Scott # 634 Naval Ship Cover USS Blakley

Navy Cover, Dated 5/29/1935

Blakeley was launched 19 September 1918 by William Cramp and Sons Ship and Engine Building Company in Philadelphia and sponsored by the wife of Charles Adams Blakeley. The ship was commissioned 8 May 1919, under the command of Commander W. Brown, Jr.. She immediately joined the Atlantic Fleet. Blakely patrolled along the East Coast of the United States until she was decommissioned on 29 June 1922, and returned to Philadelphia. She was recommissioned from 1932 to 1937 to serve with the Scouting Fleet, and then was again decommissioned in Philadelphia.^[4] Low military budgets were the cause of these periods of inactivity, as the Navy did not have the funds or manpower to maintain a number of ships, including Blakeley.^[7]

Blakeley was again commissioned on 16 October 1939. She then joined the Neutrality Patrol until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entrance into World War II. She then began convoy duty in the Caribbean, including a February 1942 mission to guard a convoy carrying troops to garrison Curaçao in the Netherlands West Indies.

The heavily damaged USS Blakeley after the attack by U-156

On 25 May 1942, Blakeley was on a patrol off Martinique, inspecting all incoming ships for evidence of activities by Vichy French collaborators alongside her sister USS Ellis. At 08:30 a.m., she altered course to pursue a sound ping on her sonar. Nothing was found at the site of the ping, and the crew assumed it was caused by a school of blackfish. As the ship turned to resume its course, it was struck by a torpedo fired by the unnoticed German submarine U-156 under the command of Werner Hartenstein. The torpedo struck between frames 18 and 24 at about 4 feet (1.2 m) below her water line. The force of the impact blew off 60 feet (18 m) of her forward bow and forecastle. After several minutes, the crew determined they could still operate the ship, and it was brought back under control and sailed for Fort-de-France. The ship was steered with a combination of rudder and varying shaft speeds, and four hours after the attack, she was moored in Fort-de-France. Six men died and twenty one were wounded during the attack. Hartstein radioed a U-boat headquarters in Lorient requesting permission to finish Blakeley off, but permission was denied. Destroyers Breckinridge, Greer, Tarbell and two PBY Catalina planes from VP-53 were scrambled to assist the stricken Blakeley.^[8]

At Fort-de-France, she was fitted with a wooden bulkhead to cover the area blown off by the torpedo, and an anchor was improvised out of a truck’s axle and differential housing. She then sailed under her own power to San Juan, Puerto Rico where a steel stub bow was attached. From there, the steamed for Philadelphia Naval Yard for permanent repairs. During mid-1942, Blakeley was fitted with the forward section of her decommissioned sister ship, Taylor.^[10] She was also fitted with newer weapons and electronics systems, such as updated radar. Repairs were completed in September 1942 and she resumed her convoy duties in the Caribbean

Blakeley spent most of the rest of the war on convoy escort duty in the Caribbean Sea Frontier, except for two short deployments in the Atlantic Ocean. On 1 January to 23 February 1943 she was assigned to hunter-killer duty with Task Group 21.13 in the North Atlantic, and from 24 March to 11 May 1943, she escorted a convoy to Bizerte, Tunisia.^[4] From 18 March to 13 June 1945 she was stationed in New London, Connecticut, training U.S. submarines in Long Island Sound to avoid destroyers.^[9]

Following this duty, Blakeley was decommissioned at Philadelphia Naval Yard on 21 July 1945 and sold for scrap on 30 November 1945. She received one battle star for her wartime convoy duty