USS Brush (DD-745) - Korea

Korea

In May 1950 she was ordered to the Far East and entered Formosan waters as a unit of TF 77 on 29 June 1950. She screened the carrier units during the United Nations air strikes against North Korea and participated in shore bombardment. On 26 September 1950 while shelling the shore off Tanchon, Korea, Brush struck a mine, ripping her midships section and breaking her keel. Thirteen men were killed and 31 injured. Brush received temporary repairs at Japan and returned under her own power to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, arriving 22 December 1950.

Almost a year later Brush departed on her second Korean cruise. She stopped at Pearl Harbor for one month and then joined TF 77 for anti-submarine and anti-aircraft duties off Korea until 25 February 1952. In March Brush was assigned to the Formosan patrol and then participated in hunter-killer exercises off Okinawa. She returned to Japan 12 April and joined the blockade of Korea's west coast with TF's 95 and 77. She returned to San Diego 26 June 1952.

Brush operated off the California coast until February 1953 when she commenced her third Korean cruise. She returned to the United States 30 August.

Brush conducted seven more Western Pacific deployments over the next decade (4 May – 5 December 1954; 30 June 1955 – 15 February 1956; 31 August 1957 – 1 March 1958; 25 October 1958 – 22 April 1959; 1 January – 28 July 1960; 29 July 1961 – 9 March 1962; 13 March – 1 October 1964), each involving carrier escort, ASW exercises and the occasional Formosa patrol. During the last 1964 deployment, Brush cruised in the Gulf of Tonkin as American intervention in Vietnam escalated.

Over the next five years, Brush conducted three Vietnam deployments (20 November 1965 – 13 May 1966; 8 April – 6 October 1967; 20 August 1968 – 4 March 1969), each marked by intensive patrol and gunnery operations in the South China Sea.

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