Trafford Publishing: U.S.S. Hoquiam PF-5: Resurrected

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U.S.S. Hoquiam PF-5: Resurrected

by Mark Douglas

322 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #01-0087; ISBN 1-55212-688-9; US$26.50, C$29.95, EUR22.00, £15.50

This is about a warship formerly carried in the U.S. Naval Registry: Patrol Frigate, or PF. In the Forgotten War, they were the forgotten ships, never mentioned in the press or photographed in action. It is a conglomerate of twelve PF's re-commissioned for the Korean War.

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about the book about the author sample excerpt catalogue info

About the Book

This is the first book of four in the USS HOQUIAM PF-5 series: RESURRECTION, ROAD TO HUNGNAM, HOCKY MARU, and KNOCK OFF SHIP'S WORK. It is the continuing story of the USS HOQUIAM PF-5 as seen through the eyes of a young sailor, Lee Harrison Stewart. RESURRECTION is the story of restoring an old ship to active duty. As the Korean War begins, the Hoquiam is a rusting hulk in Yokosuka, Japan, Inner Harbor awaiting sale to other nations or to the scrap heap. Suddenly, there is a vital need for anything that floats to help the US Army and ROK Army in South Korea. Lee Stewart joins the pre-commissioning crew to prepare the ship for war. Resurrection ends when the crew is ready to commission the ship. ROAD TO HUNGNAM begins at the Hoquiam commissioning ceremony. Unexpectedly, the Hoquiam is ordered to Wonsan, North Korea for a couple of weeks and ends up staying along the East Coast of North Korea until December 24th at the end of the Hungnam Redeployment. The Hoquiam is ordered back to Yokosuka as this story ends New Year's Eve, 1950. HOCKY MARU begins the next day in Yokosuka. The Hoquiam is ordered to Sasebo as a Service Force non-combatant. After a brief period, the Hoquiam returns to the North Korean coast, continuing its war effort. KNOCK OFF SHIP'S WORK continues the Hocky Maru story. The crew fires hundreds of rounds of ammunition at Chinese Communist and North Korean forces. Abruptly, the crew is broken up and transferred to other duties as the Hoquiam is sold to the South Korean Navy as the ROKN Naktong PF65. While all this has been going on, we also follow Lee Harrison's romantic adventures in the US and Japan.

About the Author

Born in Pasadena, California. This Navy brat traveled around the US following his father. He joined the Navy in 1949 and went to Boot Camp at US Naval Training Center San Diego. Then, he served in the USS Chilton APA-38, Naval Station Tongue Point, USS Hoquiam PF-5, USS Perkins DDR-877, Naval Station Midway Island, USS Rockbridge APA-228, USS Navarro APA-215, USS Northamton CLC-1, Naval Communication Stations San Francisco and Guam, Defense Communications Agency Pacific, Naval Radio Station (T) Annapolis, and USS Northampton CC-1. Senior Chief Radioman Douglas retired from the Navy in 1968. In civilian life, he worked in several small computer companies where he wrote, taught, and troubleshot his way through a variety of data communications equipment for fifteen years. He operated a video production company for five years and is currently very active in community affairs in Santa Clara County and Cambrian area, San Jose, California.

Sample Excerpt

JUNE 1950

Following World War Two, the Republic of Korea was partitioned along North Latitude Thirty-eight degrees, commonly called the Thirty-eighth Parallel. North Korea let it be known they were going to force the consolidation of North and South Korea.
The U.S. Army organized the Military Assistance and Advisory Group (Korea), or K-MAAG, with headquarters located in Seoul, South Korea. K-MAAG, coordinating with Headquarters, Republic of Korea Army, placed U.S. Army observers and instructors in key locations where South Korean soldiers were garrisoned.
One detachment in Imjingak had as their office and billet, a moldy, weather beaten, unpainted building that creaked with every gust of wind sifting dirt through the walls with every breath of wind. The building, roughly five hundred yards south of the neutral zone, had been the Imjingak passenger and freight depot on a busy railroad during the Japanese occupation. Passenger and freight trains regularly moved between Seoul and Pyongyang, and points north and south, until Korea was partitioned in 1945. The Peoples' Democratic Republic of Korea closed the border with a locked gate and removed a section of railroad track on their side of the Thirty-eighth Parallel.
K-MAAG Detachment Imjingak consisted of First Lieutenant Elwood Q. Roner, USA Inf., Sergeant First Class Steven Powers, USA, Staff Sergeant Clinton L. Carver, USA, and Corporal Andrew S. Campbell, USA. The U.S. Army infantry detachment was not under arms.
Two jeeps fitted with ignition keys and equipped with the only radios the detachment had, were parked under open skies next to the rusty, overgrown railroad tracks just outside their office. South Korean Army sentries closely guarded those jeeps to prevent theft by civilians and other soldiers.
One of the jeeps, driven by Corporal Campbell, with First Lieutenant Roner and Sergeant First Class Powers as passengers, had departed for Seoul yesterday about 1200 hours to attend a barbecue and beer bust at K-MAAG Headquarters. They were expected back at 1200 hours today.

0415 Item, June 26
U.S. Army K-MAAG Detachment,
ROK Capitol Infantry Division
Imjingak, South Korea

Staff Sergeant Carver, asleep in his sweaty skivvies, woke abruptly, heart pounding, wondering what spooked him. He sat up, twisted his legs over the side of his cot to the floor, gripped the sides of his cot with both hands and listened, turning his head back and forth for the best sound. A faint rumble of many engines caused the window by his bunk to buzz in vibration.
"Tanks? Is that tanks?" Carver, unaware he had spoken in a hushed voice, strained his ears to identify the sound. His belly tightened. "Shit yeah, those are tanks and my ROK troops don't have tanks!" he said in a savage, angry tone.
Scrambling out of the bunk in his khaki skivvy shorts and shirt, he dashed to the door, opened it carefully, and chanced a look outside. While he was trying to locate the tanks, the rumbling of many engines at idle suddenly changed to a deep-throated roar, accompanied by squealing of metal moving against metal, as Soviet-built T-34 tanks moved toward the locked gate.
"God DAMN it!" he yelled, gripping the doorframe.
The ROK sentry tensely peering in the direction of the noise whipped toward Carver with his rifle at the ready. He shouted something to Carver, pointed in the direction of the noise with his rifle, crouched lower, and sprinted toward the border.
Staff Sergeant Carver ran back inside. Without wasted motion, he rapidly dressed in his fatigues, shook his boots upside-down for critters, jammed his feet into those cold, damp boots, stuffed socks in a pocket, put his helmet on, then grabbed a map case, canteen, field glasses, and keys to the remaining jeep.
He froze momentarily as the thump of mortars and sound of machine guns and rifles came from the north. "Shit," he spat out harshly as he realized his ROK troops were dying. Heavier explosions hammered his ears. His hearing memory was much too rusty to identify the weapons being fired. He looked left and right in the early morning darkness trying to pick out his field pack.
"Damn!" he said, remembering he had pulled his field pack apart last night to air out.
Time to go, Carver. Get your ass out of here!
Carver stepped back to his door and slid out, peering cautiously in both directions before dashing to the jeep. He tossed his stuff in the back and jumped in. He had to observe and radio a report to headquarters in Seoul what was going on with this border clash.
He fumbled nervously with the key, finally jamming the key in the ignition, and cranked the engine.
"Come on, come on, start, you bastard." The engine started with a roar and the jeep was rolling in a second.
Poking the nose of the jeep around the corner of the building onto the main road, he spotted a Russian T-34 tank, about three hundred yards away, rolling cautiously toward him. Its turret swung back and forth looking for targets. On the swing away that passed behind him, he jammed the gas pedal, bounced across the tracks, and gunned it across the road into a narrow alley, horn blaring, already filling with Korean civilians trying desperately to get out of the way of the armies.
Faces contorted with fear, the civilians yelled at him in anger as he forced the jeep through the alley, just as the T-34's shell exploded at the alley entrance. Carver looked behind him at the bodies scattered there. "Can't help them, now," he muttered.
Staff Sergeant Carver, a veteran of the World War Two European campaign, fervently wished he had any kind of weapon and prayed he didn't run into any more tanks. He drove with one hand on the wheel and the other on the horn button. The jeep horn beeped constantly to move the Korean civilians out of the way. He stopped nervously at every alley and street crossing to check for troop movement before moving across the street.
He wanted to get up on a hill where he could view this latest intrusion. There, it should be safe to radio K-MAAG headquarters in Seoul without getting his ass shot off. To his knowledge, the Peoples Democratic Republic of North Korea had never used tanks on previous border incursions.
North Korean artillery joined in. It was massive! Looking over his shoulder as he drove southwest through Imjingak, he could see flashes in the north, many flashes, as cannon fire erupted all along the border. Shell explosions were so close together that the roar of exploding shells and concussion were continuous.
Oh shit! Those guys aren't stopping, they're coming on!
If the situation weren't serious, he might have taken time to admire the gunfire's rapid flashing, spread out east and west along the border.
Carver reached the hill and drove to the top where he could see Imjingak and the border and compared it to the map laid out on his jeep hood.
This is bad shit!
Staff Sergeant Carver stepped to the rear of the jeep and flipped the radio power switches on. Adjusting the volume control, he picked up his handset and keyed the transmitter.

ANDOVER ANDOVER THIS IS ANDOVER THREE SEVEN ANDOVER THREE SEVEN -- OVER

He was antsy. There was nothing more he could do here. He had to leave here but he also needed to report this incursion. Bursts of static sounded in the radio speaker but no response from Seoul.

ANDOVER ANDOVER THIS IS ANDOVER THREE SEVEN ANDOVER THREE SEVEN -- OVER

He was edgy and getting angry -- K-MAAG Seoul Radio Room should have answered by now. The artillery explosions were definitely rolling closer. Small arms fire crackled, stuttered, and popped faintly between artillery bursts. Grenades exploded. There were many fires breaking out down in Imjingak: smoke settled low in the early morning light.
He jammed the handset in one ear and plugged his other ear with a finger, straining through the static and background hissing listening for K-MAAG Seoul's reply. Frowning in the morning twilight, Carver leaned over the receiver mounted in the back of the jeep and checked his adjustments. His voice had an urgent sound as he keyed his handset again.
Carver heard shouts at the bottom of the hill. He looked down at the North Korean soldiers pointing at him.
Fuck! I don't have much time.
His voice had an urgent sound as he keyed his handset again.

ANDOVER ANDOVER THIS IS ANDOVER THREE SEVEN ANDOVER THREE SEVEN -- OVER

The receiver snapped dead silent as a powerful transmitter was keyed. The radio operator couldn't keep the sound of boredom from his voice.

ANDOVER THREE SEVEN THIS IS ANDOVER -- OVER
THIS IS ANDOVER THREE SEVEN -- STANDBY TO WRITE --
BREAK
FLASH -- ENEMY CONTACT REPORT
BREAK
(Staff Sergeant Carver paused to think through what he wanted to say.)
MANY TARE THIRTY-FOUR TANKS CROSSING BORDER AT IMJINGAK 0415 ITEM X HEAVY ARTILLERY ROLLING BOMBARDMENT FROM NORTH KOREA COMMENCED ALL ALONG LINE SAME TIME X MACHINE GUN AND SMALL ARMS FIRE NEARBY X NORTH KOREAN INFANTRY CROSSING BORDER IN STRENGTH X ROK TROOPS ENGAGING SUPERIOR FORCE AND FALLING BACK X THIS IS NOT REPEAT NOT A BORDER INCURSION X HAVE ABANDONED ANDOVER THREE SEVEN HEADQUARTERS X MY LOCATION IS HILL SIX SEVEN SEVEN EAST OF SEOUL HIGHWAY X ADVISE
BREAK
ACKNOWLEDGE OVER

The K-MAAG Seoul operator's voice was crisp and rapid as he responded to Staff Sergeant Carver's message.

ANDOVER THREE SEVEN THIS IS ANDOVER, ROGER YOUR FLASH ENEMY CONTACT REPORT OUT

The radio operator dropped the microphone and raced from the Radio Room with the message to find the duty officer.
Staff Sergeant Carver crouched down, checking the North Korean troop and tank positions. Two Soviet-type YAK-15 fighter-bombers flashed by below his level, strafing South Korean troops along the Seoul road and railroad tracks.

ANDOVER THREE SEVEN THIS IS ANDOVER -- OVER
THREE SEVEN -- GO
THIS IS ANDOVER -- THIS IS A MOVORD X REPORT TO HEADQUARTERS ASAP -- OVER
THREE SEVEN -- WILCO OUT

Carver dropped the handset and dashed around to jump in the jeep. He heard the thump of mortars leaving their tubes. Staff Sergeant Clinton L. Carver did not hear the mortar impact on the seat next to him.

Catalogue Information