’ he instantly 

shouted, ordering Hartford‘s captain ‘Full speed ahead, Drayton.”’ 

Farragut then took the lead, heading the ship and the fleet into the 

minefield that Watson’s crews had so industriously surveyed. Sailors later 

swore that they heard the Fretwell-Singer mines’ steel rods snap as the ships 

pushed over the triple row of torpedoes, but the mines’leakiness and inactive 

triggers kept them from exploding. As Farragut crossed the minefield, his 

flag lieutenant “expected every moment to feel the shock of an explosion under 

the Hartford and to find ourselves in the water. In fact, we imagined that we 

heard some caps explode. . . . and probably no straighter course was ever kept 

than by these ships in passing over that torpedo field, the furrow made by the 

Hartford being accurately followed.” 

On 6 August Farragut issued a general order of thanks to his men for their 

conduct of the previous day. Unwittingly underplaying Watson’s efforts while 

exaggerating his own ignorance of the state of the mine defenses of the bay, 

Farragut claimed that of the mines he “knew nothing except the 

exaggerations of the enemy.”1° Some of Farragut’s officers later asserted that 

Watson’s minehunting efforts were far more extensive than even Farragut 

himself knew. “How far he entered the Bay on these occasions in the darkness 

of the night I doubt if the Admiral knew himself,” one man reported, although 

“he evidently was in close touch with the enemy.”” Confederates on the scene 

agreed that however they were discovered, Farragut knew exactly where the 

live mines were. Lieutenant F. S. Barrett, the Confederate mining officer at 

Mobile Bay, observed Farragut’s approach on 5 August and later stated he 

believed that “it is evident they were well informed as to the location of the 

torpedoes we had planted.”12 After the battle Farragut’s men took up the 

obstructin mines at the entrance to the bay and found that most were indeed 

harmless. f3 

3 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

Farragut’s daring in the face of enemy mines was real. Before the battle 

Farragut had decided to enter the bay whatever the obstacles. Confederate 

mine warfare had, however, been so successful in stalling the Union advance 

that by 1864 no captain in the Union Navy could afford to ignore the mine 

threat when attacking a fortified harbor. Watson’s efforts no doubt added to 

the failure rate of the mines, and the knowledge he gave Farragut of the extent 

and exact parameters of the mine threat influenced Farragut’s decision to 

take the risk. Farragut prepared to battle the mines as carefully as he 

prepared his vessels for the fight, gaining sufficient information about the 

condition of the minefield before him to make a dangerous yet measured 

decision. Farragut did not, as many assert, merely “damn” the mines at 

Mobile Bay but, rather, assiduously hunted, examined, and disabled them 

before steaming into the bay. His meticulous approach to the mine threat is 

a crucial lesson in risk assessment that, unfortunately, most contemporary 

observers missed. 

*** 

Mine warfare is by definition the strategic and tactical use of sea mines and 

their countermeasures, including all offensive and defensive mining and 

protection against mines. Mining and mine countermeasures (MCM) are, 

however, two distinctly different operations. 

The primary focus of modern mining operations is to effect sea control, with 

secondary missions that neutralize or destroy enemy ships by interdicting 

enemy sea lines of communication, submarine operating areas, and home 

ports. Offensively, mines attack enemy ships in transit or bottle them up in 

their own waters; defensively, mines guard national and international waters 

against enemy intrusion. 

Anything actively or passively undertaken to defeat the mine’s function of 

attacking or sinking enemy vessels can be broadly defined as MCM. 

Traditionally viewed as a defensive measure, in recent years MCM has come 

to mean something more. Since the Civil War, MCM craft have often been at 

the forefront of offensive operations, leading strike forces into and out of ports, 

clearing channels and staging areas in advance of the fleet, and following the 

MCM force motto, “where the fleet goes, we’ve been.” In a larger sense 

offensive MCM operations can involve most Navy assets and may require the 

assistance of land forces as well. Attacks on enemy minelayers, detonation 

control centers, and manufacturers have successfully proven that the most 

effective counter to sea mines is to prevent them from being planted. MCM 

operations today aim to reduce the threat of enemy mining by both offensive 

and defensive operations against enemy minelaying agents and their 

supporting fa~i1ities.l~ 

4 
Introduction 

Mines are composed of different combinations of explosive charges, firing 

mechanisms, sensors, and housings. They can be described by their position 

when planted as bottom, moored, previously moored floating, or as drifting 

mines. However, they are most often and accurately described by their sensor 

mechanism as contact (requiring contact with the hull of a vessel to detonate), 

controlled (remotely operated by electrically-generated cables), or influence 

(generally actuated by a ship’s magnetic, acoustic, or pressure “signature,” or 

by a combination of these signatures and other factors). 

Contact mines, historically the most commonly used, are generally moored 

and can be countered by cutting the mooring cables and allowing them to pop 

to the surface for removal or detonation. Influence mines are most often 

bottom laid, depending on the target and depth of water. Modern mines are 

often controlled by ship counters, delay systems, or self-destruct mechanisms, 

and can be laid by surface ships, aircraft, or submarines. The most 

sophisticated types of new “smart” mines, which use microcomputers housed 

in homing torpedoes, can be set to target specific types of enemy ships and to 

turn themselves off to avoid detection and rem0va1.l~ Before mines can be 

countered, however, they usually have to be found, classified, and exploited 

for their intelligence value in order to determine how best to neutralize them. 

MCM efforts can be passive or active. Passive measures are defensively 

designed or used to avoid detonating a mine and are often employed by surface 

vessels. They include: 

1. Mine watching-pinpointing areas where mines are laid, usually done 

by human mine spotters or electronic sensors. 

2. Mine avoidance-marking mined areas or rerouting of waterborne 

traffic. 

3. Deperming-demagnetizing a hull by electrical current, thus nullifying 

the vessel’s magnetic field through periodic external application. 

4. Degaussing-nullifying a ship’s magnetic signature through 

installation of permanent equipment on board. 

5. Noise reduction-reducing the likelihood of a vessel actuating a mine by 

installing noise reduction features or procedures during shipbuilding. 

6. Ship-protection devices-using a range of devices to protect a ship from 

mines, from the early use of nets and booms at anchor and underway, bow 

watches, and early torpedo catchers and rakes (ancestors of the World War I1 

paravane) to experimental mine-avoidance sonar. 16 

Active MCM are usually offensively designed and used by trained MCM 

forces to locate and neutralize mines without harm to the vessel or to fool 

mines into detonating on a false target. They include: 

5 
"Damn the Torpedoes' 

1. Minehunting-searching waters for m'nes, from the early use of small 

mines, either through gunfire, 

removal or destruction by 

boats with searchlights and divers to advan f ed minehunting sonar. 

2. Mine disposal-physically 

deactivation, sympathetic 

divers. I 

3. Mechanical minesweeping-using mihesweepers, either singly or in 

pairs, towing wire and cable or chain rig ed with buoyed sweep gear to 

may be neutralized. Mechanical minesweeding is the most common form of 

MCM. 

4. Influence minesweeping-creating fals signatures by a towed device or 

combination of devices designed to produce the magnetic, acoustic, pressure, 

or other influence needed to explode minks at a safe distance from the 

sweeping vessels. Minesweeping vessels m st also be passively protected to 

prevent or to limit the almost inevitalle damage that accompanies 

5. Countermining-attempting to clea mines through the use of 

underwater ordnance or explosive charges placed most often by divers, or 

most recently by remotely operated vehicles (ROW. 

6. Removal-physically removing mines rom waters, accomplished only 

minesweeping. 

by divers and at great risk to personnel. 

ess, decline, and resurgence. 

Regular cycles of peacetime neglect havTtalled funding and study of 

appropriate countermeasures as mine has advanced. Wartime 

exigency has led to the hasty 

countermeasures to meet a once that 

immediate threat was 

development of 

knowledgeable 

mechanically cut mooring cables, allowing t 1 e mines to surface so that they 

? 

nd-. 

t 

The history of MCM is a history of pr 

Countermeasures technology today to a per'odic reinvention of the wheel. 

led to embarrassment. Those who believe t at Farragut nullified the mine 

Navy, and the nation, to remember all the UfTD"g lessons from the history of 

MCM. 

This institutionalized failure to sustain the 1 b ssons of history has periodically 

threat at Mobile Bay solely through daring h and fortitude may condemn the 

6 
1 

A Matter of Efficacy: 

Countering Contact Mines 

1777-1919 

M ine warfare in America began with an individual, David Bushnell. Famed for his experiments with underwater explosives and 

submersibles during the American Revolution, Bushnell also attempted with 

little success to attach explosive charges fmed with primitive clockwork 

primers to the hulls of ships. His best attempts were countered easily by 

primitive means but not without casualties. In the summer of 1777 Bushnell 

cabled together a double line of contact mines to attack the British frigate 

Cerberus off the coast of Connecticut. A British prize crew riding alongside 

Cerberus in a captured schooner spotted the mines and hauled the line in, 

exploding the mines, which killed most of the crew and destroyed the 

schooner. Cerberus was undamaged however, and the frigate’s captain found 

and destroyed the rest of the mines. Bushnell fared little better when he took 

on the entire British fleet above Philadelphia on 7 January 1778. The buoyed 

contact-primed kegs of powder he sent drifting down the Delaware River 

arrived in daylight and were seen and avoided. Although four British sailors 

died in an attempt to retrieve one of the kegs, the British ships again escaped 

harm.’ 

A generation later Robert Fulton also labored to convince major powers in 

Europe and America to invest in both mines and fired torpedoes. Despite 

Fulton’s successful experimental mining of the British ship Dorotheu, 

Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar six days later made the point moot. Britain 

retained control of the seas and had no need of Fulton’s mines, which were 

described as “a mode of war which they who commanded the sea did not want, 

and which, if successful, would deprive them of it.” Fulton later induced 

Secretary of State James Madison and Secretary of the Navy Robert Smith 

to fund additional experiments, but his efforts to make the mines sink a ship 

required so many attempts that nearly everyone grew skeptical. 

In 1810 Congress funded a test of Fulton’s “harpoon torpedo,” a primitive 

contact mine with a spring-lock firing pin that followed the path of a harpoon 

tether into a ship. US. Navy Commodore John Rodgers and Captain Isaac 

Chauncey assisted the congressional commission that evaluated the 

experiment. Ordered by the commission to protect a ship against mine attack 

by passive means, without employing either guns or men to counter them, 

Rodgers swathed Lieutenant James Lawrence’s brig Argus at the New York 

Navy Yard with a heavy net from the frigate President. Fixing the net in place 

i 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

with spars and grapnel hooks, Rodgers weighted it with kentledge-“heavy 

pieces of metal suspended from the yard arms ready to be dropped into any 

boat that came beneath them, and scythes fitted to long spars for the purpose 

of mowing off the heads of any who might be rash enough to get within range 

of them.”4 

To Fulton’s disappointment Rodgers’s jury-rigged mine protection device 

defeated the harpoon torpedoes, and Rodgers ridiculed Fulton’s efforts to 

attack naval vessels with such “cheap contrivances.” Fulton acknowledged 

Rodgers’s “ingenuity” in countering the mines but pointed out that such 

extreme countermeasures certainly proved the importance of his invention: 

“A system, then only in its infancy, which compelled a hostile vessel to guard 

herself by such extraordinary means could not fail of becoming a most 

important mode of warfare.” Despite Fulton’s argument the congressional 

commission was impressed by the ease with which Rodgers had foiled the 

mines. Persuaded that mines could be countered easily, Congress declined to 

fund further research or to purchase mines.5 

Fulton’s biggest contribution to mine warfare, his development of the first 

moored contact mine, designed the same year but overlooked by his own 

generation, ultimately influenced mine design. This mine, a cork-floated 

copper tube with gunpowder and musket fittings, safely deactivated itself 

with the passage of time and popped to the surface for removal. 

Convinced that his mines would ‘make navies unnecessary, Fulton 

assiduously campaigned for funding and caused many navalists to oppose his 

mines on principle. Additionally, his experiments produced one of the most 

persistent, though unintended, attitudes towards mine warfare. Most 

American observers agreed with the British that‘ mines would be best used 

by nations with the weakest navies. Neither American nor foreign navies gave 

much thought to preparing countermeasures for so unlikely a mode of 

warfare.6 

By 1842 Samuel Colt-later of revolver fame-had perfected an 

electrically-controlled mine detonation system in which the charge was 

exploded from shore by a human operator at the precise moment of the ship’s 

passage. Colt’s experiments with controlled mines attracted much attention 

in Washington. After President John Tyler and his Cabinet witnessed Colt’s 

destruction of a schooner on the Potomac River in August 1842, Congress 

appropriated funding for further tests. Although Colt destroyed several ships 

both at anchor and underway in experiments between 1842 and 1844, he 

failed to convince Congress or the Navy Department that mines would 

significantly improve naval warfare. 

Development of mine warfare in Europe from 1844 to 1860 influenced 

American interest in the weapons. The French improved Colt’s designs 

without finding much operational use for the system; similar controlled mines 

laid against the Danish fleet at Eel in the Schleswig-Holstein War, 

8 
A Matter of Efficacy 

1848-1851, were never tested. Russian production knd use of contact-fused 

mines duringthe Crimean War, 1854-1856, was the first systematic defensive 

employment of the weapon. The Russians laid a series of minefields, mixing 

contact and controlled observation mines in likely allied anchorages at 

Sevastopol, Sveaborg, and Kronstadt. The simple but clever contact mines 

severely damaged British ships, and Royal Navy seamen learned quickly to 

recover and disarm them. Lacking a more systematic approach to the problem 

presented by mined harbors, the British, however, could do little to counter 

mines in massive numbers. Two British vessels, Merlin and Firefly, 

reconnoitered the Russian minefields near Kronstadt in 1855 and brought 

back enough information on the threat posed by the mines to cause the British 

to cancel a planned attack.8 

Interested in the new technology and tactics used in the Crimean War, the 

US. Army sent three of its best officers to the field as official observers. Army 

Captain Richard Delafield, an early advocate of defensive harbor mining, 

inspected the Russian mine system and reported favorably on its use. The 

standard countermeasure to these early mines remained small guard boats, 

which were used to patrol the waters for the easily spotted shallow-moored 

mines, and bow watches on warships, a system successfully employed by the 

British in 1857-1858 against Chinese mines.g 

The outbreak of civil war in America in the spring of 1861 soon challenged 

the U.S. Navy’s previous hesitancy to use mine warfare. Clever improvisation 

by Confederate naval personnel using land mines underwater, and 

subsequent development and use of more advanced water mines in nearly 

every southern river and harbor, forced the Union Navy to devise 

countermeasures and to employ a few mines of their own. Most naval officers 

did so unwillingly, however, and agreed with Admiral Farragut’s reluctance 

to employ mines in retaliation. ‘Torpedoes are not so agreeable when used on 

both sides, therefore, I have reluctantly brought myself to it,” he wrote 

Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. Expressing a traditional view of mine 

warfare, he continued, “I have always deemed it unworthy of a chivalrous 

nation but it does not do to give your enemy such a decided superiority over 

Equally reluctant to fund mine research, Welles left most ordnance matters 

to his ship captains and allowed mine countermeasures to be developed and 

applied ad hoc throughout the fleet.” Each captain designed his own 

protection devices, if any, and most officers found the presence of mines more 

tedious than hazardous, at least at first. As one officer rashly remarked early 

in the war, “All contact torpedoes are liable to be removed and overcome by 

ordinary in enuity, if it is allowed full exercise by uninterrupted 

operations.”” Naval ordnance expert Captain John A. Dahlgren noted that 

“so much has been said in ridicule of torpedoes that very little precautions 

are deemed necessary.”13 Such Union attitudes changed only with recurring 

d 

9 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

demonstrations of the effectiveness of such primitive devices, particularly in 

increasingly frequent Confederate guerrilla operations. Some Union 

commanders became unwilling to risk their ships in mined waters without 

direct orders and often found rumors of Confederate mining in the eastern 

rivers sufficient reason for inactivity. 

The Confederacy, on the other hand, actively funded mine warfare as an 

inexpensive alternative to traditional naval defense for a nation without much 

of a navy. Confederate inventors Matthew Fontaine Maury, Beverly Kennon, 

Hunter Davidson, and Gabriel J. Rains experimented with torpedoes and 

earned renown for their firing mechanisms. Maury’s particular interest in 

electrically-fired mines led to the creation of the Confederate Submarine 

Battery Service, which developed and detonated most of the controlled mines 

planted during the Civil War. 

Davidson relieved Maury in command of that service, and Maury spent 

most of the war perfecting his electrical mines in English laboratories. As his 

work progressed, Maury‘s mines became more lethal. In October 1862 the 

Confederate Congress funded a separate Torpedo Bureau. This army unit was 

headed by Rains, who had been experimenting with land mines since the 

Seminole Wars in Florida in 1840 and had already mined the tributaries of 

the James River with experimental contact mines. A third group of 

Confederates in secret service placed the more insidious “coal torpedo” and 

similar package bombs aboard Union ~esse1s.l~ 

The increasing effectiveness of Civil War mines and mining methods 

affected the study and use of mines both defensively and offensively until well 

into the twentieth century. As the war progressed, both Union and 

Confederate naval officers experimented extensively with offensive mining, 

particularly with drifting mines and spar torpedoes projecting from the bows 

of specially constructed torpedo boats and ironclads. The simplest 

Confederate contact mines, or even the threat of such mines, remained the 

most effective method of stopping or redirecting Union ships. Two particular 

types of Confederate contact mines proved most effective. Rains created a 

keg-type friction mine, using tarred oak barrels with wood end cones for 

buoyancy and stability. When the glass and chemical fuse contacted a ship, 

the chemicals broke into a chamber filled with alcohol and liquid gunpowder 

and exploded the tightly packed charge of powder housed in the sides of the 

barrel. The second most widely used Confederate mine was the tin 

Fretwell-Singer, which worked by spring action rather than a fuse.15 

Ultimately, officers who understood the methods of firing torpedoes were 

most successful in developing appropriate active and passive 

countermeasures. Few Union officers hunted mines as actively as Farragut 

had at Mobile Bay, but many employed forces of small patrol boats in advance 

of their river and coastal fleets to search for mines. Most often, paired small 

boats would tow either end of a chain or cable weighted in the center to catch 

10 
A Matter of Efjcicacy 

the cables that anchored the buoyant contact mines either to the river bottom 

or to a nearby float. Contact with the sweeping chain would either explode 

the mine harmlessly between the boats or snag it on the mine cables, allowing 

divers or other small boats to remove or destroy the mine. Contact mines that 

could not be easily pulled from the water or cut from their moorings could be 

countered by a single bullet making a hole large enough to flood the powder 

chamber, rendering the mine inert without removing it from the river. If 

mines were hauled ashore, they could also be bored with hand tools. 

Controlled mines were countered by advance river shore patrols that searched 

the riverbanks for electrical cables or detonation centers and dragged for the 

cables with grappling hooks trailed from small boats. To foul floating mines, 

some captains, like John Rodgers had done before them, standardized a 

passive system of logs and nets to swath their ships at anchor.16 

The first mines found by Union forces were pulled out of the Potomac River 

in July 1861 by Commander S. C. Rowan, commanding the sloop Pawnee. 

Mines on the eastern rivers quickly became such a significant threat that in 

early 1862 Welles commissioned shipbuilder John Ericsson to design 

something to "remove or destroy" underwater obstructions and mines. 

Ericsson, however, remained diverted from the project by his ship designs and 

his plans were never carried 0~t.l~ 

Almost as soon as Union naval vessels appeared in force on southern rivers, 

h 

Confederate mines (clockwise from lower left): Keg type, Brooks type, Spar 

torpedo, Fretwell-Singer type. 

11 
“Damn the Torpedoes’ 

NH 63872 

The Civil War gunboat Genesee is swathed with antitorpedo netting for mine 

protection. Engraving from Harpers Weekly, 27 May 1865. 

Confederate mines claimed their first victims. The first major Union ship loss 

to a mine, however, was not until December 1862. During that month a Union 

naval mine clearance expedition down the Yazoo River in Mississippi 

encountered difficulty when boats dragging for electrical wires and contact 

mines ahead of Cairo suddenly opened fire on floating mines. Mistaking the 

firing as a Confederate attack on his advance, Lieutenant Commander 

Thomas 0. Selfridge ordered Cairo ahead to assist the boats. Discovering his 

error, he stopped and sent his small boats out to assist in recovering the mines. 

As Selfridge turned his drifting ship aside to resume course, Cairo came under 

Confederate gunfire and maneuvered over a remote-controlled “demi-john 

torpedo.” Confederates on shore fired the mine with two electrically-activated 

friction mechanisms, and Cairo swiftly sank.18 

The loss of Cairo immediately encouraged the Confederacy to accelerate 

development and use of mines and the Union to improve minehunting and 

sweeping efforts. Impressed by the loss of Cairo, Acting Rear Admiral David 

Dixon Porter, to whose flotilla Cairo was attached, immediately began 

directing the development of ship protection measures for the advance ships 

in his command. One of his officers, Mississippi Marine Brigade Colonel 

Charles R. Ellet, designed an effective “torpedo catcher,” also known as a 

“torpedo rake” or “devil,” a system of wrought-iron hooks and logs welded to 

a spar on the ship’s bow-sprit at keel level that extended 20 to 30 feet forward 

to scoop up mines in the fleet’s path. Encouraged by Ellet’s success, Porter 

had torpedo catchers built for many of his ships on the western rivers. Private 

inventors began sending him their designs, and ships throughout the Union 

Navy soon sprouted torpedo catchers from their bows. l9 

Porter extended his personal interest in countering mines throughout his 

fleet and often sought ingenious means to foil Confederate minelayers. When 

preparing for expeditions upriver from Vicksburg, Mississippi, in July 1863, 

12 
A Matter of Efficacy 

Porter ordered that temporary torpedo catchers be made for every ship in his 

command, personally describing the method to be used and encouraging 

suggested improvements from the fleet. In addition to conducting 

minesweeping and controlled cable hunting on the rivers, Porter actively 

hunted entire minefields, plotting mine positions to reveal the configuration 

of the field. Vigilance also had an effect on halting minelaying. After the fall 

of Vicksburg, Porter so thoroughly patrolled the Mississippi that 

Confederates could no longer mine the river effectively. Not all of Porter’s 

attempted countermeasures, however, succeeded. As he retreated from the 

disastrous Red River expedition in the spring of 1864, he sent two small 

cutters sweeping in advance of his prize ironcladEastport. Although the boats 

detonated two mines, Eastport hit a third and went down, forcing Porter to 

destroy her to avoid having the ship refloated and captured by the 

Confederacy.20 

Few Union commanders had as much success at countering the 

Confederate mine threat as did Porter and Farragut. In the attack by his 

ironclads on fortified Charleston harbor, Rear Admiral Samuel F. DuPont 

similarly rigged his ships with torpedo catchers fabricated from old scrap iron, 

spars, nets, and grapnels. Monitor Weehawken showed notable success in 

clearing some of the mines in her path. When pummelled by Confederate 

shore artillery, however, she could do little to penetrate the defenses of the 

city. ‘The ghosts of rebel torpedoes have paralyzed the efficiency of the fleet,” 

one observer wrote, “and the sight of large beer barrels floating in the harbor 

-- . .. . __ 

-- 

I 

NR&L (0) 2027 

The Union monitor Suugus on the James River displays her torpedo rake or 

catcher. 

13 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

. . . added terror to overwhelming fear. . . . The torpedo phantom has proved 

too powerful to be overcome.” 21 

Hoping that more active measures would yield better results, DuPont’s 

successor, Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, ordered Ensign Benjamin H. 

Porter to minehunting duty. For several nights in September 1863 Porter, 

like Lieutenant Watson at Mobile Bay the following year, sought to discover 

if mines had indeed been laid between Forts Sumter and Moultrie and if other 

obstructions were present. Determined Confederate opposition, however, 

prevented him from discovering much. 

Dahlgren fretted so over his lack of knowledge of the underwater conditions 

at Charleston that he considered sending divers down to investigate as battle 

raged overhead. While preparing to support Major General William T. 

Sherman’s army in capturing that city, Dahlgren fabricated torpedo catchers 

by rigging two 50-foot logs across each ship’s bow and dangling nets to scoop 

up any floating torpedoes. As the fleet moved toward the city on 15 January 

1865, two monitors sailed ahead with a convoy of small boats sweeping with 

grapnels. Despite Dahlgren’s precautions, however, the monitor Patapsco 

U.S. Navy Photograph 

The Farragut Window in the Naval Academy Chapel heroically portrays the 

admiral “damning” the torpedoes from the rigging of his flagship, Hartford, at 

Mobile Bay. 

14 
A Matter of Eficacy 

struck a torpedo and sank that night. There was little more Dahlgren could 

do with his limited resources; the mines at Charleston proved so effective 

against the Union fleet that no one ever successfully countered them.22 

Watson’s efforts did not end the problem of mines in Mobile Bay. Pressed 

by the encroaching Federals, Confederates hurriedly mined all the water 

approaches to the city after the battle even as Farragut’s men worked to clear 

mines from the channel entrance. Some mines exploded while being landed 

on shore, leaving five of Farragut’s men dead and eleven wounded. Farragutalso lost one small boat while sweeping. Confederate torpedo expert 

Lieutenant Colonel von Scheliha and his replacement, Lieutenant J. T. E. 

Andrews, continued to mine all water and land approaches to Mobile for the 

rest of the war, and by March 1865 eight vessels of the West Gulf Blockading 

Squadron had been sunk by mines despite continuous countermining efforts. 

By the war’s end more than 150 mines had been retrieved from the waters 

around Mobile. Most of this work was done in the steamer Metacomet by 

Commander Pierce Crosby, whose thorough sweeping with nets garnered him 

twenty-one floating mines.23 

As Confederate mines improved, individual Union commanders increased 

their ability to avoid them, but the cost was high. Despite the experience at 

Charleston, Union countermeasures proved so effective that Confederate 

inventors developed supposedly unsweepable secondary mines. Attached to 

the primary explosive at a distance, these mines were designed to explode 

under the minesweeping ship upon the successful sweeping of the main mine 

casing. The Brooks mines, with such a secondary exploding device, made 

sweeping rivers difficult, if not impossible. Maury also continued to improve 

his controlled electric mine batteries at his laboratory in England and 

smuggled some improved equipment into the Confederacy for use in the 

eastern rivers. 

As the Union Navy moved inland into the South by river, the Confederates 

increased their use of advanced controlled mines, particularly in the James 

River approaches to Richmond. It was here that Major General Benjamin F. 

Butler brought his Army vessels under the command of Navy Acting Rear 

Admiral Samuel Phillips Lee, combining forces in an effort to capture 

Drewry‘s Bluff in May 1864. Warned of controlled mines in the James by 

former slaves, Lee dragged for mine cables with all his vessels and small boats 

and sent shore patrols along the riverbank. 

So carefully and slowly did Lee’s advance proceed that waiting 

Confederates were able to spot the movement and transfer all their 

detonating equipment to the opposite bank. Steamer Commodore Jones, 

leading the vanguard, moved forward carefully, surrounded by a busy guard 

of rowboats sweeping with grapnels. Despite Lee’s precautions, Commodore 

Jones backed over a torpedo fired from onshore by Confederate Submarine 

Battery Service operators and was blown to pieces. Operators of the battery 

24 

15 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

captured by Union forces after this incident initially refused to identify other 

mined spots in the river. When Navy Lieutenant Commander Homer C. Blake 

put one of them in the bow of his steamer Eutuw and proceeded into the 

minefield, however, the operator reconsidered and disclosed the location of 

the other mines.25 

When Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant sent a combined operation up 

the Roanoke River in December 1864, the bows of the Navy’s supporting 

gunboats were swathed in nets to protect them from floating mines. The nets, 

however, provided little protection against contact mines. Near Jamesville, 

North Carolina, gunboat Otsego detonated contact mines and sank. Sweeping 

near the wreck, surviving sailors found “a perfect nest of torpedoes.” While 

transferring the wounded from Otsego, tug Bazely hit another mine and went 

down. Six more mines were discovered around her, and two others were 

caught in Otsego’s net. The small squadron moved forward slowly, using row 

boats to drag for more mines. In this manner the squadron found several more 

mines eight miles upstream and another twenty-one lined up in rows blocking 

the riverF6 

Throughout the war Porter continued to look for novel ways to counter 

Confederate mines. While commanding the naval forces moving up the James 

River in the last months of the war, the admiral used lines of fish nets to 

combat floating mines, deployed his minesweeping boats in diagonal 

formation to increase sweep effectiveness, and constantly patrolled the river 

to foil Confederate remining attempts. By April 1865 Porter had so thoroughly 

cleared the James River that he felt safe ferrying President Lincoln to 

Richmond by water.27 

Fifty ships, four-fifths of them Union vessels, were crippled or sunk by 

underwater mines during the Civil War. Ironically, most Confederate ships 

lost were victims of their own mines.28 Continuous Union developments in 

improving torpedo catchers, spars and nets, and calcium- or 

magnesium-powered searchlights for night hunting of both mines and 

offensive torpedo boats were the products of individual officers. Fleet captains 

received markedly little mine countermeasures support from the Navy 

Department, which neither emulated Confederate institutional support for 

mine warfare, nor disseminated any lessons learned, nor established an 

operational minesweeping fleet.29 At the war’s end development of US. naval 

mine countermeasures remained, as it was in the beginning, dependent upon 

the interest of individual naval officers. 

World observation of the success of defensive mining by the Confederacy 

made mine warfare appealing to cost-conscious nations seeking economical 

national defenses. Established navies, however, still considered mines to be 

weapons for inferior navies, and few considered countering the threat as the 

key to naval superiority. The Danes and the Austrians defended their harbors 

with minefields in the 1860s, as did Paraguay in the 1866-1868 war against 

16 

“Damn the Torpedoes” 

next two decades perfecting it. The British Admiralty also set up the Torpedo 

Committee in 1873 to develop mine warfare and funded a comprehensive 

mine program. Royal Navy countermining, actively practiced as early as 1876, 

successfully used electrically-fired line charges of underwater explosives to 

sympathetically detonate enemy mines. Countermining became the standard 

British countermeasure of the late nineteenth century. The Royal Navy also 

countered electrical mines by sweeping for cables with explosive-laden 

grapnels and protected their newest battleships against mines and torpedoes 

with nets.31 

The U.S. Navy of the late nineteenth century, constrained by scarce 

peacetime resources and internally factionalized by divisions between line 

and staff officers, established no similar comprehensive mine warfare 

program and left mine matters in the hands of interested individual officers. 

Retaining his wartime interest in mine warfare and determined to prepare 

for incipient war with Great Britain over its assistance to the former 

Confederacy, Admiral Porter sought to keep mine warfare alive in at least one 

small portion of the U.S. Navy. In wartime Porter had been fascinated by the 

possibilities of underwater ordnance. In peace he continued to experiment, 

introducing the subject to midshipmen at the Naval Academy while serving 

as superintendent from 1865 to 1869. During his short tenure as military 

advisor and assistant to the secretary at Navy Department headquarters in 

1869, Porter used his vast power to launch a torpedo station and school under 

the sponsorship of the Bureau of Ordnance for the study of all underwater 

ordnance and countermeasures. 

Housed at the wartime home of the U.S. Naval Academy on Goat Island at 

Newport, Rhode Island, and under the command of a succession of Porter’s 

former subordinates, Porter’s “Torpedo Corps,” as it came to be called was a 

home for secret naval testing and development of both defensive and offensive 

systems. In the first year of operation the corps built mines and experimental 

torpedo boats and provided all Navy vessels with mines for offensive testing 

afloat. With Porter a regular visitor and the corps’ nominal protector in the 

Navy Department, the school received sufficient funds to begin teaching 

courses to officers and to design and test the remotely piloted torpedo boat 

Nina. At the same time US. Army engineers established an experimental 

mine station for harbor defense at Willett’s Point, New Y~rk.~~ 

Funding for underwater ordnance remained limited throughout the last 

half of the nineteenth century, and what funds there were generally went to 

self-propelled torpedo development, with mine warfare a competitive 

stepchild. Still, Porter and his captains kept interest in mines and mine 

countermeasures alive in the Torpedo Corps, if nowhere else. By 1872 the 

Board of Visitors inspecting the corps recommended expansion of the 

program, suggesting that research and testing of mines and torpedoes should 

not outpace research on appropriate countermeasures for ship protection. 33 

18 
A Matter of Eficacy 

But Porter remained frustrated with the Navy Department’s unwillingness 

to fund research in mine and torpedo countermeasures. “I am convinced,” 

Porter wrote Secretary of the Navy George M. Robeson in 1873, “that proper 

attention will not be given to this subject until special instructions are issued 

from the Department.” He also urged the secretary to add more courses at the 

Torpedo Station, particularly in countermeasures, maintaining that “there is 

no course of instruction whatever for defense against torpedoes.” He 

encouraged the secretary to increase appropriations for the Torpedo Corps 

and to foster experimentation to counter all foreign mines and torpedoes. 

Calling for the secretary to follow the examples of the British and of the 

former Confederacy and make mine warfare a priority within the Navy, Porter 

suggested a wide range of reforms in mine warfare training and fleet 

organization. Specifically, Porter recommended the separation of the Torpedo 

Corps from the bureau and its reidentification as a separate defensive naval 

force, appropriation of sufficient funding for development of a wide range of 

mine warfare programs, and appointment of a rear admiral to direct mine 

warfare training and preparedness. Unfortunately, Porter’s plea for 

reevaluation of the Navy’s mine warfare program went unanswered, and his 

Torpedo Corps remained a component of the Bureau of Ordnance.34 

Failing to impress the Navy Department with the importance of mine 

warfare, Porter did what he could to advance the study. Stressing that mines 

not protected by warships or fortifications could be easily swept using existing 

methods, Porter had better success obtaining funding for offensive measures. 

From 1869 to 1876 the Torpedo School trained 153 officers in the 

fundamentals of mine warfare, including the use of electric lights and fast 

guard boats to foil both mines and torpedo attack boats. Limited mine testing 

also took place at the Washington Navy Yard ordnance facilities and at the 

Naval Academy.35 

Captain Kidder R. Breese, Porter’s former fleet captain, took command of 

the Torpedo Station in the late 1870s and dedicated most of his first year to 

countermeasures research and application, particularly in the use of electric 

lighting, mine clearance, and countermining, which was designed to ease 

passage in mined harbors. With Breese’s interest and the application of 

countermining, which caught the interest of ordnance specialists, 

countermeasures advanced within the school’s curriculum. Captain F. M. 

Ramsay, the station’s next commander, continued Breese’s studies in 

countermeasures; by 1881 the Secretary of the Navy reported that “there are 

various methods in vogue for the destruction and removal of hostile torpedoes, 

and these appliances are being constantly perfected.” 36 

Captain Thomas 0. Selfridge, former captain of Cairo, took over the station 

in 1881 and began working to develop an integrated system for defense 

against both mines and self-propelled torpedoes. His was the first systematic 

attempt within the US. Navy to develop a mine countermeasures (MCM) 

19 
“Damn the Torpedoes’ 

program. In addition to increasing the officers’ studies in the minutiae of mine 

construction, arming, and use, Selfridge extended the course of instruction to 

eighteen months and included courses in torpedo defense systems, diving, and 

more advanced countermining and channel-clearing systems. He also 

instituted practical exercises, hands-on work in countermining, underwater 

use of electric lighting to spot mines, and ship protection. By 1884 the Navy 

had ordered advanced electric “torpedo search lights” for its new cruisers, and 

Selfridge began intensive testing of the lighting system’s effectiveness and 

possible future applications for mine countermeasures. 

When Selfridge’s tenure at the Torpedo Station ended in 1885, the practical 

advancement of MCM research also ended. Competition arose between the 

Torpedo Station and the nearby Naval War College, founded in 1884, over the 

college’s mandate for control of the theoretical study of “success in war.” The 

Torpedo School retained its function of practical training in the manufacture 

and use of ordnance, but “theoretical” courses in chemistry and electricity 

were reduced or eliminated. Thereafter, mine production was the primary 

mission of the station, and MCM activities were limited to practice in the 

basics of countermining, minehunting, and simple minesweeping. 

Despite wartime experience in the United States and the fledgling effort to 

establish professional expertise in MCM after the Civil War, most naval 

authorities continued to believe that mines could be easily swept or 

countermined. By the 1880s the world focus of underwater ordnance research 

was on the improvement of offensive, automotive torpedoes, and attention 

turned away from traditional mine warfare. The application of the gyroscope 

and steam propulsion to torpedoes greatly increased their accuracy, just as 

Austrian methods of automatic mine depth settings made accurate sea mining 

possible. In the 1879-1880 War of the Pacific between Chile, Peru, and 

Bolivia, Peruvian and Bolivian vessels suffered great damage from Chilean 

spar torpedoes, bomb-rigged vessels, and other moving mine delivery 

vehicles. By 1882 most navies had a regular torpedo corps that practiced both 

minelaying and jousting with torpedo boats; concerted countermeasures 

against submarine mines, however, remained an afterthought. Individual 

American naval officers closely watched foreign naval experiments with 

countermining, diving teams, and target practice with underwater objects, 

but the Navy De artment as a whole did little to encourage investment in 

new technology. 

In his 1886 annual report to the Secretary of the Navy, Admiral Porter took 

the Navy and Congress to task for failing to fund both mine warfare and mine 

countermeasures, but with little effect. By the following year the Torpedo 

School curriculum was reduced to only one combined course on 

countermeasures against both mines and torpedoes and seven practical 

exercise sessions in mine clearance. In the following years MCM courses 

remained rote exercises as torpedoes and torpedo countermeasures became 

37 

38 

38 

20 
A Matter of Eficacy 

the focus of regular experimentation in the United States and abroad. Outside 

of the Torpedo Station little was done with mines or MCM until an operational 

need de~eloped.~’ 

Real progress in mine warfare and MCM matters in the US. Navy 

throughout the nineteenth century remained the products of the efforts of 

interested individuals. The Navy Department did not neglect all mine matters 

after the Civil War, but declining budgets, emerging technology, and lack of 

strong institutional interest relegated the study to a few men buried in the 

Bureau of Ordnance. 

US. support of the Cuban revolution against Spain in the 1890s made 

diplomatic relations between the two countries sensitive at best. When the 

battleship Maine exploded and sank in Havana harbor on 15 February 1898 

with the loss of 266 men, most Americans believed sensationalist press 

reports that Spain had mined or torpedoed Maine. When a U.S. naval court 

of inquiry declared on 21 March that the explosion was caused by a mine, 

most Americans reacted to the findings of the court with strong support for 

war. 

Ironically, despite the popular belief that the powerful Maine had been 

destroyed by a mine, there was little interest in developing or using new 

methods to counter mines or in the growth of an MCM force to meet the 

weapon that had supposedly devastated a prime example of the modern steel 

Navy. The only expression of a resurgence in interest in MCM was the 

preparation of stockpiles of countermines. Using existing resources, the 

Torpedo Station at Newport quickly designed and assembled 

electrically-controlled countermines for the fleet, completin the first order 

of forty mines for the North Atlantic Fleet within ten days. 

As Rear Admiral George Dewey prepared for war with Spain, he drew upon 

some wrongly remembered lessons of his Civil War experience. While serving 

under his hero, Farragut, at New Orleans in 1862 and at Port Hudson in 1863, 

Dewey gained experience in running strong land batteries at night. That his 

ship, Mississippi, had been lost in the latter attempt seemed to him merely 

one of the risks of battle. Dewey had not been with Farragut at Mobile Bay 

and knew nothing of his careful minehunting efforts. He always believed that 

Farragut, his acknowled ed role model in tactics and risk-taking, had indeed 

“damned” the torpedoes. 

Less than a week after America declared war on Spain, Dewey sought to 

destroy the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay. Although he had reliable reports from 

official sources that Manila Bay had been mined, Dewey lacked sound 

intelligence on the type of mines and their exact placement. He would later 

explain that he dismissed the mine threat as a “specious bluff” on the basis 

that the channel’s depth, Spain’s unfamiliarity with minelaying, the 

concerted Spanish advertising campaign of the minelaying danger, and the 

rapid deterioration of mine materials in tropical waters would nullify the 

41 

48 

f3 

21 
“Damn the Torpedoes 

likelihood of mines stopping the advance. For Dewey, the advantage of gaining 

the bay outweighed the risk of the mines. He also recalled a similar incident 

in 1882 when an Italian mine expert broke a lengthy blockade of the Suez 

Canal by accurately assessing Egyptian incompetence in minela~ing.~~ 

On the night of 30 April 1898 Dewey ran the passage into the bay. Like 

Farragut, Dewey led the advance. When his fleet was halfway past the 

rumored mine line off Corregidor, the Spanish shore batteries opened fire. 

The Spanish artillery made such powerful splashes near the ships that the 

crew mistook them for mines and cried, ‘(Remember the Maine!” Nonetheless, 

the fleet successfully entered the bay without detonating any mines and 

defeated the Spanish fleet. The only mines fired in the two days of action were 

controlled mines purposely exploded by the Spanish to clear a path through 

the mine lines for their own ships to maneuver.a5 

Dewey was both lucky and a sound judge of Spanish incompetence. Charts 

captured at Cavite on 2 May 1898 noted the placement of the controlled mines 

in the bay awaiting the detonator cables that had not yet arrived from Spain. 

In addition, when Dewey sent cruisers Raleigh and Baltimore to sweep the 

channel for mines, they discovered that the Spanish had indeed laid several 

powerful contact mines in the deep channel; their inexperience, however, had 

led them to simply dump the mines overboard, where they had sunk to the 

bottom, eighty feet below the ships’ keels. Nonetheless, American journalists 

loudly touted Dewey’s passing of an extensive and effective mine danger at 

Manila Bay, adding Dewey to the folklore of American history as another 

successful “damner” of mines.46 

Cuba threatened to prove more difficult. The British passed on rumors of 

Spanish mining at Cienfuegos, and the U.S. Navy had ample evidence of 

Spanish mining of all ports, yet never anticipated a real threat. At 

Guantanamo Bay, U.S. vessels steamed into the harbor in early June without 

any apparent concern about contact mines. Battleship Texas and cruiser 

Marblehead hit two of the mines and ripped them from their anchors without 

explosions. For two weeks American ships plowed the harbor grazing 

defective mines before a thorough minesweeping expedition brought up 

thirty-five ineffective Spanish contact mines. In late July at Nipe Bay the 

American forces again successfully ignored the Spanish mine threat and 

passed over a staggered mine line at the entrance to the bay without 

damage. 

The entrance to the harbor at Santiago, a narrow, tortuous channel difficult 

to navigate under the best of conditions, was a different story. It was defended 

by both substantial land batteries and electrically-controlled mines, but the 

mine threat alone stopped Rear Admiral William T. Sampson from attempting 

to force the channel and enter the harbor. Remembering the twisted wreckage 

of Maine, Sampson readily heeded exaggerated reports of the number and 

types of mines planted. Calling for land support to capture the mine control 

47 

22 
A Matter of Elpicmy 

bases to allow his big battleships and cruisers to enter the harbor, Sampson 

settled on a blockade of the Spanish fleet until cooperating land forces could 

assist him. Sampson made no attempt to countermine the mine lines or to 

send in small advance parties either to survey the mine positions or to storm 

the mine detonation positions. He did attempt to bottle up the Spanish fleet 

by sending in an expedition to sink a ship in the channel narrows. Spanish 

defenders exploded most of the controlled mines in the harbor to stop the 

vessel, however, and it came to rest without blocking the Spanish fleet.48 

The Army forces besieging Santiago planned to attack the harbor’s land 

batteries, allowing the naval vessels to enter the harbor, clear away the 

controlled mines, and drag for regular contact mines. When Army progress 

slowed, Sampson considered countermining the bay with forty American 

countermines stored at Guantanamo, but the admiral concluded that “this 

work, which is unfamiliar to us, will require considerable time. It is not so 

much the loss of the men as it is the loss of ships which has until now deterred 

me from making a direct attack upon the ships within the port.” 49 On 3 July 

the Spanish fleet saved him the trouble by leaving the harbor in an attempt 

to run his blockade. The subsequent destruction of the Spanish fleet at 

NH 002076 

The Spanish laid these contact mines in the entrance to Santiago harbor 

during the Spanish-American War. 

23 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

Santiago virtually ended the war that ceded Puerto Rico, Guam, and the 

Philippines to the United States and brought independence to Cuba. 

The brief Spanish-American War did little to change contemporary notions 

about mine warfare. Spanish mines had not been a major impediment to the 

US. fleet, and so few naval officers knew anything about mine warfare that 

little comment was made about Sampson’s failure to scout the minefield at 

Santiago. At home, American harbors were defensively mined, but the mines 

stopped only friendly merchant vessels. Few Americans felt the effects of mine 

warfare in their own waters.50 Ignoring the mine threat and trusting in 

Spanish incompetence, the US. Navy had the good fortune to escape mine 

damage and attributed its success to complete US. superiority in mine 

warfare. 

After its successful actions at Manila Bay and Santiago, the United States 

was perceived as an emerging naval power. Although Alfred Thayer Mahan 

and other proponents of a strong Navy urged Americans to overlook the ease 

of the victory over Spain and build a powerful fighting fleet, their arguments 

reiterated traditional attitudes toward mine warfare and MCM, denying their 

importance on the principle that naval dominance by surface ships made 

mines unnecessary. Mahan emphasized the historic tradition of sea mines as 

the weapons of weaker, inferior naval powers, rather than of great powers 

with command of the seas. Those who followed Mahanian theory often denied 

the effectiveness of mining and MCM.51 

Not everyone shared this viewpoint. One notable dissenter was Admiral of 

the Navy George Dewey. As a result of the influence of the officers of the 

wartime Strategy Board, in 1900 the Secretajr of the Navy appointed a 

General Board of naval officers with Dewey at its head to act as his senior 

naval advisors. Perhaps reflecting Dewey’s experience, the General Board 

recommended that MCM testing and training be made part of all. regular 

naval drills. In addition, the board urged that “naval defense mines and 

mining outfits be prepared and supplied to all battleships and cruisers in such 

quantities as may seem desirable, and that mining and countermining be 

made a part of the course of instruction at the Torpedo Station, and also a 

part of the routine drills on board the vessels having mines on board.” The 

Bureau of Ordnance endorsed the board’s recommendations and ordered the 

new Maine class battleships to carry mines and MCM equipment.52 

However, the available MCM methods had not progressed much since th’e 

Civil War. The standard countermeasure to mines in peacehl waters 

remained small boat minesweeping and grappling for controlled mine cables; 

the experts recommended advanced controlled countermining while under 

hostile fire, in keeping with the Navy‘s focus on weapons rather than on 

countermeasures as the easiest and most popular method. Small launches 

towed by gunboats or steamers at full speed would make multiple drops of 

either single or parallel lines of mines. These mines, armed with 500 pounds 

24 
A Matter of Eficacy 

George Dewey “damned” the 

torpedoes when he ran the mine 

line into Manila Bay in 1898, but 

the reality of the mine threat later 

convinced him to support mine warfare and MCM training for the fleet. 

NH 50564 

of gun cotton (nitrocellulose), would be electrically command-detonated at a 

distance from the minefield to encourage sympathetic countermining 

nearby.53 As long as mines remained a threat only in shallow waters and 

harbors, the Navy relied on simple measures that were largely untested in 

actual wartime operations. 

The Russo-Japanese War of 1904 quickly challenged existing concepts of 

mine warfare as a defensive tactic useful only in shallow waters. Both the 

Russians, who were seeking to expand into the Far East, and the Japanese, 

who opposed them, used independently moored contact mines planted in the 

open sea where small minesweeping boats could not navigate. Hoping to 

dislodge the Russians from their stronghold at Port Arthur in early 1904, the 

Japanese mined the waters off the port with sea mines, masking their exact 

movements, and then lured the Russian fleet out of the harbor on a wild chase. 

Ignoring the mine danger, Russian Admiral Stephan Makarov in his 

battleship Petropaulousk led his ships on the return to port right through the 

Japanese minefield. The admiral and his ship were lost to two mines, and a 

second battleship was heavily damaged. The Russian minelayer Amur 

retaliated by mining the waters outside the harbor, which resulted in the loss 

of two first-class Japanese battleships and nearly changed the naval balance 

in Russia’s favor. 

An astonished western world watched as minelaying and minesweeping 

25 
“Damn the Topedoes” 

vessels battled each other for control of the sea off Port Arthur. The Japanese, 

moving in to beseige the port, were forced to begin minesweeping operations 

to protect their ships. Using tugs with sweep cable armed with sharp cutters 

to slice through the mines’ mooring cables, the Japanese began methodically 

sweeping paths through the harbor. The Russians quickly learned to foil 

Japanese minesweepers by quietly moving the buoys marking the cleared 

paths. This strategy ultimately proved to their disadvantage, for when the 

Russian fleet was forced to retreat from Port Arthur, it had to pass through 

its own minefield. Primitive Russian minesweeping efforts, which consisted 

of paired tugs dragging cables, proved ineffective in sweeping their own 

mines, and the fleet suffered many casualties. After closely observing the 

progress of this war, most nations with navies began to explore the 

possibilities of mining the open sea, thus reviving international interest in 

minelaying and MCM.54 

Disturbed by the mine warfare aspects of the Russo-Japanese conflict, some 

American officers who had scoffed at the Torpedo Corps soon sought to 

acquaint themselves with current tactics. The regular course of instruction 

at the Newport Torpedo Station was quickly lengthened from three to six 

months. The twenty-three Navy students of the 1905 class, along with 

fifty-two Marine Corps officers and sergeants undertook countermining 

training that was more advanced than any the Navy had required for decades. 

That same year the Bureau of Ordnance issued its first pamphlet describin 

“countermine outfits” for ships and encouraged their use in fleet exercises. 

The British quickly reappraised their mine warfare situation and went 

much further to prepare for operational mine warfare. Abandoning 

countermining as their primary MCM method, they built up a mine supply 

and converted existing gunboats to minesweepers. By 1906 they also began 

testing more reliable minesweeping equipment. Purchasing six fishing 

trawlers, they converted them to active duty minesweepers between 1908 and 

1910. To supplement this regular minesweeping force, the British also 

recruited private fishing trawlers as reserve sweeps and trained their crews 

one week annually for pay, a system that many American naval officers urged 

their service to adopt. These reserve fishermen became the backbone of 

British minesweeping forces. The heavy winches and cables used to haul up 

fishing nets were easily adapted to sweeping by fishermen who required little 

additional training to sweep mines. Furthermore, the British began 

streaming protective sweep gear from the bows of minesweepers, much as the 

Union Navy had done in the Civil War, and they developed snags and 

sweep-evading devices to make sweeping of their own minefields more 

difficult.56 

As a result of the Russo-Japanese War, which had littered the Western 

Pacific with floating mines (live contact mines that had broken free of their 

moorings), many nations became interested in restricting mine warfare 

& 

26 
A Matter of Eficacy 

internationally. Signatories to the “Convention Relative to the Laying of 

Automatic Submarine Contact Mines” drafted by the Hague Conference in 

1907 agreed that, for the protection of neutral ships, all moored contact mines 

would be designed to sterilize if they broke free of their moorings. Most 

important was the article requiring nations laying mines in international 

waters to make every effort to remove them after hostilities ended. The 

covenants also allowed the use of drifting mines only if they were armed with 

a sterilizer that disarmed them within one hour; they also banned unlimited 

minelaying. Thus, despite revived international interest in the future of 

offensive mine warfare, these restricting measures led most nations to 

abandon thought of devoting increasingly scarce dollars to systematic mine 

warfare research. 

Although most nations developed some mines, there was little change in 

methods of countering them. The French followed the British example, 

converting eight fishing boats to minesweepers between 1910 and 1913 and 

building four more in 1914. Russia and Japan retained a small fleet of 

minesweepers towing conventional cables, and Germany and Austria 

experimented with cables and fishing nets. Italian minesweepers added a new 

dimension by towing small contact mines called “Scotti” that exploded when 

contacting a mine anchor line. The Italians held regular exercises with their 

minesweepers, and by 1916 groups of these small boats preceded their fleet.58 

Despite early interest in new mining methods and countermeasures, the 

U.S. Navy did little to emulate the efforts of other navies. The General Board 

urged the Navy to increase studies of mining, minehunting, countermining, 

sweeping, and removal. By October 1912 Dewey, as head of the General Board, 

realized its suggestions were being implemented only piecemeal by the 

bureaus and recommended that coordination of all mining and 

countermeasures be consolidated under a new OfFice of Mining and Mining 

Operations, which would be headed by a Navy captain. Dewey fought for the 

office against strong opposition from the Bureau of Ordnance and the Bureau 

of Construction and Repair, which controlled mines, countermining, and 

minesweeping functions. In the end Dewey was forced to settle for the 

assignment of an officer at the Naval War College to study mining operations. 

Until October 1913 the Bureau of Ordnance controlled all mine and MCM 

material. After that time the Bureau of Construction and Repair controlled 

MCM equi ment, and the Bureau of Ordnance retained mines and mining 

Like Porter before him, Dewey found that arguments favoring centralized 

control of mine warfare matters were not sufficiently persuasive to overcome 

the Navy’s established organization. The Navy had suffered few operational 

losses and had not found mines difficult to avoid. Consequently, other 

developments in naval warfare continued to have higher priority for the 

Navy’s resources. 

57 

apparatus. E9 

27 
“Damn the Torpedoes 

By 1912 control of mining and MCM in the operating forces were collateral 

responsibilities of the commanders of torpedo flotillas of each fleet, who 

outfitted destroyers with minesweeping equipment. “Owing to lack of 

experience in minesweeping” in the U.S. Navy, American minesweeping 

procedures were copied directly from a 1912 British minesweeping manual 

and reissued yearly between 1915 and 1917. The lightweight, small-boat 

minesweeping gear carried by the destroyers proved insufficient for practice 

clearance of heavily mined fields, and by 1913 two fleet tugs, Putupsco and 

Putwcent, were rigged with heavier gear and added to the torpedo force. Their 

success in sweeping during exercises led to the addition of tugs to all fleet 

torpedo flotillas. Further exercises conducted by the Atlantic Fleet Torpedo 

Flotilla from 1913 to 1915 encouraged the expansion of the minesweeping 

force through the development of sweep equipment packages for the faster 

destroyers and torpedo boats to complement the tugs. In March 1914 Rear 

Admiral Charles J. Badger, Commander in Chief, US. Atlantic Fleet, 

recommended that all Atlantic Fleet destroyers be fitted out for additional 

duty as minesweepers. Ten tugs ultimately were identified for minesweeping 

work, six for the Atlantic Fleet and two each for the Pacific and Asiatic Fleets, 

although only four were in place before 1917. The separate torpedo flotillas, 

created in mid-1904 in response to the Russo-Japanese War, thereafter 

consisted of offensive torpedo boats and torpedo boat destroyers.60 

With the outbreak of war in April 1914 the Germans swiftly mined the coast 

of England and began to take their toll of British minesweeping vessels. The 

British in turn laid mines in the English Channel to oppose German 

minelaying U-boats, only to be forced to sweep some of them to move their 

own troops. Later that year the British began mining the North Sea and 

experimenting with deep-moored mines to stop the submarines. With 

increased German mining of their coasts, the British expanded their fleet of 

trawlers, assigning them to hunt submarines in addition to their primary 

duties of minelaying and minesweeping. 

When war in Europe began to impinge on American interests, the U.S. Navy 

prepared for mine warfare and MCM operations as a part of regular naval 

combat. In the recently created position of Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), 

an experienced naval officer was given the responsibility of directing the 

operations of the US. fleets. Recent British experience proved that mine 

warfare readiness would be a part of the CNO’s concerns. 

To carry mine warfare to the enemy, in 1915 the Navy transferred its four 

minesweeping tugs from the Atlantic Fleet Torpedo Flotilla to create the first 

minesweeping fleet organization, the Atlantic Fleet Mining and 

Minesweeping Division, tasking its minesweepers to serve also as minelayers. 

Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt recommended that 

minesweeping equipment be prepared for a mixed force of minesweeping 

destroyers, large fleet tugs, and smaller tugs, but his scheme was quickly 

61 

28 
A Matter of Eficacy 

reduced to outfitting only three additional fleet tugs and identifying US. 

fishing trawlers for possible future employment as minesweepers. Still, 

working from the foundation laid by the General Board and the active 

experimentation of the Torpedo Flotilla since 1912, the U.S. Navy of 1915 had 

a rudimentary minesweeping organization and improved sweep gear that was 

deemed sufficient for fleet service, and had also identified ships for collateral 

minesweeping duty. 

The British had problems of their own. Hoping to attack Germany from the 

south, drive a wedge between Turkey and Bulgaria, and open crucial lines of 

communication to Russian allies, the British attempted to force the narrow 

Dardanelles. The Turks had mined the straits in 1914 and constantly remined 

the passage using both drifting mines and staggered rows of controlled mines. 

The mines were protected by heavy guns and searchlights on the high ground 

overlooking the straits below. When the Royal Navy planned to force passage 

of the straits by naval attack alone, it depended on slow British minesweeping 

trawlers to sweep a field in advance of the fleet. The trawlers, crewed by 

civilians sweeping at night under heavy fire and blinding searchlights, made 

several attempts to clear the mines in advance of the attack but succeeded 

only in becoming excellent targets for the Turkish gunners. Without gunfire 

support, minesweepers had little chance of clearing the mines. Two smaller 

motor launches, joined with a 1000-foot wire, also suffered heavy casualties 

and failed to clear the mines. 

After several unsuccessful night attempts and one daylight effort to clear 

the mines, the allied Anglo-French naval force undertook a full-scale naval 

assault on 18 March 1915 with British minesweeping trawlers in the lead. 

The force’s failure to pass the straits, with four battleships lost or damaged 

in the minefield, was a humiliating defeat for the Royal Navy. British 

Commodore Roger Keyes reacted by outfitting destroyers with minesweeping 

gear. The paired destroyers swept successfully for three days under heavy fire 

in April 1915, but mines eventually forced the British to abandon the attempt 

to pass the Dardanelles by water and led to the equally ill-fated Gallipoli 

Campaign. Turkish mines and shore batteries kept the troops at bay until 

November 1918, when minesweepers preceded the British fleet into 

Constantinople. Smarting under their embarrassment, the Royal Navy made 

a considerable effort to develop effective MCM vessels for such assaults in the 

The British mine warfare experience and German U-boat mining off the 

American coast forced the US. Navy to think critically about MCM, or at least 

about minesweeping. The individual bureaus continued to adapt British 

minesweeping doctrine and gear, and operational units integrated 

minesweeping tugs and instruction into practice. In November 1916 the 

Atlantic Fleet conducted its first large-scale exercise in mine warfare 

procedures by laying and sweeping two hundred mines off Sandy Hook, New 

62 

29 
“Damn the Torpedoes‘ 

Jersey. To prepare surface ships to face mines at sea, Atlantic Fleet Destroyer 

Force doctrine was amended in May 1917 to include general instructions and 

procedures for destruction of mines at sea. Commanding officers were ordered 

to avoid risking their ships in sweeping mines and to use paired ships’ boats 

and fleet picket boats to sweep any area in question.64 

To untested American crews, minesweeping seemed easy. One reservist 

described sweeping contact mines with paired ships in five-day rotations off 

the coast of England: “Sweeping for mines, as I saw, required no great 

technical knowledge. Rather good sense, considerable nerve, simple 

precaution, knowledge of sea conditions, and the rest was a matter of chance 

and persistent, tiring work.” 65 American minesweepers also served off 

France in Patrol Force Squadron 4. The squadron’s eleven converted 

American wooden fishing boats, with French single-ship minesweeping gear 

armed with explosive cutters, swept mines and escorted convoys without any 

casualties from mines. 

Collateral duties filled much of the squadron’s time when it was not 

sweeping mines. One officer recalled that 

we answered nearby calls for help, patrolled suspected areas, listened in 

frequently at night for the submarines, assisted in the salvage of several wrecks, 

rescued a few aircraft, did odd towing jobs, assisted in organizing outgoing 

convoys from Quiberon Bay, and all in all filled in every odd gap in the work of 

the district.66 

Coastal minesweeping trawlers proved so useful as multipurpose boats that 

minesweeping almost became a subordinate duty to patrols, search and 

rescue missions, and antisubmarine warfare. 

British mine specialists worked to develop more effective minesweeping 

systems to cut down on the number of ships and time required to sweep an 

area clear. Traditionally, mines were swept by paired vessels steaming in line 

abreast and towing a sweep chain or wire. Changes in the interval between 

the ships, however, sometimes caused the sweep to rise too high, passing over 

the mines or alternatively narrowing the path of the sweep. Observing North 

Sea fishing boats, which kept their trawl lines spread through the use of two 

otter-boards, or diverters, the British adapted these otters to minesweeping. 

Paired ships towed either end of a sweep wire, held below the surface of the 

water by a depressor, or “kite,” that cut the mine’s mooring cables. Most often, 

however, at least one vessel of the pair was at risk of passing through the 

minefield. 

Early in 1919 the British developed the Oropesa sweep, named for the ship 

on which it was first used, which allowed one ship to sweep a path at a 

consistent preset depth and thus reduced sweep time. The rig was a long cable 

with cutters attached, the outboard end supported by a float and guided by a 

system of diverters that set the outboard depth of the wire. After the sweepers 

30 
A Matter of Eficacy 

DUTTOBECUT 

Oropesa sweep diagrk. From The Sea War in Korea by M. Cagle and F. Manson. 

made their pass, the mine disposal ships followed, marking the swept field 

with special “dan buoys” and destroying any moored mines that rose to the 

surface .6 

British advances in ship protection inspired American efforts. British 

captains found that traditional nets used for ship protection underway slowed 

their ships significantly. To protect ships from contact mines, a Royal Navy 

commander invented paravanes, torpedo-shaped floats that pulled out sharp 

wires on either side of a ship’s bow at the correct angle to cut mine moorings. 

A system of hydrostatic pressure valves controlled the paravanes’ dual 

rudders and kept the cables running at a consistent depth.68 Unable to adapt 

a similar device then being tested at the model basin of the Washington Navy 

Yard to meet its needs, the U.S. Navy adopted the British paravane design in 

May 1917. Three types of paravanes were developed for various ship speeds. 

Type “M” was designed for slower ships, primarily merchant vessels making 

up to 16 knots; type “B7, for battleships making up to 22 knots; and type “C” 

for cruisers making up to 28 knots. Because of the high level of secrecy 

surrounding the paravane system, these devices were often called “otters” as 

well. 

Paravanes protected both warships and private vessels extremely well. By 

1918, 2,700 ships worldwide-130 of them U.S. naval vessels-carried 

paravanes. In addition, the sterns of 150 destroyers were fitted with 

high-speed mine sweeps-a cross between deep-water paravanes and the 

Oropesa sweep. With these ships ahead of the fleet, cutting a swath 120 yards 

69 

31 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

wide at 25 knots and up to 450 yards at slower speeds, the possibility of 

countering mines in a swift advance was greatly increased. Repeated 

examples of success with paravanes encouraged their use. On 7 September 

1918 battleship South Carolina cut a mine, possibly submarine-laid, with her 

paravane off New Jersey, saving both herself and battleship New Hampshire, 

which followed in her wake. By late 1918 paravane streaming had become 

such a normal part of U.S. Navy practice that s ecial paravane courses were 

added to the curriculum of the Naval Academy. 

Mine development throughout the war challenged the traditional 

minesweeping methods previously thought sufficient. Sensors were added to 

controlled mines to cue operators ashore to fire them. 

Counter-countermeasures flourished as navies sought to render their own 

mines unsweepable, and in successive improvements the Allies put sprocket 

wheels on mooring cables, allowing sweep wires to pass through the mine 

mooring cables without cutting them. Other schemes incorporated wire 

cutters, snags, and explosives on mooring cables to sever the sweep wires. 

German developments in explosive cutters proved particularly effective, 

slowing but not stopping British efforts to clear minefields. This family of 

devices became known as “sweep obstructor^."'^ 

By August 1918 British scientists bad successfully tested a mine more 

difficult to sweep. This mine, the first magnetic influence mine, rested on the 

bottom. Its explosion depended on a reading of a ship’s magnetic signature, 

Yo 

U.S. Navy Photograph 

British and American navies used this type of paravane during World War I. 

32 
A Matter of Eficacy 

the permanent magnetic “fingerprint” that steel ships develop unavoidably 

during construction. Believing them to be unsweepable, the British fitted 

these mines with devices to render them inert after a predetermined time and 

used them only rarely.72 

The greatest menace to Allied ships were the torpedoes and mines employed 

by German U-boats. To protect U.S. ports, the Navy borrowed the idea of 

antisubmarine nets from the British early in the war, stringing them across 

Atlantic harbor entrances where they remained untested throughout the war. 

German submarines increased their miningof the US. Atlantic coast in 1918, 

and jury-rigged American trawlers swept German contact mines off Thimble 

Shoals at the mouth of the Chesapeake; Fire Island, New York; Barnegat 

Light, New Jersey; and as far north as Nantucket Shoals, Massachusetts. 

Despite these efforts, at least six American ships were lost to mines off the 

coast. German submarines also laid delayed-rising mines, which reactivated 

minefields believed clear and heightened the usual danger involved in 

sweeping mines. 

Concurrent development made mines a most effective Allied weapon and 

accounted for more than 30 percent of German submarine losses in the war.73 

To keep German U-boats out of the North Sea or at least to make passage to 

Allied waters more difficult, the US. Navy Bureau of Ordnance developed the 

Mark 6 (Mk 6) antenna mine, a relatively cheap, mass-produced mine that 

proved effective against submarines. These mines required contact between 

the steel hull of a ship and a copper wire antenna attached to and extending 

from the mine. Such contact generated an electrical current that fired the 

mine. Once the mine was developed, a combined British and American mine 

force in England revived earlier plans for a layered mine barrier across the 

North Sea. Antenna mines were set in lines of descending depth to form a 

complete antisubmarine barrier extending 10 feet to 260 feet below the 

surface, with British contact mines on the wings.74 

In June 1918 U.S. Navy ordnance specialists began their first offensive 

mine campaign. By October, 56,611 American Mk 6 mines were laid in 

thirteen groups, each consisting of rows set 134 miles across at three preset 

depths. The British planted 16,652 more of their own design. The war ended 

before the completed barrier could be tested, yet the North Sea Mine Barrage 

sank at least three U-boats (and possibly three more) during its short 

existence, and damaged three or four more. More important, it was a 

psychological barrier to some German submarine crews at least one of which 

mutinied rather than pass through the Mine Barrage. 

Critics of offensive mine warfare noted that no sooner had the Navy 

completed planting the barrage than it had to work to clear it, but construction 

of the first US. ships specialized as minesweepers and designed to clear the 

Mine Barrage had already begun. Attention to specific minesweeper 

construction began in the fall of 1916, when the Office of the Chief of Naval 

75 

33 
“Damn the Torpedoes 

Operations (OPNAV) recommended new construction of light draft 

minesweepers “to be seagoing and with sufficient speed to accompany the 

Fleet, with power enough to sweep at a speed of ten knots and to be classified 

as Fleet Sweepers.”“ In response, the General Board developed specifications 

for minesweepers planned for the 1918 shipbuilding program, and Congress 

appropriated funds for twelve fleet minesweepers in December 1916.77 

The Bureau of Construction and Repair’s preliminary design for the new 

fleet minesweeper greatly resembled that of the fleet’s minesweeping tugs. It 

was actually a modification of a 1916 design for a general utility boat, a 

multipurpose tender or patrol boat. The bureau quickly adapted the design 

to create a 180-foot, steel-hulled minesweeper drawing 10 feet with a top 

speed of 14 knots, and the ship went from the drawing board into production 

in a matter of weeks. Named for birds, fifty-four of these ‘‘Bird‘‘-class 

minesweepers were ordered for delivery within the year. By the time 

American minelayers had begun planting the North Sea Mine Barrage, these 

ships were coming out of the yards in time to prepare for MCM operation^.^^ 

During Allied negotiations in October 1918, the US. Navy agreed to clear 

all American mines laid, or over 80 percent of the mines in an area of 6,000 

square miles. New methods were required to sweep these deep-water mines 

in the turbulent North Sea. US. Navy Rear Admiral Joseph Strauss, who had 

commanded the forces that laid the mines, also commanded the sweep effort. 

His largely independent US. Mine Force, Atlantic Fleet, under British control 

in minelaying matters, had already given the clearance much thought. 

Because the US. antenna mines were sensitive to the smallest scrap of metal, 

thin sweep wires could cause them to detonate below a sweeper, setting off 

chain reactions and possibly countermining whole lines of mines as well. 

These characteristics also meant that the new steel-hulled “Bird”-class 

minesweepers could not sweep the North Sea unless a means to foil the 

steel-sensitive antennas on the Mk 6 mines could be found.79 

Plans for clearing the North Sea Mine Barrage were not begun until after 

the fields were planted. Admiral Strauss asked the officers commanding the 

minelayers for recommendations for quick and safe clearance methods, and 

they suggested a test sweep with wooden vessels to determine how many 

mines remained in the field. In December 1918, US. Navy Lieutenant Noel 

Davis, commanding two wooden sailing vessels, Red Rose and Red Fern, 

swept a portion of the minefield and immediately detonated a mine. In a string 

of explosions nearby mines countermined each other, proving their extreme 

sensitivity. After four passes the two vessels were separated because of bad 

weather. Operations were postponed until the weather cleared in the spring, 

at which time Admiral Strauss obtained permission from the Admiralty to 

borrow sixty British heavy-duty, wooden-hulled steam trawlers to begin 

sweeping mines. 

The loan of the wooden trawlers proved unnecessary. After observing the 

80 

34 
A Matter of Eficacy 

Y A ‘I i 

R 

E 

T 

A 

Map of the North Sea Mine Barrage. From The Victory at Sea by W. S. Sims. 

35 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

difficulties involved in attempting to sweep with fragile wooden sailing boats, 

one of Strauss’s staff officers, Naval Reserve Ensign D. A. Nichols, devised an 

electrical protective device which allowed steel ships to sever the antenna 

mines’ mooring cables without actuating the mines themselves. Nichols’s 

original plan had been to activate the mines by increasing the electrical field 

in front of the ships. This proved impractical, but by reversing the polarity of 

the field, mines could be prevented from exploding as the steel ships passed 

and then be swept by regular mechanical means. 

Fitting the old minesweeping tugs Patapsco and Patuxent with these 

experimental devices, Admiral Strauss made another test sweep of the 

minefield on 20 March 1919. The electrical device protected the ships from 

activating the mines while sweeping, but during the test two problems arose 

that would plague the entire operation. First, mines would foul the sweep 

wires and explode before the ships could sink them by gunfire. Second, these 

explosions would cause mines set at the highest levels to countermine in a 

chain reaction up to a mile away, often damaging the sweeping ships and 

carrying away sweep gear. 

As British and American forces prepared to clear the mines from the North 

Sea, British minesweepers encountered severe difficulties in the postwar 

mine clearance of the Dardanelles. Turkish and German defensive minefields 

had been intermingled with British offensive types, so it was impossible to 

determine the different minefield peripheries from the surface. The British 

sent up observation balloons to locate the different mines and to mark mine 

paths to be swept. Sweepers plowed closely along the marked lines, sweeping 

the mines from their moorings as gunboats followed and disposed of the 

mines. Use of aircraft in spotting the layout of minefields also led the British 

to use air-dropped countermines and depth charges occasionally; it was the 

first operational use of air MCM.~~ 

During successive sweep operations the American minesweeping force also 

experimented with different means to offset these problems and to speed up 

operations in the North Sea. In the first test of the “Bird”-class minesweepers 

Admiral Strauss experimented with electrical sweep wires to set off the 

mines, but the electricity altered the ships’ magnetic compasses. Returning 

to traditional mechanical means, Strauss determined that he would need 

more minesweepers as well as buoy-laying ships to improve navigation while 

sweeping. Unintentional countermining remained a problem that was as 

difficult to solve as it was to predict. Admiral Strauss ordered the sweep to 

begin with the groups of mines set at the lowest depths, thus reducing the 

danger for the inexperienced sweepers. He also ordered the paired ships to 

cross the mine lines at right angles in overlapping tracks, a process that 

quickly proved tedious as well as ineffect~al.~~ 

As the operation began, the minesweeping force lost large amounts of sweep 

gear as wires parted and mines fouled or exploded on the kites, requiring 

81 

36 
A Matter of Eficacy 

NH 46266 

Fleet tugs Putupsco (AT-10) and Putuxent (AT-ll), which joined the torpedo 

flotilla before World War I, participate in minesweeping operations in the North 

Sea, 1919. 

constant resupply and jury-rigging. Explosive cutters added to the sweep 

wires in front of the kites lowered such casualties by nearly 50 percent. 

Although the sweepers were vulnerable to accidental fouling and 

uncontrollable countermining, the sturdy “Bird”-class minesweepers proved 

able to withstand all but the closest explosions. By the third operation the 

minesweeper crews had gained sufficient experience to begin sweeping in 

compact formation at different de ths, which sped up clearance with no 

Throughout the seven phases of the operation the minesweeping force 

applied new lessons as learned. Midway through, the buoy-laying squadron 

successfully detonated the less hazardous lower- and middle-level mines 

without losing sweep gear by touching the antennas with wires rather than 

by cutting the mooring cables. To clear the minefield before the fall storm 

season set in, Strauss’s Mine Force used this method to develop a sweep 

formation for faster clearance. The main body of sweepers then advanced 

down the lines of mines working at different depths, with the first pair of ships 

sweeping high to clear mines by engaging the antenna wires and the second 

and third sets dragging deeper to catch any remaining mooring cables. A 

subchaser followed to sink mines cut by the sweepers while other ships 

marked the swept lanes with dan buoys. 

Sweeping even in peaceful waters with known minefields required a 

significant commitment of ships and men, the leadership of creative 

problem-solvers, and extensive logistical support. As a learning experience, 

the mine barrage taught the minesweeping forces much about the expensive 

and dangerous realities of countering mines. Clearance of the Mine Barrage 

required nearly ten times the assets minelaying had required: 82 ships 

appreciable increase in casualties. sB 

37 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

NH 471943 

Tanager (AM-5) during minesweeping operations in the North Sea, July 1919. 

working 17- and 18-hour days for over five months and over 4,000 men, mostly 

reservists, whose enlistments had been involuntarily extended by the 

Secretary of the Navy to complete the operation. The sweepers finished 

clearing the barrage in September with no time to spare. When test sweeping 

after clearance proved that many mines still remained active, particularly 

those thought to have been swept in early efforts, a quick but thorough 

recheck of every field was conducted until no mine exploded. Check sweeping 

took place despite high September seas.85 Casualties included two officers 

and nine enlisted men; one ship sunk; and twenty-three ships damaged. 

Complete knowledge of the numbers and placement of the mines and the 

levels at which they were set had allowed Strauss’s officers to apply statistical 

analysis in developing clearance plans and to plot the number of sweeps 

necessary for clearance of each field as they went along. Still, when check 

sweeps revealed no more actuations, thus ending the operation, Strauss’s 

minesweepers could account for only 40 percent of the mines laid. The 

remainder were assumed to have self-destructed spontaneously in the harsh 

North Sea weather or by accidental countermining on laying or during 

sweeping. Events would later prove Strauss’s assessment of complete 

clearance too optimistic, as unswept mines from the North Sea Mine Barrage 

turned up for many years thereafter. On their return to America Strauss’s 

Mine Force received a hero’s welcome with a formal review by the Secretary 

of the Navy and a ceremonial luncheon in New York City86 

Such remembrances were short-lived. Even the assignment of important 

38 
A Matter of Eficacy 

additional missions to mine force ships did not result in the retention of 

operational MCM units during peacetime. Within weeks the reserve units 

disbanded, and the men returned to civilian life. Minesweepers were laid up, 

and the future of MCM remained in the hands of a few active duty naval 

officers scattered throughout the bureaus and fleets. The end of war also 

shelved plans for a new minesweeper design developed by the General Board 

for fiscal year 1920. Beginning with previous requirements, the board had 

expanded the minesweeper’s mission to include employment in convoy and 

antisubmarine patrols by beefing up their armament and increasing their 

speed and maneuverability. In peacetime, however, few officers saw the need 

for minesweeping ships. 

Bureau chiefs and other leaders cited the reluctance of officers to study 

mine warfare in peacetime as the “reason it has not reached all the 

development of which it is susceptible.” Yet these same leaders were unwilling 

to make the institutional commitment required to establish mine warfare as 

a sought-after professional field. Career officers saw no promotion potential 

or glory in the mine force; consequently, interest in mine warfare after World 

War I faded quickly. The view that mines could be dealt with through 

countermeasures contrived ad hoc by adaptation and application of American 

ingenuity became widespread once again. 

Despite clever inventors and interested individuals, U.S. naval MCM 

throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries developed as a direct 

87 

This drawing by U.S. Navy Lieutenant Noel Davis shows paired minesweepers 

cutting mines at varying levels in the North Sea, followed by a danlaying ship. 

39 
“Damn the Torpedoes’ 

response to combat experience. Porter, Dewey, and others who had faced real 

mine threats in wartime urged peacetime study of the art of countering mines, 

but serious efforts to do so did not begin until mines began sending ships to 

the bottom. The actual practice of countering mines changed little from the 

Civil War until World War I. Ships continued to use bow watches to spot 

mines, and clever operational officers, American and British alike, developed 

ship protective devices ranging from elementary torpedo catchers to 

hydrostatic paravanes.88 

The development of MCM was also hampered by continuing definition 

problems. First, MCM was lumped with minelaying as mine warfare, with 

minelaying usually taking priority over MCM, particularly under the 

pressures of stingy budgets. Second, development of offensive torpedoes 

defined mine warfare as strictly defensive and therefore unnecessary to a 

growing, offensively oriented navy. This approach reinforced contempt for the 

weapon as a tool of weak or limited powers, easily “damned” by a powerful 

naval force. Only the operational employment of deep-sea mines against 

modern capital ships in the Russo-Japanese War indicated that the sea mine 

was a viable threat for which countermeasures must be prepared, but that 

experience was soon ignored or forgotten. 

For MCM World War I taught an enduring lesson: to operate offensively in 

mined waters and to defend home waters, a navy must have adequate forces 

to counter the mine threat and to precede the fighting forces into battle. The 

British learned this lesson best. British MCM grew in prestige as the Royal 

Navy faced up to the challenge posed by mines in the postwar world by 

establishing an active mine warfare school, developing active and reserve 

minesweeping fleets, and enhancing the promotion potential of MCM officers. 

America’s World War I experience and its response to that experience 

greatly differed from that of the British. Relatively few mines disrupted 

American home waters, and the U.S. Navy experienced no offensive 

humiliation comparable to that of the British in the Dardanelles. Additionally, 

success in the North Sea convinced naval leaders that they had adapted 

suitable and sufficient technology and tactics for using and countering mines. 

But easy success bred inattentiveness to the future of MCM, and mine warfare 

remained the province of individuals, rather than a matter of active 

Navy-wide concern. By the end of World War I, most U.S. naval officers 

probably agreed with the assessment that minesweeping remained merely 

”unpleasant work for a naval man, an occupation like that of rat-catching.”89 

40 
2 

A New Menace: 

The Operational Use of Influence Mines 

1919 -1945 

he British and American navies learned markedly different lessons from T their experiences in mine warfare and MCM. Losses to mines in war 

invigorated British interest in MCM, whereas successful wartime MCM led 

to American indifference in peacetime. Most American officers credited their 

wartime MCM efficiency to the quality and training of their reserve force and 

the inventiveness of their small active duty officer corps. Mines retained their 

position in American naval tradition as defensive weapons of weaker navies, 

which the powerful need not fear and American ingenuity could counter. 

With peace established, the Navy stored its leftover mines, sent the 

reservists home, and relegated control of both the weapons and the art to a 

few interested individuals. Funding for further MCM research and 

development and a steady shipbuilding program stalled under constrained 

peacetime budgets and naval arms control agreements. But the stagnation in 

U.S. naval mine warfare after World War I was due more to continued lack 

of professional interest within the Navy than to inadequate funding. Officers 

still avoided prolonged assignment to mine warfare work, believing quite 

accurately that it was a roadblock to promotion. Without a core of active duty 

personnel devoted to the study and advancement of MCM matters, MCM 

leadership was nonexistent, and international interaction remained limited. 

Postwar naval leaders did not give mine warfare or MCM the level of 

priority required to prevent a slide back into their prewar status. 

Consequently, mine warfare and MCM readiness suffered a similar fate. 

In December 1921 the Fleet Base Force was established as a subdivision of 

the Pacific Fleet and included the provision, at least on paper, of a Base Force, 

Pacific Fleet, for base defense. Included in this base force was one mine 

squadron consisting of most of the surviving minesweeping vessels. With the 

establishment of Battle Fleet, U.S. Fleet, the following year, the base defense 

minecraft came under the control of the Fleet Base Force, U.S. Fleet, in 

December 1922. Like its predecessor, the Fleet Base Force consisted primarily 

of theoretical forces that existed only on paper but which could be added in 

time of w8r.l By 1928, however, only two “Bird”-class ships remained active 

as fleet minesweepers. The remaining vessels were stripped of their sweep 

gear and turned into transports, tugs, and tenders. 

When the Navy changed from Battle Force to Battle Fleet organization in 

1931, the Fleet Base Force was abolished and renamed Base Force, U.S. Fleet, 

41 
“Damn the Torpedoes’ 

but still included the same units and structure as its parent organization. 

Minelayers and minesweepers were combined into a new type command, 

Minecraft, Battle Force, but no new minesweepers joined the fleet for a 

decade. Indeed, until 1939 the sole occupant of the mine desk of the Bureau 

of Construction and Repair, a civilian, simply stored extra sweep gear and 

paravanes, ignoring any international advances in theory, practice, or 

equipment. Naval officers assigned to Desk N in the Bureau of Ordnance, 

which controlled mines followed suit, storing the Mk 6 antenna mine a inventory for future use. 

US. Navy fleet strategists assigned to develop plans for war against Japan, 

identified as the next probable enemy, were hampered in their planning by 

lack of minesweeping experience. Capture of islands in the Pacific as forward 

bases for a U.S. Navy advance would require minesweepers to precede the 

fleet for amphibious assaults, but it was an impractical and improbable plan 

given the number of available ships. Coordination of MCM development and 

application called for leaders and planners from a navy that could not even 

field a large enough cadre of mine experts to staff a school of instructors? 

This failure to retain active duty, mine warfare expertise severely 

hampered the development of operational MCM in the postwar period. In 

yearly exercises known as Fleet Problems, held between 1923 and 1940, US. 

Navy forces trained for warfare in different geographical locations, against a 

variety of threats, but mine warfare rarely played a crucial role in these 

scenarios. With few minesweepers and little gear remaining in the fleet, the 

Navy depended on outdated paravanes for ship protection and assigned aging 

destroyers to practice only the most minimal precursor sweeps. In almost 

every case when mine warfare was included in fleet problem exercises, both 

the mines and the countermeasures were simulated. 

Such simulation reaffirmed the image of MCM as a problem easily solved. 

In 1924, in Fleet Problem 3, Army and Navy defenders threw a curve ball at 

the attacking forces during the planning process by “constructively” 

pretending to mine the approaches to the Panama Canal. After considerable 

difficulty the attacking naval force found two destroyer minesweepers to clear 

the purported mines but could not locate any sweep gear. After several 

unsuccessful attempts to devise high-speed sweep gear, the commanding 

officer of destroyer Bridgeport copied the old Russian gear used at Port Arthur 

in 1904 for a two-ship sweep at slow speed. Battleship paravanes and this 

preliminary minesweeping revealed the absence of real mines early in the 

exercise; the attacking commander quickly abandoned all MCM attempts, 

noting that “in view of the limited time remaining to us, we could afford to 

ignore the danger of mines.” 

Although such attitudes “damning” the real effects of mine warfare 

remained widespread among naval officers, those in high command did not 

completely ignore the demonstrated need for MCM capabilities in the fleet. 

42 
A New Menace 

Minesweepers were subsequently added to the fleet composition of later 

exercises, although most often as tenders and convoy escorts. Simulated 

mining of Caribbean ports in 1927 exercises promoted the brief return of 

“Bird-class minesweepers to MCM duties, but mechanical malfunctions and 

the regular parting of their sweep gear during the one hour allotted for 

theoretical clearance did not recommend their continued use. The increased 

speed of modern vessels, the lack of minesweeping gear for faster destroyers, 

and the failing condition of the existing minesweepers led to continued 

dependence on paravanes and avoidance of simulated minefields in many 

future exercise^.^ 

Such inefficient measures caused some consternation to those in high 

command. A practice landing at Midway in September 1935 revealed “the 

grave weakness which exists in minesweeping material and methods in the 

fleet at the present time.” This was ascribed to conflicting priorities. “Owing 

to the heavy demand on the Base Force for services,” wrote Commander in 

Chief, U.S. Fleet (COMINCH), Admiral Joseph Mason Reeves to the CNO, 

“minesweeping has been largely neglected and until those deficiencies are 

remedied will in all probability remain neglected to a considerable extent.” 

As a result of this inadequacy in MCM capabilities, exercises after 1935 often 

included destroyer divisions tasked as high-speed minesweepers. They were 

not, however, allotted practice mines or sweep gear.’ 

Although mines were included in most later exercises, general ignorance of 

the subject severely hampered the development of scenarios relevant to the 

Navy’s mine warfare capabilities. Fleet strategists, unaware of advances in 

mine development and clearance methods during World War I, particularly 

those refined in the North Sea Mine Barrage, consistently failed to apply any 

of the lessons of past experience. Ignorant of the nature of American antenna 

mines, which were the bulk of U.S. mine stockpiles, planners wrongly 

assumed that paravanes would be effective against all anchored mines. 

Destroyers assigned to mine clearance were assumed for the sake of the 

exercise to clear all hazards with a single pass. Furthermore, mining plans 

were consistently based on the incorrect assumption that all anchored mines 

were only effective in water less than 100 fathoms deep.’ 

In 1937 the Commander Scouting Force called attention to such 

misinformation in planning and conducting the mine warfare aspects of these 

exercises. “In view of the general lack of information in the fleet concerning 

mines and mining,” he reported, “it does seem desirable that the attention of 

the fleet be called to the fact that the limitations imposed for the Problem are 

not the actual limitations of our own mines, or those of our probable 

 opponent^."^ This view was echoed by the Commander Minecraft, Battle 

Force, who in 1940 recommended reconsideration of the effectiveness of 

paravanes, the limited sweep time and equipment allotted minesweepers, and 

the need for faster, shallow-draft minesweepers.” 

43 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

As a result of these postwar operational exercises, few naval officers learned 

much about the real capabilities of modern mines or were adequately 

prepared to clear them. Fleets involved in a mine warfare scenario, pressed 

to meet all the conditions of the exercise with inadequate resources, often 

formulated mining and MCM plans inconsistent with the actual warfare 

conditions of even a previous generation. Without pressure from the highest 

levels to study and advance knowledge in all areas of mine warfare, the Navy 

failed to remember the MCM lessons of its own recent history. “ “he best we 

could do,” noted one officer faced with the problem in the spring of 1940, “was 

to recognize probability of mines and pretend that we would sweep.”” 

Within the Navy‘s scientific community postwar MCM also faced the 

challenge of competing resources. What little American MCM research 

continued between the wars centered in the Bureau of Ordnance’s small “mine 

building” test station at the Washington Navy Yard. Established in late 1918 

to test both mines and possible countermeasures, this laboratory was 

converted and reclassified by the bureau in 1929 into an independent research 

agency, the Naval Ordnance Laboratory (NOL), responsible for a wide variety 

of ordnance tasks. 

Between 1918 and 1939, lean years for the Navy as a whole, Bureau of 

Ordnance funding for NOL regularly fell short of its needs. Pressed by 

competing research requirements under postwar reorganization, the bureau 

transferred funding away from mine warfare research. All mine and MCM 

research and development thereafter was limited to 20 percent of NOES 

mission, with MCM work the smallest portion of that effort. 

Despite these limitations, NOL scientists did study a variety of influences 

that could be used to activate mines, along with possible countermeasures to 

them. Such influence mines would require no actual contact with the ship’s 

hull to detonate. In addition to magnetic influences, NOL scientists isolated 

acoustic influences (sound waves made by ships moving in water) and 

pressure influences (the change in pressure on the bottom made by ship 

displacement), as well as electrical, optic, seismic, gravitational, chemical, 

and cosmic ray means of detonating mines. NOL’s attempt to actually develop 

a working magnetic mine, however, met with little success. At its lowest point 

in peacetime, the entire laboratory staff was reduced to two scientists 

responsible not only for mine and MCM work but for all U.S. Navy ordnance 

as well. As a result, MCM suffered from the lack of laboratory facilities 

dedicated to the specific study of countering mines. As one minor aspect of 

the mission of an overburdened peacetime laboratory, MCM progress 

remained stagnant. l2 

In contrast, the British actively pursued mine warfare and MCM in the 

years after World War I. British MCM specialists made advances in both 

active minesweeping and passive ship protection techniques. Fine-tuning the 

Oropesa, or “0” sweep, to provide single-ship clearance and developing better 

44 
A New Menace 

gear and offensive tactics for high-speed destroyer minesweeping, British 

MCM specialists enhanced the small force of commissioned minesweepers the 

Royal Navy had retained in service. 

Building on lessons learned from their own wartime developments and 

those of the United States in antenna mines, British mine warfare specialists 

refined magnetic influence mines and magnetic countermeasures. Between 

1918 and 1937 they scientifically measured the natural magnetic 

characteristics, or signature, of ships and developed working influence mines. 

With their increased sensitivity, discrimination, explosive force, and power 

projection, early influence mines had the potential to cause greater damage 

to existing capital ships by breaking their keels and unseating engines. Most 

influence mines could also be bottom laid, leaving no mooring cables to catch, 

and thus rendering paravanes and other mechanical minesweeping gear 

useless. 

British scientists centered their magnetic MCM efforts on developing a 

passive means to protect ships against mines by altering their magnetic 

signatures. Drawing on earlier studies of magnetic density and the scientific 

work of mathematician Karl Friedrich Gauss, they soon developed encircling 

“degaussing girdles” for ships. These electromagnetic coils could be set either 

to increase a ship’s magnetic field, thus exploding mines harmlessly at a 

distance, or to neutralize the ship’s magnetic field, thereby allowing it to pass 

over the mine. Degaussing altered the ship’s induced magnetic signature; 

“deperming” masked the permanent magnetism acquired by a ship in 

construction. “Flashing” and “wiping0 were similar, although tem orary, 

procedures designed to protect ships from magnetic influence mines. 

Disarmed by the Treaty of Versailles at the conclusion of World War I, 

Germany secretly began improving its mine warfare capability with Soviet 

assistance during the interwar years.14 When war broke out in Europe in 

1939, Germany quickly mined the coast of England, as it had in 1914, using 

its existing stock of contact mines. Putting their paravanes and stern sweeps 

back in operation and recalling to active duty their well-developed MCM naval 

reserve force, the Royal Navy was as ready to counter contact mines as any 

navy could reasonably be. 

British minesweeping squadrons began sweeping the coast, but in 

September 1939 a ship was lost inexplicably in a swept channel. Ship losses 

increased, and the British quickly added magnets to their sweep cables, 

correctly suspecting that German aircraft were planting magnetic influence 

mines. After unsuccessfully attempting to countermine the magnetic mines, 

the British discovered an intact, undetonated German magnetic mine 

dropped in error on a beach. Disassembling the mine, experts from HMS 

Vernon, the Royal Navy’s mine school, began experimenting with active and 

passive measures specifically tailored to counter the mine’s settings. l5 

British attempts to counter magnetic mines in the months after their 

R 

45 
“Damn the Torpedoes’ 

discovery took several different forms. Fitting large ships with huge 

electromagnets, they increased the ships’ influence field, generating a false 

magnetic signature to fool the mine into detonating before a ship entered 

lethal range. Shallow-water minesweeping by wooden vessels towing 

magnetized iron bars and by degaussed ships towing magnetized sleds also 

brought some success. Low-flying passes by Royal Air Force bombers 

equipped with huge, pulsating magnetized coils proved creative but 

ineffective. Seeking a more viable method, the British finally developed the 

towed “LL” sweep-two buoyant electromagnetic cables with both long- and 

short-tailed electrodes that were streamed by degaussed ships to allow 

detonation of magnetic mines over a wider path.16 

Responding to British minesweeping success, the Germans progressively 

increased the sophistication of their mines. First, they added ship counters, 

allowing between one and sixteen ships to pass before detonating, making 

minesweeping more tedious and costly by requiring repeated sweeps of the 

field. Later in 1939 they introduced acoustically-actuated mines and 

magnetic-acoustic combination mines. Unlike magnetic fields, the complex 

noises generated by ships passing through water cannot be muffled easily. To 

prevent the increasingly sensitive German microphones from detecting ship 

noise, the British developed noisemakers and, later, oscillators that could be 

towed by most vessels causing the mines to explode prematurely. German 

magnetic-acoustic mines, which would detonate only when acoustic and 

magnetic signatures were detected at the same moment, required 

simultaneous influence sweeping by both methods.17 

German use of influence mines required the British to develop new 

minesweeping tactics. The standard sweep formation for the contact mines 

of World War I, designated the “A” sweep, married two ships together with 

the sweep cable between them; but under air attack, a distinctive feature of 

KITE KITE 

An example of the “A” formation used during World War I. From Discovery 

(January 1946). 

46 
A New Menace 

BUOYANT CABLES 

I 

I 

1 

I 

I 

MINESWEEPING 

VESSEL 

AREA OF MAGNETIC FIELD PREVIOUS SURGE 

ELECTRODES -- 

The British ‘ZL” sweep. From Discovery (January 1946). 

World War 11, paired ships could not easily maneuver. Minesweeping in home 

waters had traditionally been a daytime operation, but air raids soon caused 

minesweeping forces to shift to night sweeps, making destruction of swept 

mines difficult. British improvements to the Oropesa sweep gear allowed 

vessels to sweep contact minefields singly, protecting each other in echelon. 

Under this method the “G formation became the most widely used, with 

minesweeping paths overlapping and the lead vessel, when possible, in waters 

already swept. In assault sweeps only the first ship in line was unprotected. 

By adding magnetic minesweeping gear and towed acoustic actuating devices 

to mechanical minesweepers, ships could in theory sweep singly for both 

contact and influence mines. In actual practice the minesweepers usually 

found that by steaming in pairs or small groups over the minefield they could 

intensify the influence fields and clear a larger area more quickly. Influence 

mines also made intelligence on mine types and placement crucial for the 

mines to be swept properly. 

The United States assisted Britain by transferring old ships and producing 

new ships to meet specific British needs. Among the minesweeping vessels in 

the early Lend-Lease program was a dual-purpose, 180-foot escort patrol craft 

(PCE) designed for antisubmarine warfare and minesweeping. Learning from 

British experience with influence mines, the United States altered new fleet 

minesweeper designs in production by 1941, increasing the electrical power 

necessary for magnetic and acoustic sweep devices. 

Between 1939 and 1941, urged on by a few individuals in key positions, the 

Navy Department restructured its mine warfare program. As CNO, Admiral 

Harold R. Stark encouraged the MCM interest of Captain Alexander Sharp, 

a former minelayer commander who led the planning desk of the Naval 

Districts Division. With authority over mines and countermeasures divided 

between the bureaus, the Naval Districts Division retained control only over 

minesweeping for base defense, but by default became responsible for the 

CNO’s entire mine warfare program. 

18 

19 
“Damn the Torpedoes’ 

MINESWEEPER 

DANLAYEA’S (VESSEL 

OVERLAP LAYING 

DAN-BUOY S) 

OMRIAP 

;- - 

-_- 

I DANLAYER. DANLAYEA’S (VESSEL 

OVERLAP LAYING 

DAN-BUOY S) 

The British “G sweep. From Discovery (January 1946). 

Sharp spent much of early 1940 scouting commercial vessels and fishing 

boats suitable for conversion to base and auxiliary coastal minesweepers 

(AMC). After selecting and training the first ship and crew, Sharp sent them 

from port to port to train reserve crews in basic minesweeping techniques. In 

addition to obtaining ships, Sharp worked with Lieutenant Commander 

Edward C. Craig, who manned the minesweeping desk in the Bureau of 

Construction and Repair, to survey available minesweeping gear. They found 

British influence minesweeping gear to be the most efficient. Actual selection 

of the ships to serve as sweeps, the minesweeping gear, and the method of 

degaussing was ultimately a function of the new Bureau of Ships. This 

bureau, created in June 1940 by combining the former Bureau of Engineering 

and Bureau of Construction and Repair, assigned Captain Schuyler N. Pyne 

to this duty.20 

The Navy also reorganized its research and development policy and 

laboratory administration. Redesignating its peacetime Desk N into a smaller 

Section N (Mines, Nets and Depth Charges), the Bureau of Ordnance recalled 

Commander Simon P. Fullinwider for the second time since retirement to 

head the new Section N, a subsection of a larger functional research and 

development division. During Fullinwider’s tenure the bureau led a small 

resurgence of interest in mine warfare by adding the subject to its curriculum 

at the Ordnance Postgraduate School. In addition to controlling degaussing 

at NOL, Fullinwider supervised MCM training at the new Naval Mine Depots 

at Yorktown, Virginia, and New London, Connecticut. The mine section 

competed for scarce resources with several other newly formed organizations 

both within and outside NOL, increasing the demands on the section’s small 

staff and funding.21 

48 
A New Menace 

NOL’s tiny mine warfare mission expanded quickly after the discovery of 

German magnetic mines. In response to German mining with these advanced 

weapons, Stark ordered degaussing of all US. Navy ships on a priority basis. 

By spring of 1940 British MCM advisors had delivered to NOL scientific 

information on their degaussing experiments plus a captured German 

magnetic mine. Learning the characteristics and sensitivity of the German 

mines, scientists in the laboratory centered their MCM efforts on adapting 

British passive degaussing methods to protect US. Navy ships. Recognizing 

that minesweepers by the nature of their work required more thorough 

protection from mines than other types of vessels, NOL scientists began 

developing increasingly powerful degaussing coils and improved ranges to 

measure the ships’ magnetic fields. Their study reinvigorated the laboratory, 

raising the personnel level from twenty scientists in 1940 to an average of 

eight hundred in wartime.22 

The introduction of magnetic mines and passive countermeasures 

highlighted the need for active coordination and illustrated the kind of turf 

battles that were features of the Navy’s decentralized organization. Between 

1939 and 1941 the Bureau of Ordnance, the Bureau of Engineering, and the 

Bureau of Construction and Repair (Bureau of Ships after 1940) fought over 

control and development of individual components of MCM. Escalating 

controversy between the bureaus forced the Secretary of the Navy and the 

CNO to intervene. Because of NOL’s activity, control of degaussing design and 

measurement was given to the Bureau of Ordnance and installation and 

powering of degaussing coils was given to the Bureau of Ships. In a separate 

struggle, minesweeping technology, particularly the development of active 

influence minesweeping, was retained by the Bureau of Ships. Further 

confusing this divided responsibility was the fact that magnetic 

minesweeping by aircraft, still under development, had previously been 

assigned to the Bureau of Aeronautics. Admiral Stark depended on Sharp to 

coordinate the efforts of all the bureaus. Still, working relationships between 

the bureaus responsible for MCM remained so troublesome throughout the 

war, observers noted that the only solution was for personnel to bypass official 

~hannels.2~ 

The Bureau of Ships set up a research group and established a Mine Testing 

Station on Solomons Island, Maryland, in Chesapeake Bay to test new 

minesweeping equipment, develop new sweep instructions, and conduct new 

MCM research. The Solomons facility consisted of only two test vessels that 

were used for both mine and torpedo countermeasures experiments; it was 

not, however, a laboratory or a dedicated MCM testing facility. Between 1939 

and 1942 the bureau produced few new countermeasures, preferring instead 

to test and refine British equipment. Lieutenant Commander Hyman G. 

Rickover, one of the few naval officers who had previously commanded a 

minesweeper, brought back a small section of sweep cable from England and 

49 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

adapted the British magnetic sweep cable to American minesweepers at his 

lab in the Electrical Section of the Bureau of Ships. Although the bureau 

ordered sufficient gear to outfit available minesweepers, inadequate 

replacements were procured. A few early losses wiped out all reserve gear 

until nearly the end of the 

Another mine warfare priority was the designation and outfitting of 

minesweeping vessels. The few old steel “Bird”-class minesweepers in 

commission had obsolete and deteriorating mechanical minesweeping 

equipment, but by June 1940 the new Bureau of Ships had degaussed them 

and added magnetic sweep equipment to their mechanical gear. Others of 

their class were recommissioned. Anumber of older destroyers and submarine 

chasers were converted for tactical use as fast assault minesweepers (DMS). 

Sharp’s thirty-five large wooden fishing vessels, mostly tuna boats (also given 

bird names), worked so well that many of their features were incorporated 

into the Navy‘s new fleet of seventy 1941 Accentor-class auxiliary coastal 

minesweepers, 97-foot craft capable of speeds up to ten knots. Smaller fishing 

vessels became yard patrol craft and harbor minesweepers, and their 

capabilities influenced the design of a class of small wooden yard motor 

minesweepers (YMS), 116 of which were laid down before 1941. In addition 

to the YMSs built for future American needs, many YMSs were constructed 

for other navies under Lend Lease. 

Construction began almost immediately on two experimental models of a 

220-foot steel fleet minesweeper prototype for the Raven and Auk (AM) 

classes. To crew these new and converted vessels, Chief of the Bureau of Naval 

Personnel Rear Admiral Chester W. Nimitz a eed with Sharp’s request to 

recall reservists to begin immediate training. 

Largely through Sharp’s vigorous coordination, a sense of direction 

coalesced the U.S. Navy MCM program by 1941. After completion of its 

degaussing studies in 1941, NOL turned most of its assets away from MCM 

to mine development, and responsibility for degaussing shifted to the Naval 

Districts Division. Personnel assigned to the growing mine force 

experimented with new sweep methods and equipment at the Naval Mine 

Depot at Yorktown, and Sharp soon gained the cooperation of both the Bureau 

of Ordnance and the Bureau of Ships to set up a separate Mine Warfare School 

nearby. Students in the first class, which graduated in May 1941, used school 

ships to practice clearing live mines, the first such exercise in over two 

decades. These graduates became the first commanding officers of the 

expanded minesweeping force. Between 1940 and 1945 the school trained over 

10,000 naval reserve officers in all aspects of mine warfare, from electricity 

and electronics to mine operation and countermeasures.z6 

At Sharp’s suggestion his successor in OPNAV, Lieutenant Commander R. 

D. Hughes, was assigned in 1941 to a new mine warfare desk in the Naval 

Districts Division (OP-30-C) with authority restricted to defensive mine 

2$ 

50 
A New Menace 

warfare and countermeasures. Agraduate both of the Naval Academy and the 

first Mine Warfare School class and an active student of British mine warfare, 

Hughes obtained assistants in mine disposal and minesweeping and soon 

became the Navy’s principal mine warfare expert. Reorganization the 

following year reduced his desk to a Mine Warfare Section in the Base 

Maintenance Division under a senior officer. 

His official title and OPNAV position reflected little of his true importance 

to the overall MCM effort for, as Sharp had before him, Hughes acted as 

informal liaison between all units to promote cooperation. Throughout the 

war he remained the driving force behind the U.S. mine warfare program. 

His Mine Warfare Section centralized coordination of all the diverse MCM 

projects throughout the Navy by analyzing operational requirements and 

providing information and direction to the bureaus on mine warfare needs. 

The section collected information on mine warfare in each phase so that 

lessons learned were applied in subsequent operations, and it supervised the 

training and distribution of mine warfare personnel. From 1941 to 1945 this 

office also produced a classified professional journal, Mine Warfare Notes, to 

keep all personnel in the different bureaus and sections abreast of new 

technical developments, intelligence, and operational experiences. 

Minesweepers assigned to the Fourteenth Naval District (Hawaii) gave the 

first notice of the Japanese attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor 

when they sighted a periscope during a routine, early morning, minesweeping 

operation. During the ensuing action the senior mine warfare officer, 

Commander Mine Division One, lost his ship, OgZaZu (CM-41, while the 

minesweeper Tern (AM-31) rescued sailors and fought fires on battleships 

Arizona (BB-39) and West Virginia (BB-48). Although the minesweepers 

were not the focus of the Japanese attack and suffered relatively little 

damage, their sailors joined in Pearl Harbor’s defense by manning every gun 

they could find and bringing down some Japanese bombers.28 

Navy-wide unfamiliarity with MCM tactics and the complexities of 

integrating the mine force into fleet operations clearly called for creative 

MCM leadership in wartime, but the US. Navy had done little to develop a 

mine warfare leadership cadre. After ?earl Harbor, Admiral Stark did the 

next best thing by assigning mine warfare liaison officers to the individual 

fleet staffs to integrate information on mines and countermeasures into 

tactical planning and operations. 

In early 1942 German U-boats laid over three hundred influence mines in 

small fields off Delaware Bay; Chesapeake Bay; Jacksonville, Florida; and 

Charleston, South Carolina; closing the ports for several days and effectively 

restricting fleet MCM units to eliminating the immediate threat in home 

waters. In June German submarines remined the entrance to Chesapeake 

Bay and Hampton Roads, Virginia, sinking two ships, damaging one, and 

sealing off vital Norfolk naval ship traffic for four days. Despite thorough 

27 

51 
“Damn the Torpedoes 

sweeping by ships from the Yorktown Mine Warfare School, SS Santore hit a 

mine and went down in an area already believed cleared, causing sweepers 

to tighten up operations to counter German remining. Although the Navy 

hastily converted 125 fishing trawlers to minesweepers, some American ports 

were closed by mines for over a month.29 

Forced to stretch limited assets to provide quick and effective clearance for 

several important ports, the Navy in 1941 adopted nearly wholesale the 

British practice of clearing “Q routes, that is, specified channels between 

harbors that needed to be constantly surveyed and swept for protection 

against both submarines and mines. At twenty-eight U.S. ports and harbors, 

Army, Navy, and Coast Guard forces strung large steel nets across the harbor 

entrances to deter enemy submarines and rigged large booms to defend 

against attack on the surface, all MCM measures of an earlier age. To patrol 

the coastline and to provide adequate home-port MCM capability, the United 

States ultimately employed over 260 fishing boats converted to minesweepers 

on combined harbor patrol and minesweeping duty.30 

Once the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, America began to develop a 

large-scale MCM force. Immediate congressional budget increases and 

escalating German air and submarine minelaying allowed the Navy to spend 

more money on MCM, particularly on new ships and gear. New minesweeper 

construction took advantage of available wood and woodworking capabilities 

in U.S. yacht and boat yards, rather than of improved theories of MCM ship 

design, and relied upon the lines of the converted trawlers and minesweepers 

of World War I. Depending on degaussing for passive protection of all 

minesweepers from magnetic mines, the Bureau of Ships built both steel 

minesweepers and wooden vessels constructed with substantial amounts of 

iron and steel equipment, and did not seek to design ships with nonmagnetic 

qualities and materials for protection. 

The post-Pearl Harbor building program also included the 184-foot 

Admirable-class AM, a steel, 14-knot ship that was mass produced as a 

minesweeping, patrol escort, and degaussing vessel. These ships were good 

minesweepers with auxiliary engines powerful enough to generate the 

electrical power required for magnetic sweeping. The smaller YMSs, 

wooden-hulled ships originally designed for coastal operations, proved 

capable of countering magnetic mines and adaptable to the requirements of 

overseas deployment. The YMSs were so popular with the U.S. and foreign 

navies that they accounted for almost all influence clearing and exploratory 

sweeping, yet they remained vulnerable to increasingly sensitive magnetic 

influence fusing technology. Concern for the damage caused by mines had 

similarly little effect on wartime capital ship design, and ship protection 

against mines while underway continued to depend on degaussing and 

paravanes. 

Additional minecraft and expanded missions called for reorganization of 

31 

52 
A New Menace 

National Archives 19-N-55263 

Notable (AM-267), an Admirable-class auxiliary minesweeper. 

the mine force. The Base Force, U.S. Fleet, was abolished in February 1941 

and became Base Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet. There was no actual change, 

however, in the command structure from the old Minecraft, Battle Force, 

although additional minecraft were added to the Base Force, U.S. Pacific 

Fleet, in anticipation of war. Individual minesweepers reported to Training 

Squadron 6 (later Service Squadron 6). Minelayers were originally assigned 

to Commander Minecraft, Battle Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet, but this command 

was abolished in a Pacific Fleet reorganization of April 1942, and the units 

were combined with the minesweepers in Service Squadron 6. 

In August 1942 active and reserve minesweepers in the Atlantic Fleet came 

under the administrative control of Vice Admiral Sharp as the new 

Commander Service Force, Atlantic, through Commander Service Squadron 

5 at Norfolk. Quickly preparing his fleet for combat operations, Sharp 

reorganized minesweeper administration, readiness, and training for 

deployment and generally acted as type commander. Until October 1944, 

however, there was no specialized mine warfare command or centralized 

53 
"Damn the Torpedoes" 

'I 4 

I .. I -- ... . 1.. 

. .. 

& .t 

National Archives 80-GK-1713 

The crew of battleship New Mexico (BB-40) deploys a paravane in the Pacific 

Ocean, 1944. 

control of mine warfare vessels in the Pacific comparable to the Atlantic 

Development of MCM tactical employment continued to suffer from a 

general lack of line officer knowledge of mine warfare. To promote better 

interaction between civilian scientists studying MCM techniques and the 

naval personnel employing practical MCM methods, Dr. Ellis Johnson, a 

scientist at NOL, formed a wargaming group in early 1942. Scientists from 

NOL and minesweeping experts from the Bureau of Ships met in the evenings 

to develop hypothetical offensive and defensive mine situations and to 

formulate MCM strategy. In 1942 this wargaming group combined with a 

parallel study group in the Bureau of Ordnance, and moved to OPNAV's Mine 

Warfare Section as the Mine Warfare Operational Research Group. Most 

active in 1942 and 1943, the Operational Research Group studied German 

mining tactics, planned offensive mining strategies, developed effective 

countermeasures, and solved several mine disposal, sweeping, and 

degaussing problems. 

~1~t.32 

33 

54 
A New Menace 

Operational experience against contact and magnetic mines in support of 

Allied amphibious operations during the Mediterranean campaign 

reintegrated the reformed U.S. minesweeping force into the fleet for the first 

time since World War I. Because of the enemy's preference for contact and 

simple magnetic mines, these minesweeping operations remained nearly as 

technically uncomplicated as those of interwar fleet exercises. Raven (AM-55) 

and Osprey (AM-56) did exploratory assault sweeping for the invasion of 

North Africa in November 1942 and later served as landing craft control 

vessels. Allied landings at Sicily, Salerno, and Anzio pitched U.S. 

minesweeping forces into assaults against both sea and shallow-water land 

mines. At Salerno insufficient time allotted to clear the minefields resulted 

in the loss of one ship. In the landing of U.S. forces on the beaches at 

Anzio-Nettuno in January 1944, a large group of twenty-three minesweepers 

swept the approaches in time for the assault force's arrival and found that 

maneuvering in the crowded waters made ship traffic a greater hazard than 

the mines themselves. Minesweepers operating in this theater between 1942 

and early 1944 were thus able to relearn crucial MCM lessons about the need 

for prior planning, properly equipping minesweepers, and control over their 

own forces. 34 

. ... . 

d. I- 

.- 

National Archives 1SN-23990 

Osprey (AM-56) took part in the preparatory assault sweep for the Allied 

invasion of North Africa in November 1942. 

55 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

The greatest amphibious challenge to the Allied forces fighting Germany 

was the invasion of France. Mines were a significant factor in preinvasion 

planning. Although constant Allied night attacks in the months preceding the 

landing at Normandy had prevented intensive German minelaying in the 

English Channel, mines were expected to pose a bigger problem in French 

harbors. Inaccurate early intelligence for a planned invasion at Normandy 

indicated that contact mines, not influence type mines, were the biggest 

threat. In reality the real challenge to the MCM forces off the coast of France 

turned out to be a new type of influence mine. These particular pressure 

mines, called “oysters,” were developed in Germany in 1940 and were 

activated when the pressure on the mine dropped at least two inches for at 

least seven secondothe average pressure drop caused by a 120-foot ship 

passing at ten knots. 

Although there was neither a known countermeasure for these mines nor 

a passive or active measure guaranteed to deceive the mines into prematurely 

firing, the British believed that they would not detonate when ships passed 

them slowly at four knots. Fearing that the Allies would exploit, counter, and 

use pressure mines against the German Navy, the German Naval Staff had 

withheld them from service for most of the war. In early 1944 Adolph Hitler 

personally ordered that 4,000 pressure mines be sown around Normandy, Le 

Have, and Cherbourg to block Allied invasion attempts.35 

British information on possible German pressure mines led 

COMINCH/CNO Admiral Ernest J. King to direct the Bureau of Ships in early 

1944 to develop countermeasures against the German mines. Although the 

threat of pressure mines was known earlier, little progress to counter them 

had been made. Now, with King‘s interest, scientists at the Solomons Island 

test station developed a displacement sweep in only sixteen days. This device, 

a large towed barge designed to explode pressure mines by creating the 

change in hydrostatic pressure needed to fire them, could not, however, 

protect the ship towing the barge. 

As scientists worked to correct this problem, the fleet tried alternate 

approaches to counter pressure minefields. Through statistical analysis the 

British identified possible safe speeds at which different types of ships could 

slowly pass over pressure mines without detonating them. Some destroyer 

commanders planned to fire these mines by steaming toward them at high 

speed and making a full rudder, high-speed turn away from the field, 

propagating a swell toward the minefield. This procedure usually proved too 

hazardous or, as in the case of combination settings, ineffective. 

Countermining also failed to actuate pressure mines. Until actual German 

pressure mines could be recovered and exploited, Allied forces had to rely on 

intelligence estimates of the mines’ p~tential.~~ 

Thus the Allied fleet neither expected to meet much opposition from 

pressure mines nor had developed an effective method to counter them. In 

56 
A New Menace 

advance of the assault on Normandy, 245 Allied minesweeping vessels swept 

approaches from the English coast toward the landing area with standard 

contact and influence minesweeping gear, marking paths with both lighted 

and sonic buoys. Because of concurrent American naval actions in the Pacific, 

the British provided the preponderance of naval forces for the landing. Of the 

306 minesweeping vessels ultimately in the invading force, only 32 were from 

the U.S. Navy-11 Raven-class AMs and 21 YMSs, all in the American sector 

of the proposed landing area. 

Consistent with intelligence estimates, the Germans had indeed mined the 

channel close to Cherbourg with a line of contact mines, some with antennas. 

Most of these mines had, however, passed their timed life cycle and were inert 

by June 1944. There was little hint during the approach that more advanced 

influence mines awaited the invading force in harbor waters. 

As the American forces swept the English Channel, moving toward 

Normandy, rough weather made complete clearance impossible. On 5 June 

Osprey hit a mine and sank while sweeping with U.S. Mine Squadron 7. The 

combined US., British, and Canadian mine force approaching the American 

sector had difficulty navigating accurately in the rough seas and darkness. 

The minesweepers preceding the landing force swept tightly in formation. On 

approaching Utah Beach on 6 June 1944, the invasion force detonated 

magnetic mines, losing several combatant ships and at least sixteen landing 

craft .37 

Despite mechanical and influence minesweeping, Allied losses to mines at 

Normandy at first seemed a balanced risk. Only after the landing did 

minesweeping and minehunting reveal massive minefields containing 

*. 1 

-I-@:-- .?@ "- -- - 

National Archiven 80-6661617 

Tide (AM-125) sinks after hitting a mine off Omaha Beach, 7 June 1944, one 

day after the Normandy invasion. 

57 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

hundreds of pressure and combination pressure-acoustic mines that the 

landing force had luckily missed. 

Throughout the following summer, Allied minesweepers worked to develop 

a method to defeat the pressure mines. Observing that summer storms often 

created sufficient pressure swells to set them off, they began sweeping 

acoustically for combination pressure-acoustic mines during such weather. To 

defeat the weather, the Germans, whose aircraft continued mining the 

Allied-controlled waters, merely readjusted their pressure settings for coarser 

sensitivities. 

Analysis of German advanced combination mines found in Cherbourg, 

captured by the U.S. Army on 27 June, made the full extent of the German 

mine defenses clearer and more daunting and changed the focus of Allied 

MCM operations and policy. The mixed minefields found at Cherbourg 

contained thousands of contact, magnetic, and pressure mines, some fitted 

with ship counters. Intermingled with shipwrecks and underwater 

obstructions were also unused ordnance and clever “Katie” mines, which were 

concrete-encased charges on tripods rigged so that sweep wires would simply 

roll the tripods aside, allowing the mines to right themselves to hit a real ship. 

Clearance required divers, salvage efforts, and constant, repetitive sweeps 

for all types of mines. Allied forces off Cherbourg swept eight times a day for 

eighty-five days and found that the majority of the thickly laid mines in and 

around the harbor required multiple actuations or planting of individual 

countermines by divers.39 

Although largely missed at the time, the meaning of the experience at 

Normandy for MCM was profound. Influence mines had radically altered the 

MCM requirements of most navies. No longer could minesweepers proceed 

into unknown waters towing only one type of sweep gear to meet the threat 

of a simple mine. The only true counter to increasingly complex mines and 

mixed minefields was minehunting: the identification of minefields and the 

exact characteristics of the mines within them, a costly and difficult process. 

Active hunting of such minefields by any MCM force required close 

integration of emerging technology. 

The sharp increase in the numbers of pressure and combination mines 

found at Normandy and Cherbourg did, however, immediately challenge the 

MCM priorities of the Allied forces. As American ships joined in the long-term 

effort to clear the mines from French waters, Admiral King ordered that 

advanced MCM development be made the highest priority and that all 

laboratories and bureaus develop research and construction projects to 

address the problem posed by sophisticated mines. Hughes and the OPNAV 

Mine Warfare Section continued their efforts to coordinate the different 

programs within the U.S. Navy?’ 

In this redoubled effort American and British scientists centered their work 

on traditional sweeping of these advanced mines with combinations of 

38 

58 
A New Menace 

actuating devices that used water-filled balloons and displacement barges to 

trigger the mines’ pressure mechanisms. At NOL tugs towed the “Loch Ness 

Monster,” a huge nylon sleeve with a very large mouth forward and a small 

opening aft that would take in a large volume of water which accelerated 

within the sleeve and departed the after end fast enough to reduce pressure 

in its wake. The device was later sent to the Pacific Fleet to sweep American 

pressure mines but was never operationally tested. Good in theory, the Loch 

Ness Monster proved physically unmanageable. 

Scientists at the David Taylor Model Basin developed a towed barge called 

an “egg crate,” and those at the Bureau of Yards and Docks developed a similar 

“cube steak.” Unfortunately these towed barges cleared few mines when 

tested in European waters. Other scientists tried to alter water pressure with 

countermines. 

The only successful and practical scheme developed to counter pressure 

mines by running something ship-like over them was the use of expendable 

“guinea pig” ships-Liberty ships padded and filled with buoyant materials 

and remotely piloted from above decks or from the deck of another vessel. The 

Germans used such ships throughout the war to clear paths through influence 

minefields, whereas the Allies used them mainly to check cleared passages.41 

Advances in sonar and magnetic detectors showed promise for minehunting 

application. Scientists at the Navy Electronics Laboratory in San Diego, 

California, installed active sonar mine detection units aboard some U.S. 

submarines, allowing them to prowl safely through Japanese fields of moored 

.I 

4 

Courtesy US. NavalInstitute 

The skeleton crew of this “guinea pig” ship uses helmets and mattresses above 

decks for shock protection from influence mine detonation. 

59 
“Damn the Torpedoes’ 

contact mines. The Navy also experimented with towed underwater magnetic 

mine detectors, and mines found were usually disposed of by trained explosive 

ordnance disposal (EOD) divers. EOD units and underwater demolition teams 

(UDT) were also deployed to reconnoiter beach approaches for mines on 

assault landings. U.S. Navy divers and Navy hydrographic units, who often 

accompanied minesweeping task groups in the Pacific to chart and mark 

swept channels, were often integrated into MCM operations!2 

Minesweeping vessels continued to lead advancing U.S. naval forces in all 

theaters during the last year of the war. In the Mediterranean in 1944, most 

minesweepers swept for contact mines, but the real advance in 

Mediterranean MCM tactics was the use of aircraft to vector ships through 

minefields in shallower waters. 

Lighter-than-air vehicles, particularly blimp K-109, guided the U.S. Navy‘s 

Mine Squadron 11 and Mine Division 18 through the Mediterranean 

minefields, ultimately assisting in the identification of eighty-six mines in 

these waters. Blimps were the first U.S. air assets to spot mines successfully 

for minesweeping forces. At Key West, Florida, in November 1944 a Navy 

blimp also participated in mine destruction. Over a seven-day period, one of 

these airships used a 50-caliber machine gun to sink twenty-two mines raised 

to the surface by minesweepers in the first operational combined air and 

surface mine clearance operation in the U.S. Navy. 

Until the U.S. Navy began offensive operations against the Japanese in the 

Pacific, mine warfare on both sides in that theater proceeded haphazardly. 

The Japanese had both the ability and expertise to sow deep sea fields with 

improved contact mines set at depths of 1,500 to 3,500 feet, yet they rarely 

did, preferring to use the weapons defensively to protect their own coasts. 

Using a mixture of German-type magnetic mines and old British contact 

mines from World War I, the Japanese apparently either plotted their 

minefields poorly or navigated their ships badly; their mines sank four of their 

own vessels in Pacific waters before 1942.44 

US. submarines began mining the Pacific in 1942 with both moored contact 

and early magnetic mines. U.S. magnetic mines planted off Bangkok, 

Haiphong, and the Hainan Strait in particular were extremely effective, 

claiming one victim for every eight mines laid. Of six U.S. mines laid at 

Haiphong by British forces in 1943, three sunk ships and the remainder kept 

the Japanese out of that port throughout the rest of the war!5 

As Navy planners developed their Pacific strategy to defeat the Japanese 

Navy, they expected minesweeping vessels to lead amphibious assault 

operations, and the various laboratories and MCM units responded with 

improved equipment. Pacific Fleet minesweeping task groups consisted of 

new YMSs, new and converted AMs, and DMSs designed to conduct 

exploratory moored sweeps at high speeds in assault forces. To allow these 

ships to clear shallow waters up to the shoreline, scientists at the Solomons 

43 

60 
A New Menace 

test station used captured German fast minesweeping equipment to develop 

lighter “5-G sweep gear. NOL’s experiments with a minehunting underwater 

ordnance locator nicknamed “King Kong,” a 6-foot towed electromagnetic 

detector used to find lost ordnance buried in the silt off the Yorktown test 

station, led to the development of magnetic devices capable of detecting 

everything from mines and small arms to submarines. Navy-wide 

improvements in navigation, particularly in the development of the dead 

reckoning tracer and navigational radar, assisted forces in the Pacific by 

allowing MCM vessels to maintain a safer, steadier track through minefields 

and to mark swept paths pre~isely.~~ 

Concerned by rumors of advanced Japanese mine technology, Admiral King 

continued to press for high priority development of maximum MCM 

capabilities for the advancing Pacific Fleet. Stung by reports prepared for him 

by British experts imported to analyze American MCM, which cited the US. 

Navy’s ‘lack of preparation in the field of mine location,” King personally 

selected the best personnel to man the Navy’s new mine disposal units. To 

assist ships and divers in locating advanced mines in the Pacific, King 

directed the Bureau of Ships to develop a program based on the Underwater 

Ordnance Locator produced by General Electric and ordered these locators 

placed on Navy ships:’ 

Pacific Fleet minecraft, both minelayers and minesweepers, had remained 

under the command of Service Squadron 6 since 1942. That organization had 

grown immensely in size and, as one participant noted, there was no 

“centralized control” of mine warfare vessels in that fleet. In October 1944 

Vice Admiral Sharp voluntarily gave up his third star and reverted to rear 

admiral for the opportunity to command the first MCM type command, 

Minecraft, Pacific Fleet. With that command came the unprecedented 

opportunity for a dual administrative and operational command, as Sharp 

also became the operational commander of Task Group 52.2, Mine Flotilla, 

for the advance on Japan. With Sharp’s minesweepers in the vanguard, U.S. 

forces reentered the Philippines, sweeping hundreds of contact mines while 

assault vessels cut many more with their paravanes:8 

Sharp’s forces expanded as he moved quickly through the Pacific, 

participating in most major operations along the way, including Leyte, 

Lingayen Gulf, Corregidor, and Iwo Jima. By the time he reached Okinawa, 

Sharp commanded the largest minesweeping fleet ever assembled by the US. 

Navy. Seventy-five minesweeping ships and 45 assisting ships scoured over 

3,000 square miles off southern Okinawa for a week in advance of the 1 April 

1945 landing, accounting for 222 contact mines. Sweep operations continued 

during the two-month contest despite repeated kamikaze attacks. Four of 

Sharp’s minesweepers sank at Okinawa and 16 were damaged, but his MCM 

force accounted for over 510 contact mines swept and 95 aircraft shot do.^.^' 

Minesweepers in the Pacific faced their biggest test in the last offensive 

61 
"Damn the Torpedoes" 

- __. . . . n. -. *--r .. . 

. .. -. 

National Archives 8OG-303838 

Motor minesweeper YMS-362 off Iwo Jima during that invasion, February 1945. 

minesweeping operation of the war. Until mid-1945, the only significant 

obstacles in the sweepers' path had been contact mines laid by the Japanese. 

While preparing for the amphibious assault at Balikpapan, Dutch Borneo, in 

June 1945, Pacific Fleet minesweepers for the first time faced a large body of 

influence mines laid by other US. and Allied forces. Surprisingly, this was 

the first time that American MCM forces encountered American influence 

mines, and the result shocked the mine force. In a crucial preassault sweep 

covering sixteen days, the ships, mostly YMSs, swept four successive 

segments of the minefield, clearing Japanese contact and British and 

American influence mines planted in increasingly sensitive waves as they 

neared the shore. The little YMSs, although made of wood, housed magnetic 

engines and equipment, and their signatures made them dangerously 

vulnerable to the more advanced Allied mines. To the horror of the 

minesweeping fleet, seven of these capable ships were sunk. Overall, the 

sweep of Balikpapan was a resounding success for the amphibious forces, 

which arrived to find a path clear for the assault. The MCM forces recognized, 

however, that the high cost in minesweeper casualties was a clear sign that 

they were ill-equipped to deal with advanced mines, even those of their own 

design5' 

As U.S. naval forces closed in on Japan in 1945, they began to plan for 

another large-scale offensive mining campaign to end this war as they had 

the last one. Operation Starvation, the strategic aerial mining of Japanese 

coastal and inland waters, concentrated on closing the Shimonoseki Straits 

to seal off Japan from Asian food supplies and major shipping routes. 

Immediate plans for minelaying were complicated by the need to determine 

the type of mines to be used, planting methods, and the countermeasures 

required to clear them. To be effective, the mining of Japan had to be fast, 

62 
A New Menace 

efficient, and difficult to counter. Army Air Force bombers delivering the most 

advanced American combination influence mines were able to lay the fields 

quickly and effectively. According to the Hague Convention of 1907, however, 

the United States could not legally plant mines that their forces could not 

sweep. 

With the effort to develop countermeasures already pressed to the limit, 

Fleet Admiral King sought a solution to comply with the Hague Convention. 

Ultimately, King authorized the use of some virtually unsweepable American 

mines, including combination mines and acoustic mines sensitive only to'low 

frequency vibrations, but ordered that they be equipped with timed sterilizers 

designed to turn the mines off or to render them inert. US. Army B-29s 

planted 12,135 American influence mines in Japanese waters in successive 

waves. Another 13,000 mines were laid by aircraft and submarines over a 

wide area of the Pacific. Borrowing yet another British practice, the Bureau 

of Ordnance sent a Mine Modification Unit of experts to alter mine settings 

on station, making the mines increasingly sensitive in order to confuse 

Japanese clearance teams. As Japanese minesweepers swept, the bombers 

returned and remined swept waters with different and more deadly mines.52 

Japanese attempts to counter the American mines using traditional MCM 

means had only limited success. They tried mine spotters, magnetic and 

acoustic sweeps, countermines, radar, searchlights, sweep nets, and divers 

and apparently also had some ships run through fields with only a bow watch 

armed with rifles. Continuous remining, aided by the tracking of Japanese 

countermeasures efforts by US. aerial photography, sank or damaged 670 

Japanese ships, accounting for a significant portion of the maritime trade. 

After the war knowledgeable Japanese naval officers conceded that the 

mining of Japan and the significant reduction of merchant vessels by losses 

to mines had helped strangle the nation.53 

By the time the United States dropped the atomic bombs ending the war, 

the American offensive mining operation in Japanese waters had succeeded 

in proving the effectiveness of mine warfare. In the aftermath of victory, 

however, the deeper lessons of the US. Navy's mine warfare operations in the 

Pacific were, to one extent or another, quickly obscured by this very success. 

The massive minelaying effort had redefined mines as the weapons of 

powerful dations, but few outside the MCM community would remember the 

much more extensive effort required to clear the advanced influence mines 

only recently deployed.54 

The need for effective mine countermeasures did not end with the surrender 

of Germany and Japan. The extent of mine clearance efforts by each nation 

after the war depended in large part on national priorities. Allied forces 

worked assiduously to clear the heavily mined waters of Northern Europe 

and the Mediterranean, learning much in the process about the nature of 

various types of influence mines discovered. US. Pacific Fleet MCM ships, 

51 

63 
“Damn the Torpedoes’ 

forced to clear paths through thousands of Japanese contact and American 

influence mines to retrieve Allied prisoners of war and to land occupying 

forces, found the task far more difficult than had been anticipated b those 

who estimated that mine clearance would take one year to complete. 

Throughout the war the US. Navy had prepared to meet the threat of 

advanced influence mines by seeking to develop effective countermeasures 

for each type and setting. Operational forces, however, only rarely 

encountered them, and by October 1945 US. minesweepers had acquired only 

limited experience in clearing influence mines, having swept over 10,173 

contact mines, but only 467 influence mines, in all theaters. 

Clearance of over 25,000 influence mines remaining in Pacific waters was 

a formidable task facing American minesweepers. Lacking the forces and 

technology to stage a massive sweep of all the mines, the United States formed 

a policy of sweeping only essential waters “on a minimum risk basis for U.S. 

forces.” To counter mines lacking sterilizing features, Sharp’s successor, Rear 

Admiral Arthur D. Struble, attempted aerial countermining without notable 

success, and finally resorted to guinea pig ships to accomplish their limited 

mission. 

American naval officers in command of the sweeping operation greatly 

underestimated the time required to sweep mines of such complexity in 

Pacific waters by traditional sweep methods. To complete clearance, the 

existing Japanese minesweeping forces were ordered to sweep waters not 

deemed essential to U.S. forces. Beginning in September 1945, 350 small 

Japanese vessels, under the command of Captain Kyuzo Tamura and assisted 

by US. vessels, swept constantly in the coastal waters around Japan. All U.S. 

assets were withdrawn in May 1946 after reportedly sweeping 12,000 mines 

in 22,000 square miles. One Navy official estimated in 1946 that it would take 

about two years to complete the clearance of mines in Japanese waters. 

Thereafter the small Japanese minesweeping fleet continued methodically 

sweeping under the authority of Commander U.S. Naval Forces, Japan (later 

Commander Naval Forces, Far East [COMNAWEI). In 1971, estimates noted 

that after twenty-six years of swee ing, more than 2,000 sensitive influence 

mines remained in shallow waters. 

Few Navy leaders realized how much of their success in countering mines 

during World War I1 was due to adaptation of British MCM technology, tactics, 

and applications. The Royal Navy by contrast did not forget that in both world 

wars mines had damaged more British ships than torpedoes. Even as they 

demobilized their 700-ship coastal minesweeping force, the British continued 

their MCM shipbuilding program, laying up partially completed new 

minesweepers and minehunters for future employment. 

In the inevitable postwar demobilization the US. Navy faced similarly 

tough questions concerning ship retention and future missions. During the 

war over 950 ships, including 283 fleet minesweepers, joined the MCM fleet. 

& 

56 

!7 

64 
A New Menace 

Only 58 were casualties; the relatively low number for a dangerous occupation 

reflects the low number of influence mines faced. But major questions of 

service unification, establishment of the Navy as the forward line of defense 

against advances by the Soviets (quickly identified as the next major military 

threat), and incorporation of nuclear weapons overshadowed mine warfare 

matters and revented them from featuring prominently in postwar 

restructuring. 

Planning for offensive warfare against Soviet submarines revolved around 

air, surface, and undersea assets; it put high priority on the development of 

hunterkiller ships, submarines, and antisubmarine warfare forces. In 

attempting to reduce the Navy to a balanced mix of forces that could 

adequately counter the expected threats, Navy planners included 

minesweepers as one element of the balanced force needed for amphibious 

operations. Basing their planning on the overwhelming success of 

minesweeping forces in World War I1 operations, and not on lessons learned 

by the mine force in operations such as those at Balikpapan, planners failed 

to note that even when using all known conventional MCM methods, U.S. 

forces had more trouble sweeping their own mines laid in Asian waters than 

those of the enemy.59 

Other lessons went unlearned because few experienced men remained in 

the mine force to remember them. Few naval officers had experiences 

comparable to those of Alexander Sharp, who had personally reordered 

wartime MCM priorities in OPNAV, then successively served as type 

commander for MCM ships in both the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets, and did 

double duty as operational commander of minecraft in the Pacific. When the 

war was over, Sharp retired, and the core of the MCM force, the reservists, 

returned to civilian life. Once again mine warfare became the province of the 

few interested individuals remaining on active duty. 

In the postwar reorganization of the fleet seven type commands were 

created, each responsible for the condition and readiness of different types of 

ships. This restructuring increased Navy professionalism through 

subspecialties within many individual communities Navy-wide, including 

MCM. In the Atlantic Fleet in April 1946 a type command for minecraft, 

known as Mine Force, Atlantic Fleet (MINELANT), replaced the MCM 

portion of the Service Force, creating a parallel organization to Minecraft, 

Pacific Fleet. Yet a few months later in January 1947, in further 

reorganization, CNO Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz reduced the Pacific Fleet 

MCM forces to a handful of ships and eliminated the Minecraft, Pacific Fleet, 

type command. Responsibility for minesweeping in the Pacific then became 

a collateral duty of the service and cruiser-destroyer forces.6' 

The wartime U.S. Navy MCM force successfully countered mines and 

materially assisted in crucial amphibious assault landings with relatively 

little loss. Except at Balikpapan, where advanced influence mines took the 

& 

65 
“Damn the Torpedoes’ 

heaviest toll on the minesweeping fleet, such success seemed on reflection 

easily gained. But underpinning that success was an element of luck; had 

more advanced influence mines been present in the American sweep sectors 

at Normandy and Cherbourg or had the Japanese laid more of their own 

influence mines throughout the Pacific, the lessons learned by the Navy as a 

whole might have been far different from the ready mastery over mines 

remembered immediately after 1945. 

More thoughtful observers reviewing the Navy’s mine warfare program in 

1946 pointedly asserted that solving the MCM problems that remained after 

the war would require additional study, resources, and staff. Recommending 

that a high priority peacetime MCM program be developed to meet the 

challenge of countering advanced influence mines, these observers included 

prevention of minelaying, development of mine locating devices for 

minehunting, and new minesweeping equipment among items of immediate 

concern. Noting the absence of active duty naval officers from mine warfare, 

these observers also suggested establishment of a high-visibility program to 

familiarize all military officers with mine warfare matters through better 

officer training programs at staff colleges, service academies, and flight 

schools.61 

Throughout the war the Navy succeeded in developing a quick-fix approach 

to MCM that allowed another generation of U.S. naval officers to “damn” the 

effects of sea mines. But in a transition unnoticed by many of these officers, 

advanced influence mines, particularly pressure mines that required accurate 

intelligence on mine type and placement for effective clearance, changed the 

focus of MCM from a low-profile profession with easily fabricated solutions to 

a complex one that required a long-term focus. Influence mines had 

immeasurably magnified the potential of mine employment against the U.S. 

Navy. Yet this critical lesson, made so clear by wartime experience, went 

largely ignored at war’s end, with inevitable consequences for the combat 

ahead. 

66 
3 

The Wonsan Generation: 

Lessons Relearned 

1945-1965 

mericans rejoiced in success after World War 11, celebrating the end of 

evaluating the success of recent operations, but the focus of American 

attention on mine warfare in the postwar period remained steadily on the 

contributions of effective minelaying campaigns and the proficiency of the 

minesweeping fleet in the Pacific. Only the mine force remembered the 

devastation caused by influence mines at places like Balikpapan. American 

inability to clear advanced influence mines even of its own design at 

Balikpapan went largely unnoticed in the celebration of victory. 

The successful operational MCM efforts in World War I1 limited MCM 

development after the war. Despite rapid advances in influence mine 

development, the largest mine threat throughout the war remained the 

antique, World War I moored contact mine. To a budget-conscious Navy, 

wartime dependence on this cheap, easily countered mine by foreign navies 

made continued funding for influence MCM all the more unnecessary. On the 

other hand, the officers assigned to mine warfare in the postwar Navy were 

well aware of the limits of ships built and equipped to deal with the threats 

posed by increasingly sensitive magnetic mines in World War 11. They 

recommended the design of improved, MCM-specific, nonmagnetic ship types, 

additional training, improved tactics, and new research to counter the latest 

influence mines in development. 

However, proponents of MCM readiness had trouble making themselves 

heard in peacetime. Naval reservists had made up 90 percent of the wartime 

MCM force and their return to civilian life stripped the MCM population. With 

a reserve program to establish and other training priorities facing it, the Navy 

placed little emphasis on educating, promoting, or enhancing the status of the 

MCM personnel who remained on active duty in the postwar period. In the 

1945 reorganization of OPNAV, the Mine Warfare Section, which had been 

under the new Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (DCNO) for Logistics, moved 

to the DCNO for Operations, where it competed with ranking proactive 

elements of the destroyer and submarine communities for attention and 

appropriations. With peace, mine warfare once again became an unattractive 

specialization within the Navy.’ 

As a reflection of the mine warfare community’s declining influence, 

experimental MCM advances in progress at war’s end were shelved in 

A war and the return to a peaceful world. With victory came interest in 

67 
“Damn the Torpedoes 

peacetime. The first successful minehunting sonar, designated QLA and 

installed on nine U.S. submarines in late 1944, had safely allowed these boats 

to prowl densely moored minefields and decimate shipping in the Sea of 

Japan. Refinement of this capability was not aggressively pursued after the 

war. Sonar improvements were restricted mainly to antisubmarine warfare 

and limited MCM diver support. In 1945 sonar and primitive electronic 

underwater locating devices were installed on converted steel-hulled infantry 

landing craft (LCIL). These redesignated minehunting vessels (AMCU) were 

originally intended as dedicated minehunters that would locate mines for 

countermining by divers. Considered ineffective, only three were kept in 

commission in the Atlantic Fleet in peacetime. Minehunting remained the 

MCM community’s preferred means of actively identifying and neutrdizing 

pressure mines. Still, minehunting sonar developed slowly without priority 

funding, and by 1950 experimental mine locator sonar had advanced only 

little. 

Progress was made in the longstanding debate between the bureaus over 

the control of MCM technological development. MCM laboratory staffers had 

repeatedly made the case for creation of a dedicated MCM laboratory facility 

within the Bureau of Ships. Finally in 1945 the Navy established the U.S. 

Navy Mine Countermeasures Station (later Naval Coastal Systems Center, 

or NCSC) at Panama City, Florida, under the Bureau of Ships. Transferring 

the ships, equipment, and personnel from the Solomons Island test station to 

Panama City created a central repository of MCM knowledge and research, 

a key development in the supporting infrastructure for MCM.2 

The Bureau of Ships began design work on plans for new MCM vessels. 

Ships constructed during the war, particularly the capable YMSs, had been 

built of wood simply for fast production and depended on degaussing of their 

metal parts to avoid detonating magnetic mines. At Balikpapan, the 

devastating effects of advanced influence mines on even the carefully 

degaussed YMSs showed the limits of degaussing as a passive 

countermeasure. Therefore, although wood became a major feature of postwar 

minesweeper construction plans, MCM ship design centered on the 

development of all nonmagnetic parts. By 1949 the Bureau of Ships had 

produced design characteristics for a new nonmagnetic fleet minesweeper 

with the operational capabilities of both the converted wooden trawlers and 

the new steel AMs. Plans for this new AM were shelved due to lack of funding 

in fiscal year 1950. The Navy did profit, however, in 1946 from the Army’s 

transfer of four small harbor minesweeping boats, the forerunners of the 

Navy’s minesweeping boat (MSB) fleet. Actual funding received for MCM 

construction went to experimental antipressure mine barges. 

Limited U.S. postwar minesweeping activity in the Pacific continued to 

center only on areas of interest to American vessels, and Seventh Fleet YMSs 

of Mine Squadron 106 swept contact mines remaining from the war in 

3 

68 
The Woman Generation 

Philippine, Korean, and North Chinese harbors where US. shipping would 

be at risk. Similarly, when Chiang Kai-shek requested US. transport 

assistance in removing Chinese Nationalist forces from Indochina in 

September 1945, the remaining Allied magnetic mines at Haiphong and 

rumored minefields at the transport area at Do Son required clearance to 

protect US. ships. Japanese minesweeping forces with U.S. advisors were 

assigned to sweep the shallow and dangerous Haiphong Channel. The YMSs 

of Mine Squadron 106 swept transport staging areas south of Haiphong at Do 

Son in October and November 1945 but found no mines. With the addition of 

some small landing craft (LCW) with sweep gear, the YMSs joined the sweep 

at Haiphong and reportedly accounted for five US. magnetic mines. 

However limited its intentions, the US. Navy publicized Minecraft, Pacific 

Fleet’s opening of major Pacific sea lanes to regular peacetime shipping as 

“the greatest minesweeping job in history” By 1946 the 374 minesweeping 

ships converted and built for U.S. offensive operations in the Pacific had been 

reduced to 14 “observation vessels” assisting the Japanese minesweeping 

effort. Worldwide the Navy retained 37 MCM ships in the active force with 

143 laid up in reserve! 

Deepening financial problems stalled the Navy’s plans for further growth. 

Just as the United States entered NATO in 1949, committing the nation to 

continued alliance with wartime European Allies, deep budget cuts hacked 

away at available resources, forcing the Navy to retrench, particularly in the 

Pacific Fleet. Worried that communism would spread throughout Southeast 

Asia, President Harry S. Truman supported French anti-Communist forces 

in Indochina after 1949 with direct military aid in the form of military 

advisors and transferred vessels, including minesweepers. The French 

riverine forces in Indochina relied on active mechanical minesweeping and 

grappling for controlled mine cables by small boats and on passive MCM to 

counter mining while at anchor, employing nets, harbor patrols, night 

watches, lights, and random gunfire and grenade attacks. French 

involvement in countering Communist mine attacks brought about a 

resurgence of interest in MCM in the US. Navy at the highest level^.^ 

Concern with this Communist offensive mining in Indochina led CNO 

Admiral Forrest P. Sherman to authorize increased MCM research and 

development in April 1950. In a report that Sherman approved for action, 

Navy planners recommended implementation of a complete minehunting 

system. Minesweeping plans for any immediate conflict centered around 

employment of three ship types: the World War I1 DMS for fast fleet sweeping 

in amphibious assault, the small MSB for harbor clearance, and the newly 

designed wooden AM for nearly everything else. Based on recent wartime 

MCM experience, planners recommended improvement of a range of acoustic, 

electric, and magnetic locating devices; new mechanical and influence sweep 

equipment; an aerial mine watch system; research on radar and hydrophone 

69 
“Damn the Torpedoes’ 

use for MCM; increased navigational accuracy for minesweeping vessels; use 

of both EOD and UDT personnel for mine destruction; improved diver tools; 

an explosive net sweep; and underwater harbor mapping. Describing 

minehunting as “the only countermeasure which seems to offer a possibility 

of being cheap enough to make peacetime readiness practical,” the report 

warned that “the great danger is that if mine countermeasures continue to 

be neglected, large wartime appropriations for countermeasures will be 

almost useless because the fundamental development will still have to be done 

first.” 

Implementation of the report’s findings immediately deadlocked in 

renewed disagreements between the Bureau of Ordnance and the Bureau of 

Ships over interpretations of jurisdiction. Meanwhile, two concurrent studies 

of undersea warfare strongly presented similar recommendations for 

dramatically increasing MCM research, development, funding, education, 

planning, and coordination. Finding MCM completely “inadequate,” Vice 

Admiral Francis S. Low chronicled the virtual extinction of the wartime mine 

warfare organization and the abolition of the mineman rating in 1947. 

“Although later reversed,” he reported in April 1950, “this reflected the 

stagnation which existed in mine warfare until its current empha~is.”~ A 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Report on the technical barriers to 

antisubmarine warfare and MCM also reported that “mine warfare is being 

pursued in an uncoordinated and unintegrated manner. In consequence, new 

and unconventional methods are not being explored.” To solve the stagnation 

in MCM research and development, this report recommended unified 

direction of MCM efforts, proclaiming that “a single organization should have 

primary cognizance and responsibility for mine warfare in all its aspects, 

offensive and defensive.’’ A few months later, Sherman would have cause to 

remember all these recommendations as the inadequacies of the existing mine 

force became apparent in Korea. 

The American-led United Nations response to the invasion of the Republic 

of Korea (ROW by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in June 1950 

came under the command of General Douglas MacArthur as Commander in 

Chief, Far East. Naval forces assigned to him for operations in Korea were 

commanded by Vice Admiral C. Turner Joy, Commander Naval Forces, Far 

East. The Seventh Fleet minesweeping force at his disposal when the war 

began consisted of Mine Squadron 3, made up of six wooden AMSs 

(redesignated YMSs) and four steel-hulled Admirabk-class AMs. Three of the 

latter were in reserve, but readiness of the one in active service was enhanced 

by its recent employment check sweeping old minefields near Japan. When 

the Communist offensive began, most of the Seventh Fleet’s minesweepers 

were immediately put on regular escort and picket duty off the Korean coast, 

and the three in reserve were quickly reactivated. Throughout the entire 

Pacific Fleet only twelve other minesweepers were active and ready for duty. 

70 
Map of MCM channels in Wonsan harbor. From History of United States Naval 

Operations: Korea by J. Field. 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

With the outbreak of war MCM was returning to the limelight.g 

The Soviets had captured nearly all remaining German mines and mine 

materials at the end of World War 11, adding them to their own growing 

stockpile. More important than the actual numbers of existing mines, 

however, was the traditional Soviet interest in and development of an 

effective, professional mine warfare community. The postwar buildup of the 

Soviet Navy included emphasis on advanced professional education in mine 

warfare, both for specialists and line officers. The Soviet fleet after 1945 

included both wooden- and steel-hulled minesweepers and minehunters with 

a balanced emphasis on both mining and MCM ability for deep-water, coastal, 

and riverine operations. 

Within weeks of the invasion of South Korea the Soviets sent mines south 

by rail, undetected by U.N. forces. These included magnetic mines sufficiently 

sensitive to react to engines and other magnetic parts on wooden ships. 

Experienced Soviet mine warfare officers personally helped mine the ports of 

Wonsan and Chinnampo with contact, magnetic, and controlled mines, and 

instructed North Koreans in mine warfare techniques, dispatching more 

mines to Inchon, Haeju, Kunsan, and Mokpo. 

10 

National Archives 8C-G-422837 

An LCVP rolls in the well of Catamount (LSD-17) during minesweeping 

operations off Chinnampo, North Korea, November 1950. 

72 
The Wonsan Generation 

American forces in the Pacific quickly became concerned about the 

possibility of facing mines in their advance. In August 1950 Captain Richard 

T. Spofford, Commander Mine Squadron 3, warned Vice Admiral Joy that he 

lacked sufficient vessels and information for any assault sweep. Spofford's 

concerns were passed on to Sherman and Admiral Arthur W. Radford, 

Commander in Chief, US. Pacific Fleet (CINCPACFLT), who believed, like 

most officers, that the Korean crisis required the priority reactivation of 

vessels other than minesweepers." 

U.N. forces first found mines in early September 1950 off Chinnampo. Joy's 

renewed attempts to obtain more minesweepers failed until mines began to 

take a toll, including a minelayer off Haeju. Sherman immediately deployed 

several AMSs and DMSs scheduled to arrive in late October, stripping the 

rest of the Pacific of mine protection. Plans were already in place for a U.N. 

assault landing at Inchon that could not be delayed. Luckily for the invading 

force, the North Korean mines protecting Inchon were unsophisticated and 

relatively few; they were countered without real difficulty. Destroyers in the 

assault visually spotted and fired on moored contact mines in the channel at 

low tide. The invading forces passed over the remaining mines at high tide 

and suffered no mine casualties. 

Mines, however, soon did make a difference. In the last week of September 

mines severely damaged four U.N. vessels and sank one US. minesweeper, 

Magpie (AMS-251, on the east coast of Korea, causing the U.N. task groups 

to operate farther offshore. While looking for Magpie's survivors, a helicopter 

photographed two mines off Kokoko, demonstrating once again the potential 

of minehunting by air, which would soon become one of the outstanding 

developments of Korean operations.12 

Shortly after retaking Inchon and the capital, Seoul, in September, General 

MacArthur began planning for a two-pronged invasion of North Korea, with 

the main U.N. forces advancing overland from Seoul to the North Korean 

capital at Pyongyang. One corps was assigned to land in an assault on the 

beaches at Wonsan. MacArthur set D-Day at Wonsan for 20 October, allowing 

less than three weeks for preparation. Intelligence officers reported several 

uncoordinated mining attacks and the presence of some influence mines in 

the general area of Wonsan, but no large minefields were anticipated. With 

ships in the open Inchon channel beginning to fall victim to newly laid contact 

and influence mines, however, Joy and his subordinate tactical commander, 

Vice Admiral Struble, Commander Seventh Fleet, warned their units of the 

probable mining of Wonsan as Struble's 250-ship landing force steamed 

toward that harbor.13 

If anyone knew the limitations of the minesweeping force, it was Struble. 

As chief of staff for US. naval forces in the Normandy invasion, he had seen 

the effects of influence minefields firsthand; as a task group commander of 

the 7th Amphibious Force, he had directed assault landings in the 

73 
“Damn the Torpedoes’ 

Philippines. Moreover, he was Sharp’s successor as Commander Minecraft, 

Pacific Fleet, and had directed the limited US. postwar minesweeping effort 

in Japanese waters. There were few naval officers with such minesweeping 

experience. The commander of his minesweeping squadron, Captain Spofford, 

also had impeccable credentials in mine warfare but they were in ordnance 

testing and minelaying rather than MCM.14 

As D-Day approached, Joy, Struble, and their staffs developed reservations 

about the planned landing at Wonsan and expressed the opinion that the 

South Korean column advancing rapidly up the east coast of the peninsula 

would take the port before their amphibious forces arrived. These concerns 

apparently were never raised with MacArthur however, so the assault forces 

proceeded toward their objectives as planned. 

Struble sent the Task Force 95 Advance Force, with its Minesweeping Task 

Group 95.6 under the command of Captain Spofford, toward Wonsan on 6 

October. The task group was further increased by Japanese minesweeping 

vessels. Knowing the Navy‘s inability to sweep any sophisticated Soviet 

influence mines that might be in its path, Rear Admiral Arleigh Burke, 

Deputy Chief of Staff, COMNAVFE, obtained the assistance of twenty 

Japanese minesweepers for the landing at Wonsan and for cleanup operations 

at Inchon. After accounting for over nine hundred influence mines in the five 

years since the end of World War 11, the Japanese YMSs, now designated 

JMSs, were probably the most capable fleet of influence minesweepers in the 

world.16 Eight JMSs under the command of Captain Tamura joined the U.N. 

forces before Wonsan. PBM Mariner patrol planes used to spot mines in the 

Yellow Sea also augmented this MCM effort. 

Admiral Struble personally drew up the minesweeping plans for the 

operation and took his large task force of three carriers, a battleship, and 

several cruisers and destroyers to assist the sweep by bombarding the coast. 

MacArthur had allotted only ten days for the clearance sweep of channels to 

the beach, and Spofford knew little about conditions in the Wonsan area. 

Spofford had learned of the minefields at Inchon and Chinnampo and the 

location of the Soviets’ shipping channel; on 9 October he also learned that a 

US. helicopter had spotted a minefield near Wonsan. Knowing that mines 

awaited him at Wonsan but lacking concrete intelligence, Spofford elected to 

send his AMSs to sweep a channel directly into the landing area from the 

100-fathom curve to meet the deadline for the landing.17 

The minesweepers began to clear a path on the southern approach toward 

Wonsan harbor on 10 October, with a helicopter from light cruiser Worcester 

(CL-144) searching the waters in advance. The wooden AMSs, which had 

never had proper communications equipment installed, received information 

relayed from the helicopter through Worcester. An additional AMS buoyed the 

swept path in their rear. After sweeping most of the day and accounting for 

twenty-one contact mines without casualties, the force faced a considerable 

15 

74 
The Wonsan Generation 

Rear Admiral Arleigh Burke, 

Deputy Chief of Staff, Commander US. Naval Forces, Far 

East, 1951. 

rNH 50190 

challenge when the helicopter spotted five strong lines of mines of an 

unknown variety in the channel ahead. The minesweepers corroborated the 

mine lines on sonar and stopped the sweep. Spofford had to choose another 

channel with fewer mines if the area was to be clear in time for the assault." 

Spofford shifted his clearance efforts to the Soviet shipping channel. On 11 

October intense minehunting pushed the clearance to the entrance of Wonsan 

harbor. In preliminary minehunting efforts a PBM spotted and charted 

minefield locations and alerted the sweepers of the mine positions, while the 

destroyer transport Diachenko (APD-123) sent UDT divers out in small boats 

to destroy the mines. The following morning the aircraft and frogmen 

resumed their minehunt while Seventh Fleet aircraft countermined the 

harbor with 1,000-pound bombs. The arrival of Mine Division 32, commanded 

by Lieutenant Commander Bruce M. Hyatt, brought the experienced Pacific 

Fleet steel minesweepers Pirate (AM-275), Pledge (AM-2771, and Incredible 

(AM-249) to assist. With all hands on deck and in life jackets, the division 

swept forward in echelon. 

Helicopters soon reported via radio from destroyer Endicott (DD-495) that 

three lines of mines lay in front of the division, but no position or depth was 

reported. On board Pirate, Hyatt ordered his ships to proceed on course to 

sweep the newly spotted line of mines. Just as Pirate's bow watch reported a 

mine contact on the surface, several mines appeared on sonar. Within seconds 

75 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

National Archives 8C-(3-421407 

Underwater demolition teams from Diachenko (APD-123) board a rubber boat 

that will take them into Wonsan harbor to clear mines, October 1950. 

an explosion ripped a hole in the starboard side, breaking the ship in two. In 

four minutes she went down. Five minutes later Pledge was mined. 

Incredible’s engines failed, leaving rescue operations to the wooden vessels. 

Knowing that Wonsan had already been taken by the ROK land forces on 10 

October, seven days in advance of the scheduled landing, and that there was 

no need to hazard packed troop transports, Struble decided to delay the 

landing until a path through the magnetic mines could be cleared.” With the 

concurrence of Vice Admiral Joy, Commander Amphibious Task Force Rear 

Admiral Allan E. “Hoke” Smith informed Admiral Sherman of the mine 

disaster at Wonsan in terms that left no question concerning Smith‘s feelings: 

‘We have lost control of the seas to a nation without a Navy, using pre-World 

War I weapons, laid by vessels that were utilized at the time of the birth of 

Christ.”” 

Worse news would come. With ninety-two casualties and the loss of the steel 

minesweepers, surface sweeping halted. For two days PBMs and helicopters 

carefully spotted contact mine lines while divers hunted, marked, and cleared 

them, and Diachenko searched the harbor with her sonar. Experimental 

magnetic minesweeping from 14 to 18 October by Mockingbird (AMS-271, 

76 
The Wonsan Generation 

Chatterer (AMS-40), Redhead (AMS-34), and Kite (AMS-22) led to several 

mine explosions, and one JMS was lost to a contact mine. The channel was 

nearly cleared when magnetic mines near the shore line destroyed ROKN 

YMS-616 on 18 October. Lieutenant Commander Don DeForest, on loan to 

the task group from Mine Force, Atlantic Fleet, went ashore that day and 

located some Soviet magnetic coils of the type used to fire these sensitive 

mines. After interrogating local informants who had helped lay the mines, he 

returned to the minesweeping group with the basic intelligence on placement 

and actuation method needed to complete an effective sweep. 

Expecting to find relatively few mines in harbor choke points, the task 

group was stunned over the following week as they slowly charted an 

extensive mixed minefield of 3,000 mines spread over a 400-square-mile field. 

Unsophisticated 1904-vintage Russian contact mines in the harbor lay in 

fields with new magnetic influence mines sensitive enough to react to the 

wooden ships’ engines, making minesweeping by the surface vessels deadly. 

The line of more sophisticated influence mines close to shore behind a covering 

- 

--- . 

-. - ~ 

National Archivea 80-G-423626 

ROK Navy minesweeper YMS-516 is destroyed after hitting a magnetic mine, 

October 1950. 

77 
“Damn the Torpedoes 

Influence minesweeping techniques. From The Sea War in Korea by M. Cagle 

and F. Manson. 

field of old contact mines caused heavy damage to the AMSs before this 

pattern was learned. After analysis and application of the information 

gathered during DeForest’s venture, there were no more casualties. 

Jury-rigging small motor launches and landing craft of the amphibious 

landing force units to sweep in the shallowest approgches to the beach, 

Spofford recruited and trained boat crews on site and sent them into the 

minefield behind the experienced Japanese sweepers.21 

The actual landing at Wonsan proved anticlimactic after the long delay: 

fifty thousand men in a powerful 250-ship armada had been held at bay for 

nearly a week by sea mines. When the US. Marines finally landed on the 

beach, they discovered big ROK banners welcoming them to Korea and a 

signpost reading, “This Beach is All Yours Through the Courtesy of Mine 

Squadron Three.” 

Also on hand to greet them, to their dismay, were US. Army Tenth Corps 

commander Major General Edward M. Almond and Bob Hope, already 

performing for the men with his US0 troupe. ‘‘History got ahead of us,’’ noted 

one commander.22 Admiral Smith‘s official report after Wonsan further laid 

out the feelings of many naval officers, who waited offshore, watching an 

ill-prepared and under-equipped minesweeping force try to do its job: 

78 
The Wonsan Generation 

The Navy able to sink an enemy fleet, to defeat aircraft and submarines, to do 

precision bombing, rocket attack, and gunnery, to support troops ashore and 

blockade, met a massive 3,000 mine field laid off Wonsan by the Soviet naval 

experts. . . . The strongest Navy in the world had to remain in the Sea of Japan 

while a few minesweepers struggled to clear W~nsan.’~ 

The humiliation caused by the mines at Wonsan pointed to a critical hole in 

US. naval capability: simple application of extensive fields of Soviet mines, 

many of them antiques laid by small native vessels, could hold up a superior 

naval force with inadequate MCM capabilities. 

The events at Wonsan had immediate repercussions. Struble’s mine force 

concluded that only an integrated MCM system would provide effective 

assault clearance in future wars. Struble urged his superiors to develop a 

sufficient mix of MCM-specific surface vessels, assisted by helicopters to mine 

spot in the advance, divers to detonate mines, and advanced theater-level 

intelligence gathering to effect true combat MCM operations and readiness 

throughout the Navy. He added that “adequate mine countermeasure forces 

with trained personnel and e uipment should be provided in each fleet and 

should be ready for service.” 2’ Admiral Joy concluded: 

The main lesson of the Wonsan operation is that no so-called subsidiary branch 

of the naval service, such as mine warfare, should ever be neglected or relegated 

to a minor role in the future. Wonsan also taught us that we can be denied 

freedom of movement to an enemy objective through the intelligent use of mines 

by an alert f0e.2~ 

Admiral Sherman agreed that the mining of Wonsan “caught us with our 

pants down,” adding, 

when you can’t go where you want to, when you want to, you haven’t got command 

of the sea. And command of the sea is a rock-bottom foundation of all our war 

plans. We’ve been plenty submarine-conscious and air-conscious. Now we’re 

going to start getting mine-conscious-beginning last week. 

Mines continued to pose serious problems for the US. Navy throughout the 

Korean War. Sweeping on the west coast continued through 1950 with 

clearances effected at Kunsan, Haeju, and Kojo. In response to continued 

North Korean mining, Admiral Sherman immediately ordered the 

recommissioning of AMSs and AMs as a priority matter. Research into more 

effective minehunting techniques and equipment began as well. The Navy 

quickly converted more shallow-draft motor launches to minesweepers and 

reinstalled World War I1 sonar, underwater locator equipment, and 

mechanical and influence sweep gear on amphibious craft. The versatile 

wooden AMSs continued to be the most able influence sweepers, and the 

amphibious dock landing ship (LSD) became a capable supply and mother 

ship for small boats and a logistics ship for helicopters hunting mines. 

As the U.N. forces pressed north in October 1950, the heavily mined port 

of Chinnampo became crucial to resupply the army, and Admiral Joy ordered 

26 

79 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

National Archives 8&G423162 

A PBM Mariner locates and detonates a mine in the channel near Chinnampo. 

Admiral Smith to clear the port of mines. With all Western Pacific 

minesweepers already fully occupied at Wonsan, .Smith sent an intelligence 

officer to Chinnampo to gather information on the extent and type of mining 

there and urged the deployment of additional minesweeping vessels from both 

fleets. Smith appointed Commander Stephen M. Archer to command the 

sweep operations as Task Element 95.6.9. Recruiting Commander DeForest 

to assist, Archer commandeered twenty-eight local vessels at Sasebo and 

threw together a minesweeping force. With a channel to Wonsan cleared, the 

PBMs also shifted back to the Korean west coast to assist with minehunting. 

The mine forces had learned a big lesson at Wonsan: look before you sweep. 

With that in mind the PBMs and one helicopter spent three days searching 

for mines at Chinnampo. They identified thirty-four and disposed of most of 

them by gunfire and depth charges. Although the mines used at Wonsan had 

proved immune to air countermining, some magnetic mines at Chinnampo 

were detonated by that means. Surface sweeping began on 29 October by two 

destroyer minesweepers, Thompson (DMS-38) and Carmick (DMS-331, later 

supplemented with three AMSs, two Korean YMSs, and a tank landing ship 

(LST) with helicopters. After interrogating captured key Korean personnel, 

intelligence officers uncovered the pattern of a mixed field of 217 contact and 

25 magnetic mines by 2 November and the sweep of Chinnampo began in 

80 
The Woman Generation 

earnest. Minehunting began from the air with planes and helicopters, on the 

surface with small boats, and underwater with divers. An initial path was 

cleared around the minefield; this was followed by a second path through the 

channel entrance. Increased attention to minehunting and good intelligence 

made the clearance of Chinnampo safe and effective. MCM forces cleared 

eighty contact mines from two hundred square miles of water without a single 

casualty. They also proved the effectiveness of the amphibious ships' small 

boats in sweeping moored mines, the viability of using LSTs as helicopter 

platforms and supply vessels for the MCM fleet, and the importance of 

27 logistics in support of mine clearance. 

At Hungnam on 7 November 1950 the mine forces again worked to uncover 

information concerning the placement of over a hundred moored contact 

mines. Advance hunting teams of small-boat crews and divers thoroughly 

scoured the area, attempting to clear a section on the edge of the minefield. 

AMSs swept carefully for magnetic mines but found none, and the harbor was 

opened by 11 November. Hungnam sweepers then advanced to open Songjin 

between 16 and 19 November but found no mines. 

MCM units continued sweeping offshore, but changes in the war began to 

force alterations in MCM application. The approach to offshore MCM during 

1950 centered on quickly sweeping clear channels through areas where mines 

were sparsely laid. For the remainder of the war MCM forces would clear 

more heavily mined areas to allow close-in gunfire support of land forces by 

U.N. vessels. By 1951 MCM forces in Korea had been strengthened by more 

AMSs, AMs, and an LST support ship. More important, the fleet actively 

coordinated air, surface, and subsurface minehunting forces. In the first 

weeks of 1951 MCM forces cleared a fire support channel on the east coast 

National Archives 19-N-86761 

Thompson (DMS-38), shortly after her conversion to a fast assault minesweeper. 

81 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

near the 38th Parallel, losing Partridge (AMS-31) to a mine in the process. 

In 1951 US. MCM forces continued to face a mine threat in Korea. Near 

Songjin in the spring, sweepers cleared several contact mines for 

gunfire-support ships, feinted a landing attempt at Kojo, and check swept off 

Chinnampo. Enemy remining at Wonsan resulted in more sweeping of that 

area in March with no casualties. MSBs backed by AMSs again cleared the 

waters of Wonsan harbor even closer to shore in the summer, disposing of 

more than 140 mines. Between 1 July and 30 September US. minesweepers 

cleared hundreds of mines from Korean waters, more than had been swept 

during the entire previous year. In rough November weather at Chongjin, 

minesweepers faced a tough clearance. The enemy constantly remined in 

their path and the helicopters and MSBs had difficulty in the poor 

conditions. 

During the minesweepers’ largely successful operations some casualties 

were caused by mines, particularly by a large number of floaters cut loose 

from their moorings and drifting with the tide. During another feintedlanding 

at Kojo in late 1952 enemy bombardment took such a toll on the sweepers 

that they could only complete the sweep at night. Soon nearly all sweeping of 

Korean waters was done by moonlight, acting on intelligence gathered earlier 

by daytime air reconnaissance. In addition to performing minesweeping 

duties, which were reduced to less extensive check sweeps after June 1952, 

minecraft guarded swept areas, developed mine intelligence methods, and 

trained South Korean forces in minesweeping and sea-air rescue. By the war’s 

end US. forces recorded 1,088 swept mines, all believed to be from Soviet 

inventory. Still, after the signing of the armistice in July 1953, US. vessels 

continued sweeping and patrolling the west coast of Korea for two months. 

American commanders at Wonsan respected and appreciated the Japanese 

minesweeping force that effectively led vulnerable US. minesweepers 

through influence fields.29 

MCM operations in Korean waters proved the paradox of mine warfare in 

the US. Navy. For more than 140 years the officers and men assigned to MCM 

had successfully countered mine threats by jury-rigging equipment and by 

taking measured risks. So successful were their efforts as perceived by the 

Navy that little funding, prestige, or interest had been given to countering 

the mine threat, either in war or in peace. Failure at Wonsan changed some 

of that. During the remainder of the war the inadequate MCM forces 

succeeded in applying and reapplying the individual lessons learned in the 

minefields at Wonsan, proving especially at Chinnampo that effective MCM 

required integration of a variety of surface, air, and subsurface assets. 

Learning more from failure than success, the generation of Wonsan prepared 

to stop “damning” the torpedoes and to learn the right lessons from 

operational experience. 

War in Korea and the humiliation at Wonsan helped heighten Cold War 

a8 

82 
The Wonsan Generation 

interest in naval preparedness against future “Communist aggression,” and 

served to remind the United States of Soviet mine warfare capabilities. Few 

officers of this generation would forget the hard lesson that fields of even 

primitive contact mines, sprinkled with a few of the influence sort, could stop 

the U.S. Navy in its tracks. Nor would they forget that even though 

minesweeping personnel made up only 2 percent of the naval forces employed 

in Korea, they accounted for over 20 percent of the naval casualties. MCM 

readiness was the order of the day. North Korean mines embarrassed the 

Navy at Wonsan, but they motivated the Navy to make mine warfare and 

MCM integral parts of the force designed to deal with the growing Soviet 

threat in the years after Korea.” 

An immediate lesson learned in Korea was the need for combat readiness 

of the MCM force. Adeclining mine force organization after World War I1 had 

rendered ships, personnel, and research efforts ineffective. Within the Pacific 

Fleet the mine warfare type command had been disestablished in 1947. The 

reestablishment of that command as Mine Force, Pacific Fleet (MINEPAC), 

at the direction of Admiral Sherman in January 1951 was a positive 

development in the fortunes of MCM readiness. Subsequently, both fleets for 

the first time had parallel t pe commanders responsible solely for the 

readiness of mine force ships. 

The devastating loss of minesweepers to magnetic mines at Wonsan 

demonstrated the need for a minesweeper design that could nullify the 

magnetic threat. The Bureau of Ships turned its required design 

characteristics for a new ocean minesweeper over to famed naval architect 

Philip L. Rhodes, who had designed several classes of minesweepers for the 

Navy during World War 11, including Admimble-class AMs. Rhodes’s design 

for the 172-foot Aggressive-class AMs, redesignated ocean minesweeper 

(MSO) in 1955, had enhanced electrical generating capacity for effective 

magnetic minesweeping. 

Unlike their steel-hulled predecessors that depended solely on degaussing 

to mask the magnetic parts of the ship, the open-ocean sweeping MSOs were 

built with wooden hulls, few magnetic materials, and improved degaussing. 

They were powered by special nonmagnetic Packard or General Motors diesel 

engines and were also outfitted with controllable-pitch propellers for 

increased maneuverability in a minefield. Their early UQS-1 minehunting 

sonar was designed to classify or identify mine types, but this model showed 

poor resolution and could not classify mines in most waters. They were also 

rigged with a towing machine on the fantail to stream displacement devices 

such as the Loch Ness Monster, which never proved effective. Considered the 

Cadillacs of the international mine fleet of the 1950s, the MSOs were larger 

than most other wooden vessels and were considered sterling examples of 

craftsmanship and shipbuilding te~hnology.~~ 

In addition to the MSO, the Navy built or converted a variety of vessels 

37 

83 
“Damn the Torpedoes’ 

along the lines of existing vessels to maximize MCM flexibility. The Soviet 

mine threat to western European ports led to designs for a new version of the 

popular YMS, the Bluebird- or Adjutant-class, 144-foot coastal minesweepers 

(MSC). The U.S. Navy built 159 MSCs with the new standard 

controllable-pitch propellers and separate engines to generate electrical 

power for magnetic minesweeping. All but twenty were transferred to foreign 

navies under the Military Defense Assistance Program; most went to 

European NATO allies, who were assigned primary responsibility for Atlantic 

From 1952 to 1955 more AMCU minehunters were converted from YMS 

and patrol craft. The first and only new-construction minehunter, Bittern 

(AMCU, later MHC-43), was based on the MSC. Launched in 1957, it was 

designed to locate and to plot minefields with a towed array of minehunting 

equipment and had no neutralization or minesweeping ability. After 1961 

Bittern was the only minehunter retained in active service. 

Other ships designed and converted for MCM operations in the 1950s 

reflected continued concern for minesweeping components of the future 

20-knot amphibious force. The firepower and speed of the fast steel DMSs of 

World War I1 were offset by their bulk and vulnerability to influence mines, 

and by 1955 they reverted to the destroyer force. New plans called for the use 

of fleets of small, fast boats whose limited signatures would protect them from 

influence mine detonation and whose size would allow them to be carried in 

amphibious mother ships. Alterations to the existing MSBs and development 

of 36-foot minesweeping launches (MSL) were designed to provide a 

minesweeping capability for shallow waters. MCM ship conversions also 

included two inshore sweepers (MSI) and two mine countermeasures 

minesweeping. 33 

USN 1139831 

Cutskill, the first of the mine countermeasures command ships (MCS), with 

MSLs on board. 

84 
The Wonsan Generation 

command ships (MCS), LSTs planned in 1956 and commissioned in the 1960s. 

All MCS configurations carried a coordinated mix of assets: MSBs, MSLs, and 

an EOD unit for mine disposal. Two Liberty ships were also converted into 

check and pressure sweepers and designated as special minesweepers (MSS). 

The importance of the new, visible MCM fleet was reflected in the changes in 

ship designations. In 1955 auxiliary designations for mineweepers were 

dropped, and most MCM types received new “M“ designators under the 

special classification for ‘mine Warfare Vessels.” 34 

The new surface vessels developed after Wonsan were built with sweeper 

safety as their primary concern. To protect themselves against mines, the 

ships contained a mix of safety features. These included built-in automatic 

degaussing systems, nonmagnetic construction, ship silencing, keel-mounted 

minehunting sonar, and minimal displacement to avoid detonating pressure 

mines. One important threat to surface sweepers remained: moored mines 

too deep to be seen from the surface and too shallow to be spotted by sonar. 

To protect the lead ships in a sweep operation from this threat, testing began 

to identify existing helicopters for use in a precursor sweep, streaming 

minesweeping gear. 

Among the biggest lessons learned in Korea was the importance of naval 

intelligence, particularly for accurately ascertaining the configuration and 

content of minefields. Use of helicopters for mine spotting was an outstanding 

feature of intelligence gathering on mine positions in Korean operations and 

a distinct improvement over World War I1 lighter-than-air craft observations. 

Helicopters also proved useful for marking minefields with buo s, 

neutralizing mines, and providing logistic and rescue operation support. 

Almost immediately after Wonsan, the MCM laboratory at Panama City 

developed a separate Air Mine Defense Development Unit and began testing 

helicopters towing standard minesweeping gear. In early 1952 an HRP-1 

helicopter successfully towed Oropesa sweep gear to clear contact mines. For 

thirteen years after Wonsan, as funds sporadically became available, the 

Panama City MCM laboratory and the Bureau of Aeronautics separately 

tested helicopters for towing ability, hoping to develop an air MCM (AMCM) 

capability?6 

Wonsan broke the fiscal drought on MCM shipbuilding, allowing the 

development of a more flexible mix of vessels designed to meet the Soviet 

threat. Before cost overruns on the expanded carrier and guided missile 

programs forced cutbacks in MCM construction, the Navy had developed an 

entire program of new ocean, coastal, and small-boat minesweepers and new 

and converted minehunters, and reactivated several old minesweepers and 

support vessels. New construction included 65 MSOs, 22 coastal 

minesweepers, and 1 minehunter, bringing effective strength on paper to 333 

vessels, 180 of which were new ships and approximately 93 of which were in 

active service. 

3g 

85 
“Damn the Torpedoes’ 

The effects were, however, short-lived. The program was more of an 

immediate response to the losses at Wonsan than a sustained commitment to 

the development of mine countermeasures. MCM vessels simply never caught 

the hearts and minds of most Navy men. After 1958 additional MCM ship 

construction funds were regularly deleted from the tightening Navy budget, 

leaving programmed replacements for the MCM force in question for future 

generations. 

Mine research also received priority funding after Wonsan. 

Countermeasures scientists fought for separate funding, rightly claiming that 

mine development priorities too often swallowed up scarce resources and left 

little for MCM. In addition to conducting MCM work at Panama City, the 

bureaus continued to divide MCM research projects among several 

laboratories and contractors. Expanded funding and interest in MCM 

problems within the scientific community after Wonsan, however, facilitated 

cooperation and the intensive networking required to achieve results within 

the Navy‘s decentralized organization. 

In 1951 the Office of Naval Research contracted with the Catholic 

University of America to form the Mine Advisory Committee of the National 

Academy of Sciences, a study group of academics organized to investigate 

mine and MCM technology. Because of Wonsan their first nineteen years of 

work were devoted to MCM studies, including Project Monte (1957) on 

countermeasures research, the Precise Navigation Project (19661, the High 

Resolution Sonar Project (19681, and Project Nimrod (1967-19701, the latter 

an analysis of the present and future of mine warfare. Developed out of a 

summer research group at the Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey, 

California, Project Monte surveyed MCM development and made 

recommendations for advancement. From this project several MCM research 

plans were developed, including small manned or remotely operated 

underwater vehicles to sweep, hunt, classi@, and neutralize mines in advance 

of surface ships. 

Panama City expanded its MCM programs, particularly in testing 

helicopter minesweeping, but other laboratories also developed MCM 

technology as an adjunct to their missions. In the 1950s the Navy Electronics 

Laboratory began developing continuous transmission, frequency-modulated 

sonar units that had been used in World War I1 submarines into portable 

sonar units for divers. Scientists at Yale and NOL examined traditional and 

nontraditional methods for minesweeping, hunting, identification, and 

neutralization and encouraged mine warfare and countermeasures studies 

through yearly conferences. Operational testing within the fleet developed 

experimental air cushion vehicle technology as protected minesweepers. After 

1957 operational problems were addressed by NOL participants in the Naval 

Science Assistance Program, a Navy-wide program designed to provide direct 

scientific support for fleet needs.38 

37 

86 
The Wonsan Generation 

Scientists at the various laboratories expanded earlier attempts to develop 

countermeasures against increasingly advanced combination influence 

mines. Attempts to design a vessel of sufficient size to actuate mines yet 

withstand the shock of the explosion had varying degrees of success. 

The XMAP (Experimental Magnetic, Acoustic, and Pressure Sweep) was a 

25O-foot-long, 19-foot-wide, 2880-ton, tightly-welded steel cylinder device 

towed by tugs and designed to counter all influences in one sweep. Originally 

it had been a 1944 design proposed by scientists at the David Taylor Model 

Basin. Once approved for development after Wonsan, XMAP was almost 

immediately embarrassing because of massive cost overruns. After 

near-abandonment of the scheme, XMAP-1 was finally completed and towed 

to Panama City for testing in 1956. 'The test results were never released, but 

XMAP reportedly suffered from maneuverability problems and may have 

failed to provide sufficient pressure signature to fire mines. In 1961 it was 

slated for di~posal.~' 

New designs for unsinkable ships proved similarly unsatisfactory, costly, 

and impractical. As a last resort, plans for displacement devices again 

centered on guinea pig ships as check sweeps, leading to experiments with 

enhanced buoyancy, reverse degaussing, and topside-control for large, 

expendable vessels. Aside from those countered by stop-gap measures, 

pressure mines remained virtually ~nsweepable.~' 

Minehunting research focused on the use of sonar or magnetic anomaly 

detectors to locate mines. Working on earlier sonar studies of the Navy 

Electronics Laboratory, the Harvard Underwater Sound Laboratory, and the 

General Electric Company, scientists at the Applied Research Laboratory of 

the University of Texas at Austin developed an improved, high-definition, 

variable-depth AN/SQQ-14 Mine Detector/Classifier sonar to identify mines 

for neutralization by EOD divers. This sonar replaced the UQS-1 sonar on 

MSOs and became the worldwide standard for MCM minehunting and 

classification, effectively isolating mines from other debris littering harbor 

floors. Meanwhile, MCM scientists applied evolving precise navigation and 

position feng to MCM to produce safer, more accurate, and more even 

sweeps. 

Attempts by the Department of Defense to create parallel lines of research 

authority in all the services mandated changes in Navy research 

organizations, further affecting MCM research and development. In 1965 and 

1966, under pressure from DOD, the Navy detached the laboratories from the 

bureaus, having them report to a single Director of Naval Laboratories and 

ultimately to the Chief of Naval Material. This restructuring did not, however, 

fully resolve the issue of jurisdiction over MCM studies. Although the 

laboratories now reported to the Director of Naval Laboratories instead of to 

the parent systems commands that had replaced the old bureaus, scientists 

who paid attention to the technical history of MCM discovered that various 

41 

87 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

laboratories, all claiming cognizance, had in some cases been studying and 

restudying the same methods of scientific MCM, unaware that some of the 

approaches had already failed. 

Funding problems also began to affect the research community in 1965. In 

that year the Navy built the last surface sweeper of the Wonsan shipbuilding 

program funded in fiscal year 1958, and production of advanced MCM sensors 

and other equipment already designed was delayed by conflicting funding 

priorities. 

The most important gain made by the MCM program after Wonsan was in 

the availability of qualified people. The reinstatement of MINEPAC in 1951 

and the arrival of new ships in the fleet after 1953 increased the needs of the 

mine force for both MCM experts and surface ship commanders. For a brief 

period in the late 1950s MCM had the potential to become a viable 

professional path for some career officers. MSOs came off the assembly line 

regularly from 1952 to 1956, and recruitment of crews to man the new ships 

made training of MCM personnel a naval priority. The Naval Postgraduate 

School offered a two-year master’s degree in mine warfare from 1955 to 1960 

(although only twenty-two officers completed the program), and Yorktown’s 

Mine Warfare School also improved its MCM courses for officers and enlisted 

men. With active duty officer and enlisted billets available in the operational 

MCM fleet and support facilities, the opportunity to build a stable, active duty 

MCM community existed for the first time43 

MINEPAC headquarters centered many West Coast minesweepers at Long 

Beach, California. Combat readiness required extensive exercise of the new 

ships and people, so MINEPAC minesweepers deployed on yearly six-month 

tours in the Western Pacific. MSO divisions in MINELANT, regularly 

deployed in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean on similar tours as “ready” 

units, and returned home to either Little Creek, Virginia, or to MINELANT 

headquarters at Charleston, South Carolina. In 1959 the Mine Warfare School 

moved from Yorktown, Virginia, to Charleston, further establishing that city 

as a home for the mine warfare community of the Atlantic Fleet. Extensive 

shore maintenance and support activities for the MCM force were also 

established at Charleston and Long Beach with some support facilities at Key 

West, Guam, and Sa~ebo.~~ 

For young officers and enlisted men in the late 1950s and early 1960s, 

assignment to the new MCM force provided an unusual experience in both 

seamanship and leadership. Command came early, and the career 

advancement possible with MCM ship command enticed some of the most 

promising graduates of the destroyer force schools into the new mine force for 

at least one command tour. Young lieutenants obtained command of MSCs; 

lieutenants and lieutenant commanders captained MSOs; ensigns served 

early tours as department heads; and lieutenants (junior grade) served as 

executive officers. Senior enlisted men who commanded MSBs and smaller 

42 

88 
The Wonsan Generation 

-- 

US. Navy Photograph 

Dash (MSO-4281, one of the Agile-class ocean minesweepers built in the 

mid-1950s. 

vessels often advanced into the MCM officer community through such 

experience. Because the establishment of minesweeping divisions, squadrons, 

and flotillas provided MCM billets for commanders and captains, and because 

of the variety of MCM vessels, shore station assignments, and missions, it 

was actually possible for a brief time for an officer or an enlisted man to rise 

within the mine force to the rank of captain. 

Everything that had to be done on a big ship also had to be done on a small 

one, and the expanded MCM force became a hands-on training school for a 

whole generation of naval officers who exercised command at an early age. 

Officers assigned to the MSCs and MSOs from the active duty destroyer force 

sometimes arrived with little or no training in mine warfare and began 

operating immediately. Junior officers, many of them ensigns right out of 

school, often had good technical training from the mine warfare school but 

lacked basic shipboard experience. Well-trained enlisted men, both active 

duty and reserves, made up the core of the MCM force and usually taught 

their officers the essentials of minesweeping and hunting on the spot. 

Minesweepers often operated in close sweep formation with other vessels 

of their units, and thus had requirements for precision navigation and 

seamanship that were well beyond those of most larger ships. MSO divisions 

of four or five ships, supported by an amphibious mother ship, swept staging 

areas and channels in fleet exercises with both mechanical and influence 

minesweeping gear and, in formation or singly, practiced using sweep gear, 

89 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

minehunting equipment, and EOD teams in tactics appropriate to each 

situation. Because of the exacting navigation needs of minesweeping vessels, 

crews gained great experience in piloting. Few destroyer force officers who 

passed through the MCM force ever swept a real mine, but they gained early 

command experience and, perhaps more important, familiarity with the more 

practical aspects of mines and MCM.45 

The generation of officers that passed through the mine force at its highest 

point of funding after Wonsan saw a navy in microcosm: a small, vigorously 

active, and close-knit community that suffered from the same problems 

experienced by the Navy as a whole-plus a few additional ones. The MSOs 

had serious difficulties with the brittleness and unreliability of their 

aluminum and stainless steel nonmagnetic diesel engines, particularly the 

Packard types; those built with nonmagnetic General Motors engines had 

fewer failures. The small ships were also labor intensive, and their wooden 

construction added to the hazards of fire. Most damning, they had only been 

designed for a top speed of fourteen knots, and slow-but-capable did not fit 

the needs of the faster, forward-deployed postwar Navy.46 

The growth of the MCM community reached its peak in the decade after 

Wonsan. Although increased assets briefly made MCM a more dependable 

career specialty with many opportunities, those assets could and did go away. 

As the MCM community struggled to develop combat effectiveness, 

circumstances simultaneously began to chip away at the position and priority 

MCM had achieved within the Navy. Although Wonsan made the entire Navy 

briefly more mine-conscious, competing concerns quickly returned MCM to 

its isolated position. 

“Neither that war,’’ noted one observer after Korea, “nor more recent 

developments have made a career in mine warfare a realistic or attractive 

alternative to the many ways in which an officer can rise in the Navy.” 47 

Those recent developments would permanently alter the focus of future MCM, 

for after 1965, U.S. involvement inVietnam would drain the Navy of its assets, 

and the MCM force of the Wonsan generation would not be the only casualty. 

90 
4 

New Lessons Learned: 

The Impact of Low Intensity Mine Warfare 

1965-1991 

he US. naval MCM experience inVietnam from 1965 to 1973 significantly T altered the Navy’s perception of MCM as an integrated element of naval 

warfighting. Mines and MCM played little part in the daily operations of most 

naval units operating in the coastal war offshore. Important shallow-water 

MCM operations on the rivers of Vietnam, however, required close 

coordination with river patrol and special operations forces. This situation 

slowly altered the shipboard Navy’s perceptions of the character of MCM over 

the course of the war. By the time a substantial mine offensive required 

commitment of a large-scale MCM operation, the Navy had come to view 

MCM as a small-scale specialty rather than as a major element of naval 

warfare. 

After the Communist Viet Minh defeated the French in Indochina in 1954, 

the resulting Geneva Agreement divided Vietnam into two halves at the 17th 

Parallel, or Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), separating Communist forces in the 

north from the non-Communist forces in the south. From 1954 to 1959 U.S. 

Navy personnel assigned to the Military Assistance Advisory Group, Vietnam, 

worked to develop a fledgling South Vietnamese Navy, providing MCM advice, 

vessels, and training. As the North Vietnamese worked to extend Communist 

control over South Vietnam and neighboring Laos from 1959 to 1961, US. 

Navy carrier task forces were deployed off the Vietnamese coast to deter 

further encroachment. Seventh Fleet MSOs participated in a minor way, 

establishing an American presence in Indochina by making port visits in 

Cambodia in August 1961.l 

Later that year the Kennedy administration responded to escalating 

Communist insurgency with US. ships and men. With limited funds available 

for new patrol craft, ocean minesweepers were tasked with collateral patrol 

duty. In December 1961 the MSOs of Mine Division 73 and later of Mine 

Division 71 patrolled near the 17th Parallel to stop or deter North Vietnamese 

coastal smuggling of arms into South Vietnam. In these patrols the MSOs 

joined US. Navy destroyers and used their radar to vector Vietnamese Navy 

ships to suspicious vessels. Finding little evidence of North Vietnamese 

infiltration from the sea, the MSOs ceased patrolling the following August. 

When President Lyndon B. Johnson increased US. counterinsurgency 

support to South Vietnam in 1965, thus escalating American military 

involvement, U.S. naval forces joined the regular South Vietnamese Navy 

91 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

coastal antiinfiltration patrol in an operation designated Market Time. MSOs 

and MSCs again shelved their sweep gear and went on patrol duty.2 

Actual MCM experience for the Vietnam MSO fleet was rare. In January 

1968 the MSOs of Mine Division 91 were pulled off Market Time patrols to 

clear what was believed to be the first known live minefield since 1953, 

created when, under unexplained circumstances, US. forces lost a load of 

mines in the Tonkin Gulf. After its attempts at sonar minehunting failed 

because of the heavy mine-like litter on the ocean floor, the division 

necessarily reverted to mechanical and influence minesweeping. Since the 

North Vietnamese did not mine their coastline, MCM was never part of the 

regular Market Time scenario. Tasked primarily with ancillary duties, the 

MSO fleet that was the product of Wonsan would be a minor player in coastal 

warfare. The real mine battle would be inland, where the U.S. had rarely 

prepared to fight.3 

Like the Union forces of the Civil War era to which they were often 

compared and the French Navy from which they inherited the war, the US. 

riverine forces faced a shallow-water MCM challenge requiring ingenuity and 

intraservice cooperation. The Navy’s traditional preoccupation with 

oceangoing ships and major amphibious assault landings from the sea faced 

a new challenge in the rivers of Vietnam. 

Like the Confederate Navy, the North Vietnamese relied heavily on mines 

to attack ships in the rivers, and often coordinated mining with gunfire and 

rocket attacks. Viet Cong mines ran the gamut from simple contact mines to 

a few advanced Soviet influence types, but most often US. Navy MCM forces 

faced homemade controlled mines (usually waterproofed land mines with 

command detonating cables), drifting mines disguised as garbage, and 

swimmer-delivered limpet mines that adhered directly to boat hulls. 

Countering them required hard work, technical expertise, and the ability to 

French Navy river assault divisions conducting counterinsurgency patrols 

in 1953 and 1954 had employed tugs and mechanized landing craft (LCM) as 

minesweepers, cutting controlled mine cables with a drag sweep. Eventually 

supplementing their minesweepers with air-spotting and ground support to 

protect harassed river units and to overrun command detonating centers, the 

French had learned that the best countermeasure on the Indochina rivers was 

cooperation among all air, patrol boat, and ground forces to prevent mine 

planting and attack. 

In October 1965 when shallow-draft U.S. Navy MSBs began operating in 

the rivers of South Vietnam, they learned the same lesson. Originally 

designed to operate in water under the control of friendly forces, MSBs were 

adapted to sweep under close-in combat conditions by adding extra armor in 

the form of fiberglass resin or ceramic material to retain their nonmagnetic 

signature. Additional armament included a AO-caliber machine gun. 

jury-rig equipment. 4 

92 
New Lessons Learned 

K 36198 

A minesweeping boat (MSB) patrols the Long Tau River to keep the channel 

safe for commercial traffic moving into Saigon. 

Dragging hooks attached to a winch by steel wire to cut electrical controlling 

cables, MSBs became a favorite target of the Viet Cong, who continually 

harassed them with sniper fire. Effective mine clearance on the rivers of 

Vietnam once again required MCM vessels to operate jointly with other river 

and patrol forces for prote~tion.~ 

Riverine warfare, originally additional duty of the Market Time forces, 

produced two separate river patrol operations: Task Force (TF) 116, River 

Patrol Force, established in 1965 to interdict enemy traffic on the major rivers 

of the southern delta, and Task Force 117, Riverine Assault Force, an 

amphibious assault force created in 1966 in response to increased mining and 

guerrilla attacks. In the Mekong Delta region Task Force 116, a major 

participant in Operation Game Warden, began an extensive patrol effort to 

control access to the complex river system south of Saigon in December 1965, 

particularly in the Rung Sat Special Zone, a Viet Cong base. Of particular 

importance to Task Force 116 operations was the forty-five miles of waterway 

of the Long Tau River, the main shipping channel to Saigon and a key logistic 

point for the U.S. forces. Heavy mining of the Long Tau with both Soviet mines 

and homemade Viet Cong controlled mines increased the need for 

minesweeping activity south of Saigon.' 

93 
“Damn the Torpedoes’ 

Four MSBs operating near Nha Be on the Long Tau participated in 

Operation Jackstay in March 1966, a quick strike operation designed to clear 

Viet Cong guerrillas from their stronghold in the Rung Sat. Two months later 

the Rung Sat River Patrol Group established a base at Nha Be for river patrol 

boats (PBR), large personnel landing craft (LCPL), and detachment Alfa of 

Mine Squadron 11 (later Mine Division 112), consisting of eight MSBs with 

mechanical sweep gear, two officers, and a hundred enlisted men. Although 

the first mines found by the Nha Be forces were controlled and limpet mines 

with timers, in December 1966 an MSB swept and recovered a 2,000-pound 

Soviet contact mine.7 

As mine attacks increased, the Nha Be detachment added four additional 

MSBs and LCMs rigged with standard minesweeping gear and redesignated 

river minesweepers (MSM). Operating daily to keep the rivers south of Saigon 

clear of mines and targeted by Viet Cong units, the MSBs of Nha Be suffered 

severe damage. Heavily armed with machine guns and grenade launchers, 

Nha Be forces swept for moored contact mines and controlled mine cables and 

countered swimmers carrying limpet mines with hand grenades. This duty, 

at times the only active US. Navy minesweeping effort, led them throughout 

the dangerous Rung Sat, sweeping south to the ocean from their base while 

South Vietnamese Navy minesweeping launches swept north to Saigon. Like 

the French before them, the Nha Be minesweepers found that effective MCM 

againstperrilla units required coordinated effort by all U.S. forces operating 

nearby. 

As cooperative mining and guerrilla attacks on U.S. ships in the Rung Sat 

increased, U.S. forces prepared a combined response. In support of Task Force 

116’s increasing patrols, Task Force 117 began operating a mobile base and 

assault force to counter Viet Cong attacks through minesweeping, land and 

river patrols, and river bank defoliation, which materially assisted in 

preventing controlled mine attacks. Two mobile support bases for the joint 

forces joined Game Warden in 1967. Electronic detection devices and strong 

currents protected these pontoon barge bases from swimmer attacks, but 

appearance of these devices on the rivers caused an escalation of mine attacks 

and ambushes of patrols. Game Warden minesweeping units on the rivers of 

South Vietnam cooperating with other Navy and Army units averaged 

approximately seventy-five patrols per month. Mobile bases for the river force 

included self-propelled support ships and non-self-propelled 

platforms-moved by tugs and outboard equipment-such as the repair, 

berthing and messing barge (YRBM), units of “married” barracks craft (APL), 

and floating workshops (YR) that provided logistic support for MCM 

operations. 

In the northern provinces additional minesweeping units were established 

at Da Nang and Cam Ranh Bay in April 1967. These units swept the Cua 

Viet River near the DMZ and the Perfbme River, which ran to Hue, to combat 

9 

94 
New Lessons Learned 

regular mining by the Viet Cong. After the 1968 Tet Offensive the Wet Cong 

increased mining of the Cua Viet, often using drifting mines disguised in 

baskets; US. forces countered these with hand grenades. LCMs rigged with 

minesweeping gear joined the PBRs assigned to the river patrols of Task Force 

Clearwater, protecting supply routes on the Perfume and Cua Viet rivers and 

providing convoy protection. North Vietnamese mining of the Cua Viet 

intensified in early 1969, and Mine Division 113 sent three MSBs to assist. 

By 1970 four minesweeper monitors (MSM) were regularly assigned to sweep 

the Perfume River while five went to the Cua Viet as part of the river security 

groups. At least one pressure mine was used on the Long Tau and one on the 

Cua Viet, where two magnetic-acoustic mines were also discovered. 

Riverine warfare in Vietnam required a variety of small boats to meet the 

mine threat. In addition to MSBs, the river forces converted other craft to 

minesweeping duty. The 30-ton patrol minesweeper (MSR) and the MSM 

swept both mechanically and acoustically. Other vessels including a modified 

50-foot motor launch (MLMS) and the 36-foot plastic MSLs deployed from 

MCM support ship Epping Forest (MCS-7) swe t for combination 

magnetic-acoustic mines in the Cua Viet River in 1968. 

In response to the needs of riverine MCM, the Panama City scientists 

developed magnetic and acoustic sweeps, infrared searchlights, a chain drag 

sweep with cutters to catch controlled mine cables, and improved sonar for 

testing in the rivers of Vietnam. They also developed experimental drone 

minesweepers (MSD), 23-fOOt, unmanned remote-controlled boats designed 

to sweep in shallow waters. Mine Division 113 tested the drones after 

February 1969 in the Mekong Delta, but they failed to clear mines and were 

later transferred to the Vietnamese. Most often the simplest methods worked 

best. MCM forces mechanically dragged and swept for control cables and 

contact mines using the new gear designed by Panama City. To counter 

swimmers with limpet mines, ships and barges used nets, patrols, regular 

watches, and randomly lobbed hand grenades to discourage swimmer 

approach. 

Riverine MCM required adaption of MCM technology to brown-water craft, 

while the surface MCM ships of the blue-water Navy operated continuously 

in the collateral duty of coastal patrol. By the late 1960s the MSO ships, the 

backbone MCM platforms, were in serious disrepair. Their brittle 

nonmagnetic engines and wooden hulls had been designed for the most 

dangerous magnetic minefield conditions, not for the constant patrols and 

escort operations that exigency now demanded. The high costs of Vietnam 

operations forestalled plans for a 1965-1966 minesweeper design to replace 

the MSOs. The proposed new sweeper was designed to carry the Shadowgraph 

side-looking mine detector sonar and a wire-guided torpedo known as the “Sea 

Nettle” for mine disposal, but the cost of operations depleted all ship 

development funds. Instead, the Navy had to find a means to keep the MCM 

10 

PI 

12 

95 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

U.S. Navy Photograph 

Asailor prepares to lower a drag chain with cutters into the Long Tau River. 

fleet, like other aging naval vessels, 0perationa1.l~ 

Block obsolescence, a continuing problem for all ships of the U.S. Navy since 

World War 11, required rehabilitation programs to extend service life 

expectancies. The capable MSOs, plagued with persistent mechanical 

problems and suffering from excessive wear on their wooden hulls, required 

significant upkeep, and in the late 1960s an MSO modernization program was 

begun. Improvements included installation of new Waukesha nonmagnetic 

engines and the SQQ-14 minehunting and classifying sonar, which 

significantly enhanced the ships’ performance. Unfortunately, uncontrolled 

cost growth, technical deficiencies, and the lack of a long-term, stable 

96 
New Lessons Learned 

production program designed to meet the special needs of wooden ships and 

minesweeping requirements resulted in an embarrassing fiasco. The 

modernization attempt reached its peak in 1969 with only thirteen of 

sixty-five ships completed, just when shipbuilding and refitting funds were 

being diverted to East Asian operations. Faced with expanded operations, 

plummeting resources, and a failed modernization program, the surface MCM 

force seemed doomed to extinction in a generally worn-out Navy. 

Escalation of the Vietnam War and increasing fiscal austerity through the 

late 1960s started the MCM forces’ long descent. Continuous commitment of 

U.S. naval ships and personnel around the globe and in Vietnam drained all 

Navy resources for the length of the war. Many ships served a dual purpose; 

the patrol and surveillance missions assigned to minesweepers freed up other 

Navy assets but shortened the life span of these rapidly aging vessels. Limited 

funds, stretched to fulfill wartime operational and logistic needs, left little 

money for completion of the refurbishment program. Ships that wore out 

quickly were not replaced, reducing the number of MCM ships and the billets 

assigned to them. The remaining ships and slow-moving river assault forces 

seemed plodding and outdated by 1970, particularly when compared with the 

quick-strike capabilities of readily available he1i~opters.l~ 

One of the key lessons of Wonsan had been recognition of the U.S. Navy’s 

limited shallow-water MCM capabilities. Although mine warfare in the rivers 

of Vietnam reminded the rest of the Navy of that lesson, the mine warfare 

community had never forgotten it. Intrigued by the possibility of sweeping by 

air to protect MCM surface vessels from mines, the mine force’s interest in 

AMCM increased during the war. Operational helicopter experience in 

Vietnam also taught the MCM force that protection was a two-way street in 

any amphibious assault requiring a precursor sweep, AMCM units would 

require at a minimum escort by offensive gunships and would prefer sweep 

areas not subject to hostile fire. Developmental AMCM targeted the MCM 

needs that surface vessels could not meet, particularly protection of the lead 

sweeping vessels from sensitive mines. 

Despite limited funding and support for AMCM development, laboratory 

work had steadily advanced. Panama City had identified and tested 

helicopter types suitable for minesweeping and had continued experimenting 

with sweep and minehunting gear. In the mid-1960s Panama City and the 

Naval Ordnance Laboratory collaborated on a project called “turtle,” a 

helicopter-towed underwater mine detection system. The turtle-shaped unit 

included a small sonar unit, a television camera, and explosives to hunt, 

classifi, and if possible detonate mines from a distance; however, the poor 

quality of the television picture and inadequate maneuverability shelved this 

project indefinitely. Panama City also began development of a magnetic sweep 

sled, a h drofoil vehicle housing an influence generator capable of high-speed 

sweeps. 

15 

& 

97 
“Damn the Torpedoes’ 

Meanwhile, Mine Squadrons 4 and 8 at Charleston experimented with 

helicopters and new gear throughout the late 1960s to develop tactics and 

support for precursor mechanical minesweeping by helicopter. After adapting 

mechanical sweep gear used by MSBs and MSLs for the helicopters, the 

squadrons tried to sweep by towing MSLs generating their streamed 

magnetic sweep gear, but this kind of activity required a boat crew. 

The squadrons soon found there were certain limits to using helicopters as 

minesweepers. Helicopters are not autonomous vehicles. They require a base 

ship and support vessels for operations, particularly to deploy and retrieve 

the heavy sweep sleds. Traveling at relatively slow towing speeds without 

engine overheating was an early problem, and helicopter rotor noise set off 

sensitive mines. In addition to support ships and a substantial logistics chain 

to operate, the helicopters also required good weather and atmospheric 

conditions. Nonetheless, by 1970 a promising start had been made in 

mechanical clearance by helicopters.” 

When Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., became Chief of Naval Operations in 

1970, he declared his immediate intent to rescue mine warfare from its 

obvious decline within the Navy, despite drastic cutbacks in DOD funding. 

Setting himself up as the champion of the mine warfare program, Zumwalt 

explained: 

I think that we in the U.S. Navy. . . have frequently been accused of not giving 

sufficient interest to the field of mine warfare, and in part, I believe, this is the 

result of the fact that our Navy is made up of three unions: the Aviation union, 

the Submarine union, and the Destroyer [surface] union and I have therefore 

made myself the head of the mine warfare union to try to get an equal balance 

of interest within the United States Navy in this very important field.” 

As a young lieutenant in November 1945, Zumwalt had witnessed Pacific 

minesweepers with inadequate intelligence and minehunting capabilities 

struggling to clear uncharted minefields at the mouth of the Yangtze River. 

He concluded at the time that surface minesweeping vessels were slow and 

uncertain. By 1970 he also considered them outdated. Within sixty days of 

becoming CNO, Zumwalt had developed Project 60, a comprehensive plan to 

revitalize the US. Navy during his tenure, and had decided to push through 

a complete helicopter MCM program. Believing that the aging surface MCM 

force was a financial drain on scarce Navy resources, Zumwalt scrapped the 

surface MCM fleet that was the product of the lessons learned at Wonsan “to 

economize on and modernize minesweeping techniques.” He predicted huge 

savings in operating expenses and the development of a worldwide, 

quick-strike, cost-effective, and safe method of countering the Soviet mine 

threat. The only problem was that the systems for using the helicopter as the 

sole sweeping unit were still developmental. 

Zumwalt’s plan effectively reversed the trend of MCM development since 

19 

98 
New Lessons Learned 

1952. Tactics and equipment had been developed to use helicopters to sweep 

sensitive and shallow mines in advance of regular surface minesweepers and 

minehunters; now the remaining surface ships would support the helicopters. 

Zumwalt gambled that the aircraft could be procured, tactics developed, and 

personnel trained before any mines needed to be swept.20 

These MCM policy changes reorganized MCM assets. As Vietnam naval 

operations permitted, MSOs stopped deploying with the fleets. The MCS 

mother ships were decommissioned, and helicopters and MSLs were 

embarked as needed on other amphibious ships. MSCs and some MSOs were 

sold to allied navies or transferred to the reserves, and only the MSBs and a 

few MSOs were retained to train the active fleet for wartime contingency 

operations. Impressed by Zumwalt’s belief in replacement of the surface MCM 

force with AMCM assets, the Department of Defense pressed for cancellation 

of a new 1971-1973 building program of MSOs and MSCs. All remaining 

funding and planning centered on the new aviation technology.21 

Zumwalt recognized the need for centralized control of the diverse air, sea, 

and undersea MCM assets. On 1 July 1971 he consolidated MINELANT and 

MINEPAC under one two-star type commander, as Commander Mine 

Warfare Force (COMINEWARFOR), at Charleston. COMINEWARFOR 

reported administratively to the CNO through the fleet commanders and 

operationally acted as a task force commander assigned to fleets as needed. 

Responsible for the readiness of all MCM units, COMINEWARFOR operated 

and maintained all surface MCM units and AMCM sweeping systems, with 

air assets actually owned and administered by Commander Naval Air Force, 

U.S. Atlantic Fleet (COMNAVAIRLANT). He also held sole responsibility for 

readiness and minefield planning. Active and reserve minesweepers reported 

“operationally, administratively, logistically, and training-wise” to 

COMINEWARFOR. For the first time since Admiral Sharp took over 

Minecraft, Pacific Fleet, during World War 11, one officer exercised command 

responsibility for operational readiness of all MCM assets.22 

With establishment of centralized coordination for the MCM forces, the 

next priority was procurement of AMCM aircraft. The Marine Corps agreed 

to transfer fifteen CH-53A helicopters strengthened with tow points to the 

Navy and also accepted a secondary MCM mission for their own CH-53A 

pilots and aircraft. COMNAVARLANT took thirteen of the transferred 

Marine Corps CH-53s and established the first operational AMCM squadron, 

Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron 12 (HM-12) at Norfolk, 

Virginia. COMINEWARFOR integrated this squadron into MCM operations 

by reestablishing Mine Squadron 8 as the Mobile Mine Countermeasures 

Command (MOMCOM). The MOMCOM’s mission was to train both MCM 

and AMCM assets for operations and to develop surface and airborne tactics 

and command and control capabilities. As additional duty, the MOMCOM 

commander would also deploy on short notice as an operational MCM task 

99 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

Courtesy CAPT Paul L. G~endl, USN (Ret.) 

MSB-40 trains with magnetic sweep gear before Operation End Sweep. 

group commander. His mission was to develop a global AMCM unit capable 

of deploying within seventy-two hours and of independently sweeping contact 

and influence mines for up to ninety days. MOMCOM would control all 

equipment, training, sweeping, and air control techniques, while 

COMINEWARFOR would coordinate, acquire, and deploy the air and surface 

units. 

Together, HM-12 and MOMCOM began practicing streaming, towing, 

refueling, and retrieving sweep gear and developing design modifications for 

a dedicated minesweeping helicopter in April 1971. The first unit of the new 

AMCM program underwent its first overseas exercise in a Mediterranean 

deployment in October 1971, and by February 1972 a second AMCM unit 

successfully participated in an amphibious assault landing exercise off the 

coast of Maine. By April a third exercise, a breakout channel clearance sweep 

at San Diego, California, was completed. 

Things moved quickly in the AMCM effort because they had to. The war 

in Vietnam was dragging on and MINEWARFOR staffers were drawing up 

23 

100 
New Lessons Learned 

plans for the minin of the waters of North Vietnam, particularly the crucial 

port of Haiphong. 

Despite US. efforts to disengage from Vietnam, once the NorthVietnamese 

began their concentrated March 1972 Easter Offensive on South Vietnam, the 

Seventh Fleet returned in strength offshore. With peace talks in Paris 

paralyzed, President Richard Nixon ordered a full commitment of US. naval 

forces to blunt the North Vietnamese assault. The fleet, together with the Air 

Force, launched a massive bombing campaign against North Vietnam. 

Nixon also ordered CINCPACFLT Admiral Bernard A. Clarey and 

Commander Seventh Fleet Vice Admiral James L. Holloway I11 to prepare 

plans to mine Haiphong. Knowing that the Hague Convention of 1907 

required subsequent removal of the mine threat and that the North 

Vietnamese would demand it, MINEWARFOR was tasked to prepare to sweep 

the mines soon to be planted. Consequently, planners from the Seventh Fleet 

and MINEWARFOR who developed the minelaying campaign also prepared 

in advance for the mine clearance, stipulating mine types requiring only 

magnetic sweeps for clearance. “From the beginning,” one officer recalled, 

the possibility of U.S. forces having to sweep the mines was a factor which 

influenced the types of mines used, their settings, and to a lesser degree their 

locations. As a result, when it came time to sweep, we knew everything about 

the mines and had purposely planted mines which could be swept easily and 

effectively by our mine countermeasures forces. . . . The vast majority of the 

mines were programmed to self-destruct and the remainder to go inert after a 

given time. Thus, even as the mines were dropped, the process of mine removal 

had been started.25 

On 8 May 1972 attack aircraft from Coral Sea (CVA-43) began mining 

North Vietnam’s major ports. The first drop in Haiphong harbor consisted of 

thirty-six magnetic-acoustic mines, which immediately stopped virtually all 

ship traffic. The North Vietnamese did not know how many were dropped and 

made no immediate attempt to sweep them. Seventy-two hours later the 

mines armed themselves, sealing twenty-seven foreign merchant vessels in 

the port. President Nixon announced that the mines would not be removed 

until the release of all American prisoners of war. Continued remining and 

bombing of North Vietnam influenced negotiations in Paris through 1972 as 

the US. increased military pressure on the North Vietnamese to negotiate a 

settlement .26 

In September 1972 Rear Admiral Brian McCauley was ordered to report as 

COMINEWARFOR and for additional duty as Commander Task Force 78, 

Mine Countermeasures Force, US. Seventh Fleet. Although Admiral 

McCauley had no mine warfare experience, his staff and operational officers 

did. Captain Felix S. “Hap”Vecchione, commander of the versatile MOMCOM 

and the driving force behind the study of operational MCM, directed MCM 

task group operations. His two key AMCM detachments were led by 

2$ 

101 
Original planning map for the clearance of Haiphong harbor. 

102 
Courtesy CAF'T Paul L. Gruendl, USN (Ret.) 

103 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

Commander Daniel G. Powell, an exceptional surface MCM officer, and 

Commander Cyrus R. Christensen, a two-tour veteran of Vietnam riverine 

MCM and a legend in the mine warfare community for his ability to jury-rig 

equipment. Commander Paul L. Gruendl, one of the original planners of the 

mining and clearance campaign, became task force chief of staff. With half of 

the MINEWARFOR organization slated to embark as his operational staff, 

Admiral McCauley commanded an operation that included most of the Navy’s 

best MCM officers, technology, and equipment?’ 

In formulating the clearance operation that came to be known as End 

Sweep, planners put highest priority on the safety of personnel and 

equipment. To avoid exposing the few qualified pilots and scarce equipment 

to live mines, the task force swept where mines had already gone inert in 

intentionally planned sequential tracks. Two sweep methods were planned. 

In an area where mines were known to have passed their sterilization dates, 

a check sweep consisting of a few passes with the minesweeping gear was 

designated. For a mined area with an unknown active status, a more thorough 

L - - .- 

U.S. Navy Photograph 

Rear Admiral Brian McCauley (front, center), Commander Task Force 78, and 

Commander Paul L. Gruendl (foreground), his Chief of Staff, with other 

members of the Mine Countermeasures Force, U.S. Seventh Fleet. 

104 
New Lessons Learned 

Captain Felix S. “Hap” Vecchione, 

Commander Mobile Mine Countermeasures Command and operational 

Commander Task Group 78.1, Operation End Sweep. 

U.S. Navy Photograph 

clearance sweep was planned. In addition, the task force employed an MSS 

as a demonstration ship to check sweep the main channel. Ten MSOs swept 

deep-water approaches and acted as helicopter control ships. 

With MCM for once a top priority in the Department of Defense, MCM 

commanders wasted no time in buying improved navigational systems and 

other off-the-shelf technology that they had always needed but could never 

get. For example, the task force bought the Raydist navigation system, a 

commercial electronic system that relied on the availability of a friend1 

land-based station to accurately vector helicopters for minefield clearance. 

Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, Chief of Naval Material, established a Mine Warfare 

Project Office (PM-19) to control scientific input into End Sweep from the 

various laboratories and engineering and systems commands involved in 

MCM. Drawing on the research resources at Panama City; Dahlgren, 

Virginia; and the Naval Ordnance Laboratory, the task force benefitted from 

the development of shallow-water sweep gear, precision navigation 

equipment, and integration of Raydist with the Swept Mine Locator systems. 

The task force could now pinpoint the exact location of mines cleared, allowing 

the minesweepers to discover the configwation of the minefield and to plot 

and to correct their sweep tracks daily. 

zfl 

105 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

_- m- - #!. h. -=>-* 

- x 3‘ - - i- -1 - 

___a_ - 

USN 1166763 

A CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopter lifts a Magnetic Orange Pipe off the 

amphibious assault ship Inchon (LPH-12) in Subic Bay, Philippines, during 

preparatory exercises for Operation End Sweep. 

106 
New Lessons Learned 

The two regular detachments of HM-12 were supplemented by two 

additional detachments of Marines from Marine Heavy Helicopter (HMH) 

Squadron 463 and Marine Medium Helicopter (HMM) Squadron 164; 

HMM-165 provided logistic support. To prepare the pilots for the Haiphong 

sweep, Captain Vecchione set up an exercise area off Charleston. Buoying off 

the planned sweep areas in a channel with underwater approaches nearly 

identical to those at Haiphong, the fledgling AMCM units were able to plan 

and practice the sweep of Haiphong off Charleston months in advance of the 

actual event. After the exercise one major change was made in the clearance 

plans. Because of the inexperience of the borrowed Marine Corps pilots in 

towing the heavy Mk 105 hydrofoil sleds and the critical shortage of this 

expensive equipment, Vecchione pushed for development of a lighter magnetic 

device to be used for precursor sweeps. A scientist from Panama City devised 

the Magnetic Orange Pipe (MOP), a buoyant orange, Styrofoam-filled, 

magnetized pipe that was an updated version of a World War I1 iron rail sweep 

easily towed by any pilot.30 

USN 1166300 

Task Force 78 ships in the Gulf of Tonkin head for North Vietnamese waters to 

begin Operation End Sweep. 

107 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

On 24 November 1972, Task Force 78 was officially activated under Admiral 

McCauley. While the Paris peace talks proceeded, AMCM units began secretly 

moving west. As HM-12, MSOs, Marine helicopter squadrons, MOMCOM, 

Task Force 78 staff, and an armada of support vessels gathered in the 

Philippines, the Paris Peace Talks broke down, and aircraft of the Seventh 

Fleet reseeded Haiphong‘s minefields. The Navy and Marine pilots practiced 

towing the new minesweeping equipment in Subic Bay, Philippines, over the 

holidays and waited for orders to begin the sweep. 

. ., 

.. ” .. 

1 

.: . .. . -. . --- -_ - . ... 

.. . 

-. - -. .. 

’ . I.. ..I 

,- 

I’ . A:..; ._ - - 

,.. , ;._. - _’ 

- .--: . -.:. 

108 
New Lessons Learned 

In January 1973 a cease-fire was finally negotiated in Paris based on the 

exchange of all American prisoners of war for US. withdrawal from South 

Vietnam and clearance of the mines laid in North Vietnamese waters. In the 

Protocol signed in Paris by Le Duc Tho and Henry Kissinger on 27 January 

1973 the United States agreed to meet its treaty obligation by “rendering the 

mines harmless through removal, permanent deactivation, or destruction.” 

Task Force 78 left Subic Bay for Haiphong on the following day.31 

On 27 February HM-12 executive officer Commander Jerry Hatcher flew 

the first AMCM mission in Haiphong‘s main shipping channel. The following 

day Nixon suspended MCM operations because of North Vietnamese delays 

in releasing American POWs. Although the task force resumed clearance 

sweeping of the northern ports on 6 March, no mine detonations occurred 

during the first three days. After considerable comment by both the American 

and North Vietnamese press about the lack of detonations, one mine did 

explode on 9 March and was recorded on film by the helicopter’s Swept Mine 

Locator. On 17 March the task force swept the ports of Hon Gai and Cam Pha. 

MSS-2, formerly Washtenaw County, pumped full of polyurethane foam and 

padded for protection of the six-man, topside-only crew, ran the Haiphong 

channel to assure clearance. Before completing the check runs, however, 

MCM forces were withdrawn in protest over violations of the cease-fire in 

Laos and Cambodia by North Vietnamese forces. On 17 A ril Task Force 78 

moved out to sea and then went into upkeep at Subic Bay. 

On 13 June both parties signed the Paris Joint Communique requiring the 

United States to resume minesweeping within the week and to complete 

clearance within the month. As all mines were past their longest sterilization 

date, U.S. negotiators had no difficulty promising completion of the sweep by 

midJuly. By 20 June the task force finished the check sweep of the main 

channel at Haiphong. After completion of the negotiated number of sweeps in 

all ports, Admiral McCauley notified the North Vietnamese that U.S. forces 

had “concluded” MCM operations, six months to the day after clearance had 

begun. Total cost of the MCM operation, including two helicopters lost, and 

all materials, maintenance, and casualties, was nearly $21 million, more than 

double the cost of the mine planting.33 

As the task force stood down, members of the staff studied the End Sweep 

operation thoroughly, producing lessons-learned documents, writing short 

studies, and holding a symposium to reassess the operation. They concluded 

that End Sweep itself was not a definitive test of the new AMCM technology, 

as too few mines had remained active. Helicopters did sweep three to six times 

faster than the MSOs but suffered high equipment stress, long downtime, 

lack of dedicated support ships, and difficult supply logistics. What the 

operation did prove was that AMCM vehicles could not clear mined waters 

without a complex support system of surface MCM vessels, amphibious 

mother ships, and a strong logistic chain. Air assets were as labor intensive 

t2 

109 
“Damn the Torpedoes‘ 

as surface ships because AMCM required so much supp01-t.~~ 

End Sweep benefitted from circumstances not usually found in combat 

minesweeping operations. It enjoyed high political visibility, exceptional staff 

work, a large amount of lead time, and sufficient preparation by the planners. 

Coordination of planning, readiness, and operations with all commands at 

every level made it a textbook operation in effective mine clearance. Able to 

preempt every air-capable amphibious vessel in the Seventh Fleet and to 

employ every known MCM asset, the operation also benefitted from strong 

support of the fleet commander, shore support facilities, and a community of 

exceptional officers.35 The operation was in every way a resounding success, 

and an unusual situation. As Admiral McCauley stressed, 

It would be a mistake to attempt to devise general, long-standing mine warfare 

conclusions from the specific operational and political arena in which End Sweep 

was conducted. End Sweep was a unique solution to a unique problem and did 

not present a challenge of nearly the magnitude that can be expected in the 

future. The location, type and settings of all mines were known. The vast 

majority of mines were the DST-36, a very sensitive magnetic or acoustic fuze 

placed on a 500 pound aircraft bomb. The magnetized pipe (MOP) was effective 

against this mine. It will not counter properly designed sophisticated mines. . . The objective of the sweeping was largely accomplished prior to laying the mines 

when the self-destruct time was set into the fuze36 

More important, End Sweep proved yet again that minesweeping, either 

by aircraft or by surface ship, was not by itself the answer to the problem of 

countering mines. “Perhaps the most important lesson learned in End 

Sweep,” remarked Admiral McCauley, “was one that we must continually 

relearn. Mine swee ing of any sort is difficult, tedious, lengthy, and totally 

devoid of glamor.’” McCauley cautioned that air assets failed to counter 

deep-water mines and were unusable in night sweeping, whereas the aged 

MSOs proved highly capable at both. He recommended that a balanced 

surface-air fleet and a varied MCM research program be pursued, particularly 

for development of remote-controlled guinea pig sweeps, minehunting 

equipment, buried mine locators, environmental data collection techniques 

for predictin ossible future mined areas, and improved surface and air 

MCM assets!‘There remains a firm need for a balance of air and surface 

MCM forces,” the admiral said. ‘This, perhaps, is the greatest lesson to be 

learned.” 39 

The successful outcome of End Sweep, however, gave many Americans the 

impression that AMCM units, due to their effectiveness and mobility, had 

replaced surface ships as the future mine countermeasures platform. In 

reality the sweep had required employment of all U.S. Navy air MCM assets 

and conversion of twenty-four Marine helicopters for six months to check 

sweep two known types of mines. The major lesson learned, the effectiveness 

110 
New Lessons Learned 

of using mines to close ports, should have triggered renewed focus on MCM 

requirements, but none of Admiral Zumwalt’s “unions” pressed for mine force 

interests. The mining of Haiphong and Operation End Sweep, however, had 

captured the attention of the American public in a way that the more 

dangerous day-to-day MCM operations in the rivers of Vietnam never had!’ 

As Admiral Kidd complained when End Sweep operations began, 

“Minesweeping seems to acquire sex appeal once every 25 years. The 

intervening hiatus is quite a hurdle to overcome.” 41 

AMCM would remain “sexy,” at least for the short term. HM-12 had just 

received its first shipment of new RH-53D minesweeping helicopters and 

began integrating them into the squadron when the Arab-Israeli War opened 

in October 1973. When the war ended, wreckage mixed with mines and 

unexploded ordnance that had closed the Suez Canal for nearly six years 

remained to be cleared. As part of an international agreement to clear the 

canal, Commander Sixth Fleet established Task Force 65 (Mine 

Countermeasures Force). Admiral McCauley, still serving as 

COMINEWARFOR, was named Commander Task Force 65 and assigned 

command over the international effort. Composed of members of all the 

services, the task force cleared land and water approaches of hulks and 

ordnance in a series of operations: Nimbus Star (minesweeping), Nimbus 

Moon Land (shore EOD), Nimbus Moon Water (underwater EOD), and 

Nimrod Spar (salvage). 

Plans for Nimbus Star were quickly conceived, but no intelligence was 

available concerning the numbers or types of mines, if any, planted in the 

In spring 1974, HM-12 and MOMCOM, operating from amphibious 

assault ships Iwo Jima (LPH-2) and Znchon (LPH-121, swept 120 square 

miles of water in 7,500 linear miles of sweep track from Port Said to Port Suez 

with the Mk 105 sleds in a little over one month. No mines were detonated 

in this sector. Costs of the operation reached $4.6 million. Elsewhere, in 

Operation Nimbus Moon Water, a joint team of American, British, French, 

and Egyptian EOD specialists, under the direction of Admiral McCauley and 

his relief, Rear Admiral Kent J. Carroll, cleared 8,500 pieces of underwater 

ordnance amounting to sixty tons in eight months including shells, bombs, 

grenades, and mines dating back to World War 11. 

It was possible for the Navy to learn the wrong lessons from End Sweep 

and Nimbus Star. In the first three years of operation COMINEWARFOR, 

MOMCOM, and HM-12 completed two major mine clearance operations, 

operated off the decks of nearly all the Navy’s amphibious ships, and served 

under three unified commanders, three Navy component commanders, and 

all four numbered fleet commanders, winning unit citations and international 

praise-while sweeping only one mine. 

Focusing on the quick and relatively casualty-free clearance of Haiphong 

and the Suez Canal, the Navy declared the helicopter minesweeping a 

45 

111 
"Damn the Torpedoes' 

3 

USN 1164331 

A magnetic hydrofoil sled, towed by a Sea Stallion helicopter of HM-12 during 

sweep operations in the Gulf of Suez. 

112 
New Lessons Learned 

resounding success. Admiral Zumwalt claimed that "the ability of the 

helicopters to sweep areas much faster than surface ships and with less 

manpower demonstrated that this concept was a winner." In actual practice 

AMCM required much more personnel, and HM-12's operational 

requirements resulted in the establishment of two additional squadrons for 

other concurrent deployment, HM-14 and HM-16. 

The Vietnam War and Admiral Zumwalt's policy decisions were the death 

knell of the MCM surface fleet, and the number of ships on active service 

declined from sixty-four in 1970 to nine in 1974. Reduction of the surface 

MCM force had deeper ramifications for the MCM and surface ship 

communities. From the height of the Wonsan building program to the 

mid-l970s, nearly one hundred lieutenant command at sea billets 

disappeared with the surface MCM ships. Loss of these command billets 

destroyed upward mobility and a sustainable career path for officers within 

the MCM specialty. The consequences were a reduced presence of surface 

warfare officers in the mine force and lower mine consciousness in the Navy 

as a whole. 

Still, organizationally the MCM force was in the best shape it had ever been. 

In addition to the establishment of MINEWARFOR, AMCM squadrons, and 

MOMCOM and more interest in mine warfare at the OPNAV level, the 

creation of the Naval Sea Systems Command in 1974 consolidated most 

technical mine warfare matters previously divided among the bureaus. Only 

MCM ship acquisition and combat systems development remained in 

separate offices!4 Thus even while MCM surface forces and billets declined 

in real numbers throughout the early 1970s, MCM developed into an 

integrated, multiplatforrn warfare specialty, primarily because of the 

capabilities of MINEWARFOR. Zumwalt's greatest achievement in mine 

warfare was not the establishment of the primacy of AMCM; it was 

centralization of MCM command in the creation of MINEWARFOR. 

That too soon ended. In the presence of declining budgets and higher 

priorities, the new CNO, Admiral Holloway, consolidated type commands in 

both fleets. All ships formerly assigned to the cruiser-destroyer, amphibious, 

service, and MCM type commands were transferred to Commander Naval 

Surface Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet (COMNAVSURFLANT), or Commander 

Naval Surface Force, US. Pacific Fleet (COMNAVSURFPAC). Helicopters 

remained under the command of naval air force type commands in the 

Atlantic and Pacific fleets. Inevitably the new surface commands came to be 

dominated by cruiser-destroyer officers for whom mine warfare and MCM 

were comparatively low priorities. 

In place of MINEWARFOR, Admiral Holloway established Mine Warfare 

Command (MINEWARCOM), ultimately a one-star command at Charleston. 

Strictly defined as a technical advisor to the CNO and liaison to the 

operational fleet commanders, Commander MINEWARCOM advises the 

45 

113 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

CNO on all mine warfare matters including readiness, training, tactics, and 

doctrine and coordinates MCM matters with the fleet commanders controlling 

air, surface, and undersea mining and MCM assets. COMINEWARCOM also 

provides mine warfare training for the combined Fleet and Mine Warfare 

Training Center and acts as mine warfare liaison to individual laboratories 

that report their mine and MCM advances directly to the Chief of Naval 

Research. The only operational units under the direct control of 

COMINEWARCOM are the Mobile Mine Assembly Groups (MOMAG), which 

are responsible for storing, maintaining, and assembling mines through 

thirteen active and twenty-seven reserve mine assembly detachments 

worldwide, and the Mine Warfare Inspection Group, which regularly trains 

and inspects 350 Navy units in the tactical and technical aspects of 

minelaying and MCM. In addition to these duties, COMINEWARCOM often 

commands Charleston Naval Base.46 

The cumulative effect of the organizational and policy changes 

implemented under Admirals Zumwalt and Holloway was a de-emphasis on 

MCM within the Navy. For four brief years, 1971-1975, mine warfare had a 

coordinated command structure that allowed an increasingly complex service 

to deploy quickly and use effectively all the diverse elements required to 

counter mines. After 1975 many of the requirements for a comprehensive 

MCM capability were gone. Only a handful of MCM ships remained in active 

service. The critical on-scene coordination of MOMCOM to conduct AMCM 

operations no longer existed, and the training and readiness of the MCM force 

were unequal competitors in newly formed type commands. Henceforth, the 

Navy was once again committed to improvisation when faced with the need 

for serious MCM. 

As the US. Navy’s surface, air, and submarine communities continued to 

develop and to integrate their warfighting skills to meet the anticipated Soviet 

threat, the Soviets advanced their own interest in mine warfare, developing 

new influence mine actuating systems. Continuous microprocessor 

enhancements improved mine selectivity, allowing mines to differentiate 

between real and false targets and determine whether to detonate, hesitate, 

or abort on an individual basis. Command-detonated mines were developed 

with remote controls, and deceptive stealth mines, designed to naturally 

blend into the underwater environment, soon made some mines almost 

impossible to detect visually in shallow water. 

American mine experts developed their own “smart” mines. For deep-water 

mining, American scientists created the Captor (Encapsulated Torpedo) mine, 

a moored mine armed with a modified homing torpedo. Using both passive 

and active sonar to locate targets, Captor mines remain dormant until 

activated by a passing ship. Such increasingly sophisticated mine technology 

forced MCM experts to search for a way to counter such mines, which can lurk 

and attack specific targets!’ 

114 
New Lessons Learned 

With the development of smart and rising mines, American strategists 

began to realize that Soviet mines were not merely a threat limited to 

relatively shallow waters. In the 1960s the Soviets had demonstrated their 

growing capability to lay mines in previously unmineable shipping lanes and 

choke points to counter US. Navy submarine and carrier operations. The 

threat of deep-water Soviet mines revitalized limited interest in surface MCM 

for open-ocean operations, but this interest sputtered along for several years 

without coming to fruition. Plans for an improved, wooden hull 

MSO-523-class were shelved in the late 1960s due to continuing budget 

constraints; not until the mid-1970s were ocean minesweepers reconsidered. 

In 1976 Admiral Holloway approved the design for a steel-hulled, 

deep-ocean minesweeper-hunter to supplement AMCM helicopters’ 

shallow-water capability. Vice Admiral James H. Doyle, DCNO for Surface 

Warfare, recommended a limited shipbuilding program for this specific 

capability. The Navy proposed building nineteen of these steel-hull ships, but 

the Carter administration delayed the program, and the ship was never built. 

Planners then recommended a low mix of smaller, faster vessels, particular1 

small MSBs and MSLs that could be carried by an amphibious mother ship. 

A compromise package developed in 1979 under the personal leadership of 

CNO Admiral Thomas B. Hayward called for integrated minehunting and 

clearance systems on a number of different platforms at much lower cost and 

size. The systems would be centered around a deep-ocean mine 

countermeasures ship (MCM) as a replacement for the MSOs. In addition to 

the MCM with its modern autonomous mine neutralization system 

(MNSI-an advanced remotely operated minehunting vehicle-a new, 

smaller class of coastal minesweeper hunters (MSH), with most of the 

minehunting capability of the MCM, was proposed. 

While the Navy and the Congress debated the size of this theoretical MCM 

building program, Admiral Hayward tasked COMINEWARCOM with the 

development of a Craft of Opportunity Program (COOP) to employ reserves 

and minesweepers. Using rented or confiscated shrimp boats (former drug 

runners) with the proper configuration for deep-water trawling, MCM 

veteran Captain Cyrus Christensen directed Mine Squadron 12 to experiment 

in re-equipping the vessels with more powerful generators required to operate 

the influence minesweeping gear taken from scrapped MSOs and mechanical 

sweep equipment formerly used on MSCs. 

Informally rechristening their first effort the minesweeping shrimp boat 

(MSSB-l), Christensen tested commercially available sonar, navigation, 

radio, and minehunting equipment at Charleston. Encouraged by the tests, 

he obtained assistance from the trawler conversion experts of the Royal Navy 

to develop deep trawl equipment and proved the viability of fishing boats in 

channel surveying, minehunting, and s~eeping.~’ Determined to prove to the 

Navy that drastically reduced resources were decreasing the combat 

43 

115 
“Damn the Torpedoes 

readiness of the MCM forces, Christensen obtained experimental models of 

several types of advanced Soviet mines for demonstration. In breakout 

exercises in 1979 and 1980 Christensen proved, to the consternation of many 

senior officers, that “all of the forces the US. Atlantic Fleet could bring to bear 

could not open one East Coast port in any acceptable period of time.” 50 

In 1980 COMINEWARCOM Rear Admiral Charles F. Horne I11 brought the 

MCM community’s program for active recognition of the Soviet mine threat 

to the halls of the Pentagon. Admiral Horne succeeded in convincing many 

key players in the Pentagon of the seriousness of the Soviet and Third World 

mine threat and the inadequacy of the remaining U.S. surface assets. 

Appreciating that sophisticated MCM required a mix of versatile platforms, 

technology, and personnel, Admiral Hayward personally encouraged an 

across-the-board MCM “renaissance.” Such a program would include 

advances in computer-assisted threat evaluation, training, advanced sonar 

and mine neutralization vehicles, new ship construction, refits of older MSOs, 

and new, larger, faster, and more adaptable AMCM vehicles that could tow 

heavier equipment, and operate for longer periods and at night. In addition, 

Hayward approved COMINEWARCOM’s proposal that a reserve harbor 

defense program be developed along the lines of the existing British trawler 

force and the MSSB-1 experiments. Admiral Hayward tasked 

COMINEWARCOM to develop the COOP program, and integrate it into the 

buildup of the 600-ship Navy planned by the Reagan administration. Plans 

originally called for twenty-two units, one for each key US. port, with four 

reserve crews assigned per unit. 

While the post-Wonsan Navy had developed some technological advances 

in minehunting techniques, particularly mine-classification variable-depth 

sonar, by the mid-1960s the Navy had fallen far behind its NATO allies in 

MCM development, particularly in fiberglass shipbuilding technology and 

small drone boat minesweeping systems. European nations, notably France, 

had successfully developed increasingly sophisticated versions of tethered 

dual minehunting and mine-neutralizing ROVs. On the other hand, U.S. 

industry had developed many excellent potential ROVs for the offshore oil 

industry. The US. MNS, planned for the new MCM ship, would be built upon 

these foreign and industrial advances, employing both sonar and television 

cameras to locate, classi~, and neutralize mines with explosives or cable 

cutters.52 

Committing itself to a 31-ship, MCM building program of both 

high-performance, high-cost and low-performance, low-cost vessels, in 1981 

the Navy proposed a sophisticated fiberglass-encased wood-laminate design, 

the 224-foot Avenger-class MCM, to support both deep-water mechanical 

minesweeping and the advanced minehunting capabilities of the 

developmental MNS. In addition to having mechanical and influence sweep 

gear, the Avenger class is equipped with advanced minehunting sonar, precise 

51 

116 
LIT 

maN suossq pau~vq 
“Damn the Toipedoes’’ 

adapting instead the design for an existin Italian MCM ship, Len’ci, as the 

Regular delays associated with the MCM program and cancellation of the 

MSH reminded some elements of the Navy of the hazards of a quick-fm 

approach to developing MCM technology. In the long time between building 

programs, much of the art had been lost, and regaining it proved costly. As 

one shipbuilding expert noted, 

The principal cause of our current difficulties in mine warfare shipbuilding is 

the lack of long term, sustained production program through the 1950s, 1960s 

and 1970s. We are now reinventing modem shipboard mine countermeasures 

after a 30 year gap instead of having it continuously evolved at a measured 

pace. 

As the rebuilding program moved slowly forward, the leaders of the MCM 

community worked to maintain the readiness of their force and its proper 

place in the warfighting consciousness of the Navy. They were often frustrated 

by the glacial progress of both. AMCM units continued to train for quick 

deployment and experimented with towed minehunting sonar, but did so 

without a dedicated support ship; AMCM squadron commanders had 

difficulty even obtaining deck time to train their men. MCM priority was no 

higher within DOD. Navy RH-53D minesweeping helicopters were chosen for 

the April 1980 Iranian hostage rescue mission, although minesweeping had 

nothing to do with the mission. When seven of the Navy’s inventory of thirty 

minesweeping helicopters were lost, Secretary of Defense Harold Brown 

hesitated to replace them, reinforcing the im ression that few in top authority 

thought MCM of national importance.’ Successive MINEWARCOM 

commanders sought to invigorate the Navy’s interest in all facets of MCM but 

succeeded in little more than sustaining the status quo in numbers of future 

ships to be built. That a fully integrated MCM force was indeed a necessa 

part of warfighting was a lesson the Navy would have to learn and relearn. 

Ten years after the clearance of the Suez Canal, mining activity in the Red 

Sea and the Persian Gulf again brought MCM into international prominence. 

In July and August 1984 suspicious underwater explosions crippled at least 

sixteen merchant vessels in the Gulf of Suez. In response to Egyptian appeals, 

advisors from US. Central Command (CENTCOM), EOD personnel from 

Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet (CINCLANTFLT), and 

MINEWARCOM staff joined an international mine hunt to search for the 

source of the explosions. British minehunters already in the area were 

assigned to a sector requiring intense minehunting capabilities, while the 

Italians and the French, whose forces included former American MSOs 

converted to minehunters, took smaller search sectors. Egypt, seeking a 

complete mix of forces, specifically requested U.S. AMCM helicopters, and 

HM-12 and HM-14 immediately stood by on alert. Within hours of the official 

request for assistance the first of the helicopters were en route on US. Air 

MHC-51 Osprey-class coastal minehunter. %4 

55 

x 

118 
New Lessons Learned 

Force (3-5s. U.S. forces dubbed their duty Operation Intense Look?' 

As the mine crisis arose during the annual Moslem pilgrimage to Mecca, 

Saudi Arabia requested emergency assistance in sweeping the ports of Yanbu 

and Jidda, and the U.S. forces split into two detachments. The first 

detachment, supported by Middle East Force flagship La SaZZe (LPD-31, 

swept these ports and also swept the Bab el Mandeb with combined magnetic 

and acoustic hydrofoil sleds to ensure safe passage for carrier America 

(CV-66) and her escorts transiting from the Indian Ocean to the 

Mediterranean. 

A second detachment designated to sweep in the Red Sea was assisted by 

the coastal hydrographic survey ship Harlzness (T-AGS-32). It was supported 

by an assigned Atlantic Fleet EOD side-scan sonar detachment and the 

amphibious transport Shreueport (LPD-12) as a helicopter platform. 

Helicopters from the second detachment towed the new AN/AQS-14 

minehunting sonar. In this first operational deployment of the AQS-14 the 

detachment flew up to eight missions in their assigned sector of the Red Sea 

despite heavy weather. As an MCM operation, the effort was a success, for 

repeated sweeps proved the areas free of mines. As an operational test of the 

new sonar, however, the results were inconclusive; no mines were located by 

the U.S. MCM forces in these waters.59 

Several mines were detonated by the international forces, but the British 

recovered and exploited one advanced combination influence mine based on 

a Soviet design and believed to have been laid by the Libyans. Although the 

clearance operation underscored the growing international fears of undersea 

terrorism, the terrorist threat was doubly apparent to the men of HM-14 

whose homecoming was delayed by emergency support and medical 

evacuation missions to the bombed U.S. Embassy in Beirut." 

In light of the ease with which terrorists demonstrated their ability to mine 

this important international choke point, MCM quickly became the focus of 

international concern. Studies soon noted the importance of coordination of 

international MCM forces and national integration of mobile air, sea, and 

undersea MCM forces, the lessons repeatedly learned by U.S. MCM forces 

since Wonsan6l The overall effect of such low-intensity mine warfare by 

terrorist organizations and the Third World reminded many nations of their 

own vulnerability to mines. 

Escalation of such low-intensity mining in Middle Eastern waters 

continued to impinge on U.S. interests throughout the 1980s. From the 

beginning of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980 merchant vessels suffered regular air, 

surface, and mine attacks by both sides in the transit lanes in the Persian 

Gulf. Escalation of attacks on commercial vessels in 1984 led Kuwait to 

request convoy protection from other nations for its tankers. When the Soviets 

agreed to assist Kuwait in 1986, the Reagan administration reconsidered and 

decided to offer protection to half of Kuwait's tanker fleet by sailing them 

119 
"Damn the To7pedoes"

under the American flag with appropriate military protection. While Congress

openly debated the decision to reflag Kuwaiti tankers, new fields of moored

contact mines began appearing throughout the gulf. These were, by and large,

M-08 mines, manufactured in North Korea of 1908 Russian design and laid

by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Soon, these mines began to break free

of their mooring cables and joined similar MYaM contact mines, laid by both

Iran and Iraq in the early 1980s, littering the gulf waters and threatening

U.S. warships.

In early 1987 U.S. Navy EOD divers, supported by Kuwaiti and Saudi

Arabian surface forces and by other U.S. Navy EOD personnel mine spotting

from a Kuwait Air Force helicopter, cleared ten contact mines near Kuwait's

AI-Ahmadi oil terminal. COMINEWARCOM immediately deployed an

evaluation team to Kuwait while COMNAVAIRLANT put HM-14 on 24-hour

alert. 52

The first convoy of reflagged tankers protected by U.S. Navy warships

under the codename Operation Earnest Will directed by Commander Middle

East Force (CMEF) began steaming toward Kuwait on 24 July 1987. Supplied

with the exact route and timing of the first convoy, Iranian Revolutionary

Courtesy RADM W. W. Mathis, USN

SS Bridgeton, 24 July 1987, four minutes after a mine blew a 35-by-45-foot hole

in her port bow. She shows a list of only about one degree and lost no speed

capability as a result of the damage.

120
New Lessons Learned 

U.S. Navy Photograph 

Interior view of an RH-53D helicopter during Persian Gulf minesweeping 

operations, August 1987. 

Guards found mining the supertankers’ path an easy matter. As escort ships 

steamed in front and astern, SS Bridgeton hit an M-08 mine off Farsi Island, 

damaging but not stopping her. Escorting cruiser Fox (CG33), frigate 

Crommelin (FFG-371, and destroyer Kidd (DD-993) fell in behind the 

supertanker, and the convoy continued on to Kuwait. Americans watching 

nightly television newscasts saw the US. Navy escort vessels in a scene 

reminiscent of Farragut’s ships at Mobile Bay, steaming in column behind 

Bridgeton and SS Gas Princess to take advantage of their deeper draft as a 

precaution against additional moored mines. For Bridgeton’s return trip US. 

MCM advisors outfitted two 150-foot Kuwaiti commercial tugs, Hunter and 

Striker, with standard MSB mechanical minesweeping gear. When one-third 

of the tugs’ regular civilian crews refused to undertake minesweeping, the 

Navy recruited volunteers to man the minesweeping tugs from among the 

experienced enlisted men serving ashore at the Administrative Support Unit, 

Bahrain, and from US. MSB units.63 

HM-14, which had been on 24-hour alert status in Norfolk for over a month, 

received word to uncrate and unpallet their equipment and to return to their 

standard 72-hour alert just days before Bridgeton’s mining. No sooner had 

they done so, than they were called to the gulf; in six hours their first load of 

equipment headed east.64 When HM-14’s detachment of eight RH-53D 

helicopters arrived, they began minesweeping operations in advance of the 

convoys and were supported, in turn, by amphibious assault ships 

121 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

r 

DN-SN-S(M1078 

Divers head toward Illusive (MSO4481, one of three ocean minesweepers in 

tanker escort operations in the Persian Gulf, fall 1987. 

Guadalcanal (LPH-7) and Okinawa (LPH-3). Operating in convoy for the 

first time, the squadron quickly realized that the surface ships had difficulty 

adjusting to the peculiar demands of the large minesweeping helicopters. The 

logistic needs of the AMCM helicopters forced them to carry many sets of 

duplicate gear and parts, and the decks of the ships were barely large enough 

to contain their equipment. Heat, humidity, and caking sand cut the 

helicopters’ operating time on convoy, but the detachment swiftly got the 

aircraft back in operation and visually searched for mine lines in advance of 

the convoys. In addition to the aircraft, four MSBs unsuccessfully attem ted 

Expecting a protracted operation requiring the best available minehunting 

and minesweeping capabilities, the Navy deployed six of the remaining 

MSOs, three from each fleet (five from the Naval Reserve Force), with rotating 

crews of active duty personnel. To save wear on their vintage ships, the three 

Atlantic Fleet ships, Fearless (MSO-442), Inflict (MSO-4561, and Illusive 

(MSO-448), were towed to the gulf by Grapple (ARS-53) over 9,000 nautical 

miles. The three Pacific Fleet ships, Esteem (MSO-4381, Enhance (MSO-4371, 

and Co uest (MSO-488), proceeded to the gulf under conventional tow by 

an LST. 

The records compiled by the MSOs operating in the Persian Gulf from 1987 

to clear mines off Bahrain Bell, an area regularly used by U.S. vessels. 6g 

% 

122 
New Lessons Learned 

to 1990 are by any definition exceptional. On arrival in the gulf under the 

command of Captain Jerry B. Manley and successive MCM Group 

Commanders (MCMGRUCOM), the MSOs began operating, sweeping 

regular Q-route channels and minehunting with their SQQ-14 sonar in the 

convoy shipping lanes. The MSOs had limited success in identifying mine-like 

contacts by using industrial ROVs, notably Super Sea Rover, lightweight 

units with no mine neutralization capability, and relied on EOD personnel for 

mine destruction. Despite rumors that North Korea may have provided the 

Iranians with influence mines, MSOs found only the contact variety. 

Within the first eighteen months of Persian Gulf minesweeping operations, 

the MSOs accounted for over fifty moored mines, cleared three major 

minefields, and check swept convoy tracks throughout the gulf. In March 

1989, almost one year aRer finding their last moored contact mine, half of the 

MSOs returned to the United States. After thirty years in the mine force the 

MSOs in the Persian Gulf had a rare opportunity to operate in the manner 

DN-SN-8&01075 

Illusive's crew members get ready to lower an acoustical device during training 

for escort operations in the Persian Gulf, fall 1987. 

123 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

for which they had been designed to hunt and sweep mines in established 

routes in advance of convoy sorties. 

Other MCM elements operating in the gulf included advisors and scientists. 

COMINEWARCOM initiated a Navy Science Assistance Program, installing 

experimental mine-detecting devices on combat ships for protection against 

drifting mines and developing new minesweeping tactics to meet the threat 

posed by both moored and drifting mines. Several scientific MCM initiatives, 

such as minehunting optics and the use of underwater, unmanned vehicles 

for mine identification, received their first operational testing in the gulf. 

Fleet commanders and COMINEWARCOM provided staff officers to the 

MCM Group Commanders, who also advised commanding officers and Joint 

Task Force Middle East (JTFME) staff on mine matters, planned sweep 

operations, refined tactical and navigation procedures, developed 

maintenance and logistics schemes, and cooperated with other nations’ MCM 

The mine threat in the Persian Gulf increased U.S. Navy MCM awareness, 

at least briefly, and reminded captains of their ships’ vulnerability to an 

increasing pattern of low-intensity mine warfare. “Events in the Gulf,” noted 

one analyst, ‘?lave done much to shake navies out of their lethargy-ne of 

the most worrying aspects of the Iranian mine warfare offensive is how 

67 

units sweeping waters nearby. 68 

Attached to the II 

II MKT 

14 Explosive \ ‘s 

\\ 

II 

5G Float 

XP I f 56 

II . . ,. s-4 Float 

/ _- 

Sweep Wire 

Courtesy Bobby Scott and Wilfred Patnaude 

Diagram of Iowa’s bowsweep system as used in 1987. 

124 
New Lessons Learned 

limited it really is.” Navy helicopters, particularly the frigates’ capable 

LAMPS MK I11 SH-GOBs that were usually assigned to antisubmarine 

warfare missions, were regularly assigned to mine spotting in advance of 

ships. The standard ship protection, however, remained the bow watch, a relic 

of the Civil War. The temperature and salinity of the waters permitted most 

shallow-moored or floating mines in the gulf to be seen by a bow watch, and 

sailors watched carefully for mines after Bridgeton’s mining. 

For most surface officers, concern about mines was an unusual addition to 

regular shipboard operations. Some officers went further than others to 

protect their ships from mine attack. As the battleship Iowa (BB-61) prepared 

for deployment in August 1987, Captain Larry Seaquist fabricated a successor 

to his ship’s original World War I1 paravane system. Aided by the 

COMINEWARCOM staff, Mine Squadron 2, and the Vietnam river 

minesweeping experience of his master chief and ship’s boatswain, Seaquist 

rigged standard 5-G sweep gear to the bow of Iowa and prepared to cut mine 

mooring cables if necessary. When deployed in exercise, this gear proved easy 

to stream and the ship retained her maneuverability even at high speeds. 

Encouraged by Seaquist’s example, at least one other officer considered 

streaming bowsweep equipment in the gulf to cut contact mines.70 

In addition to providing MCM assets for clearance operations, U.S. Navy 

69 

r 

DN-SN-88-10166 

The barge Hercules, one of the forward-deployed mobile bases in Operation 

Earnest Will, had a main mission of preventing minelaying. 

125 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

and joint service officers also developed an aggressive strategy to prevent 

mine attacks in the Persian Gulf through a combination of forward basing, 

continuous presence, surveillance, patrolling, and carefully measured 

responses to individual situations. Using the talents of special operations and 

staff officers who had served on mobile support bases in the rivers of Vietnam, 

JTFME transformed two mobile oil platforms into Mobile Sea Barges and 

undertook operations from the barges to prevent minelaying. Much as 

Vietnam had demonstrated that riverine MCM was a combined operation, the 

gulf war of the late 1980s proved that prevention of minelaying is an all-Navy 

and joint service combat operation. 

Despite Iranian protests that their vessels laid no mines, U.S. intelligence 

assets tracked the Iranian landing craft Iran Ajr from its port in Iran to an 

area north of Qatar in September 1987. A US. helicopter from the frigate 

Jarrett (FFG-331, using night-vision cameras, detected minelaying activity 

aboard the vessel and observed the crew laying at least six mines, and fired 

on the ship. After a short time the ship resumed minelaying and the 

helicopters again fired; at daybreak a boarding party captured the boat with 

nine mines aboard. The publicity surrounding this event effectively halted 

Iranian minelaying for six months. The boarding party also recovered charts 

marked with minefields planted that night, allowing MCM forces to exploit 

the field.’l 

Iranian mines provoked a stronger measured response from the Navy the 

following year. On 14 April 1988, while on a routine transit between Earnest 

Will missions, seventy nautical miles east of Bahrain Bell, the bow watch on 

DN--7-12684 

Contact mines on board the captured Iranian minelaying ship Iran Ajr. 

126 
New Lessons Learned 

frigate Samuel B. Roberts (FFG58) spotted three shiny new mines in the 

water about one-half mile away. “Damn, those look just like mines,” 

Commanding Officer Paul X. Rinn immediately thought as he ordered his 

ship to stop. Calling his men to general quarters and closing the ship’s 

water-tight doors and hatches, Rinn followed the standing instructions of 

Commander JTFME Rear Admiral Anthony A. Less to prepare his LAMPS 

MK I11 helicopter to mark the mine position with floats and flares. While the 

helicopter prepared to launch, Rinn began warily backing down in the ship’s 

wake away from the mine line using the ship’s forward auxiliary power units. 

Hampered by rough seas, the ship swung into another submerged M-08 mine 

that blew a 20-foot hole in her hull, broke the keel, blew the engines off their 

mounts, and flooded the main engine room and other spaces. Trapped in a 

probable minefield after dark, Rinn refused assistance and fought the fires 

and flooding, stabilizing the ship until she could emerge from the minefield 

under her own power. Without the immediate and effective damage control 

efforts of her crew already in their proper stations, the mine damage would 

have sunk Roberts. After patching the ship together that night, crewmen 

trained searchlights on the water seeking more mines, another 

ship-protective method like the bow watch used by naval vessels since the 

mid-nineteenth century. 

MSOs and assisting ships found and destroyed five mines in the waters 

around the site of Samuel B. Roberts’ mining. Determining that the mines 

were of the same manufacture as those captured aboard Iran Ajr the previous 

September, the United States planned a measured response. In retaliation 

for the mining of Roberts, the United States launched Operation Praying 

Mantis, destroying two Iranian oil platforms and nearly half the Iranian Na 

on 18 April 1988, ending at least for a time most Iranian mining attempts. 

MCM efforts in the Persian Gulf in the 1980s benefitted from unusually 

easy mine spotting, generally good weather, a lack of antisubmarine warfare 

problems, and manageability of the other threats. The lack of influence mines 

also kept casualties low and operations possible. Hence, the aging but able 

MSOs, helicopters, and EOD and special operations personnel dedicated to 

MCM efforts capably met the mine threat. That achievement, however, 

required full use of all the Navy’s available MCM assets. Very shortly after 

those assets were finally removed and the remainder of the MSOs returned 

stateside, war returned to the Persian Gulf. 

In August 1990 Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army invaded and captured 

neighboring Kuwait. United Nations sanctions and economic embargoes 

failed to convince Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait, and America and its 

U.N. allies prepared for a lengthy war on the land and in the easily mined 

waters of the Middle East. Immediate MCM planningbegan, AMCM and EOD 

units deployed, and Avenger (MCM-1) and three MSOs, Adroit (MSO-5091, 

Impervious (MSO-4491, and Leader (MSO-490), were immediately sealifted 

x 

127 
"Damn the Torpedoes' 

A Navy EOD diver attaches a neutralization charge to a LUGM contact mine 

during Operation Desert Storm. Note that the diver is using the new Mk 16 

underwater breathing apparatus (UBA), which features a low magnetic and 

acoustic signature. 

E 

f 

d 

to the Persian Gulf to provide MCM forces for Operation Desert Shield.73 

After U.N. forces commenced wartime Desert Storm on 16 January 1991, the 

operational tempo of the MCM forces rose markedly. Acting on US. 

intelligence estimates of the mine threat, US. and British surface MCM 

ships, as well as US. AMCM helicopters led by the Commander US. MCM 

Group Command (COMUSMCMGRUCOM), cleared a channel toward 

Kuwait for the advancing amphibious assault force. 

On Monday, 18 February 1991, two U.S. Navy warships involved in these 

mine clearance operations, amphibious carrier Tripoli (LPH-lo), the flagship 

of allied MCM operations, and guided-missile cruiser Princeton (CG-59), a 

new and expensive ship equipped with the state-of-the-art Aegis long-range 

air defense system, were mined in two separate incidents in the northern 

Persian Gulf. Tripoli hit a moored contact mine fifty miles off Kuwait. 

Although she suffered at least a 16-by-25-foot hole in her hull, she remained 

temporarily on station to support minesweeping operations in preparation for 

the anticipated amphibious assault. 

128 
New Lessons Learned 

A few hours later and ten miles away, Princeton detonated at least one 

influence mine under her keel, which lifted the ship out of the water, cracked 

her hull, and caused extensive damage to her midsection and one propeller. 

Although Princeton’s Tomahawk weapons and Aegis systems remained intact, 

she was unable to stay on station, and was towed to port for further damage 

as~essment.~~ Withalmost daily increases in mine spotting and destruction 

by Navy surface, air, and EOD forces, US. and British MCM ships led US. 

battleships into a cleared fire support area under constant targeting by Iraqi 

silkworm missile launchers. 

The mining of two important Navy warships in waters believed to be 

mine-free once again emphasized the U.S. Navy’s recognized failure to sustain 

adequate combat MCM capability. At a congressional hearing on 21 February 

1991, Secretary of the Navy H. Lawrence Garrett I11 explained that the Navy 

“spent more than 25 years not developing or buying new minesweepers or 

minehunters,” while others pointed to continuing US. dependence on NATO 

allies for minesweeping technologies and assistance. The extreme danger to 

attacking allied forces posed by extensive Iraqi sea mining and coastal 

fortifications ended with the success of the allied ground war, assisted by the 

successful deception of the Iraqi defenders by the allied amphibious forces off 

U.S. Navy Photograph 

Damage done to ZEpoZi (LPH-10) by a primitive Iraqi mine in the northern 

Persian Gulf during Desert Storm. 

129 
"Damn the Torpedoes" 

z 

2 

; 

U 

This bottom influence mine was towed onto the beach for exploitation during 

Desert Storm. Note the two lifting balloons that were used to raise the mine off 

the ocean floor. 

A developmental version of the SQQ-32, the next generation of advanced 

minehunting sonar, was operationally tested by Avenger during Desert Storm 

with exceptionally good results. 

130 
New Lessons Learned 

Kuwait. As the 42-day war came to an end in late February, U.S. and British 

forces had accounted for more than 160 contact mines. Augmented by MCM 

forces of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Japan, 

independent allied forces cleared hundreds of contact and influence mines 

using captured charts and basic intelligence provided by Iraqi sources as a 

requirement of the cease-fire. Throughout the spring and summer of 1991, 

U.S. and British MCM forces swept and hunted hundreds of square miles, 

clearing channel routes to reopen commerce with Kuwait, and then joined 

other coalition MCM forces in attacking the mine lines.75 

The escalation of the Vietnam War in the mid-1960s drained the Navy and 

the MCM fleet of substantial resources that had been carefully built up to 

sustain naval warfighting skills. As shallow-water riverine MCM became the 

focus of important day-to-day MCM operations throughout the late 1960s, 

fewer surface naval officers became involved in MCM, which necessarily took 

on a special operations character in the rivers of Vietnam. When MCM once 

again became a national priority, albeit briefly, in End Sweep, the 

commitment of the Navy to AMCM and the substantial redefinition of MCM 

operations required to support helicopter operations completely reidentified 

MCM as a specialty force. 

Spurred on by improved Soviet deep-water mining capabilities and by 

belated recognition of the inadequate state of the existing mine force ships, 

the Navy began rebuilding the MCM fleet in the 1980s only to discover that 

the complex requirements of building nonmagnetic ships would stall their 

entry into the fleet for nearly a decade. The Persian Gulf wars in the late 

1980s and early 1990s and the mining of Samuel B. Roberts, Dipoli, and 

Princeton reminded many naval officers of the lessons of the history of mine 

warfare, particularly the ease with which simple, antique mines can destroy 

the most advanced warships. The Navy also relearned that although reprisals 

for such mining attacks can immediately deter minelaying, only a flexible, 

combat-ready MCM force can clear mined waters. The Navy also rediscovered 

one of the major lessons repeatedly learned by the mine force since Wonsan: 

for the Navy to meet mine threats in an age of low-intensity warfare, the MCM 

force must be considered part of the naval warfighting team along with other 

communities in the Navy. 

Current Navy plans call for a balanced MCM force of surface and air assets 

operating in tandem to clear home ports, choke points, sea lines of 

communication, and forward operating areas, in sequence, with AMCM assets 

specifically tasked for breakout and quick response. U.S. Navy operational 

MCM assets in 1989-1990 consisted of a total of 20 Korean War-era MSOs in 

both the active and the reserve fleet, 21 RH-53D helicopters, and 7 MSBs. 

The first new MH-53 helicopters and MCM vessels funded in the 1980s are 

also now entering fleet operations. New construction plans include 14 

Auenger-class MCMs, 17 MHCs, and 32 advanced MH-53 helicopters. 

131 
"Damn the Torpedoes" 

L- -4 

Leader and Avenger in the Persian Gulf, 1991. Desert Storm MCM operations 

required heroic efforts of MSO and MCM crews to clear gunfire support areas 

and to reopen shipping channels to Kuwait. 

Although stringent budget cuts anticipated throughout the Navy in the 1990s 

threaten the completion of this modest building program, the entire cost of 

all active and reserve U.S. Navy funding for mine warfare, including the 

building of these new ships, accounts for less than one-half of one percent of 

the U.S. Navy budget.76 

Recent concern over mines in the Persian Gulf has benefitted the MCM 

force by reemphasizing the urgent need for new ships. Already some of the 

new MCMs under construction, slated for turnover to the reserves after one 

year of operation, will now be retained in the active force. With new ships will 

come increased officer and enlisted billets. Also recognizing the need to better 

integrate MCM back into naval warfighting, in 1988 CNO Admiral Trost 

dual-hatted the Charleston-based COMINEWARCOM with an OPNAV 

collateral duty position as Director Mine Warfare Division (OP-72) under the 

DCNO for Naval Warfare, giving COMINEWARCOM a Washington base from 

which to champion mine warfare readiness. Yet, in 1991, in the midst of the 

biggest MCM operation since 1952, the COMINEWARCOM billet was 

temporarily gapped, leaving mine warfare once again a collateral duty of 

Commander Naval Base, Charleston. 

132 
Conclusion 

ver the past two centuries the United States has failed to sustain an 0 adequate capability in naval mine countermeasures, particularly in 

comparison to its other capabilities. Observing the continuing naval tradition 

of peacetime neglect of mine matters, Rear Admiral Brian McCauley 

predicted in 1973 that “rarely will anyone in today’s Navy argue against the 

effectiveness of mine warfare nor our vulnerability as a nation to its use by 

other powers. Yet the practical demise of the Mine Force in the U.S. Navy is 

already planned-a victim of other more sophisticated higher priority 

programs.”’ Eight years later the General Accounting Office reported to 

Congress that “the Navy lacks the ability to lay mines in seas or harbors and 

is also short of the personnel and equipment needed to counter enemy mining. 

The Navy would find it hard to conduct even the most limited type of mining 

or mine countermeasures operation.”2 In 1985 Vice Admiral Joseph E. 

Metcalf, who had not been a previous supporter of the mine warfare forces, 

testifying before Congress on the subject of Soviet mine warfare, stated that 

“no element of our Navy is as deficient in capability against the threat as is 

the mine countermeasures f~rce.”~ And in 1989 CNO Admiral Carlisle A. H. 

Trost observed that “until recently, the United States has not given enough 

sustained attention to maintaining a superior capability in mine warfare, 

particularly mine countermeasures. . . . I intend to keep attention focused on 

our vulnerability, and continue to press for resources to put us in a position 

where we can adequately protect our interests and deter potential 

adversaries.’* 

The reasons for this situation are complex. Although many defense 

observers have noted that “mine countermeasures have never had a strong 

constituency in the U.S. Navy,” their explanations for this lack of support have 

varied. Some analysts have explained that most naval officers are 

vehicle-oriented rather than weapon-oriented and tend to cling to the 

communities behind the weapons systems, be they air, surface, or subsurface. 

Analysts further explain that since all major warfare disciplines are 

responsible for mine warfare assets, no one warfare specialty takes the 

responsibility to fund and support them seriously. Others say that the 

traditional secrecy and lack of widespread knowledge regarding mine warfare 

matters has exacerbated their low visibility and lower priority within the 

Navy. Still others point out that mine warfare continues to be unglamorous 

and that the community is simply considered by many naval officers to be a 

defensive backwater of modern naval operation^.^ 

Competing for scarce resources with other Navy programs that have higher 

133 
“Damn the Torpedoes’ 

priorities, mines and MCM have most often been the losers. Navies, however, 

are composed of people, and people often base decisions on perceptions of the 

magnitude of the risk. Historically, the Navy has quite correctly associated 

the development of only minimal MCM capability as less risky than limiting 

other warfare areas. 

Every Navy seeks a balanced fleet, but the makeup of that balance depends 

on the perception of the threat. The U.S. Navy has had no need to clear enemy 

mines from its own territorial waters since 1942. All later MCM operations 

have taken place overseas and have been generally limited and localized. 

Relatively few wartime operations of the U.S. Navy have been seriously 

affected by the presence of mines, and few Americans have expressed qualms 

about our continuing reliance on our NATO allies’ minesweeping capabilities. 

Nations like Britain and the Soviet Union, however, which may have a far 

better sense of their own history, place more value on training and retaining 

their MCM personnel. These nations use their existing technology and 

carefully accumulated knowledge to advance their naval forces. More 

important in the days of glasnost and perestroika, recent escalation of 

low-intensity mine warfare, particularly in the Middle East, has clearly 

demonstrated that Third World nations can easily obtain and use mines to 

stop naval and maritime forces.6 

Most often the lessons learned by the operational MCM experience of the 

U.S. Navy have been forgotten, misinterpreted, or simply misapplied. Early 

observers of Robert Fulton’s unsuccessful mining attempts believed that 

mines were unnecessary devices and that countermeasures could be easily 

fabricated when needed. Nothing in the Navy’s nineteenth-century MCM 

experience convinced the naval establishment otherwise. As long as mines 

required contact with hulls, and torpedoes and mines remained inextricably 

linked in research and development applications, torpedoes, as high-tech 

weapons, received most of the attention and funding of the ordnance 

establishment. Until the Russians and the Japanese operationally proved the 

effectiveness of low-tech mining of the open sea in the early twentieth century, 

the U.S. Navy paid little attention to mine warfare and gave even less 

encouragement to the development of new MCM methods. 

Over the course of the twentieth century offensive use of mines increased 

in importance to the Navy. Yet low casualty rates to mines and the apparently 

easy success of clearance efforts during both world wars wrongly convinced 

many Americans that countering mines remained a relatively easy task. The 

availability of allied technology and the use of jury-rigged equipment allowed 

the Navy to respond to wartime requirements without seriously advancing 

its MCM capability during peacetime. 

The lessons learned from successful World War I1 MCM operations 

regarding our real vulnerabilities to advanced influence mines quickly 

became diluted by continuing budget crises, competing priorities within the 

134 
Conclusion 

2 - 

3 

1 s 

$ 

s 

P 

2 

2 

u 

Stuart Carlson’s 1987 cartoon from the Milwaukee Sentinel. 

Navy and the Department of Defense, and the changing focus of strategic 

planning in the postwar period. Until mixed mine fields at Wonsan 

embarrassed the Navy and directed the attention of the nation toward the 

U.S. Navy’s limited funding for MCM capabilities, MCM remained a stepchild 

of mine warfare, itself a stepchild of the total force. 

By applying the operationally tested principles of MCM after Wonsan, the 

Navy developed a capable MCM fleet and community yet found little use for 

them in peacetime. Diverted by competing needs and the development of new 

strategic objectives, and drained of financial resources, the Navy scrapped 

most of the surface MCM fleet, reduced mine force assets, established no 

long-term shipbuilding program replacements, and rushed AMCM from 

infancy to adulthood. As a result, when mines in the Persian Gulf in 1987 

disrupted free transit in international waters, the Navy found that effective 

clearance required considerable funding and full commitment of all available 

MCM forces. The Navy had not taken to heart the main lessons learned by 

the MCM force throughout its history, namely, that minesweeping is tedious, 

minehunting is more tedious, and countering mines cannot be made easy, 

cheap, or convenient. All these activities, however, are essential tools of 

modern warfighting. 

135 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

Mines are now far more complex than the elementary mechanisms once 

easily foiled by simple mechanical minesweeping. All contact mines and many 

influence types are readily available for sale to nearly any country that wishes 

to use them. Mine casings can now be manufactured of nearly any material 

and can be made to resemble rocks or bottom debris. Mines laid in silty waters 

can be buried quickly and are almost impossible to find. Developments in 

microprocessor-controlled mines allow tracking and targeting of specific 

ships. Furthermore, rising mines have made even very deep waters mineable 

and place our most expensive assets at high risk.’ 

Since the increase in mining incidents in the 1980s, nearly every nation 

with valuable ships to protect, including the United States, has invested in 

MCM. The Japanese Navy, forced to apply daily its lessons learned while 

sweeping American combination mines since World War 11, have many 

trained officers at command level who know the intricacies of advanced MCM 

and who have used their experience to construct capable ships. German and 

Italian experiments with MCM-related shipbuilding methods and their 

tactical employment have greatly advanced minehunting techniques. Mine 

warfare in the Royal Navy has been a viable career profession since the World 

War I and, in the Soviet Navy, since World War 11. The proliferation of nuclear 

weapons among nations has also given rise to the concept of deterrence: as 

long as strategic use of nuclear weapons is considered suicide by all parties, 

the use of more conventional weapons, including mines, will continue, if not 

increase. Navies can never afford to ignore the threat of naval mines. 

The only really effective counter to mines is to prevent them from being 

laid. Joint service and Navy-wide initiatives, a forward deployment strategy, 

and increased intelligence-gathering can limit widespread mining attacks but 

cannot always prevent low-intensity mining. Once mines are in the water, the 

only practical solution is a flexible, balanced MCM force and increased 

attention to mine avoidance throughout the Navy. As one aviator discovered, 

We clearly need a rebirth of innovative thinking about both mining and mine 

countermeasures. The global aviation community has learned the hard way that 

ordnance and their countermeasures are best deployed in concert; about mines, 

torpedoes, and their countermeasures, however, we have not only insufficient 

cooperation, but virtual hostility.’ 

The MCM community has always existed in a potential leadership vacuum 

for future operations. Even during wartime, when MCM asserted itself as a 

necessary warfighting skill, the lack of professional naval officers experienced 

in mine warfare has led to regular recalls from retirement and dual 

operational and administrative tasking in times of cri~is.~ Even now most of 

the generation of mine warfare specialists trained in the flush years after 

Wonsan have retired. Civil service and contract engineers sometimes find 

MCM as little career enhancing for civilians as it is for naval personnel. 

136 
Conclusion 

Historically, the best young officers in MCM command and leadership 

positions have left the community to seek promotion or watched their careers 

stall. With billets being created for the new ships and aircraft, the mine force 

has a unique opportunity to begin rebuilding the MCM community effectively 

enough to make it last. 

To have an adequate peacetime MCM proficiency capable of wartime 

expansion, a navy, any a navy, has to have sufficient trained personnel. As 

Rear Admiral Horne explained, ‘The new mine warfare hardware will not 

realize its potential unless we identify, develop, motivate and retain personnel 

who are mine warfare qualified by experience and performance.” If a dynamic, 

identifiable leadership cadre can be developed to direct rebuilding of the 

Navy’s MCM program to the level of flexible response capability that it 

reached from 1971 to 1975, history does not have to be repeated. 

Current MCM leadership billets do not provide such direction for the MCM 

force and have not done so since the disestablishment of MINEWARFOR in 

1975. The billet of Commander Mine Warfare Command has not always been 

promptly filled, and those who do fill it often find that they must spend all of 

their energies politically and actively reminding the Navy of its need for the 

warfighting skills of a properly equipped and manned MCM force. Given the 

lack of mine and MCM consciousness of the Navy as a whole, this task 

sometimes requires substantial assertiveness. As one observer noted, “until 

we get somebody in that force who is willing to be obnoxious, . . . Until we get 

somebody who is willing to make people in Washington wake up to the 

seriousness of this problem, at risk of life limb, and career, we’re going to be 

in the same boat 15 years from now.”ld Even with such aggressive mine 

warfare leadership, COMINEWARCOM’s strictly advisory role limits his 

ability to assist the Navy in reintegrating MCM back into naval warfare. Even 

Admiral Zumwalt suggested in the 1970s that the problems associated with 

direction of mine warfare readiness required creation of a vice admiral billet 

in the Pentagon for mine warfare-an idea with which George Dewey would 

probably have agreed.” 

The central problem of MCM throughout history has been the difficulty of 

sustaining maximum capability over time. By its very nature MCM evolves 

as the result of new mine developments and changing threats. Yet, in the U.S. 

Navy MCM have often been quick-fix solutions. Due to real competing needs, 

priorities, and lack of mine warfare knowledge within the Navy, it has been 

impossible to sustain adequate priority and funding for MCM. Important 

lessons learned, even when published by the participants, have been quickly 

forgotten, and subsequent attempts to revitalize the service have often been 

predicated on the wrong lessons. To date, no Chief of Naval Operations, 

Congress, or President has been opposed to an effective mine warfare 

program, and some have actively championed one. Yet, without historical 

perspective, recurring attempts to find an answer to the problem of an 

137 
“Damn the Torpedoes’ 

adequate MCM capability will continue to fail. 

Lack of overall mine consciousness has often led us to remember the wrong 

lessons from our mine warfare experience. The recent experiences of Samuel 

B. Roberts, ZYipoZi, and Princeton remind us that even our most valuable and 

expensive warships can be easily stopped by simple, cheap mines. When the 

Navy as a whole learns more about the reality and potential of mines and 

their countermeasures, MCM will no longer be called the Cinderella of the 

service and considered a subject about which much is written and less done. 

Only knowledge will end the legends and reveal the truth about men like 

Farragut who only “damned” the torpedoes by actively hunting them to 

determine the risk. 

138 
Abbreviations 

AM 

AMC 

AMCM 

AMCU 

AMS 

APD 

APL 

ARS 

BUORD 

CINCPACFLT 

CMEF 

CNO 

COMINCH 

COOP 

CTG 

DCNO 

DLC 

DMZ 

DNA 

DOD 

EOD 

HASC 

HMH 

HMM 

Fleet Minesweeper 

Coastal Minesweeper 

Airborne Mine Countermeasures 

Coastal Minesweeper (Underwater Locator) 

Auxiliary Motor Minesweeper 

High-speed Transport 

Barracks Craft (non-self-propelled) 

Salvage Ship 

Bureau of Ordnance 

Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet 

Commander Middle East Force 

Chief of Naval Operations 

Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet 

Craft of Opportunity 

Commander Task Group 

Deputy Chief of Naval Operations 

Library of Congress 

Destroyer Minesweeper 

Demilitarized Zone 

National Archives and Records Administration 

Department of Defense 

Explosive Ordnance Disposal 

House Armed Services Committee 

Helicopter, Marine, Heavy 

Helicopter, Marine, Medium 

Japanese Motor Minesweeper 

139 
“Damn the Torpedoes‘ 

JTFME 

LAMPS 

LCIL 

LCM 

LCPL 

LCVP 

LPD 

LPH 

LSD 

MCM 

MCMGRUCOM 

MCS 

MHC 

MINELANT 

MINEPAC 

MINEWARCOM 

MINEWARFOR 

MINRON 

MLMS 

MNS 

MOMAG 

MOMCOM 

MSC 

MSD 

MSH 

MSI 

Joint Task Force, Middle East 

Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System 

Landing Craft, Converted, Steel-hulled 

Landing Craft, Mechanized 

Landing Craft, Personnel, Large 

Landing Craft, Vehicle and Personnel 

Amphibious Transport 

Amphibious Assault Ship 

Landing Ship, Dock 

Landing Ship, Tank 

Mine Countermeasures Ship 

Mine Countermeasures Group Command 

Mine Countermeasures Command Ship 

Minehunter, Coastal 

Mine Force, Atlantic Fleet 

Mine Force, Pacific Fleet 

Mine Warfare Command 

Mine Warfare Force 

Mine Squadron 

Minesweeping Launch 

Mine Neutralization System 

Mobile Mine Assembly Group 

Mobile Mine Countermeasures Command 

Magnetic Orange Pipe 

Minesweeping Boat 

Minesweeper, Coastal 

Minesweeper, Drone 

Minesweeper, Hunter 

Minesweeper, Inshore 

140 
Abbreviations 

MSL 

MSM 

MSO 

MSR 

MSS 

MSSB 

NAVAIRLANT 

NAWE 

NAVSEA 

NAVSURFLANT 

NAVSURFPAC 

NCSC 

OA 

ONRL 

OPNAV 

PBM 

PBR 

PCE 

PCS 

PINS 

RG 

ROK 

ROV 

SECNAV 

SERVRON 

SH 

UDT 

Minesweeping Launch 

River Minesweeper 

Minesweeper, Ocean 

Patrol Minesweeper 

Minesweeper, Special 

Minesweeping Shrimp Boat 

Naval Air Forces, Atlantic Fleet 

Naval Forces, Far East 

Naval Sea Systems Command 

Naval Surface Force, Atlantic 

Naval Surface Force, Pacific 

Naval Coastal Systems Center, Panama City, FL 

Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC 

Naval Ordnance Laboratory 

Operational Archives 

Office of Naval Records and Library 

Office of the Chief of Naval Operations 

Patrol Bomber 

Patrol Boat, River 

Patrol Craft, Escort 

Patrol Craft, Submarine 

Precise Integrated Navigational System 

Record Group 

Republic of Korea 

Remotely Operated Vehicle 

Secretary of the Navy 

Service Squadron 

Ships Histories Branch 

Underwater Demolition Team 

141 
“Damn the Torpedoes” 

USCENTCOM U.S. Central Command 

USCINCCENT 

XMAP 

YMS Motor Minesweeper 

YR Floating Workshop (non-self-propelled) 

YRBM 

U.S. Commander in Chief, Central Command 

Experimental Magnetic, Acoustic, and Pressure Sweep 

Repair, Berthing, and Messing Barge 

142 
Notes to Pages 2-3 

Notes 

Introduction 

1. Log of USS HarybnE, 31 Jul 1864, Record Group (RG) 24, National Archives (DNA), 

Washington, DC; Wilfrid Bovey, “Damn the Torpedoes...?”, US. Naval Institute Proceedings 

(hereafter Proceedings) 65 (Oct 1939): 1446. The term “torpedo,” named for the electric ray fish 

that shocks its prey into submission, was first used to describe land as well as sea mines, and 

continued to be used interchangeably to describe most underwater ordnance well into the 

twentieth century. Specialists in undersea warfare began distinguishing between stationary 

mines and automotive torpedoes as the British Whitehead torpedo gained popularity in the early 

18709, but the distinction gained popular application slowly. By the turn of the century both the 

warheads inside torpedoes and the explosives inside mine casings were still popularly known as 

‘’torpedoes.’’ See R. B. Bradford, History of Torpedo Warfare (Newport, RI, 18821, pp. 3,68,90. 

2. Virgil Carrington Jones, The Civil War at Sea, July 1863-November 1865: The Final Effort 

(New York, 19621, pp. 238-39, 417-21; Milton F. Perry, Infernal Machines: the Story of 

Confederate Submarine and Mine Warfare (Baton Rouge, 1965), pp. 157-59; Bovey, “Damn the 

Torpedoes,” p. 1447; John Coddington Kinney, ‘Tarragut at Mobile Bay,” Battles and Leaders of 

the Civil War (New York, 1884), 4:382,388; Franklin Matthews, Our Navy in Time of War (New 

York, 1899), p. 101; Farragut to Welles, 25 May 1864, quoted in U.S. Navy Department, Official 

Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion (hereafter ORN) 

(Washington, 1894-1913), series 1, vol. 21 , p. 298; Log of USS Cowslip, 3 Jul 1864 entries, RG 

24, DNA. See also Farragut to T. Bailey, 26 May 1864, in ORN, 1,21:298-99. 

3. Hartford log, 30 Jun, 25 and 27 Jul 1864; Log of USS Sebago, 25 Jul 1864, RG 24, DNA; 

Alexander McKinley Diary, 25 Jul 1864, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, DE; Perry, 

Infernal Machines, p. 159; Jones, Civil War at Sea, p. 242; Cowslip log, 3 and 4 Jull864, Log of 

USS Glasgow, 21 Jul1864, RG 24, DNA, Viktor Ernst Karl Rudolf von Scheliha, A fiatise on 

Coast-Defence . . . (London, 1868), pp. 225-29. 

4. John C. Watson, “Farragut and Mobile Bay-Personal Reminiscences,” Proceedings 53 (May 

1927): 555-56; J. C. Watson, “Some of my personal recollections of Admiral Farragut. For the 

information of Captain A. T. Mahan, U.S.N., in writing a biography of the Admiral,” John 

Crittenden Watson Papers (hereafter Watson Papers), Library of Congress, Washington, DC 

(hereafter DLC). 

5. Jones, Civil War at Sea, pp. 243-45; Remarks of Rear Admiral C. M. Chester, in John C. Watson, 

“Farragut and Mobile Bay-Personal Reminiscences,” War Paper No. 98 (Paper delivered at the 

meeting of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, Commandery of the 

District of Columbia, 16 Dec 1916), pp. 62-63; Log of US Monitor Manhattan, 2 Aug 1864; 

Hartford log, 2 and 3 Aug 1864, RG 24, DNA, Charles Lee Lewis, David Glasgow Farragut: Our 

First Admiral (Annapolis, 1943), p. 244; Percival Drayton to Alexander Hamilton, Jr., 19 Aug 

1864, in Naval Letters From Captain Percival Drayton, 1861-1865 (New York New York Public 

Library, 1906), p. 67. Watson’s 2 August attempt was unsuccessful. Manhattan log, 3 Aug 1864. 

6. General Orders No. 11, 29 Jul1864, Om, 1,21:398. 

7. Journal of J. C. Gregg, USS Brooklyn, 25 Jul and 4 Aug 1864 entries, RG 45, DNA, Farragut 

to T. A. Jenkins, 3 Aug 1864, ORN, 1, 21:403; Watson, “Farragut and Mobile Bay,” Proceedings, 

p. 553; William F. Hutchinson, ‘The Bay Fight: A Sketch of the Battle ?f Mobile Bay, August 5th, 

1864,” Personal Narratives ofthe Battles of the Rebellion. Being Papers Read Before the Rho& 

Island Soldiers and Sailors Historical Society. No. 8 (Providence, RI: Sydney S. Rider, 18791, p. 

143 
Notes to Pages 3-6 

12; Charles R. Haberlein, Jr., ‘?)amn the Torpedoes!” in William C. Davis, ed., The Image of War, 

1861-1865, vol. 6, The End ofan Em (Garden City, NY, 1984), pp. 86-96. Although it is generally 

believed that a keg torpedo was responsible, a Confederate torpedo offcer later claimed that the 

mine which sunk Tecumseh was electrically fired from Fort Gaines. John Sanford Barnes, 

Submarine Warfare, Offensive and Defensive (New York, 1869), p. 108. 

8. Watson, “Farragut and Mobile Bay-Personal Reminiscences,” in War Paper 98, p. 13. In 

several accounts bystanders related strikingly similar words. Watson, near Farragut, recalled 

his full quote as “Damn the Torpedoes! Full speed ahead, Drayton! Hard a starboard! Ring four 

bells! Eight bells! Sixteen bells!” Ibid., and Watson, “Farragut and Mobile Bay,” Proceedings, p. 

555. These comments underscore Farragut’s anger and impatience as he seized the initiative and 

charged into the bay. See also Lewis, David Glasgow Farmgut, p. 469. In a much later account 

Chief Engineer Thomas Williamson related that Farragut merely ordered “Go ahead,” and in 

reply to Williamson’s question, “Shall I ring four bells, sir?” to alert the engine room to full speed 

ahead, Farragut yelled “Four bells -eight bells-sirteen bells-damn it, I don’t care how many 

bells you ring!”Pmceedings 65 (Nov 1939): 1676. Despite Farragut’s known aversion to swearing, 

he probably did say, “Damn the torpedoes.” 

9. Alexander McKinley to Samuel F. DuPont, 18 Sep 1864, in John D. Hayes, ed., Samuel Fmncis 

DuPont: Aselection From His Civil War Letters, vol. 3, The Repulse: 1863-1865 (Ithaca: Cornell 

University Press, 1969), pp. 381-87; Perry, Infernal Machines, p. 161. The quote is from Watson, 

“Farragut and Mobile Bay,” Proceedings, p. 555. 

10. General Orders No. 12,6 Aug. 1864, ORN, 1,21:438. Artists and newspapers made much of 

the vision of Farragut lashed to Hartford’s rigging. Perhaps in reaction to this portrayal, which 

he saw in New York newspapers shortly after the battle, Farragut emphasized in his official 

report several days later the heroism of his fleet and the dangers it faced, further clouding the 

extent of Watson’s minehunting efforts. “Though he had not been able to discover the sunken 

torpedoes,” Farragut mistakenly claimed, “yet we had been assured by refugees, deserters, of 

their existence, but believing that, from their having been some time in the water, they were 

probably innocuous, I determined to take the chance of their explosion.” Farragut to Welles, 12 

Aug 1864, ORN, 1, 21:417. A month later, amused but still smarting from the humorous 

insinuations, Farragut denied to his wife that he had been imprisoned in the rigging. ‘The 

illustrated papers are very amusing. Leslie has me lashed up to the mast like a culprit & says 

that is the way officers will hereafter go into Battle. . . .” Farragut to wife, 15 Sep 1864, David 

G. Farragut Papers, Naval Historical Foundation (NHF), Washington, DC. 

11. Remarks of Rear Admiral Chester in War Paper No. 98, p. 19. 

12. Barrett to LT J. T. E. Andrews, 20 Aug 1864, ORN, 1,21:569. 

13. Farragut to Welles, 29 Aug 1864, ORN, 1, 21:616; Bradford, History of Tolpedo Warfare, p. 

58. 

14. Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV) Instruction (OPNAVINST) 3370.3B, ser 

09/300616, 9 Jul 1982, Mine Warfare Policy. 

15. Gregory Kemenyi Hartmann, Weapons That Wait: Mine Warfare in the U.S. Navy (Annapolis, 

1979), pp. 94, 266-67. 

16. Richards T. Miller, “Minesweepers,” Naval Review 1967 (Annapolis, 1966): 210; Testimony of 

VADM James R. Hogg, DCNO for Naval Warfare, Mine Warfare: Hearing Before the Seapower 

and Strategic and Critical Materials Subcommittee of the Committee on Armed Services, 100th 

Cong., 1st sess., 1987, H.A.S.C. 100-50 (hereafter HASC Hearing), pp. 19-24. 

17. D. W. Feldman, “Historical Review of Mine Countermeasures Techniques and Devices,” 

Technical Note No. 449, Mine Countermeasures Department, Naval Coastal Systems Center, 

Panama City, FL, p. 1. 

144 
Notes to Pages 7-13 

1. A Matter of Efficacy 

1. Bradford, History of Torpedo Warfare, p. 7. 

2. J. S. Cowie, Mines, Minelayers and Minelaying (London, 1949), pp. 7-10. 

3. Gregory K. Hartmann, ‘Wine Warfare History and Technology,” Naval Surface Weapons 

Center, Technical Report No. 75-88, White Oak Laboratory, MD, 1 Jull975, p. 9; Robert Fulton, 

Torpedo Warfare and Submarine Explosions (New York, 1810), p. 7. 

4. Bradford, History of Torpedo Warfare, pp. 18-19. 

5. C. W. Sleeman, Torpedoes and Torpedo Warfare: Containing a Complete and Concise Account 

of the Rise and Progress of Submarine Warfare; Also a Detailed Description of all Matters 

Appertaining Thereto, Including the Latest Improvements (Portsmouth, UK, 1880), p. 6; Barnes, 

Submarine Warfare, pp. 41-42; Bradford, History of Torpedo Warfare, pp. 18,20. 

6. Cowie, Mines, Minelayers and Minelaying, pp. 11-15; Hartmann, Weapons that Wait, p. 29; J. 

N. Ferguson, ‘The Submarine Mine,” Proceedings 40 (Nov-Dec 1914): 1698. 

7. Ferguson, ‘The Submarine Mine,” p. 1699; Bradford, History of Torpedo Warfare, pp. 30-31. 

See also Philip K. Lundeberg, Samuel Colt’s Submarine Battery: The Secret and the Enigma 

(Washington, 1974). 

8. Bradford, History of Torpedo Warfare, pp. 35-36; Harry William Edwards, “A Naval Lesson of 

the Korean Conflict,”Proceedings 80 (Dec 1954): 1338; Philip K. Lundeberg, “Undersea Warfare 

and Allied Strategy in World War I. Part I: to 1916,” Smithsonian Journal of History 1 (Autumn 

1966): 4; Perry, Infernal Machines, p. 4; Robert C. Duncan, America’s Use of Sea Mines (Silver 

Spring, MD, 19621, pp. 41-42. 

9. Bradford, History of Torpedo Warfare, pp. 3759,40. 

10. Arnold S. Lott, Most Dangerous Sea A History ofMine Warfare and an Account of U.S. Nav 

Mine Warfare Operations in World War ZZ and Korea (Annapolis, 1959),25 Mar 1864, p. 10. 

11. Nathan Reingold, “Science in the Civil War: The Permanent Commission of the Navy 

Department,” ZSZS 49 (Sep 1958): 317. The main concerns of Welles’s Naval Examining Board, 

like most of the Navy establishment, concerned magnetism, steam motive power, and armored 

ships rather than ordnance. Ibid., p. 315. 

12. Barnes, Submarine Warfare, p. 181. 

13. Alex Roland, Underwater Warfare in the Age of Sail (Bloomington, 1978), p. 162. 

14. Perry, Infernal Machines, pp. 5-27,31. 

15. Scheliha, A Treatise on Coast-Defence, pp. 223-25, 231-35; Perry, Infernal Machines, pp. 

3748,4345. 

16. Perry, Infernal Machines, pp. 35-36,56, 117; Scheliha, A lhatise on Coast-Defence, p. 221; 

Barnes, Submarine Warfare, pp. 180-81. 

17. Bradford, History of Torpedo Warfare, pp. 47,50. 

18. Perry, Infernal Machines, pp. 33, 34; David Dixon Porter to Gideon Welles, 17 Dec 1862, in 

Barnes, Submarine Warfare, p. 82; Thomas 0. Selfridge to Henry Walke, 13 Dec 1862, ibid., p. 

80; Edwin C. Bearss, Hardluck Ironclad: The Sinking and Salvage of the Cairo (Baton Rouge, 

19661, pp. 97-99. In the wake of Cairo’s loss Union boats searched the waters and found and 

destroyed twelve mines nearby. Selfridge had three ships, Cumberland, Cairo, and Conestoga, 

sunk from under him during this war. 

19. Barnes, Submarine Warfare, p. 181; Wm. C. Hanford to D. D. Porter, 5 Sep 1864, ORN, 1, 

26:552. 

20. General Order No. 75, US. Mississippi Squadron, 24 Jull863, ORN, 1,25:320-21; Wm. C. 

Hanford to Porter, 5 Sep 1864, ibid., 1,26:552-53; Perry, Infernal Machines, pp. 45,48. 

145 
Notes to Pages 14-20 

21. Perry, Infernal Machines, pp. 51-52. 

22. Barnes, Submarine Warfare, p. 87; Perry, Infernal Machines, pp. 57,109,113,146-t9,168, 

208. 

23. Journal of J. C. Gregg, 25 Aug 1864 entry; Perry, Infernal Machines, pp. 162,182-87; Miller, 

‘Winesweepers,” p. 210. 

24. Bradford, History of Torpedo Warfare, p. 47; Cowie, Mines, Minelayers and Minelaying, p. 20; 

Perry, Infernal Machines, pp. 175,179,191-92. After the war Maury and his mine systems went 

farther south where they both saw service in Mexico. 

25. J. C. Beaumont to S. P. Lee, 6 May 1864, ORN, 1,lO:S; John S. Barnes to Lee, 10 May 1864, 

ibid., pp, 10-11; Thomas F. Wade to Welles, 13 May 1864, ibid., pp. 14-15; Perry, Infernal 

Machines, pp. 111-13. These effective controlled mines had been in the water nearly two years. 

26. Perry, Infernal Machines, pp. 146-49. 

27. Ibid., pp. 172-73, 175, 180-81. 

28. Bradford, History of Torpedo Warfare, pp. 4647. For a list of mined Union vessels see Perry, 

Infernal Machines, pp. 199-201. 

29. Barnes, Submarine Warfare, p. 181; Hanford to Porter, 5 Sep 1864, ORN 1, 26:552. Young 

Acting Volunteer Lieutenant George W. Brown devised an anchor buoy to protect his ship, Ozark, 

on the Mississippi River. When the buoy successfully snagged a Confederate mine, Porter 

forwarded Brown’s design to the Navy Department for consideration, but Welles showed no 

interest in the invention or in passing the news to the fleet. Brown to Porter, 19 Sep 1864; Porter 

to Welles, 28 Sep 1864, ORN, 1,26569 

30. Bradford, History of Torpedo Warfare, pp. 42,77-81,83-87; Perry, Infernal Machines, p. 197. 

31. Bernard Brodie, Sea Power in the MachineAge (Princeton, 19411, p. 276; Feldman, “Historical 

Review of Mine Countermeasures,” p. 13; 14; Cowie, Mines, Minelayers and Minelaying, pp. 

27-28; Ropp, The Development of a Modern Navy, p. 178. 

32. A. Ludlow Case to Geo. M. Robeson, 23 Oct 1869, U.S. Navy Department, Report of the 

Secretary of the Navy, Showing the Operations of the Department for the Year 1869 Washington, 

1869) (all departmental reports hereafter SECNAVAnnual Report), pp. 68,71; Case to Robeson, 

19 Oct 1870, ibid., 1870, p. 55; Porter to Robeson, 10 Nov 1870, ibid., p. 163; Case to Robeson, 17 

Oct 1872, ibid., 1872, p. 52; Bradford, History of Torpedo Warfare, p. 89. 

33. John Rodgers et alto Case, 31 Jul1872, SECNAVAnnual Report, 1872, p. 55. 

34. Porter to Robeson, 22 Oct 1873, SECNAVAnnual Report, 1873, pp. 276-79. 

35. Porter to Robeson, 7 Nov 1874, SECNAVAnnual Report, 1874, pp. 207-8; Sleeman, Tolpedoes 

and Torpedo Warfare, p. 239; William N. Jeffers to Robeson, 2 Oct 1876, SECNAVAnnual Report, 

1876, p. 113. 

36. Jeffers to R. W. Thompson, 10 Oct 1878, SECNAV Annual Report, 1878, p. 66; William H. 

Hunt to the President, 28 Nov 1881, ibid., 1881, p. 15; Bradford, History of Torpedo Warfare, pp. 

54-55. 

37. Montgomery Sicard to Chandler, 1 Nov 1882, SECNAV Annual Report, 1882,3:8; Selfridge 

to Sicard, 29 Sep 1882, ibid., pp. 18-24; Sicard to Chandler, 1 Nov 1883, ibid., 1883, p. 414; 

Selfridge report, ibid., p. 425; Sicard to Chandler, 10 Nov 1884, ibid., 1884, pp. 418,420. 

38. John B. Hattendorf, B. Mitchell Simpson 111, and John R. Wadleigh, Sailors and Scholars: 

The Centennial History of the U.S. Naval War College (Newport, 19841, pp. 18,27; Ronald Spector, 

Professors of War: The Naval War College and the Development of the Naval Profession (Newport, 

19771, pp. 55-58; W. T. Sampson to Sicard, n.d., SECNAVAnnual Report, 1885, p. 248; Ruddock 

F. Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone (Oxford, 19731, p. 377. 

39. Brodie, Sea Power, p, 279; Bradford, History of Torpedo Warfare, pp. 87-89; Spector, Professors 

of War, p. 5; Ropp, The Development of a Modern Navy, p. 305; Porter to Chandler, 29 Nov 1882, 

146 
Notes to Pages 20-26 

SECNAV Annual Report, 1882, 1:243; ‘Torpedo Work in Great Britain, France, and Norway,” 

ibid., 3344-70. 

40. Porter to William C. Whitney, 15 Nov 1886, SECNAV Annual Report, 1886, p. 61; C. F. 

Goodrich to Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance (BUORD), 13 Oct 1887, ibid., 1887, pp. 266-67; 

Porter to SECNAV, 18 Jul1888, ibid., 1888, p. 12. 

41. It was not until 1976 that scientists and engineers established conclusively that Maine was 

destroyed not by a mine but by internal implosion. See H. G. Rickover, How the Battleship Maine 

Was Destroyed (Washington, 1976). 

42. T. C. McLean to Chief BUORD, 8 Sep 1898, SECNAV Annual Report, 1898, 1:499; Buford 

Rowland and William B. Boyd, U.S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance in World War 11 (Washington, 

n.d.), p. 157. 

43. George Dewey, Autobiography of George Dewey, Admiral of the Navy (New York, 1913), pp. 

91, 117-211. Dewey served as first lieutenant on Mississippi under Captain Melancthon Smith. 

44. Ibid., pp. 198-99; Ronald Spector, Admiral of the New Empire: The Life and Career of George 

Dewey (Baton Rouge, 1974), pp. 49-53. 

45. Joseph L. Stickney, Admiral Dewey at Manila (Philadelphia, PA, 18991, p. 35; Richard S. 

West, Admirals of American Empire (New York, 1948), pp. 201-2. 

46. Dewey, Autobiography, p. 202; H. W. Wilson, The Downfall of Spain: Naval History of the 

Spanish-American War (Boston, 1900), pp. 125-26,158-59; Spector, Admiral of the New Empim, 

p. 54. 

47. George Edward Graham, Schley and Santiago (Chicago, 19021, pp. 112-23; Wilson, Downfall 

of Spain, pp. 260, 398. 

48. W. A. M. Goode, With Sampson Through the War (New York, 1899), pp. 14546; David F. 

Trask, The War With Spain in 1898 (New York, 198l), pp. 135-36. Although Sampson did not 

know it, the mines consisted of only two lines, one of 6 and one of 7 mines, each separately 

controlled. 

49. Cowie, Mines, Minelayers and Minelaying, pp. 30-31; Admiral Sampson to General Shafter, 

Jun 1898, quoted in CAPT J. H. A. Day, USMC, “Discussion on the Use of Mines,” 2 Oct 1911, 

General Board Study No. 431, pp. 21-22. 

50. Wilson, Downfall of Spain, pp. 174-75,382. 

51. Hartmann, “Mine Warfare History and Technology,” p. 6. 

52. George Dewey to SECNAV, 18 Feb 1901 and endorsements, ser 431, Records of the General 

Board 1913-1931, RG 80, DNA. 

53. US. Naval Torpedo Station, Mines and Countermines, U.S.N. ([Newport, RI], 1902), pp. 

49-68. 

54. Cowie, Mines, Minelayers and Minelaying, pp. 33-35; Ellis A. Johnson and David A. Katcher, 

Mines Against Japan (Washington, 1973), p. 2; Day, “jliscussion on the Use of Mines”, p. 2; C. C. 

Wright, “Origins of the ‘Bird’ Class Minesweeper Design,” appendix to Harry C. Armstrong, ‘The 

Removal of the North Sea Mine Barrage,” Warship International 25 (Jun 1988): 164; CAF’T E. 

H. Ellis, USMC, “Discussion on the Use of Mines,” 2 Oct 1911, General Board Study No. 431, p. 

2. For the effects of mine warfare in this war, see M. C. Ferrand, “Torpedo and Mine Effects in 

the Russo-Japanese War,” translated by Philip R. Alger, Proceedings 33 (Dec 1907): 1482-85. 

55. N. E. Mason to SECNAV, 1 Oct 1905, SECNAV Annual Report, 1905, pp. 13, 31; Duncan, 

America’s Use of Sea Mines, p. 36. 

56. Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone, pp. 377-78; Hartmann, “Mine Warfare History and 

Technology,” p. 14; Cowie, Mines, Minelayers and Minelaying, pp. 35-36,43; CDR G. R. Marvell, 

“Mines and Mining,” 3 Jan 1916, General Board Study No. 431, RG 80, DNA; Ellis, “Discussion 

on the Use of Mines,” p. 7. 

147 
Notes to Pages 27-33 

57. Gordon Bruce, “Mine Sweeping,” in Jane Anderson and Gordon Bruce, Flying, Submarining 

and Mine Sweeping (London, 1916), pp. 34-35; Cowie, Mines, Minelayers and Minelaying, pp. 

168-80; Hartmann, “Mine Warfare History and Technology,” p. 12; Henry Taprell Dorling, Swept 

Channels: Being an Account of the Work of the Minesweepers in the Great War (London, 19351, p. 

7. Neither Russia nor Korea signed this Convention. 

58. Cowie, Mines, Minelayers and Minelaying, p. 41; Marvell, “Mines and Mining.” 

59. Dewey, Memo to SECNAV, 30 Jan 1912, General Board No. 431, RG 80, DNA; Dewey to 

SECNAV, 30 Oct 1912, ibid.; G. V. L. Meyer to General Board, 12 Dec 1912 and 2 Jan 1913, ibid.; 

General Board (Dewey) to SECNAV, 2 Jan 1913, endorsed “approved” by Meyer, ibid.; Wright, 

“Origins of the ‘Bird’ Class,” pp. 164, 168. 

60. Wright, “Origins of the ‘Bird‘ Class,” pp. 164-65. 

61. Cowie, Mines, Minelayers and Minelaying, pp. 46-48, 52-53; Archibald Montgomery Low, 

Mine and Countermine (New York, 19401, p. 190; Wine Sweeping,” Proceedings 42 (Jul-Aug 

1916): 1311. 

62. Wright, “Origins of the ‘Bird‘ Class,” pp. 164-165, 168; Navy Register, 1 Jan 1916, p. 275. 

63. Wine Sweeping Experiences,” Proceedings 43 (Jun 1917): 134345; Jeffrey D. Wallin, By 

Ships AZone: Churchill and the Dardanelles (Durham, NC, 1981), pp. 152, 197; Henry W. 

Nevinson, The Dardanelles Campaign (New York, 19191, pp. 60-62; Andrew Patterson, Jr., 

“Mining: A Naval Strategy,” Naval War College Review 23 (May 1971): 54. 

64. Robert William Love, Jr., ed., The Chiefs ofNaval Operations (Annapolis, 1980), p. Wii; Lott, 

Most Dangerous Sea, p. 14; Destroyer Force, Atlantic Fleet, USS Seattle, Flagship, 18 May 1917, 

“Instructions for Detection and Destruction of Floating Mines, . . . To be attached to Destroyer 

Force Doctrine,” AC, Subject File 1911-27, RG 45, DNA. 

65. M. A. Ransom, ‘The Little Gray Ships,” Proceedings 62 (Sep 1936): 1281. 

66. C. N. Hinkamp, “Pipe Sweepers,” Proceedings 46 (Sep 1920): 1477-84. 

67. Cowie, Mines, Minelayers and Minelaying, pp. 84-85, 105; Maurice Griffths, The Hidden 

Menace (Greenwich, UK, 19811, pp. 61-63; Lott, Most Dangerous Sea, pp. 63-64. 

68. Griffiths, The Hidden Menace, p. 61; Low, Mine and Countermine, p. 187. 

69. Low, Mine and Countermine, p. 182; George L. Catlin, “Paravanes,” Proceedings 45 (Jul1919): 

1135-57; condensed from George L. Catlin, “Paravanes: AHistory of the Activities of the Bureau 

of Construction and Repair in Connection With Paravanes in the War With Germany” 

(unpublished manuscript, 1919), pp. 1-11, Navy Department Library. Ensign, later Lieutenant, 

Catlin headed the Bureau of Construction and Repair’s “Protective Devices” Section in the 

Maintenance Division and worked overseas with the British “Paravane Department.” Ibid., pp. 

6-8. 

70. Catlin, “Paravanes,“ pp. 8, 24, 35; Low, Mine and Countermine, p. 188; Cowie, Mines, 

Minelayers and Minelaying, pp. 845,105-6; Griffths, Hidden Menace, pp. 63-65. 

71. Griffths, Hidden Menace, pp. 66-67; Cowie, Mines, Minelayers and Minelaying, p. 92. 

72. Feldman, “Historical Review of Mine Countermeasures,” p. 1314; Cowie, Mines, Minelayers 

and Minelaying, pp. 58,9296,103-104; Griffths, Hidden Menace, pp. 67-69. 

73. University of Pittsburgh, Historical Staff at the OEce of Naval Research, “The History of 

United States Naval Research and Development in World War 11” (unpublished manuscript, 

1949) (hereafter ONR, “Research and Development”), p. 999, Navy Department Library; 23 Aug, 

5 Sep, 21 Jun, 19 Jul, 8, 12, 14, and 16 Oct, 9, 21, 23 Nov entries, ZAG file, Enemy Mining 

Operations of the U.S. Coast, Subject File 1911-27, RG 45, DNA; Lott, Most Dangerous Sea, p. 

16; Robert M. Grant, ‘The Use of Mines Against Submarines,” Proceedings, 64 (Sep 1938): 1275, 

148 
Notes to Pages 33-40 

74. Hartmann, Weapons that Wait, pp. 43,48; Noel Davis, “The Removal of the North Sea Mine 

Barrag;e,”National Geographic 37 (Feb 1920): 115; Lott, Most Dangerous Sea, p. 15; Cowie, Mines, 

Minelayers and Minelaying, pp. 65-66. 

75. SECNAVAnnual Report, 1919, p. 48; Armstrong, “Removal of the North Sea Mine Barrage,” 

pp. 136-40; Hartmann, “Mine Warfare History and Technology,”p. 18; Robert M. Grant, U-boats 

Destroyed: The Effect of Anti-Submarine Warfare, 1914-1918 (London, 1964); J. A. Meacham, 

“The Mine as a Tool of Limited War,” Proceedings 93 (Feb 1967): 60; Davis, ‘The Removal of the 

North Sea Mine Barrage,” p. 105. Numbers of U-boats damaged and destroyed by the mine 

barrage are best documented by Grant, U-Boats Destroyed, pp. 99-108, 145-46. There is at 

present no source for the number of U-boats diverted by the presence of mines. 

76. Memo, 26 Sep 1916, quoted in Wright, “Origins of the ‘Bird’ Class,” p. 165. 

77. Armstrong, “Removal of the North Sea Mine Barrage,” p. 139. 

78. Reginald Rowan Belknap, The Yankee Mining Squadron or Laying the North Sea Mine 

Barmge (Annapolis, 1920), p. 107; Wright, “Origins of the ‘Bird’ Class,” pp. 16647. After 1920 

they were designated AM. 

79. U.S. Navy Department, Office of Naval Records and Library (hereafter ONRL), The Northern 

Barrage: Taking Up the Mines (Washington, 1920), pp. 7-8; Davis, ‘The Removal of the North 

Sea Mine Barrage,” pp. 103-7. SECNAV Annual Report, 1918, p. 395; ibid., 1919, p. 48; 

Armstrong, “Removal of the North Sea Mine Barrage,” p. 139. 

80. Armstrong, “Removal of the North Sea Mine Barrage,” pp. 13839; Report of RADM Joseph 

Strauss on Northern Sea Barrage, p. 9, enclosed with Strauss to CNO, 9 Dec 1919, AN: Northern 

Mine Barrage, Subject File 1911-27, RG 45, DNA. 

81. Davis, “The Removal of the North Sea Mine Barrage,” pp. 107-11; ONRL, Northern Barrage: 

Taking Up the Mines, pp. 10-11; Armstrong, “Removal of the North Sea Mine Barrage,” p. 140. 

For a thorough report on the Putapsm and Patuxent experiments, see L& W. K. Harrill to 

Commander Mine Force [Strauss], 8 Dec 1918, box 6, AN: Northern Mine Barrage, Subject File 

82. Marvell, “Mines and Mining”, Feldman, “Historical Review of Mine Countermeasures,” p. 8. 

83. Armstrong, “Removal of the North Sea Mine Barrage,” pp. 143-46. 

84. ONRL, Northem Barrage: Taking Up the Mines, pp. 17-18,26-30,45; Davis, “The Removal 

of the North Sea Mine Barrage,” pp. 111-18; Armstrong, “Removal of the North Sea Mine 

Barrage,” pp. 144-50. 

85. Armstrong, “Removal of the North Sea Mine Barrage,” pp. 151-58; Duncan, American Use of 

Sea Mines, pp. 65-66; SECNAV Annual Report, 1919, pp. 4849. 

86. Armstrong, “Removal of the North Sea Mine Barrage,” pp. 153,158; SECNAVAnnual Report, 

1919, pp. 48-51; ONRL, Northern Barrage: Taking Up the Mines, pp. 43-45,51,58-61; Davis, 

“The Removal of the North Sea Mine Barrage,” pp. 108,113,126-33; Hartmann, Weapons that 

Wait, p. 122; Strauss report, pp. 9-10; Strauss to VADM William S. Sims, Force Commander, 15 

Dee 1918, box 5, AN: Northern Mine Barrage, Subject File 1911-27, RG 45, DNA; Harrill to 

Strauss, 8 Dec 1918, box 7, ibid.; Memo for Dudley Knox, 3 Mar 1938, ZAN: Northern Barrage, 

Subject File 1911-27, RG 45 DNA, SECNAVAnnual Report, 1919, p. 51. 

87. Wright, “Origins of the ‘Bird‘Class,”p. 167; Jeffers to Robeson, 1 Nov 1873, SECNAVAnnual 

Report, 1873, p. 103; Theo. F. Jewel1 to Chief BUORD, 1 Oct 1890, ibid., 1890, p. 274. 

88. Ellis, “Discussion on the Use of Mines,” General Board Study No. 431, 2 Oct 1911, p. 6. 

89. Lott, Most Dangerous Sea, p. 17. 

1911-27, RG 45, DNA. 

149 
Notes to Pages 41-45 

2. A New Menace 

1. Richard W. Leopold, “Fleet Organization, 1919-1941” (unpublished manuscript), pp. 12-13, 

18-19, Operational Archives, Naval Historical Center (hereafter OA). 

2. Julius Augusta Furer, Administration of the Navy in World War II (Washington, 1959), p. 173; 

Leopold, “Fleet Organization,” pp. 13-14,19-20; Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, ‘Wine 

Warfare in the Naval Establishment” (hereafter CNO, “Mine Warfare”) (unpublished 

manuscript), Washington, n.d., pp. 3-6, 10-11; Cowie, Mines, Minelayers and Minelaying, pp. 

105-6. In 1935 all minesweeping and minelaying vessels were shifted to the administrative 

control of Commander Minecraft, Battle Force, reporting to the fleet commanders in chief. Mine 

Force, Pacific Fleet (MINEPAC), Command History, 1958, OA. 

3. Hartmann, “Mine Warfare History and Technology,” p. 21; Conway’s All the World’s Fighting 

Ships, 1922-1946 (New York, 1980), p. 86; Ellsworth Dudley McEathron, “Minecraft in the Van: 

A History of United States Minesweeping in World War 11,” 3 vols., World War I1 Command File, 

OA. 

4. S. D. Sturgis to Chief Umpire, 14 Jan 1924, Records Relating to United States Navy Fleet 

Problems 1 to 22, 1923-1941 (hereafter Fleet Problems), reel 3, RG 80, DNA; Commander 

Scouting Fleet to Commander in Chief, US. Fleet (CINCUS), 15 Feb 1924, ibid. (Fleet Problem 

22, 1941 was cancelled because of the international situation.) The quote is from ‘Talk On 

Operations of Black Forces Delivered by Vice Admiral McCully before Conference on Problem 

No. 3, 21 January 1924,” ibid. 

5. CINCUS to Commander in Chief, Battle Fleet, 12 Oct 1926, Fleet Problem 7, reel 8; Blue 

Convoy Chronological History by Observer LCDR L. L. Babbitt, ibid; Black Course of Action, 

Fleet Problem 9, reel 12. 

6. CINCUS to CNO, 15 Sep 1935, Comments on Phase 3, and General Comment, ibid., Fleet 

Problem 16, reel 18. 

7. CNO to CINCUS, 9 Jul 1936, Fleet Problem 18, reel 22. Mines and gear were assumed to be 

present for the sake of the exercise. 

8. CNO to CINCUS, 9 Jul 1936, Fleet Problem 18, reel 22; Commander Scouting Force to 

CINCUS, 2 Jun 1937, ibid., reel 23; Annex ‘73” to U.S. Fleet Op Order 2-40,29 Mar 1940, Fleet 

Problem 21, reel 31. The mines in the Mine Barrage had been laid at depths to 950 feet. Mooring 

cables developed by 1937 allowed mining of depths to 3,000 feet, although they had not been 

operationally tested. Ibid. The 100-fathom assumption persisted, however, up to and including 

the last fleet problem exercise. Annex “B” to US. Fleet Op Order No. 2-40,15 Jan 1940, Fleet 

Problem 21, reel 31. 

9. Commander Scouting Force to CINCUS, 2 Jun 1937, Fleet Problem 18, reel 23. 

10. Commander Minecraft, Battle Force, to COMINCH, 3 May 1940, ibid., reel 34. 

11. Purple French Frigate Detachment (Rear Admiral Rowcliff) Remarks for the critique, 7 May 

1940, Fleet Problem 21, reel 36. 

12. Duncan, America’s Use of Sea Mines, pp. 77,85-86,98-101; Hartmann, Weapons That Wait, 

pp. 57-58; Ellis A. Johnson and David A. Katcher, Mines Against Japan, (Washington, 19731, p. 

iii; Rowland and Boyd, Bureau ofOrdnance, p. 159; Navy Department, U.S. Naval Administration 

in World War 11, “History of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory, 1918-1945” (hereafter NOL 

Administrative History), part 1, pp. 3-7. NOL later moved from the Navy Yard to White Oak, 

Maryland, where it remains today. 

13. “Countering the Magnetic Mine,” The Engineer (15 Mar 1940), reprinted in Proceedings 66 

(May 1940): 756; Hartmann, Weapons That Wait, p. 55; Lott, Most Dangerous Sea, pp. 67-68. 

14. Jeffrey K. Bray, “Mine Warfare in the Russian and Soviet Navies” (MA. Thesis, Old Dominion 

150 
Notes to Pages 45-51 

University, 1989), pp. 95-97. During the war Germans also pulled up Russian mines, 

repositioning them to attack Soviet ships-a true example of offensive MCM. Ibid., pp. 91-92. 

15. Cowie, Mines, Minelayers and Minelaying, pp. 100-102, 107, 120-21, 124; Hartmann, 

Weapons That Wait, p. 56; A. P. Lukin, “Secrets of Mine Warfare,” Proceedings 66 (May 1940): 

64243; Peter Elliott, Allied Minesweeping in World War II (Annapolis, 19791, pp. 30-32,40. For 

a description of the workings of the early magnetic mines, see C. E. Milbury, ‘Mystery of the 

Magnetic Mine,”ScientificAmerican (Mar 1940), reprinted in Prmeedings 66 (May 1940): 754-56. 

16. John Ennis, “Deep, Cheap & Deadly,” Sea Power 17 (Dec 1974): 27. For a description of the 

British efforts to defeat the magnetic mine in 1940, see George Ashton, ‘Minesweeping Made 

Easy,” Proceedings 87 (Jul1961): 66-71. 

17. Elliott, Allied Minesweeping, pp. 23-24, 35-36, 40, 49-50; Cowie, Mines, Minelayers and 

Minelaying, pp. 136-37; Johnson and Katcher, Mines Against Japan, p. 287. 

18. Elliott, Allied Minesweeping, pp. 10, 25,35. 

19. Conway’s Fighting Ships, 1922-1946, p. 87. Most PCEs were converted solely to escorts early 

in the war. 

20. Furer, Administration of the Navy Department, pp. 107-15; Love, Chiefs of Naval Operations, 

p. xviii; McEathron, “Minecraft in the Van,” pp. 2,435. 

21. Navy Department, US. Naval Administration in WorldWar 11, Bureau of Ordnance (hereafter 

BUORD Administrative History), ‘‘Underwater Ordnance,” pp. 150-51; ONR, ‘%search and 

Development,” pp. 122-27, 156-67; CNO, “Mine Warfare,” pp. 35, 177; Duncan, America’s Use 

of Sea Mines, p. 94; Lott, Most Dangerous Sea, pp. 18,33. Fullinwider supervised the design and 

use of the Mk-6 mine in World War I and began the Mine Building that became NOL and the 

Mine Depot at Yorktown. Recalled from retirement a second time in 1940 by BUORD, he was 

also instrumental in founding the Mine Warfare School at Yorktown, the Mine and Bomb Disposal 

Schools around Washington, D.C., the Mine Warfare Test Station at Solomons, Maryland, and 

the Mine Warfare Operational Research Group. Hartmann, Weapons That Wait, pp. 51-52. 

22. ONR, “Research and Development,” pp. 172,494-95, 500a; Rowland and Boyd, Bureau of 

Ordnance, p. 73; NOL Administrative History, part 1, pp. 17-35. For an explanation of the 

American degaussing experience, see Rowland and Boyd, Bureau of Ordnance, pp. 72-89. 

23. Hartmann, “Mine Warfare History and Technology,” pp. 22-23; The Navy Department: A Brief 

History Until 1945 (Washington, 1970), p. 18; CNO, “Mine Warfare,” pp. 12-29; BUORD 

Administrative History, p. 148. 

24. CNO, “Mine Warfare,” pp. 177-79; ONR, “Research and Development,” p. 501; Lott, Most 

Dangerous Sea, pp. 66-67. The Solomons Island test station later became known as the 

Countermeasures Department. For a history of this facility, see BUORD Administrative History, 

Miscellaneous Activities, vol. 1, “A History of the US. Naval Mine Warfare Test Station, 

Solomons, Maryland.” 

25. ONR, “Research and Development,” p. 501; Feldman, “Historical Review of Mine 

Countermeasures,” p. 11; Lott, Most Dangerous Sea, pp. 33-34,65; McEathron, ‘Minecraft in the 

Van,” p. 435; Miller, ‘Minesweepers,” p. 212. For one account of the early experiences of the 

converted fishing boats, see William Sheppard, ‘nismal Spit and Her Mackerel Taxis,” 

Proceedings 70 (Oct 1944): 125337; Elliott, Allied Minesweeping, p. 76. 

26. Mine Warfare Notes, Mine Warfare Section, CNO, WW I1 Command File, OA, Johnson and 

Katcher, Mines Against Japan, pp. 44-45; McEathmn, ‘Minecraft in the Van,” p. 4; Rudy C. 

Garcia, “Yorktown, Va.: Mineman’s Alma Mater,”All Hands 481 (Feb 1957): 16, 18. 

27. Rowland and Boyd, Bureau of Ordnance, p. 161; Johnson and Katcher, Mines Against Japan, 

p. 37; Hartmann, Weapons That Wait, pp. 127, 175; CNO, ‘Mine Warfare,” pp. 66, 71-81; U.S. 

Strategic Bombing Survey, The Offensive Mine Laying Campaign Against Japan (1946; reprint, 

15 1 
Notes to Pages 51-60 

Washington, 1969), pp. 26, 31. The early issues of Mine Warfare Notes were little more than 

carbon-copy newsletters. By the war’s end, however, it had evolved into a polished professional 

journal. Some of the later editions featured mine warfare cartoons by artist Hank Ketcham, 

creator of “Dennis the Menace.” 

28. McEathron, “Minecraft in the Van,” p. 440; Lott, Most Dangerous Sea, pp. 22-26; Duncan, 

America’s Use of Sea Mines, pp. 94-95. 

29. Michael Gannon, Operation Drumbeat (New York, 1990), p. 388; Lott, Most Dangerous Sea, 

p. 50; Ennis, “Deep, Cheap & Deadly,” p. 27. 

30. Hartmann, Weapons That Wait, p. 69; Elliott, Allied Minesweeping, p. 70; Howard A. 

Chatterton, ‘The Minesweeping/FishingVessel,”Proceedings 96 (Jun 1970): 123; Jeffrey K. Bray, 

‘Wine Awareness,” Proceedings 113 (Apr 1987): 4243; ONR, ‘Xesearch and Development,” pp. 

998-99; Lott, Most Dangerous Sea, pp. 54-57. 

31. Norman Friedman, The Postwar Naval Revolution (Annapolis, 1986), p. 178; ONR, “Research 

and Development,” p. 503; McEathron, “Minecraft in the Van,” p. 11. Building of these new 

minesweepers reached a peak for the Allied campaign in southern France in August 1944, and 

by the end of 1944 most had been transferred to the Pacific war. 

32. Lott, Most Dangerous Sea, pp. 83-85. Samuel Eliot Morison, Wctory in the Pacific, 1945 

(Boston, 19611, pp. 113-14; McEathron, ‘Winecraft in the Van,” pp. 1, 37, Leopold, “Fleet 

Organization,” pp. 14,20. The command structure for the Pacific Fleet mine force is described in 

the 1958 MINEPAC Command History. 

33. CNO, “Mine Warfare,” pp. 99-101, 113-16; Johnson and Katcher, Mines Against Japan, p. 

50. 

34. McEathron, “Minecraft in the Van,” p. 65-66; Samuel Eliot Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, 

January 1943June 1944 (Boston, 1962), pp. 175,259,273,340-48; Elliott, Allied Minesweeping, 

pp. 84-86. 

35. Elliott, Allied Minesweeping, p. 112; Hartmann, Weapons That Wait, pp. 70-71, 91; Samuel 

Eliot Morison, The Invasion of France and Germany, 1944-1945 (Boston, 1957), pp. 4647,173. 

36. Johnson and Katcher, Mines Against Japan, pp. 50,‘61-62; Hartmann, Weapons That Wait, 

p. 131; Elliott, Allied Minesweeping, pp. 87-88. See G. K. Hartmann, Wave Making by an 

Underwater Explosion, NSWCWOL MP 76-15, Naval Surface Weapons Center, White Oak, MD, 

1976. 

37. Morison, The Invasion of France, pp. 78-79; Elliott, Allied Minesweeping, pp: 107-8,113-15, 

126; Lott, Most Dangerous Sea, pp. 187-88. American vessels accounted for less than one-fourth 

of the minesweeping vessels in the American sector. 

38. Elliott, Allied Minesweeping, pp. 118-20. 

39. Lott, Most Dangerous Sea, p. 195; Hartmann, Weapons That Wait, p. 71; Morison, Invasion 

ofFrance, pp. 216-17; Elliott, Allied Minesweeping, pp. 93,129-31. Only divers could clear Katie 

mines. 

40. CNO, ‘Nine Warfare,” pp. 175-79. 

41. Elliott, Allied Minesweeping, pp. 88-91; Johnson and Katcher, Mines Against Japan, pp. 

60-62, 288; Hartmann, Weapons That Wait, p. 92; Feldman, “Historical Review of Mine 

Countermeasures,” p. 15-16. For more detailed analysis of specific experimental sweep types, 

see NOL Administrative History, part 3, pp. 165-70. 

42. Hartmann, Weapons That Wait, p. 135; Johnson and Katcher, Mines Against Japan, p. 289; 

Elliott, Allied Minesweeping, p. 148. For a history of the establishment of such ordnance disposal 

teams, see “US. Navy Mine and Bomb Disposal in World War 11,” Mine Warfare Section, CNO, 

WW I1 Command File, OA. 

152 
Notes to Pages 6&64 

43. Elliott, Allied Minesweeping, p. 141; Morison, Invasion ofFrance, pp. 286,313; Mine Warfare 

Notes, 15 Jull945, p. 32. 

44. Lott, Most Dangerous Sea, p. 32. The Japanese ultimately lost twenty-one merchant vessels 

to their own mines. Ibid., p. 82. 

45. Hartmann, ‘Wine Warfare History and Technology,” pp. 24-25; William L. Greer and James 

Bartholomew, ‘The Psychology of Mine Warfare,” Proceedings 112 (Feb 1986): 58; US. Strategic 

Bombing Survey, pp. 2, 64. The US. first mined Haiphong with thirty-two Mk 12 mines with 

arming delays on 29 October 1942. British forces laid an additional forty US. mines at Haiphong 

between 16 October 1943 and 25 November 1944. Of the latter, the six Mk 13 Mod 5 mines 

reportedly accounted for three ships sunk in 1943. Total ship casualties at Haiphong throughout 

the war included five ships sunk and two damaged. U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, pp. 64, 70, 

and part 1 of Appendix A. 

46. McEathron, “Minecraft in the Van,” p. 24; Elliott, Allied Minesweeping, pp. 7,19,40,68-76; 

Morison, Victory in the Pacific, pp. 113-14; Hartmann, Weapons That Wait, pp. 136-38; ONR, 

“Research and Development,” pp. 503-7. 

47. Conway’s Fighting Ships, 1922-1946, p. 150; “U.S. Navy Mine and Bomb Disposal in World 

War 11,” pp. 25, 41, 51. These ships, converted to AMCU for Underwater Locator in 1945, were 

never used operationally during the war, and will be discussed later. 

48. Navy Department, “Administrative History of Minecraft,” pp. 164-65; Samuel Eliot Morison, 

Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls, June 1942-April 1944 (Boston, 1961), p. 158; Lott, Most 

Dangerous Sea, pp. 85, 168; Samuel Eliot Morison, Leyte: June 1944January 1945 (Boston, 

1961), pp. 34-35, 118,131; Morison, Victory in the Pacific, p. 113; MINEPAC Command History, 

1958; Elliott, AElied Minesweeping, pp. 169, 180; McEathron, ‘Winecraft in the Van,” p. 1, 37. 

Throughout the Pacific campaigns Rear Admiral Sharp exercised both administrative command 

of the Pacific Fleet minecraft through his staff in Pearl Harbor and personal command of the 

mine clearance operations in the Pacific. Lott, Most Dangerous Sea, p. 85. 

49. Dudley W. Knox, A History of the US. Navy (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 19481, p. 614; 

Elliott, Allied Minesweeping, pp. 158-67. 

50. McEathron, “Minecraft in the Van,” pp. 605-22. 

51. Hartmann, Weapons That Wait, p. 77; CNO, ‘Wine Warfare,” pp. 172-74,185-90. 

52. Rowland and Boyd, Bureau of Ordnance, p. 168; Duncan, America’s Use of Sea Mines, pp. 

122, 154-57; Johnson and Katcher, Mines Against Japan, p. 61; CNO, “Mine Warfare,” p. 225. 

53. Johnson and Katcher, Mines Against Japan, p. 33; Hartmann, Weapons That Wait, p. 196; 

Bertram Vogel, “The Great Strangling of Japan,”Proceedings 73 (Nov 1947): 1307; US. Strategic 

Bombing Survey, pp. 1-3. In October 1945 Commander Seburo Tadenuma, IJN, described the 

mines as “one of the main causes of our defeat,” whereas Captain Kyuzo Tamura, IJN, claimed 

that‘the result of the B-29 miningwas so effective against the shipping that it eventually starved 

the country. I think you probably could have shortened the war by beginning earlier.” US. 

Strategic Bombing Survey, p. 3. 

54. The Minecraft, Pacific Fleet, organization was still incomplete when demobilization began 

in August 1945. Most of the new ships and staffers had not yet arrived, and no satisfactory 

flagship had been found for Rear Admiral Sharp. Of the 506 ships under his command, 412 were 

minesweepers and hunters. Another 57 had not yet arrived, and the remainder were minelayers 

and auxiliary vessels. Sixty-four percent of his MCM vessels were YMSs. Navy Department, 

“Administrative History of Minecraft,” p. 6. 

55. James E. Auer, The Postwar Rearmament of Japanese Maritime Forces, 1945-71 (New York, 

19731, pp. 4352. 

56. Malcom W. Cagle and Frank A: Manson, The Sea War in Korea (Annapolis, 19571, p. 137; 

Charles G. McIlwraith Comment, Proceedings 100 (Jul 1974): 88; John D. Alden, “The 

153 
Notes to Pages 64-69 

Indestructible XMAP,” Naval History 2 (Winter 1988): 45; Elliott, Allied Minesweeping, pp. 

170-74, 175-78; CNO, “Mine Warfare,” p. 191. Figures for mines swept are from Mine Warfare 

Notes, 15 Oct 1945, p. 12, and include all mines cleared between 7 December 1941 through 15 

October 1945. A. D. Van Nostrand, “Minesweeping,” Proceedings 72 (Apr 1946): 505. The quote 

is from the 1958 MINEPAC Command History. Ironically, paravanes hadbeen largely abandoned 

during the war because of the threat of influence mines, which few ships ultimately encountered. 

Proliferation of large bow sonar domes also contributed to their permanent demise. Norman 

Friedman, World Naval Weapons Systems (Annapolis, 1989), p. 445. 

57. New York Times, 15 Jan 1947; Auer, Postwar Rearmament, pp. 49-52. Because of continuing 

reappearance of sea mines throughout the Pacific, even today most ships still keep to known 

swept channels. 

58. Elliott, Allied Minesweeping, pp. 188-89, 190-91. Numbers of ships include AMs, AMCs, 

trawlers, YMSs, and PCSs briefly used, but not experimental egg crates. Of the casualties from 

all causes, 26 were fleet minesweepers and 32 were others, mostly YMSs. Of the latter, 11 were 

sunk by mines. Ibid., pp. 78-79,190-91. In 1948, King estimated that a force of 874 MCM vessels 

had been added to the fleet. Ernest J. King, US. Navy at War, 1941-1945. Oficial Reports to the 

Secretary of the Navy by Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, USN (Washington, 19461, p. 284. 

59. Michael A. Palmer, Origins of the Maritime Strategy: American Naval Strategy in the First 

Postwar Decade (Washington, 1988): 7, 13, 22-27, 62; Samuel Eliot Morison, Liberation of the 

Philippines: Luwn, Mindanm, the visayas, 1944-1 945 (Boston, 1969), pp. 268-70; Auer, Postwar 

Rearmament, p. 63. 

60. MLNEPAC Command Histories, 1958,1959; MINELANT Command Histories, 1959,1966, 

OA. A “mine force commander” existed under the Service Force, Atlantic Fleet, from December 

1945 until creation of the type command in April 1946. In the 1958 MINEPAC Command History, 

the writer described this command as “dissolved” in January 1947 and recorded its 

“reestablishment” in January 1951. 

61. U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, pp. 30-32. 

3. The Wonsan Generation 

1. Elliott, Allied Minesweeping, p. 7; Van Nostrand, ‘Winesweeping,” p. 508; CNO, “Mine 

Warfare,” p. 229. 

2. ONR, “Research and Development,”pp. 502-3; Naval Coastal Systems Center, 1984 Command 

History File, OA. The laboratory (renamed the U.S. Navy Mine Defense Laboratory in 1955, the 

Naval Ship Research and Development Laboratory in 1968, the Naval Coastal Systems 

Laboratory in 1972, and finally the Naval Coastal Systems Center in 1978) was responsible for 

all undersea countermeasures, special warfare, amphibious warfare, diving and salvage 

research, development, and testing. 

3. Miller, “Minesweepers,” p. 212; Conway’s All the World‘s Fighting Ships, 1947-1982, Part 1, 

The Western Powers (Annapolis, 1983), pp. 191, 253; Cagle and Manson, The Sea War, p. 127; 

Hartmann, Weapons That Wait, pp. 89, 135, 232; Lott, Most Dangerous Sea, pp. 70-71; Philip 

Nepean, “Naval Mine Countermeasures,” Armada International 8 (Mar 1984): 106. 

4. McEathron, “Minecraft in the Van,” p. 624; Edwin Bickford Hooper, Dean C. Allard, and Oscar 

P. Fitzgerald, United States Naval Operations in the Vietnam Conflict, vol. 1, The Setting of the 

Stage to 1959 (Washington, 1976), pp. 104-9; USN Press Release No. 12746,23 Mar 1946, VADM 

Arthur D. Struble Biographical File, OA, Conway’s Fighting Ships, 1947-1982,1:191. 

5. Palmer, Maritime Strategy, p. 66; Edward J. Marolda and G. Wesley Pryce II1,A Short History 

ofthe United States Navy and the Southeast Asian Conflict, 1950-1975 (Washington, 1984), p. 1; 

William B. Fulton, Riuerine Operations, 1966-1969 (Washington, 1973), pp. 13-14. At least three 

154 
Notes to Pages 69-75 

coastal minesweepers (MSC), the design derivative of the YMS, joined the French Navy for 

minesweeping in Vietnam. R. L. Schreadley, “The Naval War in Vietnam, 1950-1970,” 

Proceedings, Naval Review 1971 97 (May 1971), pp. 182-84. 

6. “Mine Countermeasures: Present Situation and Necessary Future Action,” enclosure to CNO 

to Chiefs of the Office of Naval Research, Bureau of Ordnance, Bureau of Ships and Chairman, 

Navy Research and Development Review Board, ser 00018P31,17 Apr 1950, box 8, Project 1-50, 

General Board Studies 1949-50, RG 80, DNA (hereafter CNO Mine Countermeasures Study, 

1950). 

7. F. S. Low, “A Study of Undersea Warfare,” 22 Apr 1950, pp. 3,21,84,109-110 (hereafter “Low 

Report”) Command File, OA. 

8. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ‘Troject Hartwell: A Report on the Security of Overseas 

Transport,” 2 vols., 21 Sep 1950,l: F-13, F-2, Post-1 Jan 1946 Command File, OA. 

9. James A. Field, Jr., History of United States Naval Operations: Korea (Washington, 1962), pp. 

45-46,54,231. The YMSs were redesignated AMS in 1947. 

10. Bryan Ranft and Geoffrey Till, The Sea in Soviet Strategy (Annapolis, 1983), pp. 90-91,96; 

Norman Polmar, Soviet Naval Power: Challenge for the 1970s (New York, 1974), pp. 3-30; John 

Chomeau, “Soviet Mine Warfare,” Naval War College Review 24 (Dec 1971): 94-96. 

11. Edwards, “A Naval Lesson of the Korean Conflict,” p. 1339; Anthony Preston, ‘The Infernal 

Machine: Mines and Mine Countermeasures,” Defence 19 (Aug 1988): 561; Field, Korea, p. 183; 

Malcolm W. Cagle and Frank A. Manson, ‘Wonsan: the Battle of the Mines,” Proceedings 83 (Jun 

1957): 602; Cagle and Manson, The Sea War, p. 129. 

12. Field, Korea, pp. 193,217,231-32. Ships damaged included Brush off Tanchon, YMS-509 off 

Yongdok, Mansfield off Changion, and YMS-504 off Mokpo. Magpie lost two-thirds of her crew 

when the contact mine caught up in her sweep gear came loose and hit her. Cagle and Manson, 

‘Wonsan,” p. 603. 

13. Field, Korea, pp. 220,230; Edwards, “ANaval Lesson of the Korean Conflict,” p. 1337. Lacking 

sufficient minesweeping vessels, General MacArthur was convinced to attempt the Wonsan 

landing rather than one at Hungnam. Cagle and Manson, ‘Wonsan,” pp. 603-4. 

14. Struble Biographical File, CAPT Richard T. Spofford Biographical File, OA. Spofford’s mine 

warfare experience included Naval Postgraduate School training in “Ordpance Engineering 

(Mines),” 1936; mine officer on staff of Commander Battle Force, Pacific, with additional duty on 

staff of Commander Service Squadron (COMSERVRON) 6, 1939-1942; OPNAV mine warfare 

specialist, 1942-1943; weapons officer, Mine Warfare Test Station, Solomons, Maryland, 

1943-1944; Commander Mine Squadron (COMINRON) One, 1945; commanding officer of 

minelayer Terror (CM-5), 1945-1947; and ordnance inspector, 1947-1950. After serving as 

COMINRON 3 and Commander Task Group (CTG) 95.6 from August 1950 to March 1951, he 

served as plans officer, Minecraft, Pacific Fleet, L951-1953; and as head of Harbor Defense 

Branch and assistant director of OPNAV Undersea Warfare Division. Spofford described his 

specialty as “field testing of new service mines and homing torpedoes.” 

15. Cagle and Manson, The Sea War, pp. 118-20. E. B. Potter in Admiral Arleigh Burke (New 

York, 1990), p. 343, claims that Joy and Burke opposed the Wonsan invasion because of suspected 

mining, but that MacArthur “refused even to discuss any change” in plans. 

16. Auer, Postwar Rearmament, pp. 49-52,64-65; Potter, Burke, pp. 343-44. 

17. Cagle and Manson, The Sea War, pp. 133-35; Cagle and Manson, ‘Wonsan,” pp. 604-5; Field, 

Korea, pp. 222-26,232-33. Task Group 95.6 consisted oftwenty-four ships: 1 DD, 1 APD, 2 DMSs, 

3 AMs, 7 AMSs, 1 ARG, 1 ARS, and 8 Japanese JMSs. 

18. Cagle and Manson, The Sea War, p. 135; Cagle and Manson, ‘Wonsan,” p. 605; Field, Korea, 

pp. 222-26,232-33. 

155 
Notes to Pages 76-83 

19. LT C. E. McMullen to SECNAV, ser 01A-50,19 Oct 1950, Pirate file, Ships’ Histories Branch, 

Naval Historical Center (hereafter SH); Edwin H. Simmons, “Mining at Wonsan-and in the 

Persian Gulf,” Fortitudine 17 (Summer 1987): p. 6. 

20. Cagle and Manson, The Sea War, pp. 13642; Field, Korea, pp. 233-37; Cagle and Manson, 

“Wonsan,” pp. 606-9; Edwards, “ANaval Lesson ofthe Korean Conflict,”pp. 1337-38; C. J. Wages, 

“Mines . . . The Weapons That Wait,” Proceedings 88 (May 1962): 103. 

21. Auer, Postwar Rearmament, p. 65; Preston, “The Infernal Machine,” p. 561; Roy F. Hoffman, 

“Offensive Mine Warfare: A Forgotten Strategy?” Proceedings, Naval Review 103 (May 1977): 

150; Cagle and Manson, The Sea War, pp. 136-44; Field, Korea, pp. 233-37; Cagle and Manson, 

‘Wonsan,” pp. 598,604,606-9; Edwards, “A Naval Lesson of the Korean Conflict,” pp. 1337-38. 

22. Paolo E. Coletta, “Naval Mine Warfare,” Proceedings 85 (Nov 1959): 84; Max Hastings, The 

Korean War (New York, 1987), pp. 125-26; Simmons, “Mining at Wonsan,” p. 4; Edwards, “A 

Naval Lesson of the Korean Conflict,” p. 1337; Newsweek, 7 Nov 1950, p. 30. 

23. Auer, Postwar Rearmament, p. 65. 

24. Mine Advisory Committee, National Academy of Science-National Research Council, 

“PROJECT NIMROD: The Present and Future Role of the Mine in Naval Warfare” (hereafter 

“Project Nimrod”), 15 Jan 1970, Chapter 2 (unclassified), p. 67. 

25. Cagle and Manson, The Sea War, p. 151; Cagle and Manson, ‘Wonsan,” p. 611. 

26. Cagle and Manson, The Sea War, p. 142. 

27. Field, Korea, pp. 237-42, 246 Cagle and Manson, The Sea War, p. 219; “Project Nimrod,” p. 

68; Feldman, “Historical Review of Mine Countermeasures,” p. 14-15. 

28. Cagle and Manson, The Sea War, pp. 193-94, 198-202; Field, Korea, pp. 249,319, 331,345. 

LST-799 served as MCM and helicopter mother ship from 1951. 

29. Report of the Secretary of the Navy, 30 Jul 1951, US. Department of Defense, Semiannual 

Report of the Secretary of Defense and the Semiannual Reports of the Secretary of the Army, 

Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of the Air Force, January 1 to June 30 1952 (Washington, 1952) 

(hereafter Semiannual Report of the Secretary of Defense), p. 189; Feldman, “Historical Review 

of Mine Countermeasures,” p. 7; Naval Sea Systems Command, “Operation ‘End Sweep’: A 

History of Mine Sweeping Operations in North Vietnam” (Sanitized) (hereafter NAVSEA, “End 

Sweep”), p. 2-2; Cagle and Manson, The Sea War, pp. 214-18; Cagle and Manson, ‘Wonsan,” p. 

610; Field, Korea, pp. 358-59, 447; CINCPACFLT, Korean War, US. Pacific Fleet Operations, 

Mine Warfare, Interim Evaluation Reports, p. 8-1, OA, Auer, Postwar Rearmament, p. 66. 

30. Hartmann, “Mine Warfare History and Technology,” p. 27; Norman Friedman, ‘Tostwar 

British Mine Countermeasures-And National Strategy,” Warship 41 (Jan 1987): 46; Cagle and 

Manson, The Sea War, pp. 220-21; Edwards, “A Naval Lesson of the Korean Conflict,” p. 1338. 

31. MINEPAC Command Histories, 1958 and 1970, OA, Field, Korea, p. 242; Cagle and Manson, 

The Sea War, pp. 220-21; R. L. Schreadley, ‘The Mine Force-Where the Fleet’s Going, It’s Been,” 

Proceedings 100 (Sep 1974): 27. The previous name of the Pacific Fleet type command had been 

Minecraft, Pacific Fleet (1944-1947). In the 1970 MINEPAC Command History that writer 

records the “reactivation” of MINEPAC in 1951. All MINEPAC listings of command organization 

for all years in all command histories leave a gap in MINEPAC leadership from the 

disestablishment of Minecraft, Pacific Fleet, in January 1947 to the establishment of Mine Force, 

Pacific Fleet (also known as MINEPAC), in January 1951. 

32. W. M. Emshwiller Comment, Proceedings 101 (Feb 1975): 76; Implicit (MSO 455) Command 

History, 1965, SH, Prime Command History File, SH; Philip L. Rhodes obituary, New York Times, 

30 Aug 1974. Of a total of 101 MSOs completed between 1953 and 1960,65 were retained by the 

US. Navy, and 36 were transferred to foreign countries. John S. Roye and Samuel L. Morison, 

Ships and Aircraft of the US. Fleet (Annapolis, 1972), p. 88. 

156 
Notes to Pages 8490 

33. Conway’s All the World‘s Fighting Ships, 1947-1982, 1:191,252. 

34. Naval History Division, Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (Washington, 19701, 

5:442, 481; Friedman, Postwar Naval Revolution, p. 183. 

35. Cagle and Manson, The Sea War, pp. 135,197,218-19; Paul L. Gruendl, “US. Navy Airborne 

Mine Countermeasures: AComing of Age,” Professional Study No. 5617, Air War College, Maxwell 

Air Force Base, AL, 1975 (hereafter “USN AMCM”), p. 34. 

36. Gruendl, “USN AMCM,” pp. 16-19; John A. H. Torry, ‘‘Minesweeping From the Air,” 

Proceedings 87 (Jan 1961): 139-40; Mort Schultz, ‘They Hunt for Floating Death,” Popular 

Mechanics 129 (Apr 1968): 214; Schreadley, ‘The Mine force,"^. 31. 

37. H. George Baker, “The MSB Story- Little Ships Sweep the Sea to Keep it Free,” All Hands 

481 (Feb 1957): 2-5; Miller, “Minesweepers,” p. 219; Norman Friedman, “United States of 

America,” in Conway’s Fighting Ships, 1947-1982, 1:191-92,200,251-53; Coletta, “Naval Mine 

Warfare,” p. 96. Many more MSCs and several MSOs were also built for other navies. 

38. Hartmann, Weapons That Wait, pp. 804,127, 133,136; “Project Nimrod,” pp. 68-69; J. B. 

Chaplin, ‘The Application of Air Cushion Technology to Mine Countermeasures in the United 

States of America,” International Symposium on Mine Warfare Vessels and Systems, London, 

12-15 June 1984 (London, 1984), 2:2; NAVSEA, “End Sweep,” p. 2-12. The Mine Advisory 

Committee was later incorporated into the Naval Studies Board. 

39. John Alden, “The Indestructible W,” pp. 45-46; Miller, “Minesweepers,” p. 219. After she 

foundered off the Florida coast in blast testing in 1961, XMAP was salvaged in 1964 and sold for 

scrap. Alden, “The Indestructible XM”’,’’ p. 47. 

40. Conway’s Fighting Ships, 1947-1982, 1:191,253-54; Alden, “The Indestructible XMAP,” p. 

45; R. L. Schreadley Comment, Proceedings 101 (Dec 1975): 81. These Liberty Ships were 

reclassified MSS (Minesweeper, Special). LST-1166, reclassified MSS-2, was used to check sweep 

in Operation Endsweep in 1973. 

41. Stanley J. Norman, “Prepared for Mine Warfare?” Proceedings 109 (Feb 1983): 67; Alfred T. 

Hamilton, “Clearing the Way: LANTFLT Mine Ops,” Surface Warfare 6 (Sep 1981): 30; “Mine 

Countermeasures,” p. 282. SQQ-14’s descendants, SQQ-30 and 32, are currently being placed 

on MCM-1 vessels. 

42. [Hooper], The Navy Department, p. 40; “F‘roject Nimrod,” p. 69; Hartmann, Weapons That 

Wait, pp. 260-61; Friedman, “US Mine-Countermeasures,” p. 1259. 

43. H. George Baker, “The Mine Force: Wooden Ships and Iron Men,”AZl Hands 481 (Feb 1957): 

6; Report of the Secretary of the Navy, 22 Sep 1952, Semiannual Report of the Secretary of Defense, 

pp. 159-60; Robert Winters, “History and Analysis: Mine Warfare Operations in Southeast Asia, 

1961-1973,” Post-1 Jan 1946 Command File, OA; “Port Protectors,” All Hands 481 (Feb 1957): 

21. 

44. Baker, “The Mine Force: Wooden Ships and Iron Men,” pp. 6-9; Friedman, Postwar Naval 

Revolution, pp. 176-77; Dictionary ofAmerican Naval Fighting Ships, 5:444; Conway’s Fighting 

Ships, 1947-1982, 1:191-92, 200, 251, 252, 253; Schreadley, “The Mine Force,” p. 28; Miller, 

“Minesweepers,” p. 212. In 1972 the Mine Warfare School combined with the Fleet Training 

Center at Charleston to become the Fleet and Mine Warfare Training Center. 

45. VADM Joseph Donnell, Commander Naval Surface Force, Atlantic Fleet (former CO Kingbird 

[MSC-194], 1958-1960), interview with author, Sep 1988, Norfolk, VA, CAPT (RADM-S) Robert 

C. Jones, OP-09B (former XO Dominant[MSO-431], 1967-1968), interview with author, 24 May 

1989, Pentagon, Washington, DC. 

46. Conway’s Fighting Ships, 1947-1982, 1:251. 

47. “Project Nimrod,” p. 70. 

157 
Notes to Pages 91-97 

4. New Lessons Learned 

1. Marolda and Pryce, Short History, pp. 1,4; Schreadley, “Naval War in Vietnam, pp. 182-84. 

2. James A. Hoffman, “Market Time in the Gulf of Thailand,” Naval Reuiew 1968 (Annapolis, 

1968): 47; Marolda and Pryce, Short History, pp. 25, 46; Edwin Bickford Hooper, Mobility, 

Support, Endurance: A Story of Naval Operational Logistics in the Vietnam War, 1965-1968 

(Washington, 19729, pp. 129-30. 

3. Marolda and Pryce, Short History, pp. 7-8, 12-13; Schreadley, “Naval War in Vietnam,” p. 

185; Hooper, MobiZity, Support, Endurance, p. 13; Murland W. Searight, “Prepare to Sweep 

Mines. . . ,” Proceedings 96 (Jan 1970): 55-59. 

4. William B. Fulton, Riverine Operations, 1966-1969 (Washington, 19731, pp. 3, 96-97; Carl 

White, “Move and Countermove: Belated Recognition for Naval Mine Warfare and Mine 

Countermeasures Requirements,” Sea Power 28 (Jun 1985): 12; Thomas J. Cutler, Brown Water, 

Black Berets: Coastal and Riverine Wa$are in Vietnam (Annapolis, 1988), p. 47; Mort Schultz, 

“They Hunt For Floating Death,” PopuZar Mechanics 129 (Apr 1968): 86; S. A. Swarztrauber, 

“River Patrol Relearned,” Proceedings 96 (May 1970): 122. 

5. Hooper et al., The Setting ofthe Stage, p. 228; William H. Cracknell, Jr, ‘The Role of the U.S. 

Navy in Inshore Waters,” Naval War College Review 21 (Nov 1968): 75; Cutler, Brown Water, 

Black Berets, pp. 182-83; MINEPAC Command History, 1966, OA. 

6. Cracknell, “The Role of the U.S. Navy in Inshore Waters,” p. 80; Swarztrauber, “River Patrol 

Relearned,” pp. 123-28; Victor Croziat, The Brown Water Navy: The River and Coastal War in 

Zndo-China and Vietnam, 1948-1972 (Dorset, UK, 19841, p. 156. 

7. Clark M. Gammell, ‘Naval and Maritime Events, 1 July 1966-30 June 1967,” Naval Review 

1968 (Annapolis, 1968): 257. After two years of river duty and the receipt of the Presidential Unit 

Citation, detachment Alfa was redesignated Mine Division 112 and given six MSBs and five 

MSMs. Mine Division 113, operating in the Rung Sat, was similarly manned. Swartztrauber, 

“River Patrol Relearned,” pp. 142-48. 

8. Robert E. Mumford, Jr., “Jackstay: New Dimensions in Amphibious Warfare,” Naval Review 

1968 (Annapolis, 1968): 74; Marolda and Pryce, Short History, pp. 52-53; Swarztrauber, “River 

Patrol Relearned,” pp. 125,142; George R. Kolbenschlag, “Minesweeping on the Long Tao River,” 

Proceedings 93 (Jun 1967): 90-94; Fulton, Riverine Operations, p. 175; Hooper, Mobility, Support, 

Endurance, pp. 164-65; Schreadley, “Naval War in Vietnam,” p. 204. 

9. Schreadley, “Naval War in Vietnam,” pp. 194-95, 201-4; Swarztrauber, “River Patrol 

Relearned,” pp. 128, 142, 151, 156; Hooper, Mobility, Support, Endurance, p. 168. For more 

detailed information on mine and guerrilla attacks on U.S. riverine forces, see U.S. Naval Forces, 

Vietnam, Monthly Historical Summaries (monthly, Apr 1966-Dec 1971; quarterly, Jan 1972-Mar 

1973), OA. 

10. Hooper, MobiZity, Support, Endurance, pp. 122-23; Swarztrauber, ‘Wver Patrol Relearned,” 

pp. 92-93; 129-33,142-43; Marolda and Pryce, Short History, p. 55. 

11. Croziat, The Brown Water Navy, p. 149; Conway’s Fighting Ships, 1947-1982, 1:192, 254; 

NAVSEA, ‘%End Sweep,” pp. 1-3 to 1-6,3-19, A-13, A-17. 

12. Marolda and Fitzgerald, From Military Assistance to Combat, 1959-1965, p. 317; Schultz, 

“They Hunt for Floating Death,” p. 89; Kolbenschlag, “Mimesweeping on the Long Tao River,” p. 

98; “Radio-Controlled Drone Boats Used in Vietnam Minesweeping,”Proceedings 96 (Feb 1970): 

123-24; Hartmann, Weapons That Wait, p. 209. 

13. Friedman, World Naval Weapons Systems, p. 476; Norman Polmar, Ships and Aircmf? of the 

US. Fleet (Annapolis, 1985), p. 233. 

14. Croziat, The Brown Water Navy, p. 156; Conway’s Fighting Ships, 1947-1982,1:186. 

158 
Notes to Pages 97-107 

15. John Van Nortwick, “Endsweep,” Marine Corps Gazette 58 (May 1974): 36. 

16. Gruendl, “USN AMCM,” pp. 20-26. 

17. James M. McCoy, “Mine Countermeasures: Who’s Fooling Whom?” Proceedings 101 (Jd 

1975): 40; Schreadley, “The Mine Force,” pp. 29-31; J. B. Bonds Comment, Proceedings 101 (Jun 

1975): 78; Beaver, “AerialMinesweeping,” pp. 306-7; Conway’s Fighting Ships, 1947-1982,l:lgl; 

Emshwiller Comment, Proceedings 101 (Jun 1975): 76; Hartmann, Weapons That Wait, pp. 132, 

139; Schultz, ‘They Hunt for Floating Death,” p. 214; Schreadley, “The Mine Force,” p. 31; Torry, 

“Minesweeping From the Air,” pp. 139-40; NAVSEA, “End Sweep,” p. vii; MINRON 8 Command 

History, 1970, OA. 

18. Quoted in Norman Polmar, ‘The US. Navy: Mine Countermeasures,” Proceedings 105 (Feb 

1979): 117. 

19. Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., On Watch:AMemoir (NewYork, 1976), pp. 3-4,72-73,80-81; Gruendl, 

“USN AMCM,” pp. 37-39; NAVSEA, “End Sweep,” p. 2-2. Some of the wooden ships went to the 

Naval Reserve Force, which kept them active in reserve on both coasts. Schreadley, “The Mine 

Force,” pp. 27-29; Gary P. Schwartzkopf Comment, Proceedings 101 (Jan 1975): 78; MINELANT 

Command History, 1970, OA. 

20. Truver, ‘Weapons That Wait,” pp. 39-40; Hartmann, Weapons That Wait, p. 147; Zumwalt, 

On Watch, p. 81; NAVSEA, “End sweep,"^. 2-2. 

21. Gruendl, ‘VSN AMCM,” pp. 38-40; Winters, “History and Analysis,” OA. The 1971-1973 

MCM shipbuilding program included sixteen new design MSOs and two new design MSCs. 

Winters, “History and Analysis,” OA. 

22. Gruendl, “USN AMCM,” pp. 41-43; Hooper, MobiZity, Support, Endurance, p. 32. The quote 

is from Parrot (MSC-197) Command History, 1972, SH. Prior to the creation of MINEWARFOR, 

Mine Forces, Atlantic and Pacific, retained only administrative control of their ships, although 

ships often reported that the type commander also “maintained operational control for the greater 

part of the year.” Shrike (MSC-201) Command History, 1968, SH. 

23. Gruendl, “USN AMCM,” pp. 43,47-49; MOMCOM Command History, 1972, OA. 

24. Gruendl, “USN AMCM,” pp. 28-29,52-54. 

25. Marolda and Pryce, Short History, pp. 86-89; William Paden Mack, “As I Recall. . . ,” 

Proceedings 106 (Aug 1980): 105; NAVSEA, “End Sweep,” p. 1-3. The quote is from Brian 

McCauley, “Operation End Sweep,“ Proceedings 100 (Mar 1974): 19. MINEWARFOR planners 

included Commander Paul L. Gruendl and Lieutenant James M. McCoy. COMINEWARFOR 

planned for CINCPACFLT, COMSEVENTHFLT, and the carrier division, as well as for the 

squadron executing the operation. 

26. Mack, “As I Recall,” p. 105; Marolda and Pryce, Short History, pp. 86-89; Greer and 

Bartholomew, “The Psychology of Mine Warfare,” p. 60; William Paden Mack, “As I Recall,” 

Proceedings 106 (Aug 1980): 105; NAVSEA, “End Sweep,” p. 4-2. 

27. NAVSEA, “End Sweep,” p. 3-31; MINEWARFOR Command History, 1972, OA. 

28. Gruendl, “USN AMCM,” p. 29. The original name for the mine countermeasures plan, 

Formation Sentry, became Formation Sentry I1 when clearance requirements widened during 

negotiations, and Marine Corps helicopters became available. Winters, “History and Analysis,” 

OA. The Swept Mine Locator System used gyrocompass bearings and radar or stadimeter ranges. 

29. CTF 78 to CTF 77, “Mine Warfare Lessons Learned,” 3 Jul 1973, PL 08 C, p. 2, 

COMINEWARCOM Archives, Fleet and Mine Warfare Training Center Library, Charleston, SC 

(hereafter McCauley, “Lessons Learned”); NAVSEA, “End Sweep,” pp. 2-4 to 2-5; Gruendl, “USN 

30. Gruendl, “USN AMCM,” pp. 62-63; NAVSEA, “End Sweep,” pp. 3-2, A-13; Friedman, World 

Naval Weapons Systems, p. 477. Thirteen Navy and twenty-four reconfigured Marine Corps 

AMCM,” pp. 55-59. 

159 
Notes to Pages 108-11 3 

CH-53Ds ultimately made up the task group complement. In addition to HMH-463 and 

HMM-165, CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters were transferred from HMM-462, and CH-46 Sea 

Knight helicopters and crews from HMM-164 flew in logistic support. For more detail on these 

units, see Curtis G. Arnold and Charles D. Melson, U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The War That Would 

Not End, 1971-1973 (Washington, forthcoming). 

31. Marolda and Pryce, Short History, pp. 90-91; Hartmann, “Mine Warfare History and 

Technology,”p. 27; Gruendl, “USNAMCM,”pp. 63,85, appendixes f and g; NAVSEA, “End Sweep,” 

32. Walter Scott Dillard, Sixty Days to Peace: Implementing the Paris Peace Accords (Washington, 

1982), pp. 85-86; NAVSEA, “End Sweep,” pp. 5-11, 5-19-5-20, 5-32-5-35, A-23; Marolda and 

Pryce, Short History, p. 93. This one and only mine detonation during End Sweep has caused 

considerable comment over the years. According to all surviving officers interviewed, the 

explosion really was a live mine, captured only on film because ofthe Swept Mine Locator System. 

Its detonation surprised everyone involved because they swept only areas where mines were 

believed to have gone inert. Other unverified mine explosions may indeed have been ordnance 

lobbed in the water by sailors interested in confusing the North Vietnamese. 

33. Roy F. Hoffman. “Offensive Mine Warfare: A Forgotten Strategy?” Proceedings 103 (May 

1977): 154; NAVSEA, “End Sweep,” pp. 5-53-54, 5-37, 5-39, 5-43, 5-48; Schreadley, “The Mine 

Force,” p. 31; McCoy, “Mine Countermeasures,” p. 42; McCauley, “Operation End Sweep,” p. 22. 

AMCM unit Delta completed the sweep on 5 July at Cua Sot. NAVSEA, “End Sweep,” p. x. 

34. Hartmann, Weapons That Wait, pp. 154,271; McCauley, “Lessons Learned,” Problems MA 

02, MA 03, PL 06 C. 

35. Gruendl, ‘VSN AMCM,” p. 70; John Van Nortwick, “Endsweep,” Marine Corps Gazette 58 

(May 1974): 31; Winters, “History and Analysis,” OA. 

36. McCauley, “Operation End Sweep,” p. 23. 

37. Ibid., pp. 24-25. 

38. McCauley, “Lessons Learned,” Problems PL 02 C, PL 05 C, PL 09 C, OP 04, and OP 06. 

39. Ibid.; McCauley, “Lessons Learned,” Problem PL 03 C. 

40. NAVSEA, “End Sweep,” pp. 6-2, A-7-9; John G. Robinson, “Miners Served Here,” Surface 

Warfare 5 (Aug 1980): 27. 

41. ADM I. C. Kidd to CINCPACFLT, Feb 1973, quoted in NAVSEA, ‘Znd sweep,"^. 3-4. 

42. Gruendl, “USN AMCM,” pp. 66, 100; Ennis, “Deep, Cheap & Deadly,” p. 30. 

43. Gruendl, “USN AMCM,” p. 106; Larry L. Booda, “Mine Warfare Moves Ahead, Plays ASW 

Role,” Sea Technology 25 (Nov 1984): 13; J. Huntly Boyd, Jr., “Nimrod Spar: Clearing the Suez 

Canal,” Proceedings 102 (Feb 1976): 20; Navy Department, Naval Inshore Warfare Command, 

Atlantic, “Final Report, Suez Canal Clearance Operation, Task Force 65,” May 1975 (hereafter 

“Final Report, TF 65”), pp. iii-v, 11-5-7,11-30-31, VI-2. 

44. The MCM and MHC Ship Acquisition Program Office (PMS-303) in the Naval Sea Systems 

Command is now responsible for designing, building, and delivering mine warfare ships, and 

reports to the platform director for amphibious, auxiliary, mine and sealift ships, who in turn 

reports to Commander NAVSEA. The Mine Warfare Systems Program OEce (PMS-407) is 

responsible for designing, developing, and procuring mines and MCM systems (minehunting 

sonar, ROVs, precise navigation systems, shipboard command and control systems, wire sweeps, 

etc.) and reports to the deputy commander for weapons and combat systems who in turn reports 

to Commander NAVSEA. Supporting laboratories and contractors for these two program offices 

are divided into two camps, a workable but less efficient system that is the result of the bureaus’ 

historical divisions. A similar situation once existed in the Aegis program management offices, 

but consolidation of those entities enhanced Aegis program effectiveness. 

pp. 2-6, 2-8, 5-48, 

160 
Notes to Pages 113-118 

45. Naval Surface Force, US. Atlantic Fleet (SURFLANT) was established 1 January 1975, 

whereas Naval Surface Force, US. Pacific Fleet (SURFPAC) began on 1 April 1975. Mine warfare 

ships were transferred to each on 1 July 1975. SURFLANT and SURFPAC Command Histories, 

1975, OA. The second and last Commander Mine Warfare Force was Rear Admiral Roy F. 

Hoffman (November 1974-July 1975) who served on two MCM vessels and survived the mining 

of Pirate (AM-2751, sunk while sweeping at Wonsan. 

46. OPNAVINST 3370.3B, 9 Jull982; Kenneth A. Heine, “SweepingAhead,”Surfae Warfare 13 

(Mar-Apr 1988): 7; Remarks by CNO Admiral Carlisle A. H. Trost, COMINEWARCOM change 

of command, 8 Jull989. When COMINEWARCOM is dual-hatted as Commander Naval Base, 

Charleston, he is most often a two-star with dual responsibilities. 

47. “Mine Countermeasures,” Navy International 93 (Jun 1988): 280-82; Preston, ‘The Infernal 

Machine,” pp. 559-61; Hessman, “In Search of‘The Weapon That Waits’,” p. 41; Jeremy D. Taylor, 

“Mining: AWell Reasoned and Circumspect Defense,”Proceedings 103 (Nov 1977): 44; James D. 

Hessman, “Mine Warfare: ATwo-Sided Game,”Seu Power 27 (Aug 1984): 30; Marriott, “A Survey 

of Modem Mine Warfare,” p. 40; Hartmann, “Mine Warfare History and Technology,” p. 27. 

48. Norman Friedman, “US Mine-Countermeasures Programs,”lnternational Defense Review 17 

(1984): 1260-64; Truver, ‘Weapons That Wait,” p. 39; Polmar, “The U.S. Navy: Mine 

Countermeasures,” p. 117; Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships, 1947-1982,1:251. 

49. Cyrus R. Christensen, “AMinesweeping Shrimp Boat? AWhat?“ Proceedings 107 (Jul 1981): 

110-11. MSSB-1, which became the prototype for the COOP program-named for the plan to 

use boats, often captured drug runners, that may opportunely become availableallowed 

modular navigational, sweep, and remote vehicle units to be placed on a variety of vessels. Naval 

reservists man the twenty-two planned vessels, conducting underwater surveys of harbors in 

peacetime and providing the nucleus of a harbor sweep fleet in wartime. Calling their program 

“ships taken up from trade” or “STUFT,” the British again recalled their fishing trawlers to clear 

Argentine mines in the 1982 Falklands War. Preston, ‘The Infernal Machine,” p. 564; R. Bell 

and R. Abel, “Mine Warfare CO-OPeration,”Proceedings 110 (Od 1984): 147-49; Michael S. Ruth, 

“COOP-The Breakout Gang,” Surface Warfare 9 (Jul-Aug 1984): 19-20; USNI Seminar, “Mine 

Warfare”; Wesley McDonald, “Mine Warfare: APillar of Maritime Strategy,”Proceedings 111 (Oct 

1985): 56. 

50. Ibid., p. 109; D. W. Cockfield, “Breakout: AKey Role For the Naval Reserve,”Proceedings 111 

(Oct 1985): 54; C. F. Home, “New Role for Mine Warfare,” Proceedings 108 (Nov 1982): 37; 

Friedman, “US Mine-Countermeasures Programs,” p. 1259. 

51. Hessman, “Mine Warfare: A Sweeping Assessment,” p. 10; Curtis, “Mines at Sea,” p. 22; 

Truver, ‘Weapons That Wait,” p. 37; Friedman, “US Mine-Countermeasures Programs,” p. 1259; 

“Mine Warfare: The US. Navy Reacts,” Navy International 90 (Jan 1985): 35; United States 

Naval Institute Professional Seminar Series (hereafter USNI Seminar), “Mine Warfare: Which 

Platform?” 26 Feb 1987 (Annapolis, 1987); Susan Worsham, “CNO Lauds MSO’s,” Surface 

Warfare 7 (Jun 1982): 37; MacDonald, “New Surface MCM Ships,” p. 24; John H. Hubbard, “Mine 

Warfare Oficer Assignments: Looking Good,” Surface Warfare 7 (Feb 1982): 19; “US and UK 

Coastal Minehunter Developments,” Maritime Defence 9 (Jan 1984): 24. 

52. Heine, “Sweeping Ahead,” p. 9; Preston, ‘The Infernal Machine,” p. 562; Lobb, “Mine 

Countermeasures,” p. 35; Nepean, “Naval Mine Countermeasures,” p. 116; Kenneth Keller, 

‘MCM Avenger Class: Learning the New Technology,” Surface Warfare 12 (MayJun 1987): 14; 

USNI Seminar, “Mine Warfare.” 

53. Naval Mine Warfare, a supplement to International Defense Review 22 (Nov 19891, p. 14. 

54. Me1 R. Jones, “Closing the Mine Warfare Gap,”Pmceedings 110 (Nov 1984): 152; Jones, “Mine 

Warfare Preparedness,” pp. 37-39; Friedman, “US Mine-Countermeasures Programs,” pp. 

1259-64; Polmar, ‘The US. Navy,” p. 119; John D. Alden, “Tomorrow’s Fleet,”Prwedings 113 

(May 1987): 180; Scott C. Truver, ‘Tomorrow’s Fleet,”Proceedings 115 (May 1989): 311. The MCM 

161 
Notes to Pages 118-122 

is equipped with the advanced Raytheon ANISQQ-32 minehunting sonar, the remote Honeywell 

Mine Neutralization System (MNS), and the ANISSN-2 Precise Integrated Navigation System 

(PINS). Friedman, “LJS Mine-Countermeasures Programs,” p. 1259. 

55. Testimony of Everett Pyatt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Shipbuilding and Logistics), 

HASC Hearing, pp. 2,6-7,25. 

56. Thomas H. Moorer, ‘Mine Warfare: Entering a New Age,” Wings of Gold 9 (Fall 1984): 8; 

Emshwiller Comment, p. 78. The Navy’s AMCM squadrons consist of the original HM-12, now 

a training squadron, and two operational units, HM-14 on the East Coast and HM-16 on the 

West Coast. 

57. Clawson, “Sweeping the Med,” p. 17. 

58. Action Information Organisation for MCMV, ‘Mine Countermeasures,” Navy International 

89 (Jul 1984): 404; Moorer, ‘Mine Warfare,” pp. 7-8; USNI Seminar, “The Gulf of Suez Mining 

Crisis: Terrorism at Sea,” 30 May 1985, pp. 3-22; Preston, ‘The Infernal Machine,” p. 561; Navy 

Times, 20 Aug 1984; Michael Collins Dunn, “Fishing in Troubled Waters,” Defense and Foreign 

Affairs 12 (Oct 1984): 16-18; Scott C. Truver, “Mines of August An International Whodunit,” 

Proceedings 111 (May 1985): 95-102. As many as nineteen ships may have been mined, although 

some vessels sustained injuries of suspicious origin. 

59. USNI Seminar, ‘The Gulf of Suez Mining Crisis,” pp. 3-22; Preston, ‘The Infernal Machine,” 

p. 561; Dunn, “Fishing in Troubled Waters,” pp. 16-18; Truver, “Mines of August,” pp. 102-14; 

USNI Seminar, “Mine Warfare.” The sleds used were the Mk 106, a combination of the Mk 105 

magnetic sled with an Mk 104 acoustic actuator trailing. 

60. USNI Seminar, ‘The Gulf of Suez Mining Crisis,” pp. 3-22; Preston, ‘The Infernal Machine,” 

p. 561; Dunn, “Fishing in Troubled Waters,” pp. 16-18; Truver, ‘Wines of August,” pp. 102-14; 

Navy Times 7 Aug 1984, p. 2; 22 Oct 1984, p. 33. As many as thirty mines were swept by all forces. 

USNI Seminar, “Mine Warfare.” 

61. Truver, ‘Wines of August,” pp. 113-14. 

62. Congressional Quarterly 46 (23 Apr 1988): 5-6; Thomas Q. Donaldson, “Meandering Mines,” 

Proceedings 110 (Sep 1984): 137; Friedman, World Naval Weapons Systems, pp. 451,478. 

63. [Paul Stillwell], “SS Bridgeton: The First Convoy: Interview with Captain Frank C. Seitz, Jr., 

U.S. Merchant Marine,” Proceedings 114 (May 1988): 52,56; RADM W. W. Mathis to author, 21 

Aug 1989; Administrative Support Unit (ASU), Bahrain, Navy Commendation Medals File; USS 

Wainwright to SECDEF et al., 1607582 APR 88, enclosure to Samuel B. Roberts Command 

History, 1988, SH. At the time of Bridgeton’s mining, Captain William W. Mathis, commanding 

Fox, was leading the convoy 1000 yards off Bridgeton’s starboard bow. Mathis to author, 21 Aug 

1989. In May 1989 ASU, Bahrain, submitted recommendations for Navy Commendation Medals 

for the first Hunter and Striker crews, which served from August to November 1987. Striker crew 

members included BMC W. J. Walters, QMC L. J. Tebbetts, BM1 G. W. Barnhart, OS1 W. E. 

Chambers, SN C. E. Bush, and FN W. J. Whitmore; Hunter crew members were LT M. E. Magil, 

BMC J. W. Sharbutt, EM1 J. L. Moore, EN2 E. I. Baylock, and SN T. A. Blasier. ASU, Bahrain, 

Navy Commendation Medals File. Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) forces included 

detachments from the newly established Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit (EODMUG) 

in Charleston, South Carolina. 

64. Washington Post, 25 Nov 1987, p. A20; HM-14 Lessons Learned, encl. 2, OA. Inflict and 

Fearless found another field of thirteen mines in the same spot four months later. 

65. Vice Admiral Hogg Testimony, HASC Hearing, p. 13; HM-14 Lessons Learned, encl. 2, OA; 

Friedman, World Naval Weapons Systems, p. 475. On this recent deployment four hundred 

personnel supported the operations of eight aircraft. Air crews alone required twenty to 

twenty-five men per helicopter. HM-14 Lessons Learned, encl. 2, OA. One MSB, equipped with 

a jury-rigged forward-looking sonar, failed to detect mines except in very stable water. Three 

162 
Notes to Pages 122-127 

MSBs with mechanical sweep gear were used in Bahrain Bell but failed to sweep mines in that 

environment. 

66. Simmons, ‘Mining at Wonsan and in the Persian Gulf,” p. 3; James D. Hessman, “Mine 

Warfare: A Sweeping Assessment,” Sea Power 30 (Sep 1987): 7; Harold Evans, “Missing Mine 

Sweepers,” U.S. News and World Report, 24 Aug 1987, p. 68; Michael Mecham, “Navy Deploys 

Helicopters to Counter Gulf Mine Threat,” Aviation Week and Space Technology (3 Aug 1987): 

25; Giusti, “Sweeping the Gulf,” pp. 4-5. North Korea is believed to be the supplier of Iranian 

mines. Ibid., p. 26. Some MSBs also swept prior to the arrival of the MSOs. Giusti, “Sweeping 

the Gulf,” p. 3; Heine, “Sweeping Ahead,” pp. 7-8. Illusive was the only ship of the six not from 

the reserve fleet. Although the Atlantic Fleet ships were towed to the gulf, they returned to the 

United States under their own power in March 1989, while Pacific Fleet MSOs remained in the 

gulf until 1990. Conquest also suffered a collision at sea with Barbour County (LST-1195) on 10 

September 1987 and had to return to Pearl Harbor for repairs, delaying her entry into the gulf. 

Pacific and Atlantic MSO crews also rotated differently with one-fourth of the Pacific Fleet crews 

rotating each month, whereas the Atlantic Fleet held entire crew teams to a four-month rotation. 

For more information on the MSO Persian Gulf experience, see individual ships’ Command 

Histories, 1987-1990, SH. 

67. USNI Seminar, “Mine Warfare”; Giusti, “Sweeping the Gulf,” pp. 3-5; Heine, “Sweeping 

Ahead,” p. 7; Friedman, World Naval Weapons Systems, p. 446; Walters, “ROVs,” p. 301; John 

Marriott, “Report on the Royal Navy Equipment Exhibition,” Armada 6 (Nov-Dec 1987): 74-75; 

Washington Times, 5 Apr 1989, p. 2. Witnesses to the failed MSO modernization program of the 

late 1960s no doubt were surprised by the good performance of the survivingvessels of this class 

in the Arabian Gulf. 

68. Admiral Trost’s remarks, COMINEWARCOM change of command, 8 Jul 1989; Vice Admiral 

Hogg Testimony, HASC Hearing, p. 18; CMEF Command History (unclassified portions), 1988, 

OA. Although generally too lightweight for Arabian Gulf operations, the ROVs used by the US. 

Navy MCM forces in the gulf did find some mines. Msg, CHINFO Washington DC to CJTFME, 

1600152 Apr 1988, enclosure to Samuel B. Roberts Command History, 1988, SH; Enhance 

Command History, 1988, SH. 

69. Msg, CHINFO Washington DC to CJTFME, 1600152 Apr 1988; Preston, ‘The Infernal 

Machine,” p. 564; Steven Blaisdell, “HSL-44 Detachment Five Had a Blast in the Persian Gulf,” 

Rotor Review (Aug 1988): 55. 

70. Master Chief Bobby Scott and Boatswain’s Mate Wilfred Patnaude, USS Zowa, taped 

interviews with author, 30 Mar 1988, NHC, OA; Norman Friedman, “World Naval 

Developments,” Proceedings 114 (Jun 1988): 119. Captain Frank Lugo on the MEF staff during 

Zowa’s deployment also considered putting bowsweep equipment on his cruiser, Josephus Daniels 

(CG-27) for her 1988 Arabian Gulf cruise. Lugo, interview with author, 6 Nov 1988, on board 

Josephus Daniels, Mina Sulman Pier, Manama, Bahrain. 

71. James R. Giusti, “Sweeping the Gulf,” Surface Warfare 13 (Mar-Apr 1988): 3; Michael 

Chichester, “Allied Navies & the Gulf War: Strategic Implications,” Navy International 93 (Jun 

1988): 320. The contact mines captured aboard the Iran Ajr may be Russian-supplied from North 

Korean stock. Preston, “The Infernal Machine,” p. 559; A. H. Cordesman, ‘Western Seapower 

Enters the Gulf (Part 2),” Naval Forces 9 (1988): 40. 

72. Msgs, USS Wainwright to SECDEF et al., 1607582 Apr 1988, USS Jack Williams to NMCC 

Washington DC et al., 1720002 Apr 1988, USCINCCENT to CJTFME, 1419202 Apr 1988, USS 

Wainwright to CJTFME, 1612242 Apr 1988, and CHINFO Washington DC to CJTFME, 1600152 

Apr 1988, enclosures to Samuel B. Roberts Command History, 1988; Chuck Mussi, “To See the 

Dawn:’ The Night-long Battle to Save USS Roberts,” All Hands 857 (Aug 1988): 4-10. The 

intended victim of the mining attack was probably Bridgeton, due to proceed on Earnest Will 

mission EW 88026, scheduled for 14 April. Msgs, USCINCCENT to CJTFME, 1419202Apr 1988, 

163 
Notes to Pages 127-137 

and USS Wainwright to CJTFME 1612242 Apr 1988, enclosures to Samuel B. Roberts Command 

History, 1988. For a description of the action on 18 April 1988, see “Awards for Persian Gulf 

Actions,” Surface Warfare 14 (May-Jun 1989): 17. 

73. “Desert Shield, Getting There,” Pmceedings 116 (Oct 1990): 102-3. 

74. Washington Post, 19 Feb 1991, p. A7; Navy Times, 4 Mar 1991, pp. 10-11,18. 

75. Navy Times, 4 Mar 1991, pp. 10-12; ibid., 11 Mar 1991, p. 12. Guardian (MCM-5) relieved 

Auenger in June 1991 and found several mines in the last months of gulf MCM efforts. 

76. R. J. L. Dicker, ‘Wine Warfare Now and in the 1990s,”International Defense Review 19 (1986): 

294; Vice Admiral Hogg Testimony, HASC Hearing, pp. 11-13; David C. Resing, ‘Wine 

Countermeasures in Coastal Harbors: A Force Planner’s Dilemma,” Naval War College Review 

40 (Spring 1987): 60; HM-14 Lessons Learned, encl. 2, OA. Figures for new construction change 

daily. At last report, the CNO had requested 22 MCMs, 25 MHCs, and 44 helicopters. Budget 

figures comparing MCM and USN budgets are for the fiscal year 1990, 1991, and 1992, the 

highest MCM budget years since the Korean War. 

Conclusion 

1. Wettern, ‘Mine Countermeasures,” p. 21. 

2. Edward J. Rogers, ‘Nines Wait But We Can’t,”Proceedings 108 (Aug 1982): 52. 

3. USNI Seminar, The Gulf of Suez Mining Crisis: Terrorism at Sea,” p. 18. 

4. Remarks by Admiral Trost at COMINEWARCOM change of command, 8 Jull989. 

5. Daniel, Anti-Submarine Warfare, pp. 135,169; Truver, ‘Weapons That Wait,” p. 33; Friedman, 

“US Mine-Countermeasures,” p. 1268; White, ‘Wove and Countermove,” p. 35. 

6. Ennis, “Deep, Cheap & Deadly,” p. 26; Norman Polmar, Guide to the Souiet Navy (Annapolis, 

19861, pp. 248-561; Chatterton, The MinesweepinglFishing Vessel, p. 121; Me1 R. Jones, “Mine 

Warfare Preparedness Begins Recovery After Years of Neglect,” Defense Systems Review and 

Military Communication 2 (Jul-Aug 1984): 37; Bray, ‘Wine Warfare in the Russian and Soviet 

Navies,” pp. 2,39-40, 177-79; Wile, ‘Their Mine Warfare Capability,” p. 149. 

7. For unclassified technical information on the mines and MCM devices of all nations, see 

Friedman, World Naval Weapons Systems, pp. 444-79. 

8. James H. Patton, Jr., “ASW Winning the Race,” Proceedings 114 (Jun 1988): 66. 

9. Mine warfare type commanders have repeatedly been dual-hatted as operational commanders 

since World War 11. For example, see RearAdmiral Sharp (chapter 2) and RearAdmiralMcCauley 

(twice in chapter 4). The 1968 MINEPAC Command History also lists COMINEPAC serving 

double duty as CTF 59 during that year. Undoubtedly, there are other examples. 

10. Hoffman, “Offensive Mine Warfare,” p. 155; USNI Seminar, ‘Nine Warfare.” 

11. Daniel G. Powell Comment, Proceedings 106 (Jun 1980): 79. 

164 
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191 
I 

Page intentionally blank 
Index 

“A sweep, 46-47 

Adjutant-class (MSC). See 

Minesweeper,Coastal (MSC). 

Administration: consolidation of 

mine warfare programs recommended, 19, 27, 70, 113, 153; 

inworld War I, 28; after World 

War I, 41-42, 150; in World War 

11,47-54; after World War 11, 65, 

67, 154, 156; in mid-l960s, 87-88; 

in Vietnam War, 99; under Holloway and Zumwalt, 113-14,159; 

decentralization of mine warfare, 

114; recent, 131-32 (see also 

OPNAV) 

Administrative Support Unit, 

Bahrain, 121 

Admirable-class AM. See Ships, 

MCM. 

Adroit (MSO-509): in Desert 

Storm, 127 

Aegis, 128,129,160 

Aggressiue-class (AMs). See 

Agile-class (MSO). See 

Air mine countermeasures 

Minesweeper, Ocean (MSO). 

Minesweeper, Ocean (MSO). 

(AMCM): in World War I, 36; early 

development of, 49; blimps and, 

60; aerial countermining, 64; 

aerial mine spotting, 73-76,80,81, 

85; early precursor sweeping 

by helicopters, 85; in Vietnam 

War, 97,100-11; Zumwalt champions, 98-99, 113; craft 

procurement, 99; administration 

of, 99; lessons learned in operations, 109-13, 118-19, 127-31; in 

Persian Gulf, 127; current force 

levels for, 131; mentioned, 135, 162 

(see also End Sweep, Minesweeping gear, Patrol bombers) 

Unit, 85 

Air Mine Defense Development 

Al-Ahmadi Oil Terminal, 

Kuwait, 120 

Almond, Edward M., 78 

America (CV-66), 119 

American Revolution: and mine 

warfare, 7-8 

Amphibious Assault Ship (LPH). 

See Ships, MCM. 

Amphibious Transport (LPD). 

See Ships, MCM. 

Amphibious operations: planning 

for, 42-43, 60,61-63,65,73-74, 

84-85; in World War 11,55-58, 60- 

63; in Korea, 73-82; in Desert 

Storm, 128,129 

Amur, 25 

Andrews, J. T. E., 15 

Anzio, 55 

Arab-Israeli war, 111 

Archer, Stephen M.: clears 

Argentine Republic, 17 

Argus, 7 

Arizona (BB-39), 51 

Atlantic Fleet Mining and 

Minesweeping Division, 28 

Atlantic Fleet Torpedo Flotilla, 

28 

Auk-class, 50 

Austria: minesweeping by, 27; 

Auxiliary Motor Minesweeper 

Chinnampo, 80 

mentioned, 16,20 

(AMS). See Motor Minesweeper 

CYMS, later AMS). 

Auxiliary Coastal Minesweepers 

(AMC), 48,50 

Avenger (MCM-1): in Desert 

Storm, 127-32; SQQ-32 sonar of, 

130 (see also Mine countermeasures ship, Sonar) 

Auenger-class ships. See Mine 

countermeasures ship (MCM). 

Bab el Mandeb, 119 

Badger, Charles J., 28 

193 
Index 

Bahrain, 121, 129 

Bahrain Bell, 122,126 

Balikpapan, Dutch Borneo: 

amphibious assault at, 62, losses 

to U.S. mines at, 65-66,67; limits 

of degaussing at, 68 

Balloons, observation, 36 

Baltimore, 22 

Bangkok, 60 

Barbour County (LST-1195),163 

Barnegat Light, NJ, 33 

Barnes, John S., 146 

Barrett, F. S., 3 

Base Force, Pacific Fleet, 41,53 

Base Force, U.S. Fleet, 41-42,53 

Base Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet, 53 

Battle Fleet, U.S. Fleet, 41 

Bazely, 16 

Beaumont, J. C., 146 

Beirut, Lebanon, 119 

Belgium, 131 

Bittern (AMCU, later MHC43), 

Blake, Homer C., 16 

Blimp K-l09,60 

Bluebird-class ships. See 

Bolivia, 20 

Borneo. See Balikpapan. 

Bow-watches. See Mine 

Brazil, 17 

Breese, Kidder R., 19 

Bridgeport, 42 

Bridgeton, SS, xi, 120, 121,125, 

Brooklyn, 3 

Brown, George W., 146 

Brown, Harold, 118 

Brush, 155 

Buchanan, Franklin, 1 

Bulgaria, 29 

Buoys: marking minefields, 2-3, 

Bureau of Aeronautics, 49,85 

Bureau of Construction and 

84 

Minesweeper, Coastal (MSC). 

avoidance. 

162,163-64 

36, 74; in American Revolution, 7 

Repair: opposes centralizing mine 

warfare, 27; and minesweeper 

design, 34; and control of MCM, 

42,48,49, 51 

Bureau of Engineering: and 

control of MCM, 48-49,51 

Bureau of Ordnance: and Torpedo 

Corps, 18-19,21; and MCM study, 

21,151; endorses GeneralBoard 

recommendations, 24; increases 

use of countermining, 26; opposes 

centralizing mine warfare, 27; in 

World War I, 33; and control of 

MCM, 42,44,48,49,50,51,54, 70; 

and Operation Starvation, 63; 

laboratories detached from, 87-88; 

replaced by systems command 87, 

113 

Bureau of Ships: defined, 48; and 

control of MCM, 49,50,51, 52, 54, 

61,68; and pressure mines, 56; 

and creation of an MCM 

laboratory, 68; and MCM ship 

design, 68,83; laboratories 

detached from, 87-88; replaced by 

systems command, 87,113 

Bureau of Yards and Docks, 59 

Burke, Arleigh: brings Japanese 

to sweep Wonsan, 74,155 

Bushnell, David, 7 

Butler, Benjamin F., 15 

Cairo, 12,19,145 

Cam Pha, 109 

Cam Ranh Bay, 94 

Cambodia, 91, 109 

Canada: MCM by, 57 

Captor (Encapsulated Torpedo) 

mine, 114 

Cardinal-class minesweeper 

hunters (MSH). See Ships, MCM. 

Career potential in mine 

warfare. See Mine warfare. 

Caribbean: exercises in, 43,88 

Curmick (DMS-33),80 

Carroll, Kent J., 111 

Carter, Jimmy, 115 

Casualties: from mines, 3, 16, 17, 

29,38,52, 57-58,61,64,65,73, 

77, 82, 83, 121, 127, 128, 129, 131, 

134, 138, 144, 145, 146, 147, 153, 

154,155,162 

Catamount (LSD-17), 72 

Catholic University of America, 86 

194 
Index 

Catlin, George L.: and paravanes, 

Cavite, 22 

Cerberus, 7 

Charleston, SC: mine warfare at, 

Charleston, SC: mine warfare at, 

148 

13-15; mining at, 51; MINELANT 

headquarters at, 88; mine warfare 

school at, 88; AMCM at, 98, 107; as 

MCM headquarters, 113, 114, 115, 

132; mentioned, 113 

Chatterer (AMS-40),77 

Chauncey, Isaac, 7 

Cherbourg: mining at, 56-58,66 

Chesapeake Bay, 33,49,51 

Chiang Kai-shek, 69 

Chief of Naval Material, 87, 105 

Chief of Naval Operations 

(CNO): created, 28; supports advances in MCM, 47,49,56,69, 

98-99, 113, 137; eliminates MCM 

type command in Pacific, 65, mentioned, 43 (see also OPNAV, Elmo 

M. Zumwalt) 

Chief of Naval Research, 114 

Chile, 20 

China: mines off, 69 

Chinnampo, Korea: Soviet 

mining at, 70,72,73,74; clearance 

Of, 79-81,82 

115-16 

Christensen, Cyrus R., 104, 

Cienfuegos, Cuba, 22 

Civil War, U.S. (1861-1865): and 

Mobile Bay, 1-4; USN attitude 

towards mine warfare during, 9- 

10; and tactics during, 9-16; 

comparisons with Vietnam, 92 

Clarey, Bernard A., 101 

Clearwater, Task Force, 95 

Coal torpedo, 10 

Coastal Minesweeper (AMC). 

See Ships, MCM. 

Coastal Minesweeper, 

Underwater Locator (AMCU). See 

Ships, MCM. 

Cold War: and Korean War, 

Colt, Samuel, 8, 145 

Commander in Chief, Far East, 70 

82-83 

Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet 

Commander in Chief, U.S. 

(COMINCH), 43,56 

Atlantic Fleet (CINCLANTFLT), 

118 

Pacific Fleet (CINCPACFLT), 73, 

101 

(CMEF). See Middle East Force. 

Commander in Chief, U.S. 

Commander Middle East Force 

Commander Mine Division 1,51 

Commander Mine Warfare Force 

(COMINEWARFOR). See Mine 

Warfare Force. 

Force, 43 

US. Atlantic Fleet, (COMNAVAIRLANT), 99,120 

Commander Naval Base, 

Charleston, 114, 132, 161 

Commander Naval Forces, Far 

East (COMNAVFE), 64,70 

Commander Naval Forces, 

Japan, 64 

Commander Naval Surface 

Force, US. Atlantic Fleet, 113, 161 

Commander Naval Surface 

Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet, 113, 161 

Commander Service Force, 

Atlantic, 53 

Commander Scouting Force, 43 

Commodore Barney, 17 

Commodore Jones, 15 

Communism: response to growth 

Confederate States of America: 

Commander Minecraft, Battle 

Commander Naval Air Force, 

Of, 69,82-83,91 

mining by, 14, 10-16, 19; compared to North Vietnamese, 92 

Confederate Submarine Battery 

Service, 10, 15 

Confederate Torpedo Bureau, 10 

Conquest (MSO-488),122 

Constantinople, 29 

Coral Sea (CVA-43),101 

Corregidor, 61 

Counter-countermeasures: 

Countermining. See Mine 

devices, 15, 32; U.S. practice, 63 

Countermeasures. 

195 
Index 

Cowslip, 2 

Craft of Opportunity Program 

(COOP), 115, 116, 161 (see also 

Reserves) 

Craig, Edward C., 48 

Crimean War (1854-1856), 9 

Crommelin (FFG-37), 121 

Crosby, Pierce, 15 

Cua Viet River, 94,95 

Cuba: and Spanish-American 

War, 21-24 

Cube steak, 59 

Da Nang, minesweeping units 

Dahlgren, John A.: on MCM, 

at, 94 

9; minehunting at Charleston, 14- 

15 

Dahlgren, VA, 105 

Dan buoys, 31,37 

Danish, 16 

Dardanelles: mined by Turks, 17; in 

Dash (MSO-428): illustrated, 89 

David Taylor Model Basin, 87 

Davidson, Hunter, 10 

Davis, Noel, 34, 39 

DeForest, Don: gains intelligence 

World War I, 29,40 

for Wonsan sweep, 77-78; at Chinnampo, 80 

of U.S. ships, 48,49,50,52, 54,83, 

85,151; at Balikpapan, 68 

Degaussing: defined, 5,45; 

Delafield, Richard, 9 

Delaware Bay, 51 

Demi-john torpedo, 12 

Democratic People’s Republic 

Denmark, 16 

Department of Defense, 87,98, 

99,105,118,135 

Deperming: defined, 5; 

mentioned, 45 

Deputy Chief of Naval 

Operations for Logistics, 67 

Deputy Chief of Naval 

Operations for Naval Warfare, 132 

Deputy Chief of Naval 

Operations for Operations, 67 

Desert Shieldmesert Storm, 128-31 

of Korea, 70 

Destroyer Minesweeper (DMS). 

Devil. See Mine avoidance. 

Dewey, George: at Manila Bay, 

See Ships, MCM; Minesweepers. 

21-22,25; supports development 

of MCM, 24-25,40; recommends 

consolidation of MCM, 27; mentioned, 137, 147 

Diuchenko (APD-123): at 

Wonsan, 75,76 

Director, Mine Warfare 

Division (OP-721, 132 

Director of Naval Laboratories, 

87 

Displacement devices, 56,58-59, 

68 (see also Guinea pig ships, 

XMAP) 

post-Civil War, 20; in World War 

11,58, 60,61, 152; sonar for, 68, 

86; and planning, 70; in Korea, 81; 

in Vietnam, 92; in Earnest Will, 

120,122-23; in Desert Storm, 128; 

Mark 16 UBA for, 128; and Katie 

mines, 152; mentioned, 6, 79 (see 

also EOD, UDT) 

Divers: in Civil War, 14; 

Do Son, 69 

Dorothea, 7 

Doyle, James H., 115 

Drayton, Percival, 3 

Drewry’s Bluff, 15 

DuPont, Samuel F., 13,144 

Dutch Borneo. See Balikpapan. 

DST-36,110 

Earnest Will, 120-24 

Easter Offensive, 101 

Eastport, 13 

Egg crate, 59 

Egypt: minelaying by, 22; 

Electrical protective device, 36 

Ellet, Charles R., 12 

End Sweep: operation, 101-11; 

sole mine detonation at, 108, 160; 

cost of operation, 109; lessons 

learned from, 109-11; planners for, 

159; originally called Formation 

Sentry, 159; mentioned, 131,157 

at Suez, 111; in Red Sea, 118-19 

Endicott (DD-495), 75 

196 
English Channel: mines in, 56-57 

Enhance (MSO437), 122 

Epping Forest (MCS-7),95 

Ericsson, John, 11 

Escort patrol craft (PCE), 47 

Esteem (MSO-438), 122 

Eutaw, 16 

Explosive ordnance disposal 

(EOD) divers: in World War 11,60; 

and planning, 70,85,87; at Suez, 

111; in Red Sea, 118-19; in 

Earnest Will, 120, 123, 127; in 

Desert Storm, 127, 128 (see also 

Divers) 

Farragut, David Glasgow: at 

Mobile Bay, 14,6, 138; letter 

from, 9; Farragut window, 14; as 

role model for Dewey, 21; on quote, 

“Damn the Torpedoes,” 144; mentioned 121,143,144 

Farsi Island, 121 

Fast assault minesweepers 

(DMS). See Ships, MCM. 

Fearless (MSO-442),122, 162 

Fire Island, NY, 33 

Firefly, 9 

Flashing, 45 

Fleet and Mine Warfare 

Training Center. See Mine Warfare School. 

Fleet Base Force, Pacific Fleet, 41 

Fleet Base Force, U.S. Fleet, 41 

Fleet Minesweeper (AM). See 

Fleet organization: and MCM, 

Ships, MCM. 

28,4142,53-54,61,64-65,83, 

99-100,113,132,150,152,153, 

154 

Fleet Problems, 42-44, 150 

Fort Gaines, 1-2 

Fort Morgan, 1-2 

Fort Moultrie, 14 

Fort Powell, 2 

Fort Sumter, 14 

Fourteenth Naval District (Hawaii), 

Fox (CG-33), 121 

France: and controlled mining, 

51 

8; converts minesweepers, 27; in 

the Dardanelles, 29; in World War 

I, 30; in World War 11,56-58; in Indochina, 69,91-92; at Suez, 111; 

and ROVs, 116; in Red Sea, 118; in 

Desert Storm, 131; mentioned, 17 

Freeman, Martin, 2 

Fretwell-Singer. See Mines. 

Fullinwider, Simon P.: and MCM 

Fulton, Robert, 7-8,134 

in BuOrd, 48,151 

“GI‘ formation, 47 

Gallipoli Campaign, 29 

Game Warden, 93,94 

Garrett, H. Lawrence 111, 129 

Gas Princess, SS, 121 

Gauss, Karl Friedrich, 45 

General Accounting Office: on 

USN MCM shortfalls, 133 

General Board: recommends 

increasing and centralizing MCM, 

24,27; design for minesweepers, 

29,34,39 

underwater ordnance locators, 61; 

and sonar, 87 

engines, 83,90 

General Electric: and 

General Motors: and MSO 

Genessee, 12 

Geneva Agreement, 91 

Germany: minesweeping by, 27; 

mining by, 28,45,48; in World 

War I, 28-33,36, 149; in World 

War II,45-59; improved mines of, 

46; in Desert Storm, 131; progress 

in minehunting by, 136; and Russian mines, 151; mentioned, 60,63 

(see also U-boats) 

Grant, Ulysses S., 16 

Grapple (ARS-53),122 

Great Britain: and MCM in 

American Revolution, 7-8; and selfpropelled torpedoes, 17; and 

countermining, 17-18; first minesweepers of, 26; USN MCM 

practices borrowed from, 28,29, 

31,40-41,48,49,52,63,64, 115, 

148; in World War I, 28-33; 

197 
Index 

progress in MCM, 44-46; in World 

War 11,45-63; analyzes USN 

MCM, 61; at Suez, 111; in Red Sea, 

118-19; mine recovery and exploitation by, 119; in Desert Storm, 

128, 129, 131; status of mine warfare in, 134; career paths in MCM, 

136; and mines in Falklands, 161; 

mentioned, 19,60, 134 

Gregg, J. C., 146 

Gruendl, Paul L., 104, 157, 159 

Guudalcanal (LPH-71, 122 

Guam, 24,88 

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 22,23 

Guardian (MCM-5),164 

Guinea pig ships, 59, 64,85, 87, 

Gulf of Suez, 112,118 

Gulf of Tonkin, 107 

Gun cotton, 25 

109,110,157 

Haeju, Korea: Soviet mines at, 

72; minelayer sunk at, 73; mentioned, 79 

Convention drafted at, 27,63,101, 

148 

Hague Conference (1907): 

Hainan Strait, 60 

Haiphong: World War I1 mining 

of, 60,69; Vietnam War mining of, 

101, 108,153; AMCM planning for, 

107,108; mine swept at, 108,160 

(see also End Sweep) 

Hampton Roads, VA, 51 

Hanford, W. C., 145,146 

Harkness (T-AGS-32), 119 

Hartford, 2-3,14 

Harvard Underwater Sound 

Laboratory, 87 

Hatcher, Jerry, 109 

Havana, Cuba, 21 

Hayward, Thomas B., 115,116 

Helicopter Mine 

Countermeasures Squadron 12 

113,118-19,162 

Countermeasures Squadron 14 

(HM-12), 99, 100, 107, 111, 112, 

Helicopter Mine 

(HM-14), 113,118-19,120,121,162 

Helicopter Mine 

Countermeasures Squadron 16 

Helicopters: in Korea, 73, 74, 75, 

76,80-81,82,85,97; recommended for new MCM force, 79; in 

Vietnam, 97-100; precursor minesweeping with, 85,97-99,111; 

sweep gear for, 97-98,112; 

problems minesweeping with, 98; 

for first AMCM squadron, 99; in 

End Sweep, 106-11; at Suez, 111- 

13; Zumwalt on, 113; in Red Sea, 

118-19; in Earnest Will, 121-22, 

126, 127; LAMPS, 125, 127; in 

Desert Storm, 127-31; mentioned, 

113,116, 131 (see also AMCM, End 

Sweep, Minesweeping gear, Swept 

Mine Locator System) 

illustrated, 125 

(HM-162), 113,162 

Hercules (Mobile Support Base): 

High Resolution Sonar Project, 86 

Hitler, Adolph: orders mining, 56 

Holloway, James L. 111, 101, 113, 

Hon Gai, 109 

Hope, Bob: at Wonsan, 78 

Home, Charles F. 111,116, 137 

Hughes, R. D., 50-51,58 

Hungnam, 81,155 

Hunt, William, 146 

Hunter (Kuwaiti tug): sweeps 

mines, 121; crew of, 162 

Hussein, Saddam: invades 

Kuwait, 127 

Hyatt, Bruce M., 75 

115 

Illusive (MSO-448), 122 

Impervious (MSO-449): in 

Desert Storm, 123, 127 

Znchon (LPH-12), 106,111 

Inchon: Soviet mines at, 72; 

planned invasion of, 73; mentioned, 74 

Incredible (AM-249): at Wonsan, 

75,76 

Indian Ocean, 119 

Indochina, 69,91 (see also 

Vietnam War) 

Inflict (MSO-4561,122,162 

198 
Index 

Influence mines: history of 

operational use of, 41-66; in World 

War 11,64 (see also Mines) 

MCM operational need for, 5,66; 

used by British in 1855,9; in Civil 

War, 13, 14, 16; Dewey’s lack of, 

21; in World War I, 38; at Normandy, 56; about pressure mines, 

56-57; inability to clear influence 

mines without, 66; at Wonsan, 73, 

74, 77,78,80; lessons learned in 

Korea concerning, 79,82,85; at 

Chinnampo, 80-81; in Pacific, 98; 

at Suez, 111; in Earnest Will, 126; 

in Desert Storm, 128, 131; to 

prevent minelaying, 136 

Intelligence: at Mobile Bay, 2-4; 

Intense Look, 118-19 

Iowa (BB-61): bowsweep system 

for, 124-25 

Iran: hostage rescue mission in, 

118; Iran-Iraq War, 119-27; mining 

by, 120, 123, 126-27; Iranian 

Revolutionary Guard, 120-21; US. 

attacks Navy of, 127 

Iran Ajr, 126, 127, 163 

Iran-Iraq War, 119-27 

Iraq: mining by, 120, 129; 

invades Kuwait, 127; UN forces 

fight, 129 

131, 136; mentioned, 22 

Italy: minesweepers of, 27, 118, 

Iwo Jima (LPH-2), 111 

Iwo Jima, 61 

Jacksonville, FL, 51 

Jackstay, 94 

James River: mine warfare on, 

Jamesville, NC, 16 

Japan: losses to mines in 

10, 13, 15, 17 

Russo-Japanese War, 25-26; 

minesweeping by, 27; in World 

War 11,51-52,60-63,66,153; 

mine warfare capabilities of, 60, 

66; MCM attempts by, 63; opinions 

of US. mining campaign, 63, 153; 

post-World War I1 minesweeping 

of Pacific by, 64,70,74; at Wonsan, 74, 77, 78; earns respect of 

US. forces in Korea, 82; in Desert 

Storm, 131; MCM lessons learned 

by, 136 

Japanese Motor Minesweeper 

(JMS). See Ships, MCM. 

Jurrett (FFG-331, 126 

Jeffers, William N., 146, 149 

Johnson, Ellis, 54 

Johnson, Lyndon B., 91 

Joint Task Force Middle East 

Joy, C. Turner: in Korea, 70,73, 

(JTFME), 124,126,127 

74,76; Wonsan lessons learned by, 

79; orders clearance of Chinnampo, 

79; opposes invasion, 155 

K-109 (blimp), 60 

Kamikaze attacks, 61 

Katie mines, 58, 152 

Kennedy, John F., 91 

Kennon, Beverly, 10 

Kentledge, defined, 8 

Ketcham, Hank, 152 

Key West, FL: mine spotting at, 

Keyes, Roger, 29 

Kidd (DD-993), 121 

Kidd, Isaac C.: establishes 

King, Ernest J: and MCM, 56, 

60; MCM facilities at, 88 

PM-19, 105; on minesweeping, 111 

58, 61; authorizes mines laid with 

sterilizers, 63 

King Kong, 61 

Kissinger, Henry, 109 

Kite (AMS-22), 77 

Kojo, Korea, 79 

Kokoko, Korea, 73 

Korea: World War I1 mines off, 

69; plans to revitalize MCM before 

war in, 69; Korean War MCM, 70- 

83; lessons learned in, 78-79,82; 

and changes in MCM application 

after, 81-90; numbers of mine 

swept in, 82; effect of war on 

MCM, 90; North Korean mines in 

Persian Gulf, 120, 123; and Hague 

Convention, 148 

Kronstadt, 9 

Kunsan, Korea: Soviet mines at, 

72.79 

199 
Index 

Kuwait: requests convoy 

protection, 119; and reflagged 

ships, 120; invasion of, 127; war to 

liberate, 127-32 

La Salle (LPD-3), 119 

Landing Craft, Converted, 

Steel-hulled (LCIL). See Ships, 

MCM. 

Landing Craft, Mechanized 

(LCM). See Ships, MCM. 

Landing Craft, Personnel, Large 

(LCPL). See Ships, MCM. 

Landing Craft, Vehicle and 

Personnel (LCVP). See Ships, 

MCM. 

Landing Ship, Dock (LSD). 

See Ships, MCM. 

Landing Ship, Tank (LST). 

See Ships, MCM. 

Laos, 91,109 

Lawrence, James, 7 

Le Duc Tho, 109 

Le Havre, 56 

Leader (MSO-490): in Desert 

Storm, 127,132 

Lee, Samuel Phillips, 15, 146 

Lend-Lease, 47,50 

Lerici, 118 

Less, Anthony A., 127 

Leyte, 61 

Liberty Ships. See Guinea pig 

ships. 

Libya, 119 

Lincoln, Abraham, 16 

Lingayen Gulf, 61 

Little Creek, VA, 88 

“LL” sweep, 46 

Loch Ness Monster, defined, 59; 

Logistics: importance of, 81; for 

Long Beach, CA, 88 

Long Tau, mining of, 93 

Low, Francis S., 70 

planned for MSOs, 83 

AMCM, 98,107,109,122 

MacArthur, Douglas: in Korea, 

70; and planning for Wonsan landing, 73-74,155 

McCauley, Brian: and End 

Sweep, 101-10,159; lessons 

learned from End Sweep, 110; and 

Suez, 111; on mine warfare, 133 

McKinley, Alexander, 2, 144 

Madison, James, 7 

Magnetic mine: efforts to 

develop, 44; in World War 11, 60; efforts to counter, 67 (see also Mines) 

106,107,110 

mines, 73, 155 

Magnetic Orange Pipe (MOP), 

Magpie (AMS-25): sunk by 

Mahan, Alfred Thayer, 24 

Maine: explosion of, 21, 147; 

Maine, 100 

Maine-class battleships, 24 

Makarov, Stephan, 25 

Manila Bay, 21,24,25 

Manley, Jerry B., 123 

Mansfield, 155 

Marblehead, 22 

Market Time, 92,93,158 

Massachusetts Institute of 

effect on USN, 22 

Technology: report on mine warfare, 70, 155 

Maury, Matthew Fontaine, 10, 

15,146 

Mecca, 119 

Mediterranean Sea: mine 

Mekong Delta, 93,95 

Merlin, 9 

Metacomet, 15 

Metcalf, Joseph E.: on USN mine 

warfare, 133 

Mexico, 146 

Middle East Force, 119, 120 

warfare in, 55,60,63,88,100, 119 

(see also Joint Task Force Middle 

East) 

Midway: exercises at, 43 

Military Assistance Advisory 

Group, Vietnam, 91 

Military Defense Assistance 

Program, 84 

Mine Advisory Committee, 

National Academy of Sciences, 86 

Mine avoidance: torpedo catchers 

or rakes for, 3,5, 12-14, 16, 26,40; 

passive, defined, 5; active, defined, 

200 
Index 

5, 6; nets, 5, 16,31, 33,48, 63, 69, 

70,95; by mine spotting, 5,36,60, 

95, 125, 127, 129; bow-watches for, 

5,40,63, 125; in American Revolution, 7-8; improved by Union 

forces, 15; searchlights used for, 

16, 19,20,63, 69,95, 127; guard 

boats for, 19; electrical protection 

for, 36; in World War 11, 52,59; by 

underwater locator and magnetic 

detectors, 59,61,68, 79; by mine 

detection sonar, 59,68, 79; by 

grenades, 95 (see also Iowa, 

Paravanes) 

Mine countermeasures (MCM): 

at Mobile Bay, 2-3; defined, 4-6; 

countermining, 6, 18, 19-21,23, 

24,26, 36, 56,63,68,69,80; first 

USN MCM attempt, 7-8; used in 

Crimean War, 9; in Civil War, 9- 

16; USN policy concerning, 16,20; 

Bureau control over, 18-19,21,24, 

68, 70,84,87-88, 113; post-Civil 

War study of, 18-21; first USN 

MCM program, 19-20; General 

Board recommendations concerning, 24; standard methods, 24; in 

Russo-Japanese War, 26; explosive 

sweeps, 27; in World War I, 32-37; 

fleet exercises using, 42-44; in 

World War 11,52, 59; assessments 

of, 61,66,67, 70; use of sterilizers 

for, 63, 64,101, 104,109; in French 

Indochina, 69; developments after 

Korean War, 81-90; post-Wonsan 

shipbuilding program, 85-86; peak 

growth of, 88-90; in Vietnam, 91- 

109; defoliation as, 94; by 

swimmers, 95; reorganization of, 

99; and new technology, 105; deepocean, 115; shipbuilding program 

for, 116-17; current force levels 

for, 131-32; reasons for inadequacy in USN, 133-38 (see also 

AMCM, Counter-countermeasures, 

Iowa, Minehunting, Minesweeping, Mine Avoidance, Mine 

Neutralization System, Paravanes) 

63, 73, 74, 75, 76,8041, 85,92, 

26, 27,42,48,49-51, 54,56,63, 

Mine Countermeasures 

Command Ship (MCS). See Ships, 

MCM 

(MCM): to replace MSOs, 115; construction problems of, 117-18; 

current force levels of, 131; mentioned, 116, 127, 131, 132, 164 (see 

also Avenger, Guardian) 

Mine Countermeasures Ship 

Mine Division 1,51 

Mine Division 18, 60 

Mine Division 32, 75 

Mine Division 71,91 

Mine Division 73,91 

Mine Division 91,92 

Mine Division 112, 94, 158 

Mine Division 113,95 

Mine Force, Atlantic Fleet 

Mine Force, Pacific Fleet 

Mine modification unit, 63 

Mine neutralization system 

(MNS), 115,116,162 

Mine spotting. See Mine 

avoidance. 

Mine Squadron 2,12 

Mine Squadron 3,70,73,78 

Mine Squadron 4,98 

Mine Squadron 7,57 

Mine Squadron 8: and AMCM, 

98,99; becomes MOMCOM, 99 

Mine Squadron 11: in World War 

11, 60; in Vietnam, 94 

Mine Squadron 12,115 

Mine Squadron 106,68,69 

Mine Testing Station, Solomons 

(MINELANT), 65,77,88,99 

(MINEPAC), 83,88,99,156 

Island, MD: MCM developments 

at, 49,56, 61; consolidated with 

NCSC, 68; mentioned, 151 

Mine warfare: in Civil War, 1-4, 

9-16; defined, 4; in American 

Revolution, 7-8; Fulton and, 8; 

European antebellum development 

of, 8-9; in RussoJapanese War, 

25-26,28,40; interest in restriction of, 26-27; in World War I, 

28-39; promotion potential in, 39, 

41,67,88-89,90, 113, 136-37; research concerning, 44-50; in World 

War 11,51-63; in Korean War, 70- 

83; in Vietnam, 91-109; in Persian 

201 
Index 

Gulf, 118-31; lessons learned 

about, 131-32; hnding levels for, 

132; reasons for US. inadequacy 

in, 133-38; increased intelligence 

in, 136 

(MINEWARCOM): established, 

113-14; limited authority of, 113- 

14,118,137,161; and COOP, 115; 

and MCM renaissance, 116; and 

Earnest Will, 120, 124; and Iowa’s 

bowsweep, 125; in Desert Storm, 

132 

114 

Mine Warfare Command 

Mine Warfare Inspection Group, 

Mine Warfare Notes, 51, 152 

Mine Warfare Operational 

Research Group, 54 

Mine Warfare Project Office 

Mine Warfare School: at 

(PM-19),105 

Yorktown, VA, 50,52; course improvement, 88; moves to 

Charleston, 88; mentioned, 51, 151 

Office, 160 

53,69 

69, 74,99 

1-4, 9-16; in American Revolution, 

7-8; in Spanish-American War, 21- 

24; in Russo-Japanese War, 25-26; 

in World War I, 28-38; in World 

War 11,51-63; in Persian Gulf, 127 

118,131 

also AMCU, MCM, MHC, MSH, 

Minesweeper-hunters) 

2-3; in Civil War, 2-3, 10-11, 14, 

16; defined, 6, 58; in World War 11, 

58,61; and Underwater Ordnance 

Locator, 61; after World War 11, 

68; sonar for, 68,83, 130; plans to 

revise methods of, 69; practicality 

of, 70; at Wonsan, 75; after Wonsan, 79; at Chinnampo, 80-81; 

Mine Warfare Systems Program 

Minecraft, Battle Force, 42,43, 

Minecraft, Pacific Fleet, 61,65, 

Minefield tactics: in Civil War, 

Minehunter, Coastal (MHC), 

Minehunters, 68,84,157 (see 

Minehunting: at Mobile Bay, 

research in, 86-87; at Suez, 118- 

19; in Persian Gulf, 122-24; nature 

of, 135; mentioned, 110, 116 (see 

also AMCM, Helicopters, MCM, 

Patrol Bombers, Research and 

development, Sonar) 

Minelayers: at Haeju, 73; 

detection of Iranian, 126 

Minelaying: prevention of, 125, 

126,131,136 

Mines: Fretwell-Singer, 1,2; in 

Civil War, 1-2, 10-15; at Mobile 

Bay, 2-3; casualties from, 3, 16, 

73, 77, 82, 83, 121, 127, 128, 129, 

131, 134, 138, 144, 145, 146, 147, 

153, 154, 155, 162; purpose of, 4; 

types defined, 5,136,143; harpoon 

torpedoes, 7; illustrations of, 11, 

128, 130; in Spanish-American 

War, 21-23; Mahanian theory concerning, 24; in U.S. harbors, 24, 

33,51-52, 134; in Russo-Japanese 

War, 25-26; Hague Convention 

Concerning, 27; Scotti, 27; first 

magnetic influence, 32; delayedrising, 33; Mark VI, 33-38,43; 

first attempts to counter pressure 

type, 56; Katie, 58; Operation Starvation and, 62-63; Number swept 

in World War 11, 64; stop landing 

at Wonsan, 73, 79,82; laid by 

North Vietnamese, 92,94,95; at 

Haiphong, 101, 108-9, 110, 160; in 

Suez Canal, 111; MOMAG, 114; increase in Soviet capability and, 

114, 116; in Persian Gulf, 120, 125; 

in Desert Storm, 128-31; history 

of, 134-35; complexity of, 136; mentioned, 19, 150 

17,29,38, 52,57-58,61,64, 65, 

Minesweeper, Coastal (MSC), 84, 

Minesweeper, Drone (MSD). See 

Minesweeper, Hunter (MSH): 

85,88-89,92,99,115 

Ships, MCM. 

planned, 115,117; terminated, 

117-18 

Minesweeper-hunters, 115 (see 

Minesweeper, Inshore (MSI). See 

also MCM, MHC, MSH) 

Ships, MCM. 

202 
Index 

Minesweeper, Ocean (MSO): 

construction of, 83; problems with, 

90,95,96; in Vietnam, 91-108, 

113; modernization attempts, 97; 

in Persian Gulf, 122-24,127, 131, 

132,163; mentioned, 88-89 

Minesweeper, Special (MSS). See 

Ships, MCM. 

Minesweeper Monitors (MSM): 

in Vietnam, 95 

Minesweepers: destroyers used 

as, 28, 29,30-31,42,43, 50, 60,65, 

69,73,81,84; use of tugs as, 28- 

29, 121; design for, 29,34, 39,47; 

collateral duties of, 30, 39, 52,91, 

92,95,96; construction of, 33-34, 

68; “Bird”-class, 34,37, 41,43, 50; 

early influence types, 4547; 

sweep formations, 46-48; in World 

War 11,47-63; at Pearl Harbor, 51; 

improvements to navigation for, 

61, 70,87, 105, 115; sunk by US. 

mines, 64; postwar reductions of, 

69; in Korea, 70-78; at Wonsan, 

74-75; reevaluation of, 79; recommissioned after Wonsan, 79; local 

craft used for, 80; new construction 

program, 83-86,88,131,135; in 

Vietnam, 91-98,155; reduced by 

Zumwalt, 98,113 (see also Ships, 

MCM) 

Russo-Japanese War, 26; first fleet 

exercise, 29; in World War II,51- 

64; Japanese, 63; post-World War 

11, 63-64, 68; at Wonsan, 76-77; in 

Korea, 80-82; in Vietnam, 94-109; 

in Persian Gulf, 121-32; nature of, 

135 (see also AMCM, Displacement 

devices, Fleet organization, Reserves) 

Minesweeping: defined, 6; in 

Minesweeping boat (MSB): 68, 

69, 82,84,85,88,89,92-95,98, 

99,100, 115,121,122 

War I, 29; Oropesa sweep, 30-31, 

47, 85; construction of, 33; lost 

during operation, 36-37; in fleet exercises, 41-45; in World War 11, 

46-63, 152; 5-G type, 61, 125; in 

Vietnam War, 95,97, 104; MagMinesweeping gear: in World 

netic Orange Pipe (MOP), 106, 

107; hydrofoil sleds, 107, 119, 162; 

in 198Os, 115-16; in Persian Gulf, 

121, 125; mentioned, 28 (see also 

AMCM, Displacement devices, Otters) 

See Ships, MCM. 

See Ships, MCM. 

Minesweeping Launch (MLMS). 

Minesweeping Launch (MSL). 

Minesweeping Shrimp Boat 

Mississippi, 21, 147 

Mississippi River, 12-13, 146 

Mobile Bay, Alabama, 1-4, 14, 

Mobile Mine Assembly Groups 

Mobile Mine Countermeasures 

(MSSB-l), 115,116,161 

15,21,121 

(MOMAG), 114 

Command (MOMCOM), 99-100, 

110,111,113 

Support Bases. 

Vietnam, 94; in Persian Gulf, 125, 

126 

Mobile Sea Barges. See Mobile 

Mobile Support Bases: in 

Mockingbird (AMS-27),76 

Mokpo, Soviet mines at, 72 

Monongahela, 2 

Monterey, CA. See Naval 

Postgraduate School. 

Motor minesweepers (YMS, later 

78,79,80,81,82,84, 152, 155 

County), 109 

AMS), 52,60,62,68, 69, 70-73, 74- 

MSS-2 (formerly Washtenaw 

Nantucket Shoals, MA, 33 

National Academy of Sciences. 

See Mine Advisory Committee. 

Naval Coastal Systems Center 

(NCSC), Panama City, FL: 

founded, 68; and AMCM testing, 

85,97; and Vietnam, 95, 105, 107; 

history of, 154; mentioned, 86,87 

(see also Research and development) 

Laboratory. See Naval Coastal SysNaval Coastal Systems 

203 
Index 

tems Center. 

Naval Districts Division 

Naval Mine Depot, Yorktown, 

Naval Mine Depot, New London, 

Naval Ordnance Laboratory 

(OP-3O-C), 50 

VA, 48,50 

CT, 48 

(NOL), 44,48,49,50,54,86,97, 

105,151 

Monterey, CA MCM study at, 86; 

mine warfare degree offered at, 88 

founding of, 113; MCM in, 160 

Atlantic Fleet. See Commander, 

Naval Surface Force, US. Atlantic 

Fleet. 

Naval Surface Force, US. Pacific 

Fleet. See Commander, Naval Surface Force, US. Pacific Fleet. 

Naval Postgraduate School, 

Naval Sea Systems Command: 

Naval Surface Force, US. 

Naval War College, 20,27 

Navy Electronics Laboratory, 

San Diego, CA, 59,86,87 

Navy Science Assistance 

Program, 86,124 

Nelson, Horatio, 7 

Netherlands, 131 

Nets. See Mine avoidance. 

New Hampshire, 32. 

New London, CT; 48 . 

New Mexico '(BB-4'b), 54 

New Orleans, LA; 21 ' 

New York, NY, 38 

Newport, RI, 18 (see also 

Torpedo Station) 

Nha Be, 94 

Nichols, D.A., 36 

Nimbus Moon Land, 11 1 

Nimbus Moon Water, 111 ' 

Nimbus Star, 111 

Nimitz, Chester W.: recalls 

Nimrod Spar, 111 

Nina, 18 

Nipe Bay, 22 

Nitrocellulose, 25 

Nixon, Richard M.: orders 

mining of Haiphong, 101; suspends 

MCM opedhtions, 109 

. 2 

reservists, 50; reorganizes fleet, 65 

Norfolk, VA, 53,99 

Normandy: mine warfare at, 

56-58, 66; losses at, 57; mentioned, 73 

North Africa, 55 

North Atlantic Fleet, 21 

North Atlantic Treaty 

Organization (NATO), 69,84, 129, 

134 

North Korea: planned invasion 

of, 73 (see also Korean War) 

North Sea Mine Barrage, 33-38, 

147,149,150 

North Vietnamese. See Vietnam 

War. 

"0 sweep. See Oropesa. 

Office of the Chief of Naval 

Operations (OPNAV): and mine 

warfare, 33-34,47,50-51,54,58, 

65,67,113,132,137 

Office of Naval Research, 86 

OgZaZa (CM-4), 51 

Okinawa (LPH-3), 122 

Okinawa: MCM operations at, 61 

Omaha Beach, 57 

Operation Starvation, 62-63 

Ordnance Postgraduate School, 

Oropesa sweep: use of, 30-31,44, 

48 

47, 85; illustration, 31,44 (see also 

Minesweeping gear) 

Oscillators, 46 

Osprey (AM-56): sweeps, 55; 

Osprey-class minehunter (MHC). 

Otsego, 16 

Otters, 30-31 

Oyster mines, 56 

Ozark, 146 

Packard engines: on MSOs, 83, 

Panama Canal: exercises in, 42 

Panama City, FL. See Naval 

Paraguay, 16 

Paravanes: defined, 5,31; in 

sinks, 57 

See Ships, MCM. 

90 

Coastal Systems Center (NCSC). 

World War I, 31-32,88; at Naval 

Academy, 32; and influence mines, 

204 
43,45; on Iowa, 127; abandoned, 

154; mentioned, 42,48, 52, 54 

Paris peace talks: stalled, 101, 

108; concluded, 109 

Partridge (AMS-31), 82 

Patapsco, monitor, 14-15 

Patapsco, tug, 28,36,37 

Patrol Boat, River (PBR). See 

Patrol Bomber (PBM): at 

Ships, MCM. 

Wonsan, 74,75,76; at Chinnampo, 

80 

Ships, MCM. 

Ships, MCM. 

Patrol Craft, Escort (PCE). See 

Patrol Minesweeper (MSR). See 

Patuxent, 28,36,37 

Pawnee, 11 

Pearl Harbor, HI: minesweepers 

at, 51 

Pentagon. See OPNAV. 

Perfume River, 94 

Persian Gulf: Iran-Iraq War, xi, 

119-27; Desert Storm, 127-32; and 

MCM force needs, 135; mentioned, 

118,131 

Peru, 20 

Petropavlovsk: sunk by mines, 25 

Philippines: in 

Spanish-American War, 24; in 

World War II,61; postwar MCM 

at, 68-69; and End Sweep, 108-9; 

mentioned, 74, 106 

Wonsan, 75-76 

in Spanish-American War, 22-23; 

by General Board, 24, 27; in World 

War I, 33; for minesweeper fleet, 

34; to clear North Sea Mine Barrage, 34-38; after World War I, 39; 

hampered by inexperience, 42; 

failure to apply lessons learned, 

43-44; against Soviets, 65; for 

minehunting system, 69; range of 

improvements, 69-70; of Korean invasion, 73; for Wonsan, 74; in 

1950s,84; in Vietnam War, 95; by 

Zumwalt, 98-99; to mine North 

Vietnam, 101; for End Sweep, 107, 

110; for MCM fleet in 1980s, 116; 

Pirate (AM-275): mined at 

Planning: by Torpedo Corps, 8; 

to liberate Kuwait, 127 (see also 

Amphibious assault) 

Pledge (AM-277): mined at 

Wonsan, 75,76 

Port Arthur: mining at, 25-26; 

sweep gear used at, 42 

Port Hudson, Miss., 21 

Porter, Benjamin H., 14 

Porter, David Dixon: and mine 

avoidance, 12-13; hunts 

minefields, 13; clears James River, 

16; at Naval Academy, 18; 

launches Torpedo Station, 18; supports mine warfare studies, 19-20, 

40; mentioned, 40, 145, 147 

Powell, Daniel G., 104 

Praying Mantis, 127 

Precise Integrated Navigation 

System (PINS), 11617,162 

Precise Navigation Project, 86 

President, 7 

President of the United States, 

Princeton (CG-59): mined in 

Project Monte, 86 

Project Nimrod, 86 

Project 60,98 

Prussia, 17 

Puerto Rico, 24 

Pyne, Schuyler N., 48 

Pyongyang, Korea, 73 

137 

Desert Storm, 128 

"&" routes, 52 

Qatar, 126 

QLA sonar. See Sonar. 

Radford, Arthur W.: and Korean 

MCM planning, 73 

Rains, Gabriel J., 1, 10 

Raleigh, 22 

Ramsay, F.M., 19 

Raven (AM-55), 55 

Raven-class. See Ships, MCM. 

Raydist navigation system, 105. 

Reagan, Ronald: and 600-ship 

Red Fern, 34 

Navy, 116; reflags tankers, 119-20 
Index 

Red River expedition, 13 

Red Rose, 34 

Red Sea: MCM operation in, 

Redhead (AMS-34),77 

Reeves, Joseph Mason: on 

neglect of MCM, 43 

Remotely operated vehicles 

(ROVs): in mine neutralization, 6; 

adapted from offshore oil industry, 

116; Super Sea Rover, 123; in Persian Gulf, 123, 124, 163 (see also 

Mine Neutralization System) 

Republic of Korea (ROK): 

invasion of, 70 

Research and development: of MCM, 

6; by private inventors, 12; of fleet 

minesweeper, 34; in response to 

combat, 39-40; administrative control of, 68; new proposals for, 

69-70; and MSC design change, 

84; after Korean War, 86-88; in 

minehunting, 87; in Vietnam War, 

95; for End Sweep, 105; in Persian 

Gulf, 124 (see also Mines, Mine 

countermeasures, Minesweeping 

gear, Displacement devices, Sonar, 

NCSC) 

40,45, 161; in World War I, 30,39; 

in World War 11,48, 50, 65, 67; in 

Korea, 70; post-Vietnam, 115, 116, 

122, 131, 159 (see also COOP) 

118-19 

Reserves: in British MCM, 26, 

Rhodes, Philip L., 83,156 

Richmond, VA, 15 

Rickover, Hyman G.: adapts 

British technology, 49-50; mentioned, 147 

Rinn, Paul X., 127 

River Minesweeper (MSM). See 

Ships, MCM. 

River Patrol Force (TF 116), 93, 

94 

Riverine Assault Force (TF 11'71, 

93,94 

Riverine warfare: in Civil War, 

9-16; in Vietnam: 92-97 

Robeson, George M., 19,146 

Rodgers, John: creates first 

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 28 

MCM device, 7-8; mentioned, 146 

Rowan, S.C., 11 

Royal Air Force: attempts at 

influence minesweeping by, 46 

Rung Sat River Patrol Group, 94 

Rung Sat Special Zone, 93, 94, 

Russia: and Crimean mine 

158 

warfare, 9; and Russo-Turkish 

War, 17; and Russo-Japanese War, 

25-26, 134; minesweeping by, 26, 

27; sweep gear of, 42; mines of, 77, 

120; and Hague Convention, 148 

(see also Soviet Union) 

Russo-Japanese War (19041, 

Russo-Turkish War (1877-18781, 

25-26,28,40,147 

17 

Saigon, 93 

Salerno, 55 

Sampson, William T.: stopped by 

mines at Santiago, 22-23 

Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58): 

mined in Persian Gulf, 127,163-64 

San Diego, CA, 100 

Sandy Hook, NJ, 29 

Santiago: mines at, 22-24; and 

Schley, 147 

Santore, SS, 52 

Sasebo, Korea, 80,88 

Saudi Arabia: requests MCM 

assistance, 119 (see also Desert 

ShieldDesert Storm) 

Saugus, 13 

Scheliha, Viktor von, 1, 15, 145 

Schleswig-Holstein War 

Scotti, 27 

Sea Nettle, 95 

Sea of Japan, 68,79 

Seaquist, Larry, 125 

Sebago, 2 

Selfridge, Thomas 0.: loses ship 

(1848-1851), 9 

to mine, 12; develops a USN MCM 

program, 19-20; mentioned, 145, 

146 

Seminole Wars (1840), 10 

Seoul, Korea, 73 

Service Squadron 5,53 

Service Squadron 6,53,61 

206 
Sevastopol, 9 

Seventh Amphibious Force, 73 

Seventh Fleet: in Korea, 70, 

73-82; in Vietnam, 91-101,108, 

110 

Shadowgraph, 95 

Sharp, Alexander: reorganizes 

OPNAV mine warfare, 47-50; commands Service Force, Atlantic, 53; 

commands Minecraft, Pacific Fleet, 

61; retires, 65; career of, 153; mentioned, 74,99 

MCM research, 69; on Wonsan, 79; 

reestablishes MINEPAC, 83; mentioned, 70, 73, 76 

Sherman, Forrest P.: increases 

Sherman, William T., 14 

Ships, MCM: 

81,83 

AM, 50,52, 53, 60, 68,69, 70,*79, 

AMC, 48,50 

AMCU, 68,84,153 

AMS, 70, 73, 74-78,79,80,81,82, 

DMS, 50,60,69,70,79,84 

JMS, 74 (see also Japan) 

LCIL, 68 

LCM, 92,94 

LCPL, 94 

LCVP, 69,72 

LPD, 119 

LPH, 111,122,128,129,131, 

LSD, 79 

LST, 80,81,85 

131,132,162 

MCS, 84-85,99 

MHC, 118,131 

MLMS, 95 

MSB, 60,69,82,84,85,88,89, 

155 (see also YMS) 

138 

MCM, 115,116-17,117-18,127, 

92-95,98,99,100,115,121,122 

MSC, 84,85,88-89,92,99,115 

MSH, 115,117-18 

MSD, 95 

MSI, 84 

MSL, 84,88,95,98,99,115 

MSM, 94 

MSO, 68,83,88-89,90,91-92,95, 

96,99,105,108,115,118,122- 

24,127,131,132,163 

MSO-523,115 

MSR, 95 

MSS, 84-85,99, 105 (see also 

Guinea pig ships) 

MSSB-1,115,116 

PBR, 94 

PCE, 47 

YMS, 50,52,60,62,69,77,80,84, 

152, 155 (see also AMS) 

Shimonoseki Straits, 62 

Shreveport (LPD-12), 119 

Sicily, 55 

Signatures, ship, 5,6,32-33,45, 

46,128 

Smith, Allan E.: at Wonsan, 76; 

reports casualties, 78-79; orders 

clearance off Chinnampo, 80 

Smith, Melancthon, 147 

Smith, Robert, 7 

Solomons Island, MD. See Mine 

Sonar: QLA submarine, 59,68; 

Testing Station. 

improvements in, 68,86; minehunting (UQS-l), 83; mine 

detector/classifier (AN/SQQ- 14), 

87,96,123,157; Shadowgraph, 95; 

Avenger-class SQQ-30 and 32, 117, 

130,157; ANIAQS-14 aerial 

minehunting type, 118-19; EOD, 

119; mentioned, 5, 79,85,92,95, 

115,117,154 

Songjin, 81,82 

South Carolina, 32 

South Vietnamese Navy: US 

support for, 91 

Soviet Union: assists Germans in 

mine warfare, 45; in Cold War, 65; 

assists North Korea in mining, 72, 

77-78,79,82; career potential in 

mine warfare, 72, 136; mining at 

Wonsan, 77-78; mines, 92,93,94; 

and mine research progress, 114; 

threat of deep-water mines, 115, 

131; and Kuwait, 119; development of MCM capability, 134,136; 

mentioned, 83,84,98, 133 (see also 

Russia) 

Spain, 21,22 

Spanish-American War (1898), 

21-24,147 

Spar torpedoes, 10 
Index 

Spofford, Richard T.: prepares 

for Korean MCM, 73; career of, 74, 

155; at Wonsan, 74-78 

MCM developments, 47,49; assigns MCM liaison officers to fleet, 

51 

War 11, 63,64; in End Sweep, 101, 

104,109 

Stark, Harold R.: encourages 

Sterilization of mines: in World 

Strategy Board, 24 

Strauss, Joseph: clears North 

Sea Mine Barrage, 34-38; mentioned, 38, 149 

mines, 121; crew of, 162 

Mine Flotilla, 65; career of, 73-74; 

plans Wonsan landing, 73-74; 

stops Wonsan landing, 76; urges integrated MCM system, 79 

Striker (Kuwaiti tug): sweeps 

Struble, Arthur D.: commands 

Subic Bay, 106, 108, 109 

Submarines: in Civil War, 17; in 

World War I, 28-33, 149; in World 

War 11, 51, 52, 59, 60,61,63; mine 

detection and sonar units on, 59, 

68,86; Soviet, 65 (see also U-Boats) 

Suez Canal: MCM operations in, 

111-13; mentioned, 22,118 

Sveaborg, 9 

Swept Mine Locator System, 

105,108,109,159,160 

Tadenuma, Seburo, 153 

Tamura, Kyuzo: leads Japanese 

minesweepers in Pacific, 64; in 

Korea, 74, 153 

Tanager (AM4 38 

Tecumseh, 3,144 

Tern (AM-31),51 

Tet Offensive, 95 

Texas, 22 

Thimble Shoals, 33 

Thompson (DMS-38), 80 

Tide (AM-125): sinks, 57 

Tomahawk, 129 

Tonkin Gulf, 92 

Torpedo boats, 17 

Torpedo catcher. See Mine 

avoidance. 

Torpedo Committee, British, 18 

“Torpedo Corps”. See Torpedo 

Station, Newport, RI. 

Torpedo rake. See Mine 

avoidance. 

Torpedo Station, Newport, RI, 

18-21,24,26 

Torpedoes: defined, 143; 

mentioned, 5, 7, 17, 18, 19, 33,40, 

134 (see also Mines) 

Trafalgar, 7 

Training Squadron 6,53 

Treaty of Versailles, 45 

Tripoli (LPH-10): mined in 

Desert Storm, 128; continues on 

station, 128; mine damage to, 129, 

131,138 

COMINEWARCOM, 132; on mine 

warfare, 133; mentioned, 163,164 

Trost, Carlisle A.H.: dual-hats 

Truman, Harry S, 69 

Turkey: mines Dardanelles, 17; 

Turtle, 97 

Tyler, John, 8 

minefield tactics in World War I, 29 

U-boats, 33, 149 

US. Air Force: in Vietnam, 101; 

in Red Sea, 118-19 (see also U.S. 

Army) 

operations, 15; and harbor mine 

warfare, 18; in Spanish-American 

War, 22-23; in World War 11,52, 

63; at Wonsan, 78; in Vietnam, 94, 

95 

US. Army: in combined 

US. Central Command, 118 

U.S. Coast Guard: and MCM, 52 

US. Congress: mine warfare 

and, 7-8, 133, 137; appropriations 

by, 8,34,52; debates reflagging, 

120,159-60 

U.S. Marine Corps: in MCM 

training, 26; at Wonsan, 78; and 

AMCM, 99; at Haiphong, 107-9, 

110; mentioned, 51 

US. Mine Countermeasures 

Group Command 

(USMCMGRUCOM), 128 

US. Mine Force, Atlantic Fleet, 34 

208 
Index 

U.S. Naval Academy: Farragut 

window at, 14; in Civil War, 18; 

mine warfare at, 19; curriculum at, 

32 

Countermeasures Station. See 

Naval Coastal Systems Center. 

Laboratory. See Naval Coastal Systems Center. 

(UDT): in World War 11,60; and 

planning, 70; at Wonsan, 75, 76 

(see also Divers) 

system, 97 

61 

70, 73, 74; sanctions against Iraq, 

127; operations against Iraq, 128- 

31 

Applied Research Laboratory, 87 

U.S. Navy Mine 

U.S. Navy Mine Defense 

Underwater demolition teams 

Underwater mine detection 

Underwater Ordnance Locator, 

United Nations: troops in Korea, 

University of Texas at Austin: 

Uruguay, 17 

Utah Beach, 57 

Vecchione, Felix S. “Hap,” xv, 

101,105,107 

Vernon, HMS, 45 

Viet Cong, mines, 92,93 

Vietnam War: effect on MCM, 

90-91; mine warfare in, 91-109, 

131; mentioned, 126 

Wade, Thomas F., 146 

Washington, DC, 132,151 

Washington Navy Yard, 

Washington, DC: mine warfare 

testing at, 19,31,44 (see also NOL) 

Washtenaw County, 109 

Watson, John Crittenden, 2-3, 

Waukesha engines, for MSOs, 96 

Weehawken, 13 

Welles, Gideon: letter to, 9; 

143,144 

commissioned MCM design, 11; 

from Farragut, 144; and Naval Examining Board, 145; lack of 

interest in mine warfare, 146; and 

Porter’s design, 146 

15 

West Gulf Blockading Squadron, 

West Virginia (BB-48),51 

Whitehead Torpedo, 17-18,143 

Willett’s Point, NY, 18 

Williamson, Thomas, 144 

Wiping, 45 

Wonsan: map of, 71; Soviet 

mining of, 72, 77, 79,82; planning 

for landing at, 73-74, 155; MCM 

tactics at, 74-79; landing at, 78; 

lessons learned at, 79,80,119, 

131, 135; remining at, 82; draws 

Navy attention, 90, 135 

Worcester (CL-1441, 74 

World War I: and mine warfare, 

World War 11: and mine warfare, 

28-38 

5 1-63 

XMAP (Experimental Magnetic, 

Acoustic, and Pressure Sweep): 

defined, 87; salvaged, 157 

Yale University, 86 

Yangtze River, 98 

Yard motor minesweepers 

Yazoo River, 12 

(YMS). See Motor Minesweepers. 

YMS-504,155 

YMS-509,155 

YMS-516 (ROK), 77 

Yorktown, VA mine warfare at, 

48,61,151 

Zumwalt, Elmo R., Jr.: as CNO, 

98; champions mine warfare, 98; 

creates MINEWARFOR type command, 99-100,113; assessment of 

AMCM by, 113; on MCM leadership requirements, 137; 

mentioned, 111, 159 (see also 

Project 60) 

209 
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