Wreck of USS YMS-24

 Second World War 1939-1945, military, shipwreck, United States Navy, minehunter / minesweeper (ship)

Laid down at the Greenpoint Basin and Construction Co of Long Island, NY in November 1941, USS YMS-24 was a YMS-1 Class Auxiliary Motor Minesweeper and commissioned into US Navy service in May 1942 as a member of the Atlantic Fleet.

With the United States embroiled in war at the time of her completion, YMS-24 and her crew were immediately assigned to the highly dangerous work of escorting merchant convoys along the US and Canadian Atlantic coasts which by mid-1942 were infested with German U-Boats. Detached from this work only when enough dedicated escort vessels began to appear in force by mid 1943, YMS-24 and her crew began the intensive training required of their mission in both the Gulf of Mexico off Key West and Chesapeake Bay in preparation for her upcoming deployment to the European theatre.

Assigned for duty with Allied forces staging for the Invasion of Southern France, YMS-24 and her crew completed their training in US waters in the spring of 1944 and departed in convoy for the Azores Islands and eventually Oran, Algeria where she joined with the Amphibious Task Force carrying the US 7th Army. After conducting further training on pre-sweeping amphibious assault beaches with elements of her new Minesweeping Unit, YMS-24 and her crew departed with the ships Task Force 88 and shaped her course for Southern France to take part in Operation Dragoon.

Assigned to the Delta and Camel Forces and tasked with clearing any mines from the Gulf of Frejus in advance of landings at Frejus, St. Maxime and St. Raphael, YMS-24 and her unit pushed ahead of the landing forces and began minesweeping operations in the predawn hours of August 15th, 1944. Finding the waters heavily mined and filled with submarine hazards, YMS-24 and her crew nonetheless swept the designated approach paths to the landing beaches clear while under heavy fire from German shore batteries and air attack. With the initial landings successful by sundown on the 15th, the minesweeper force withdrew from the coast for the overnight hours before returning the following morning with orders to clear the entire beachhead area off Frejus of German mines.

After conducting several sweeps expanding already-cleared lanes to the shoreline, YMS-24 and a sistership deployed their gear and had begun a new sweep along an East-West heading when there was a tremendous explosion on the Starboard side of YMS-24, almost directly beneath her bridge. The force of the blast easily destroyed a large portion of YMS-24’s wooden hull and sent a geyser of water, shrapnel and hull splinters straight into the Starboard bridge wing of the ship, where it immediately killed the Commanding Officer and severely wounded several crew. Moving immediately to take command of the ship, XO John Howard immediately moved the ship away from the German minefield she had sailed into as the rapid inrush of water through the enormous hole in her hull began to drag the ship down by her bow. After receiving reports that the ships pumps would not be able to combat the heavy flooding below decks, Howard ordered the ship abandoned and ensured that all living and wounded crew were accounted for and wearing their life vests before getting into the water. With the ship rapidly floundering beneath him, Howard abandoned YMS-24 and tended to a barely conscious sailor as the ship rolled onto her Starboard side and sank bow-first at this location on August 16th, 1944, taking four of her crew with her.

For his actions during the sinking of YMS-24, Executive Officer John Howard received the Navy Cross. USS YMS-24 received one Battle Star for her World War Two service for her actions as part of Operation Dragoon.

www.navsource.org/archives/11/19024.htm