Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger
Warship Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023: As Easy As 123
Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph NH 109514
Above we see Wickes-class tin can USS Gamble (Destroyer No. 123) steaming into after the review of Pacific Fleet, 13 September 1919, with her sister USS Radford (DD-120) trailing behind.
Brand new and beautiful in this image, she was commissioned 105 years ago today. Gamble would give her last full measure off Iwo Jima and be deep-sixed a month before the end of World War II but don’t worry, she rolled the dice and took a few of the Emperor’s ships with her.
The Wickes
Gamble was one of the iconic first flights of “Four Piper” destroyers that were designed in 1915-16 with input from no less an authority as Captain (later Admiral) W.S. Sims. Beamy ships with a flush deck and a quartet of boilers (with a smokestack for each) were coupled to a pair of Parsons geared turbines to provide 35.3 knots designed speed– which is still considered fast today, more than a century later.
The teeth of these 314-foot, 1,250-ton greyhounds were four 4-inch/50 cal MK 9 guns and a full dozen 21-inch torpedo tubes.
They reportedly had short legs and were very wet, which made long-range operations a problem, but they gave a good account of themselves. Originally a class of 50 was authorized in 1916, but once the U.S. entered WWI in April 1917, this was soon increased and increased again to some 111 ships built by 1920.
Wickes class USS Yarnall (DD-143): Booklet of General Plans – Inboard Profile / Outboard Profile, June 10, 1918, NARA NAID: 158704871
Wickes class USS Yarnall (DD-143): Booklet of General Plans – Main Deck / 1st Platform Deck / S’ch L’t P’f’m, S’ch L’t Control P’f’m, Fire Control P’f’m Bridge, Galley Top, After Dk. House and 2nd Platform Deck. / June 10, 1918, Hold NARA NAID: 158704873
Wickes class. A close-up of her stern top-down view of plans shows the Wickes class’s primary armament– a dozen torpedo tubes in four turnstiles and stern depth charges.
Meet Gamble
Our subject is the first Navy ship to be named in honor of at least two of the quartet of Gamble brothers who served in the War of 1812. The four brothers including Capt. Thomas Gamble (USN) who served aboard USS Onedia during the war and perished while in command of the sloop USS Erie of the Navy’s Mediterranean Squadron in 1818; 1st Lt. Peter Gamble (USN) killed on the USS Saratoga during the Battle of Lake Champlain in 1814; Lt. Francis B. Gamble (USN) who died of yellow fever in 1824 while in command of the USS Decoy of the navy’s West Indies Squadron; and U.S. Marine hero Lt. Col. (Brvt) John Marshall Gamble, the only member of the Corps to command an American warship in battle– the prize ship USS Greenwich in her combat with the British armed whaler Seringapatam in 1813. Only John lived into the 1830s, passing at age 44, still on active duty.
Two of the four brothers Gamble. Midshipman Thomas Gamble, USN (L) via Analectic magazine. Painted by Waldo, and engraved by J.B. Longacre. NH 49483 and Lt. John M. Gamble, USMC (R). Photo from a portrait in possession of his grandson. (Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph NH 49482)
Gamble (Destroyer No. 123) was laid down on 12 November 1917 at Newport News, launched on 11 May 1918 sponsored by a dour relative of SECNAV Josephus “Cup of Joe” Daniels; and commissioned at Norfolk 18 days after the Armistice on 29 November 1918.
Wickes class sisters USS Breese (DD-122) and USS Gamble (DD-123) on the ways at Newport News between November 1917 and May 1918. NH 43018
USS Gamble (DD-123) launched at Newport News, Virginia, on 11 May 1918. Her sistership USS Breese (DD-122) is next to her and launched the same day in a dual ceremony. NH 53813
Same as above, NH 53812
Entering a crowded and rapidly demobilizing fleet that was just coming off the Great War, Gamble would spend the next several months in a series of shakedowns and trials up and down the East Coast from Maine to Cuba but notably was one of the ships escorting the troop transport George Washington, which was carrying President Woodrow Wilson back to the U.S. from peace negotiations in Paris to Boston in February 1919 and again in July.
In May 1919, she was one of the support ships for the legendary first transatlantic flight by the Navy’s Curtiss NC flying boats, helping spot NC-4 through the Azores.
In mid-July 1919, Gamble, along with sisters Breese, Lamberton (Destroyer No. 119), and Montgomery (Destroyer No. 121), were shifted to the Pacific Fleet to join Destroyer Division 12 and made their way to San Diego via the Panama Canal.
USS Gamble (DD-123) and USS Breese (DD-122) photographed circa 1919, probably at Balboa, Panama, Canal zone. Courtesy of Jack Howland, 1983. NH 94956
Once on the West Coast, she would spend most of the next three years haze gray and underway, so to speak, steaming from up and down the West Coast from San Diego to Seattle and out to Pearl and back in a series of tests, maneuvers, and reviews.
Gamble photographed about 1919. NH 53815
Gamble at San Diego, California, circa 1919. NH 53816
USS Gamble (DD-123) photographed on 23 April 1919 with extensive tropical awnings covering her decks. Sister USS Breese (DD-122) is in the background. NH 53814
Gamble with her original DD-123 hull numbers. NH 67684
Destroyers at the Mare Island Navy Yard, 1919 (from left to right): USS Tarbell (Destroyer # 142); USS Thatcher (Destroyer # 162); USS Rizal (Destroyer # 174); USS Hart (Destroyer # 110); USS Hogan (Destroyer # 178); USS Gamble (Destroyer # 123); USS Ramsay (Destroyer # 124); and USS Williams (Destroyer # 108). Donation of Rear Admiral Ammen Farenholt, USN (Medical Corps). NH 42537
USS Gamble (DD-123) at anchor and dressed with flags, circa 1921, following the relocation of her after 4″/50 cal gun to the top of the after deckhouse. NH 59648
Battleship USS Mississippi (BB-41) at sea for maneuvers, during the early 1920s. Wickes class destroyers in the background include USS Radford (DD-120) and USS Gamble (DD-123). NH 46051
Destroyer tender USS Prairie (AD-5) in San Diego Harbor, California, with USS Gamble (DD-123) alongside, circa 1920-1922. NH 105775
U.S. fleet in Balboa, Panama, early 1920s. The center of the photo is the battleship USS New Mexico BB-40, then a cluster of flush deck destroyers including USS Ramsey DD-124, USS Montgomery DD-121, USS Breese DD-122, USS Lamberton DD-119, and USS Gamble DD-123. In the background are the battleship USS Mississippi BB-41, the tin cans USS O’Bannon DD-177, USS MacKenzie DD-175, USS Hugan DD-178, USS Anthony DD-172, and several other destroyers and another battleship in the far distance.
With budget cuts, Gamble was tapped to begin inactivation procedures and was decommissioned on 17 June 1922 and was held in reserve at San Diego.
Recall, and a job change
After nearly a decade on red lead row, Gamble was taken out of mothballs and redesignated a fast destroyer minelayer (DM-15) on 24 May 1930. This saw her head to Mare Island for a general overhaul and conversion.
The Navy had previously converted 14 Wickes and Clemson class ships to this designation in 1920, with the simple swap out of having their torpedo tubes replaced with a set of two 140-foot tracks that could carry approximately 85 1,400-pound Mark VI moored antenna mines (of which the Navy had 50,000 left over from the Great War) to drop over the stern.
The Navy ordered 100,000 Mark VI (MK 6) mines in 1917, carrying a 300-pound charge, and had so many left that even after using thousands during WWII they remained in U.S. service into the 1980s. Gamble and her sisters could carry as many as 85 of these on a pair of rails that ran, port and starboard, down the aft half of the ship.
As noted by Destroyer History.org:
Among the lessons World War I offered the US Navy was the possibility that fast ships could be effective in laying minefields to disrupt enemy operations. The surplus of flush-deckers at the end of the war provided an opportunity to experiment.
The original 14 circa 1920 rated destroyer-minelayers were slowly replaced throughout the 1930s by a smaller group of eight converted flush-deckers taken from mothballs– USS Gamble (DM-15)(DD-123), USS Ramsey (DM-16)(DD-124), USS Montgomery (DM-17)(DD-121), USS Breese (DM-18)(DD-122), USS Tracy (DM-19)(DD-214), USS Preble (DM-20)(DD-345), USS Sicard (DM-21)(DD-346) and USS Pruitt (DM-22)(DD-347).
Jane’s 1931 entry on the type. Note Breese is misspelled as “Breeze.”
Curiously, these ships would retain their white DD-hull numbers but wore Mine Force insignia on their bow, outwardly looking much more destroyer than minelayer.
Wickes-class destroyer USS Ramsey (DM-16)(DD-124) view was taken by Tai Sing Loo, at Pearl Harbor, T. H., circa 1930. Note that she is fitted out as a minelayer (DM) and retains her DD-hull number while wearing a mine-force insignia on her bow. NH 49953
In addition to these minelayers, several Wickes/Clemson class flush deckers were converted during the WWII era to other tasks including eighteen fast minesweepers (DMS), fourteen seaplane tenders (AVD), and six fast “Green Dragon” transports (APD) plus test ship Semmes (AG 24, ex-DD 189) at the Key West Sound School and damage control hulk Walker (DCH 1, ex-YW 57, ex-DD 163) which was reclaimed from commercial service as a dockside restaurant at San Diego.
All eight of the active destroyer-minelayers were formed into Mine Squadron 1 headed up by the old minelayer USS Oglala (CM 4), flagship of Rear Admiral William R. Furlong, commander of Minecraft for the Battle Force of the Pacific Fleet, and forward-based with “The Pineapple Fleet” at Pearl Harbor, where a new conflict would soon find them.
USS Oglala (CM-4); USS Gamble (DD-123/DM-15); USS Ramsay (DD-124/DM-16). (listed L-R) anchored off Cocoanut Island, Hilo Harbor, Hawaii, T.H., 12 December 1931. Mauna Kea Volcano is in the distance. Note that the DMs are still wearing their destroyer hull numbers but with Mine Force insignias. 80-G-409991
Gamble and her crew were busy while in Hawaiian waters in the 1930s, and often helped in search and rescue cases including that of the missing aircraft Stella Australis, the disabled steamer President Lincoln, and the yacht Lanikai.
She was also something of a public relations boat and was tapped to carry Territorial Governor Lawrence M. Judd from Honolulu to Hilo in 1931 then hosted the six-year-old singing and dancing wonder, Ms. Shirley Temple, in 1935.
Besides spending the day on Gamble, Temple was declared a Colonel of the Hawaiian National Guard, inducted as a Waikiki Beach lifeguard, and given a surfboard by Duke Kahanamoku during her 1935 Hawaiian trip.
Gamble (DM-15) dressed with flags while tied up in port, circa 1940 at the Golden Gate International Exposition (World’s Fair) in San Francisco. Note the circular Mine Force insignia, red/blue/white with a black center and outline, on her bow. In the distance is a USCG 240-foot Lake class cutter. Courtesy of the Mariners Museum, Newport News, Virginia. Ted Stone Collection. NH 66812
War!
All MineRon1’s ships were swaying at their berths at Pearl’s Middle Loch on 7 December 1941 when the Japanese attack came in. The squadron was divided into two divisions, with MinDiv2 consisting of Gamble, Montgomery, Breese, and Ramsay.
The response by Gamble, among others, was immediate, opening fire just two minutes after her lookouts saw enemy planes.
From her after-action report:
0745 Heard explosions on Ford Island.
0756 Wave of about 50 Japanese planes attacked battleships and Naval Air Station, Ford Island, planes flying at low altitudes about 500 feet over battleships from the direction of Diamond Head, about 700 feet over Ford Island. Five successive waves of the attack of about 10 planes each.
0758 Went to General Quarters, opened fire with .50 cal. machine guns on planes passing over nest at about 800 feet altitude. Set material condition afirm except for certain protected ammunition passages.
0759 Opened fire with 3″/23 cal. AA guns, firing as planes came within range, fuses set 3 to 8 secs.
0805 Mounted and commenced firing with .30 cal. machine guns on galley deck house.
0810 Commenced making preparations to get underway. Lighted off four boilers.
0925 One Japanese plane shot down by A.A. fire, falling in water on port beam about 1000 yards away from ship. Believed shot down by ROBERTS, W.L., BM2c, U.S.S. Gamble, port machine gunner (#2 machine gun) .50 cal., and JOOS, H.W., GM3c, U.S.S. Gamble (#1 machine gun) starboard.
0930 Division commenced getting underway. U.S.S. Breese underway.
0930 U.S.S. Gamble got underway and cleared mooring buoy.
0937 Japanese planes attacked near main channel entrance.
0955 Temporarily anchored, astern of U.S.S. Medusa.
1005 Underway proceeding out of channel.
1015 Shifted .30 cal. A.A. machine guns to top of pilot house on fire control platform.
1021 Cleared channel entrance. Eight depth charges were armed and the ship commenced off-shore anti-submarine patrol off Pearl Harbor entrance.
1204 Established sound contact with submarine and dropped three depth charges. Position bearing 162° T from Diamond Head Light, distant 2.5 miles.
1255 Proceeded on course 270° T at 20 knots to join friendly forces upon receipt of orders from CinCPac.
1412 Sighted sampan bearing 320° T.
1435 Slowed to investigate but did not search. Sampan position approximately 4 miles south of Barbers point.
1628 Sighted smoke bomb off port bow.
1631 Submarine surfaced.*
1632 Fired one shot 4″ gun and missed, short and to the left. Submarine displayed U.S. colors, and ceased firing. Submarine submerged and fired recognition red smoke bomb.
1647 Proceeded west.
1732 Sighted Enterprise and exchanged calls. Instructed by Commander Aircraft, Battle Force to join Enterprise.
1744 Joined Enterprise and took station as third ship with two other plane guard destroyers.
*The friendly submarine turned out to be the Tambor class boat USS Thresher (SS-200), which was unharmed although a critically ill member of her crew– the reason for her surfacing and heading to port– passed. She again tried to enter the harbor on 8 December but was driven off by depth bombs from a patrol plane and only made it into Pearl under escort from a seaplane tender. Thresher went on to become the most decorated submarine of the war with 15 battle stars and a Navy Unit Commendation.
Gamble would remain off Pearl for the rest of the month, dropping depth charges on at least two further underwater sound contacts, and continue her ASW mission into 1942 when she expanded her operations to Samoa and Fiji, sowing defensive minefields in the waters of both. She also picked up some much-needed extra AAA in the form of a couple of 20mm Oerlikons.
Escorting a convoy to Midway in June, Gamble returned with a high-profile enemy POW, CDR Kunizo Aiso, the former chief engineering officer of the Japanese carrier Hiryu which had been sunk in the pivotal battle.
Carrier flagship Hiryu: Last Moments of Admiral Yamaguchi at the Battle of Midway. oil painting by Renzo Kita, 1943. Most of the ship’s officers chose to ride her to the bottom or were evacuated. Aiso, forgotten in the engineering spaces with a small group of snipes, surfaced after the ship had been left to the sea and managed to take to lifeboats.
Aiso was the senior Japanese naval officer imprisoned in the U.S. at the time and would be until 1944. Picked up at sea in a crowded lifeboat with 34 other survivors of his carrier after 12 days bobbing around the Pacific some 250 miles west of Midway, the English-speaking officer reportedly did not wish to return to Japan, nor wish his government be informed of his capture, preferring to be recorded as lost with his ship. For the trip to Hawaii, CDR Aiso was issued USN officer khakis and barricaded inside Gamble’s captain’s cabin with the wings cut off the wingnuts of the battle ports.
Finally, picking up 85 Mark VI mines at Pearl for points West, Gamble set off for Espíritu Santo in August 1942 and, from there, Guadalcanal.
DD-123, meet I-123
When it comes to pennant numbers, the meeting that Gamble had on the morning of 29 August some 60 miles east of Savo Island was curious. She came across I-123, a big Japanese I-121-class minelaying submarine, operating on the surface. On her fifth war patrol, she had left Rabaul two weeks prior under the command of LCDR Nakai Makoto and had already given the Marines on Lungga Point heartburn with her deck gun.
Type I-121 Submarine I-23 pictured at Kobe Naval Arsenal on April 28th, 1928
The rolling ship vs submarine combat between DM-15 (formerly DD-123) and I-123 over the course of four hours ended with Makoto and his 71 crewmembers receiving a promotion, posthumously.
Gamble’s report:
While the Japanese lost 131 seagoing Ro- and I-class submarines during World War II (100 by Allied action including mines, 3 in accidents, and 28 by unknown causes) I-123 was only the 12th boat sent to the bottom in the conflict and was one of the Empire’s first early losses.
Gamble was soon back to work.
The very afternoon after she sank I-123, she sped to Nura Island to pick up four shot-down TBF-1 Avenger (Bu. No. 00396) aviators of Torpedo 8 from the Saratoga (LT JG EL Fayle, ARM3c W Velogquz, S1C RL Minning and ARM3c JR Moncarrow), retrieved via her whaleboat from the surf line. She would rescue two more lost Airedales from Palikulo Bay two weeks later, picking up 2nd LT EN Railsbach, USMC, and Ens. EF Grant, USNR, after their SBD burned in.
Gamble was pressed into service at Guadalcanal as a fast troop transport, on the morning of 31 August carrying 158 Marines from Guadalcanal to Tulagi in company with sisters USS Gregory and USS Little, who were equally loaded down with Devil Dogs.
Gamble also was soon performing her primary role once again, that of sowing minefields around the area, planting 42 in a defensive belt in Segond Channel in December 1942.
Speaking of which…
Stopping the “Tokyo Express”
On 7 May 1943, Gamble and sisters Breese and Preble laid mines in the Ferguson Passage/Blackett Strait between Gizo and Wanawana Islands in the Solomons southwest of Rendova. Hidden by a rain squall and with enemy attention diverted by a supporting cruiser-destroyer group, the old four pipers were able to sow 250 sea mines in three rough lines across the strait in just 17 minutes.
Hours later, these mines were stumbled upon by a passing column of first-class Japanese tin cans of DesDiv 15 on an overnight fast troop transport run and sank the Kagero-class destroyer Kuroshio, with 83 lives, and crippled two sisterships– Oyashio and Kagero– which, barely able to maneuver and full of seawater, would be sunk the next day after being spotted by Navy dive bombers from Guadalcanal.
IJN First-class destroyer Hamakaze of the Kagerō-class. Three of her sisters were killed due to mines laid by Gamble and company.
As noted by Allyn D. Nevitt over at Combined Fleet, “The loss of even one such modern destroyer was fast becoming intolerable to the Japanese; having a crack unit of three erased in one blow was pure catastrophe. American daring and ingenuity in the Blackett Strait had reaped a substantial reward indeed.”
After further service– including supporting the invasion of New Georgia and planting more mines– Gamble was sent to San Francisco in July 1943 for a three-month overhaul at Hunter’s Point Navy Yard. Arriving back in the South Pacific, Gamble spent November 1943 conducting several mining runs off Bougainville in the Solomon Islands in support of the Allied offensive there.
Then, as noted by DANFS:
Through late 1943 and much of 1944, Gamble generally served as convoy escort ship screening for enemy submarines while operating between Guadalcanal and Florida Island in the Solomons; Espíritu Santo; and Noumea, with additional runs to Suva, Fiji; Finschhaven and New Britain Island, New Guinea; Sydney; and Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands.
Overhaul
In September 1944, Gamble was sent back to the West Coast for four months at the Bethlehem Steel Repair Yard at Alameda. This led to a serious overhaul of her guns, landing all her old 3″/23s and 4-inchers in favor of a homogenized set of 3″/50s and 20mm Oerlikons.
According to her December 1944 plans, her WWII topside armament was mostly emplaced on a series of superstructure platforms except for a forward 3″/50 DP above the CPO quarters just 20 feet from the bow and a 20mm Oerlikon directly behind it in front of the wheelhouse. The ammo magazine was three decks down on the keel amidships and another on astern near the shafts, meaning a chain gang had to be established to hump it up top. The main gun platform was over the galley between the three remaining funnels and held two 3″/50 DPs (port and starboard) with hinged sponsons for the gun crew and two Oerlikons. A small gun tub with two single 20mm Oerlikons (port and starboard) was above Radio 3 next to the stub mast. The stern superstructure gun platform was built atop the crew’s washhouse and armory and held a single 3″/50 DP installed just 22 feet from the stern. Two portable .50 cals were set up midship atop the pilot house and on the main deck at frame 117 (of 177 frames).
She also only had three stacks by this point.
All told, this fit gave her four 3″/50 DPs, five 20mm Oerlikons, and two .50 cals. She would also be fitted with a twin 40mm Bofors gun, although I am not sure of its placement. Not a lot of throw weight there, but then of course her main armament was in her mine rails and projectors for Mark VI depth charges.
Eight breakaway Carely float-type life rafts were installed to augment the ship’s 26-foot whaleboat and punt. The crew at this time was a skipper (LCDR/CDR) and 8 wardroom officers along with a mix of 132 rates and enlisted (62 Seamans branch, 57 Artificer branch, 4 Special branch, 4 Commissary branch, 5 Messman branch). By this time, she carried SF and SC radar sets and QCL sonar.
She also picked up a new camo scheme.
Camouflage Measure 32, Design 7D drawings prepared by the Bureau of Ships for a camouflage scheme intended for light minelayers of the DM-15 (Gamble) class. This plan, approved by Captain Torvald A. Solberg, USN, is dated 14 June 1944. 80-G-173486 and 80-G-173487.
This readied her for the “Big Show,” the push to Iwo Jima, Operation Detachment, in February 1945.
Back in the thick of it
On D+3, 17 February, Gamble closed into the beach close enough to cover the small minesweepers (YMS) and UDT teams of Sweep 5 and 6 clearing a path in the shoaling waters, shelling Japanese coastal emplacements and positions with her 3-inch and 40mm guns to silence them from harassing the cleaners via the application of 204 rounds of 3-inch AA Common and 254 of 40mm HETSD over seven hours. There, roughly six miles off Mt. Suribachi, she scored a hit on a large ammo dump with secondary explosions as well as silencing several enemy guns and bird-dogging other emplacements for the battlewagons.
Her NGFS report:
Taking position off the old battlewagon Nevada the next night, she was hit by two small 250-pound bombs dropped by a Japanese Kawasaki Ki-45 Toryu (Nick) twin-engine bomber that came in low and fast while she was silhouetted by star shells ashore. The bombs effectively wrecked our Gamble.
From her report:
Her crew was removed, and the shattered Gamble was towed to Saipan where she was decommissioned on 1 June 1945, and her name was stricken from the Navy Register three weeks later.
Stripped of anything thought useful, a series of images and videos were captured of her scuttling process, which took place off Guam on 16 July.
“Down Went the Gamble (DM 15).” Gamble was scuttled in June 1945. She was previously hit by Japanese enemy bombs in Feb 1945. Artist: Standish Backus, No.9. U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 428-GX-KN 18978
Gamble received seven battle stars for service in World War II.
Epilogue
As Gamble was scuttled off Guam in deep water, few relics of her remain topside.
The wooden mold for her D Sharp ship’s bell, cast at Mare Island, resurfaced in 1991.
Her plans, drawings, deck logs, and war history are online in the National Archives.
As for Shirley Temple, a bosun whistle presented to her by Gamble’s crew in 1935 remained a treasured possession for years. After all, she would meet her future husband, Charles Alden Black, a former Naval intelligence officer, in Hawaii in 1950 so perhaps those long-ago Pearl Harbor USN memories were prized. The whistle remained part of Ms. Temple’s estate and archives until it was sold at a 2015 auction by Theriault’s in New York.
It is undoubtedly in some collector’s display as this is written and perhaps will resurface one day.
Thus far, the Navy has chosen to not reissue the name “Gamble” to a second ship, which is a pity.
Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.
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