USS Walton (DE-361) - Korean War and After

Korean War and After

The destroyer escort remained inactive until the Korean War. Recommissioned at San Diego on 26 January 1951 with Lieutenant Commander John D. Brink in command, Walton operated off the coast of California, training and assisting in the training of submarines and sonar teams, into the spring of the next year.

The destroyer escort — her homeport officially changed from San Diego to Pearl Harbor on 4 November 1951; she departed San Diego on 19 April 1952, bound for the Far East, in company with destroyer escorts USS Currier and USS Marsh. USS McCoy Reynolds rendezvoused with those three ships at Pearl Harbor to complete CortDiv 92. Walton arrived off Hungnam on 17 May and immediately assumed patrol and blockade duties off the Korean coast.

Over the next four months, Walton worked jointly with the naval units of other UN nations — Great Britain, Thailand, Colombia, and the Republic of Korea. During her patrols, the destroyer escort fired over 2,000 rounds of 5-inch (130 mm) ammunition at communist shore targets, provided close gunfire support for minesweeping operations; worked in conjunction with carrier strikes on coastal targets, and, during the latter operations, rescued a ditched Navy pilot. On one occasion, the ship sent a raiding party to reconnoiter a harbor on the far northern coast of Korea. Enemy machine guns opened up on the party, but a heavy fusillade from Walton's small boat silenced the gunners.

During that Far Eastern deployment, Walton also engaged in patrolling the Formosa Strait to keep communist China from attacking Nationalist China on the island of Formosa (Taiwan). Besides the ship's active patrol and combat operations, she participated in hunter-killer evolutions in waters south of Japan. As a result of her Korean service in 1952, Walton received the Korean service Medal with one engagement star, the UN Service Medal, and the Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation.

Returning to Pearl Harbor on 29 August, Walton underwent a shipyard availability during September and, over the ensuing months, conducted a regular schedule of training operations in the Hawaiian operating area. After a major overhaul at Pearl Harbor, Walton got underway on 9 May 1953 sailing, via Midway, to the Far East. Subsequently based at Sasebo, Japan, Walton operated briefly out of Pusan, South Korea, and then patrolled near Cheju Do, an island off the southern coast of South Korea. In July, she made a passage to Beppu, Japan, for a period of repairs alongside a tender, before she operated as a screening vessel with TF 77. She returned to Pusan soon thereafter, before resuming her patrols out of Sasebo to the eastern coast of South Korea.

Even after the signing of the armistice on 27 July brought an uneasy peace to the "Land of the Morning Calm", there was still work for Walton in Far Eastern waters. The ship participated in port Visit to Hong Kong; underwent upkeep in Subic Bay, Philippines visited Yokosuka, Sasebo, and Kobe, Japan, and operated in Korean waters again that November before sailing as part of a simulated convoy screen and reaching Pearl Harbor on 11 December 1953.

Walton remained in Hawaiian waters into the summer of 1954, conducting a varying slate of operations that included exercises in gunnery communications engineering, antisubmarine warfare navigation, and tactics—broken from time to time by the usual upkeep and maintenance periods in port. She also participated in a hunter-killer exercise in May that helped to evaluate killer submarines.

Departing Pearl Harbor on 15 June, Walton began her third deployment to the Western Pacific (WestPac). On 9 July, she relieved the seaplane tender USS Orca as station ship at Hong Kong and, outside of a brief period of upkeep at Subic Bay, performed station ship duties at the British Crown Colony into the autumn. During the deployment, the ship sortied twice to evade typhoons swirling their way toward Hong Kong — typhoon Ida from 28 to 30 August and typhoon Pamela from 5 to 7 November.

Walton departed Hong Kong on 8 November and proceeded back to Pearl Harbor, via the Philippines, Guam and Midway, having to dodge two more typhoons (Ruby and Sally) while en route. The destroyer escort then spent the period from late November 1954 to early May 1955 in the Hawaiian Islands, training and undergoing needed upkeep.

On 11 May 1955, Walton set sail for the Marianas, on the first leg of her fourth WestPac voyage. While operating under the operational aegis of the Commander, Naval forces, Marianas, Walton carried out surveillance operations at Bikar Atoll, Erikub Atoll, Kwajalein, Rongerik Atoll, and Ailinglaplap Atoll. In June and July, Walton alternated making surveillance voyages to the places mentioned above with performing duties as search and rescue (SAR) ship operating out of Guam.

During the latter part of July, Walton visited the northern Marianas, the Bonin and Volcano Islands and Yokosuka, before she resumed SAR duties at Guam. She divided September between surveillance in the western Carolines and SAR at Guam before sailing on 22 September for Pearl Harbor. She arrived home, via Kwajalein, on 1 October.

Walton subsequently conducted two more WestPac deployments out of Pearl Harbor. During the fifth deployment, the ship visited Singapore, the Federated Malay States; Hong Kong; Kobe, Japan; the Marianas; and Chinhae, Korea; where she, in company with USS Bream and units of the ROK Navy, trained in antisubmarine warfare. Later, while en route from Japanese waters to Keelung, Taiwan, in company with USS Foss, Walton conducted an unsuccessful search for an American plane that had ditched in the ocean. The two destroyer escorts sighted nothing during the two-day quest.

During the ship's sixth WestPac deployment, in 1957 the ship conducted five surveillance cruises in the Bonins, the Carolines, and the northern Mariana Islands. Also — in company with her sister ship USS McGinty — she visited Townsville, Australia — via Subic Bay and Manus — arriving "down under" on 19 August 1957. After five days of hearty Australian hospitality, the two escort vessels set out for Pago Pago, Samoa, on the first leg of their voyage back to Pearl Harbor where they arrived on 5 November.

Following a three-month overhaul at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, Walton conducted underway training evolutions and type training in the Hawaiian Islands through the spring of 1958. Ultimately, on 30 June 1958, Walton bid "aloha" to Pearl Harbor and while en route to the United States, the destroyer escort was reassigned to Reserve CortRon 1, Reserve CortDiv 12. With her home port officially changed to San Francisco, Walton underwent a brief availability alongside USS Bryce Canyon (AD-36) at Long Beach before she pushed on for her ultimate destination — San Francisco. She arrived at her new home port on 20 July.

Walton's mission was now to train Naval Reserve personnel. Over the next three years, she operated out of San Francisco on reserve training cruises that took the ship to such places as Mazatlán, Mexico, San Diego and Treasure Island, California; Pearl Harbor, Drake's Bay, California; Monterey, California; and Esquimalt, British Columbia. During the many two-week reserve cruises she conducted a variety of operations including "live" antisubmarine warfare training and gunnery exercises, highline transfers, general quarters drills, and underway refuelings in order to bring reservists up to date on latest methods and equipment. During that time, Walton won the Battle Efficiency "E" for Reserve CortRon 1 in 1959 and 1960.

While at Long Beach on 1 October 1961, Walton received word that, in the words of her command history "her shuttling about the west coast was ended for the time being." With her selected reserve crew of 70 men the destroyer escort was recalled to active duty as part of the overall buildup of military force ordered by President John F. Kennedy to meet the communist threat in Berlin and, possibly, elsewhere.

Again homeported at Pearl Harbor, Walton departed the west coast on 23 October for the Hawaiian Islands. She arrived eight days later and immediately commenced underway training evolutions. She later underwent a two-week availability alongside USS Hamul before she resumed underway training. On 4 December, the ship entered the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard to commence an overhaul that lasted through the end of the year 1961.

After further underway training evolutions in Hawaiian waters, Walton departed Pearl Harbor on 22 June, bound for the Marianas, on the first leg of her seventh WestPac deployment. After stopping for a day at Guam, she arrived in Subic Bay on 6 February. Nine days later, she got underway for Da Nang, South Vietnam.

Walton arrived off Da Nang on 17 February and immediately began patrols in company with units of the small South Vietnamese Navy. Returning to Subic Bay briefly toward the middle of March, and after visiting Manila and Hong Kong, the destroyer escort resumed patrols off the coastline of South Vietnam, operating from Da Nang. For the remainder of her tour, the destroyer escort was almost constantly on the move, shifting to Subic Bay and Yokosuka; and patrolling the strait of Korea, before she returned via Yokosuka to Pearl Harbor on 5 June.

Following a brief stint of local operations out of Pearl Harbor, Walton sailed for the west coast on 11 July 1962. Arriving at San Francisco on 1 August, she soon resumed her Naval Reserve training role.