Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger
Warship Wednesday June 24, 2015: The hard times of a peacetime tin can
Here we see the Crosley-class high speed transport USS Ruchamkin (DE-228/APD-89/LPR-89), at sea sometime after 1963. The type of taskings for the Ruchamkin from 1945-69 were the same laundry list of fleet services that are forced on today’s LCS type vessels.
Originally laid down as one of the 252 planned Rudderow-class destroyer escorts, her original mission was to bust subs, kill torpedo and patrol boats, capture random enemy merchant ships threaten enemy destroyers and cruisers with her own steel fish and show the flag as required. Just under 1,800-tons and 306-feet long, these hardy ships would be classified as sloops or corvettes in other navies, but the term destroyer escort seemed a better fit for the USN and their pair of 5 inch /38 dual purpose mounts, 4 x 40 mm Bofors, 10 x 20 mm single mount Oerlikons, torpedo tubes and depth charges allowed them to punch out of thier weight class.
However the war outstripped these ships, with the first, USS Riley (DE-579) only commissioning in March 1944, just 22 of these tin cans were completed as DEs.
Another 50 were completed to a modified design and purpose– that of the high speed transport (APD). You see with the Pacific island hopping campaign in high speed in 1944, the Navy realized these DEs could float in just 11 feet of seawater, which meant they could get pretty close into old Hirohito’s backyard. To maximize their usefulness, these ships were redesigned from the stack back with the aft 5-incher and torpedo tubes never fitted and davits for a quartet of LCPRs (landing craft, personnel, ramped).
She carried four of these craft, which could land her embarked company all in one wave
These 35-foot long V-Bottomed plywood craft could tote 39 troops ashore from as far as 50 miles out to sea; however they usually were launched as close as possible as these craft wallowed along at about 10-knots when wide open.
This allowed the 306-foot ship to carry (briefly) a company-sized (160~) unit of Army infantry or Marines and land them right on top of the beach.
The Rudderow type DE compared to the eventual Crosby type APD, note the differences aft of the stack
The subject of our study, USS Ruchamkin, named after 24-year-old LT (JG) Seymour D. Ruchamkin, late of the destroyer USS Cushing (DD-376) and gave his last full measure on that ship off Savo Island, was laid down at Philadelphia Naval Yard 14 February 1944 as a DE. She was completed to the APD type and commissioned 16 September 1945, two weeks too late to serve in WWII.
USS Ruchamkin (APD-89) at anchor off Cannes, France, in 1952 during the Cannes Film Festival. Don Karr USS Ruchamkin
Instead, she spent the next 24 years in and out of commission (joining red lead row three different times) spending about 15 winters with the active fleet.
Pierside in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. 1960s
In that time she trained midshipmen and naval reservists, was used as an amphibious warfare ship for the first generation of SEALs, roamed the Med, Pacific, and the Caribbean, waved the flag, and generally saw peaceful service.
View underway at sea off her stern,
USS Ruchamkin (APD-89) coming along side USS Rigel (AF-58) to receive stores, during Operation Steel Pike I, October 1964. Photo by Jim McCoy navsource
One of her LCPRs Pierside in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands.
However even peace can be hazardous.
On 14 November 1952, while on an exercise with troops embarked, the 10,000 ton tanker Washington smacked her portside amidships, nearly slicing the boat in two. As a testament to the design of these warbabies, she held up and remained afloat (thought losing seven men) and was back in service just four months later after repairs.
USS RUCHAMKIN APD 8915 November 1952, one day after USS Ruchamkin (APD-89) had been rammed by SS Washington, a 10,000 ton tanker. Note her damage amidships
Her closest brush with war, besides tracking the occasional Soviet submarine, was when she earned the Navy Unit Commendation for evacuating civilians from the Dominican Republic in 1965, a task that her 160 spartan troop bunks and ability to operate from shallow water ports made her ideal.
She then served as a support ship for Polaris missile tests and the exploration of the wreck of the USS Scorpion before her third and final decommissioning at Little Creek on 24 November 1969.
She was sold to the Navy of the Republic of Colombia for $156,820 who used her as the ARC Córdoba (DT-15) until 1980, primarily as an escort vessel.
She sits in about three feet of still water sandwiched between a recreation of the Taj Mahal and a mountainside
The Colombians disarmed her and donated her to Jaime Duque Grisales, an icon of Colombian air travel. Her new owners dismantled her, transported the old girl to “Colombia’s Disneyland” Parque Jaime Duque and reassembled her on site by 1983. There she sits today in a shallow pond some 620 miles inland and at an elevation of 8000 feet just outside of Bogata, a feat not often accomplished by naval vessels.
But her stern till holds her secret
A very active veterans association, USS Ruchamkin.org exists to continue her memory here in the states.
Painting by Don Renz via USS Ruchamkin.org
Specs
From Destroyer Escorts In Action (Osprey)
Displacement: 1,740 tons (1,770 metric tons) (fully loaded)
Length: 306 ft. (93.3 m) (overall)
Beam: 36 ft. 6 in (11.1 m)
Draft: 11 ft. (3.4 m) (fully loaded)
Propulsion: General Electric steam turbo-electric drive engine
Two 3-bladed propellers solid manganese-bronze 8 ft. 5 in (2.6 m) diameter
Speed: 24 knots (most ships could attain 26/27 knots)
Range: 5,500 nautical miles at 15 knots (10,200 km at 28 km/h)
Radar: Type SL surface search fixed to mast above yardarm and type SA air search only fitted to certain ships.
Sonar: Type 128D or Type 144 both in retractable dome.
Direction Finding: MF direction finding antenna fitted in front of the bridge and HF/DF Type FH 4 antenna fitted on top of mast.
Armament: (As designed DE)
Main guns: 2 x 5 inch /38 dual purpose mount
Anti-aircraft guns: 4 x 40 mm Bofors were fitted in the twin mounts in the ‘B’ and ‘X’ position. 10 x 20 mm single mount Oerlikons cannon positioned four next to the bridge behind ‘B’ gun mount, two on each side of the ship in sponsons just abaft the funnel, and two on the fantail just forward of the depth charge racks.
Torpedo tubes: three 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes in a triple mount were mounted just aft of the stack.
Hedgehog: British-designed ahead-throwing anti-submarine mortar which fired 24 bombs ahead of the ship, this was situated on the main deck just aft of ‘A’ gun mount.
Depth charges: Approximately 200 were carried. Two sets of double rails each side of the ship at the stern, each set held 24 charges; eight K gun depth charge throwers each holding 5 charges, were situated each side of the ship just forward of the stern rails.
As completed (APD)
Complement: 12 Officers, 192 Enlisted.
Armament: 1 × 5″/38 caliber gun
6 × 40mm Bofors AA (3 × 2), removed 1963 in FRAM update
6 × 20mm Oerlikon AA (6 × 1), removed 1963 in FRAM update. Replaced by M2s.
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