Specifications:

Click on thumbnail for full size image	Size	Image Description		Source
YMS-267
	53k	Launching		William H. Long, SoM2c
USS YMS-267
	48k	Alongside an unidentified YMS at Monterey, CA		William H. Long, SoM2c
	157k	c. 1945 Conducting light line transfer		David Wright Photos added 27 January 2022
	130k

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Commanding Officers
01	LTJG J. J. Dykstra, USNR	1945

Courtesy Joe Radigan

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We then joined the group of minesweepers that swept the San Francisco ship channel every morning before ships were allowed into San Francisco and then returned sweeping the inbound side and the ships followed us in. We did this for several months and then were assigned to Monterey, California for patrol work and we worked with the Naval Air Base acting as a camera ship as they were testing secret radio controlled Airplanes. We would tow out an old landing craft as a target and they would take pictures as bombing runs were made on the target. They would do this all day and then the last run was made as a diving run into the target. We would sink what was left with our guns and then return to base.

We then were assigned to Eureka, California for patrol duty in Northern California. In April 1944 we were told to get our affairs in order as we were being assigned to the war zone. We left San Francisco in May with our first stop Pearl Harbor, there we tied up at the submarine base. After a couple weeks we left and went to Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands. We then learned that they were assembling a large landing force for the retaking and liberation of Guam and that we would be a part of that force. We stayed at Eniwetok for several weeks and after one false start and return for several more weeks we left and were at Guam on the morning of July 21, 1944 which was to be D Day for the Guam Landings. We had escorted four LSTs since we had left San Francisco and we escorted them into the Beach at Agat after we made some minesweeping sweeps.

We stayed around the Guam area for several months sweeping and escort duty. We were going to be part of the force that was going to land at Ulithi to take it from the Japanese. We were unable to get our Water Maker evaporator to work so we had to withdraw from this. The YMS-385, one of the YMS' that we had worked with at San Francisco, Monterey, and Eureka, and made to trip to Guam with, was sunk at Ulithi when it hit a mine with the loss of several lives.

We were patrolling off the coast of Guam on December 31, 1944 when we started taking on water in the engine room, We were in the danger of sinking because this stopped the engines and all electric power for any of our pumps, we sent out a distress signal and the USS Dempsey (DE 26) came to our rescue and tied up along side and put pumps aboard and started pumping out the water. They kept us afloat until a salvage tug could come to our rescue, we were moved into a floating dry dock later that night in Apra Harbor at Guam. It developed that we had broken a shaft in the stuffing box and water was coming in the area where the shaft had been.

We stayed around Guam and Saipan from then on, with escort duty to Peleliu, Iwo Jima and back and forth to Guam. We did duty at the end of the B-29 runway at Saipan to rescue any downed crews that had to ditch into the water.

We escorted Saipan Japanese fishing boats for about two weeks fishing for tuna to feed the people of Saipan.

We were getting underway early one morning in the Saipan Harbor, to escort LCIs to Guam and one of the LCIs we were to escort ran into us. The collision happened shortly after midnight on 4 April 1945 just outside the harbor at Saipan when the LCI-1054 hit the YMS-267 on the port side amidships, it hit with such force that it pushed the upper structure over about 4". Our trip was cancelled and we anchored to wait for the inquiry and see what would have to be done to repair our ship. A slip was dug and we were moved in next to the beach and shipbuilders/carpenters began removing the structure and making the needed repairs, this took several weeks/months. After we were again seaworthy we again began patrol work but again broke a shaft, this shaft did not break in a critical area and no water came in.

A decision was made and we started back for Pearl Harbor on only one screw. We arrived in July 1945 and the ship went into one of the big dry docks, several other YMS', several other ships and the USS Toledo [CA 133] was the last ship to enter the dry dock. While the ship was in the shipyard, the war was over, the repairs were completed and with equipment updated, mostly a new crew aboard, the 267 left Pearl Harbor bound for Japan for post war sweeping of the waters around Japan in the Kobe area. In April 1946 the ship returned to San Francisco, was decommissioned, and all of the crew transferred.

The ship was declared surplus on July 5, 1946, and struck from the Navy list on June 10, 1947. It was sold at fixed price of $15,000.00 to Charles W. Fair of New York City on April 16, 1947.

Courtesy of William H. Long, SoM2c. Served in YMS-267 July 1943 to July 1945.