1988 : USS Samuel B. Roberts transported by the heavy lift ship Might Servant 2. The USS Samuel B. Roberts was damaged by a $1500 Iranian mine in the Persian Gulf. The repair cost $89.5 million USD. All three ships in the US Navy that have borne the name Samuel B. Roberts have all had really interesting histories. The actual Samuel B. Roberts, the man whom the ships are named after was a badass. He was the coxswain of a Higgins Boat during the Battle of Guadalcanal, where he was apart of a small rescue force that was sent to evacuate a company of trapped marines. The operation almost went south when the force was discovered, but Robert volunteered to run his boat towards the Japanese as a distraction while the rest of the group evacuated the marines. It was a success, but as they were pulling back, a mortar his hit boat and he was mortally wounded. The first ship named after Roberts was a John C. Butler Class destroyer escort. There things were some of the smallest warships the US put out during World War 2, they were intended mostly to babysit convoys and screen for submarines. The first Samuel B. Roberts was apart of the Battle off Samar, where a small escort carrier force (none of their aircraft had the armament to engage large warships) was caught off guard by a large conventional Japanese battle force (a force comprised of multiple cruisers, heavy cruisers, battleships and the super battleship Yamato). To protect the carriers (and to by time for a relief force to arrive), while the carriers fell back, the three destroyers and four destroyer escorts of Taffy 3 (the US task force) charged the approaching fleet to engage in close combat. The Roberts managed to cripple the cruiser Chokai with a torpedo spread, and also managed to damage the heavy cruiser Chikuma when the Roberts fired almost 600 rounds of five inch ammunition at the ship (in addition aircraft from the carriers and the destroyer Heermann were also hitting the Chikuma with all they had). The Roberts managed to avoid getting shot by the Chikuma by getting so close to the ship that its massive guns couldnt effectively get a bead on the destroyer escort, combine with it circling around the ship faster than the turrets could swivel. One thing that helped the Roberts in the battle was its thin armour, several heavy shells from the larger Japanese ships ended up passing right through the Roberts rather than penetrating and detonating inside. Sadly the Roberts went down when the Yamato, and the battleships Kongo, Haruna and Nagato began pouring fire onto the small ship. After a couple shells hit the forward turret and the boiler, the lieutenant commander of the ship, Robert W. Copeland ordered an evacuation. The second Samuel B Roberts was a a Gearing class destroyer that enjoyed a long service life and served in a variety of locations. In 1952 it was apart of the first ever large scale NATO fleet exercise in 1952 (Exercise Mainbrace). In 1954 it was apart of an around the world cruise that took it from the Atlantic, to Japan and the Philippines, India and its ocean, through the Suez and Mediterranean before returning to the Atlantic where it then went to Greenland to serve as a lifeguard station for when President Eisenhower was flying to Geneva. In 1956 is was the last warship to pass through the Suez before the Suez Crisis. After that it went on another around the world tour. In 1958 it was a part of the US taskforce that was dispatched to Lebanon during the intervention there. The Roberts provided off shore fire support to marines on the ground. It participated in the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway and in 1962 after overhauls, it participated in the search for the missing submarine Thresher. The ship continued to serve until 1971, when it was finally decommissioned and struck. She was sunk 195 miles off the coast of Puerto Rico. This is the third Samuel B Roberts, an Oliver Hazard Perry class guided missile frigate. As stated, it was damaged when it was struck by a mine in the Persian Gulf. At the time the Iran-Iraq was was still going on, the area around the Straits of Hormuz had been mined by the Iranians to try and put the economic pressure on Iraq. The Roberts was a part of the taskforce assigned to Operation Earnest Will, which was the escort of Kuwaiti flagged tankers and freighters through the Gulf. After the Roberts was struck, the US launched Operation Praying Mantis in retaliation, which saw the destruction of one Iranian frigate, a gunboat and three speedboats, as well as two oil platforms. It was the largest surface combat operation the US fleet took a part of since World War 2 and was the first time the US Navy was involved in missile to missile combat.
Posted on: Sat, 05 Jul 2014 01:30:01 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015