USS Zane (DD-337/DMS-14/AG-109) was a Clemson-class destroyer in the United States Navy following World War I. She was named for Randolph Zane.
History
Zane was laid down on 15 January 1919 at the Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California; launched on 12 August 1919; sponsored by Miss Marjorie Zane, the daughter of Major R. T. Zane; re-classified DD-337 on 17 July 1920; and commissioned at Mare Island on 15 February 1921.
1920s After fitting out and shakedown, Zane fueled at Port Costa, California, late in June 1921 and sailed northward to the Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, Washington, for stores. Returning south to Mare Island once more, Zane joined Destroyer Division 14 at San Francisco, California, on 22 June and departed that port the following day, bound for the Asiatic Station.
Sailing via Pearl Harbor, Midway, and Guam, Zane reached Cavite, Philippine Islands, on 24 August. The destroyer then operated in the Philippines—out of Cavite, Manila, Olongapo, and Lingayen Gulf—on maneuvers and exercises through the spring of 1922. She departed Manila on 3 June 1922, bound for Chinese waters.
Zane reached the Yangtze estuary on 6 June and, while steaming to the mouth of the Huangpu River, en route to Shanghai, spotted the Chinese river steamer Tse Kiang approaching from the starboard quarter. She maintained course and speed, doing nothing to avoid a collision. Zane attempted to avoid a fouling when that seemed imminent, but too late. At 1158, Tse Kiang rammed the destroyer aft.
Fortunately, the damage was minor; and Zane proceeded on her way, reaching Shanghai two and a half hours later and moored alongside sistership at the American buoys. Zane entered the Yangtsepoo drydock on 15 June for repairs and was undocked on the following day.
Underway for Yantai on 5 July, Zane reached that North China port on the 7th and remained there until the 30th, when she shifted to Qinhuangdao, the seaport at the base of the Great Wall of China, to send leave parties to Beijing. She lay at Qinhuangdao from 31 July to 5 August, when she got underway to return to Yantai on the latter day.
Zane set sail from Yantai, homeward bound, on 25 August and visited Nagasaki, Japan, on the first leg of her voyage back to the west coast of the United States. Subsequently, touching at Midway and Pearl Harbor, the destroyer reached San Francisco on 2 October. Shifting to the Mare Island Navy Yard on 9 October, Zane turned in all torpedoes, torpedo gear, and landing force equipment over the three days that ensued. She then fueled at Martinez, California, before reaching San Diego and San Pedro. Decommissioned at San Diego on 1 February 1923, Zane remained on "Red Lead Row" for seven years.
1930s Recommissioned on 25 February 1930, Zane operated actively as a unit of the Battle Force for the next decade, except for one brief period during which time she was attached to Rotating Reserve Squadron 20 in late 1934. Initially assigned to Destroyer Division 10, Destroyer Squadron 4, Destroyers, Battle Force, Destroyer Flotilla 2, the ship served through the 1930s in a variety of squadrons, but all within the 2nd Destroyer Flotilla.
She participated in some of the inter-war fleet problems - the large-scale fleet maneuvers instituted in the early 1920s to develop equipment and tactics. She ranged from the west coast of the United States into the Caribbean and western Atlantic Ocean, as well as off the Panama Canal Zone.
However, with the new destroyer construction programs turning out more modern, faster, and heavily armed ships, the need to retain the old "flush-deckers" in the destroyer role diminished. At the same time, there grew a need for high-speed minesweepers, fast minelayers, seaplane tenders, and the like to meet the ever-growing demands on the Navy.
Destroyer minesweeper (DMS)
Converted to a high-speed minesweeper at the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard and reclassified as DMS-14 on 19 November 1940, Zane operated primarily in Hawaiian waters on the eve of World War II.
Pearl Harbor On the morning of 7 December 1941, she was moored off Pearl City in a nest with her three sisterships of Mine Division 4— , , and .
The crew was just finishing breakfast when, at 0757, a signalman on watch topside observed a single plane drop a bomb on the southern end of Ford Island after a long gliding approach from the northward. Only then did the men topside realize it was a Japanese plane.
With 10 percent of her enlisted men and 25 percent of the officers ashore, Zane went to general quarters and, within three minutes of the initial explosion, had manned her .50-caliber antiaircraft machine gun battery. Her commanding officer, Lt. Cmdr. L. M. LeHardy, was senior officer afloat in the division and reported: "0800 Observed Japanese plane gliding low over Ford Island, enemy character now positive. This was not a drill."
Commencing fire at "any and all planes which passed within a reasonable distance of the nest" Zane began preparations at 0803 for getting underway, as belting and ammunition supply parties turned to. At 0830, Zane spotted a "strange submarine" 200 yards astern of , anchored in nearby berth K-23. Zane's position in the nest, however, rendered her incapable of opening fire with her after 4-inch gun: her aim was fouled by Perry (DMS-17), moored outboard. However, soon made the whole problem academic at 0840, when she charged down upon the Japanese type "A" midget submarine and destroyed her by ramming and with depth charges.
Meanwhile, the fleet gradually began to return fire and, by the time the second wave of Japanese planes arrived, the fleet was at action stations. Gunfire from a nearby ship (possibly Medusa) brought down one Japanese plane, whose bomb had burst in the water near Perry. The enemy aircraft exploded into flames on the way down and crashed on shore near the recently completed deperming station to the loud cheers of all hands topside in Zane.
Subsequently, the ships of MinDiv 4 got underway individually and stood out to take up patrol offshore. Zane had suffered no damage from the enemy during the raid, but the melee of "friendly" antiaircraft fire from a number of ships nearby, including some in the nest itself, had severed a number of strands of rigging and antennae.
At 1410, Zane and Wasmuth rigged up a twin-ship, moored-mine sweep with 400 fathoms of wire between them and entered the Pearl Harbor entrance channel at 1547, sweeping up to the vicinity of the gate vessel before the sweep wire parted. Subsequently, returning to sea, Zane resumed antisubmarine patrols, carrying them out at a time when submarine sightings (most of them fictitious) proliferated.
1942
Zane operated locally out of Pearl Harbor into the spring of 1942. She departed the Hawaiian Islands on 5 April, escorting an convoy (number 4079) to San Pedro, Los Angeles. The high-speed minesweeper then underwent repairs and alterations at the Mare Island Navy Yard before she returned to Pearl Harbor in early June.
Meanwhile, the tide of war was beginning to turn. Eight months after Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy was ready to launch its first amphibious operation, codenamed Operation Watchtower. The target was the Japanese-held Solomon Islands, and the operation was to begin on 7 August 1942.
American intelligence knew that numerous unmined areas existed off the objective beachheads, but invasion planners thought it best to at least determine the exact boundaries of any minefields that existed in the areas. Accordingly, Zane and four of her sisterships (, , and ) —were to sweep an area extending from the curve toward Port Purvis on Florida Island, but split into two groups near Gavutu Island to head simultaneously toward beach "Red," clearing a wide stretch through Lengo Channel toward Indispensable Strait. Japanese shore batteries opened up on the ships, but their fire was erratic and did no damage. By 1550 on the day of the first landings, 7 August, the area had been thoroughly swept. No mines were found.
Over the ensuing weeks, the Battle of Guadalcanal was fought, with the Japanese maintaining themselves on the island. The Americans were compelled to bring in their reinforcements during the daylight hours when they controlled the skies. At night, the Japanese, with their superior night-fighting capabilities, had command of the situation in the Solomons. Zane worked off Tulagi and Guadalcanal, breaking her sweep and patrol operations with periodic upkeep at Nouméa, New Caledonia. On 8 September, during one such sweep operation, the minesweeper watched waves of high flying Japanese planes heading toward Guadalcanal.
Into the autumn, as the fighting ashore became more intense, the need for supplies - particularly aviation gasoline to keep the Cactus Air Force in the air - multiplied. At Espiritu Santo, Zane and her sistership Trever piled drums of aviation gasoline on their decks, together with torpedoes, ammunition and stores, and each with two motor torpedo (PT) boats in tow, set sail for Guadalcanal. They reached Tulagi Harbor at 0530 on 25 October 1942.
Trever completed her unloading by 0700. At 0809, the general air raid alarm sounded from ashore. Trever cast off and stood into the harbor itself; Zane got underway about the same time and lay to about 700 yards ahead of Trever in the shelter of Tulagi, Koko-tambu, and Songoangona Islands.
At 0955, the signal station at Tulagi informed both ships that three enemy ships had been sighted in the straits between Savo and Florida Islands, entering "Iron Bottom Bay." Trever's commanding officer, the task group commander, Commander D. M. Agnew, took a dim view of the recommendation that his ships seek shelter up the Maliala River. Not wanting to be, in his words, "trapped like rats," Agnew elected to run.
Zane and Trever stood out at maximum speed and cleared the channel leading out of Tulagi at 1014. Lookouts noted the stacks and mast-tops of three ships almost simultaneously at distant and bearing 250 degrees, steering a slightly converging course. Within five minutes, the American lookouts noted that the trio of enemy ships had altered course to close.
The three enemy ships (the destroyers Akatsuki, Ikazuchi, and Shiratsuyu) comprised the 1st Attack Unit, dispatched to provide naval gunfire support during the day to Japanese land forces who had hoped to capture Henderson Field. Each of the Japanese ships with their 6 × 5 in (127 mm) guns outgunned their American counterparts who were armed with smaller calibre guns.
At 1020, the enemy formation changed course again to close the range still further and bring their heavier batteries to bear. Zane and Trever, meanwhile, skirted the shoal waters on course for Sealark Channel. Ten minutes later, with the range at approximated 9,200 yards, the Japanese destroyers opened fire, and the running sea fight was on.
The Japanese - in view of their slated mission - were using bombardment ammunition instead of armor-piercing shells. Soon shells began landing disturbingly close to the zigzagging Trever and Zane; the latter, for example, observed one shell land just forward of her bow and one apiece on each side of the forecastle, off the bows. One enemy shell scored a direct hit on Zane, hitting the minesweeper's number 1 × gun, forward, killing three men instantly. Other shells cut away rigging, antennae, and every halyard except the one to the gaff. That one appropriately flew the national ensign.
Providentially, at 1040, the Japanese ships turned away to engage and a small patrol craft off Lunga Point. The respite offered the two high-speed minesweepers proved fatal to the fleet tug and the YP as the Japanese ships sank them summarily before retiring, harried by American planes from Henderson Field. Trever and Zane, meanwhile, continued to retire to the eastward. At 1055, the two minecraft changed course to the south and west of San Cristobal Island.