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NavSource Online: Mine Warfare Vessel Photo Archive

Pledge (AM 277)



Call sign:
Nan - Peter - Yoke - Yoke

Sunk 10 October 1950
Admirable Class Minesweeper:

  • Laid down 1 July 1943 by Gulf Shipbuilding Co., Chickasaw, AL
  • Launched 23 December 1943
  • Commissioned 29 July 1944
  • Decommissioned 6 November 1946 at Bremerton, WA
  • Placed in service, on caretaker status in July 1947 at Yokosuka, Japan
  • Placed in service 28 November 1947 at Yokosuka
  • Placed in reserve 16 April 1948 at Yokosuka
  • Placed in reduced commission 10 January 1950
  • Struck a mine and sank 10 October 1950 off Wonsan, Korea.

    Specifications:

  • Displacement 945 t.(fl)
  • Length 184' 6"
  • Beam 33'
  • Draft 9' 9"
  • Speed 14.8 kts.
  • Complement 104
  • Armament: One 3"/50 dual purpose mount, one twin 40mm gun mount, six 20mm gun mounts, one depth charge projector (hedgehog), four depth charge projectors (K-guns) and two depth charge tracks
  • Propulsion: Two 1,710shp Cooper Bessemer GSB-8 diesel engines, National Supply Co. single reduction gear, two shafts.
    Click on thumbnail
    for full size image    		 Size Image Description Source
    American Ship Building
    110226902    		 263k The Pivot (AM-276) was built by the Gulf Shipbuilding Co., Chickasaw, AL, a few miles upstream of the Port of Mobile.
    Here in August 1917, after the United States entered World War I, U.S. Steel established Chickasaw Shipbuilding. The yard closed after World War I but was reopened in 1940 by Waterman Steamship Corp. as Gulf Shipbuilding.     		Insert photos courtesy of catalog.archives.gov & catalog.archives.gov
    Photo courtesy of destroyerhistory.org
    Pivot (AM 276)
    Pivot 93k 11 November 1943
    Launching. On the ways behind Pivot (AM-276) is Pledge (AM 277)
    U.S. Navy photo from the Naval History and Heritage Command    		 Robert Hurst
    USS Pledge (AM 277)
    Pirate 11k Pirate (AM 275 in foreground and Pledge underway
    U.S. Navy photo taken from USS Pivot (AM-276)    		 Robert Hurst
    Candid 243k c. July 1945
    Landing craft underway in an unidentified anchorage (possibly the Marianas). The Pledge and USS Candid (AM 154), along with an unidentified Rudderow class destroyer escort
    are anchored
    U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Museum/Naval Aviation Museum photo 1996.438.045    		 Mike Green
    Pirate 97k Painting by Richard DeRosset titled "Hidden Menace at Sin-Do Island," used in the book Wooden Ships and Iron Men: The U.S. Navy's Coastal & Motor Minesweepers, 1941-1953 by
    David Bruhn
    USS Pledge (AM 277), which thereafter also suffered a mine strike and was sunk, is shown in the background (Pirate was actually sunk 2 days after Pledge on 12 October 1950)    		 David Bruhn
    Commanding Officers
    01LT Thomas Knotts, USNR29 July 1944
    02LT Francis Xavier Gallagher, USNR15 December 1944
    03LT William Charles Stewart, USNR31 October 1945
    04LCDR Casper Rudolph Boehm, USNR15 February 1946 - 1 December 1946
    05LT Bruce Blake Swegle, USN - Officer-in-Charge28 November 1947
    06LTJG John Spence Crow, USN - Officer-in-Charge3 April 1948
    07LT Edmund Wagoner Linton, USN10 January 1950
    08LT Richard Orion Young, USN - USNA Class of 1933
    Awarded the Silver Star (1950)    		September 1950 - October 1950
    Courtesy Wolfgang Hechler, Ron Reeves, R. A. Moody and Joseph M. Radigan (of blessed memory)
    View the Pledge (AM 277)
    DANFS History entry located on the Haze Gray & Underway Website
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    This page created and maintained by Joseph M. Radigan (of blessed memory) & David Wright
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