USS DeKalb County (LST-715)
History

Recommissioning and the Korean War

With the invasion of South Korea by the communists from the north in June 1950, the Navy requested the return of the LST from the Army and she was turned over to Naval custody on 25 July 1950. Taken to Yokosuka, Japan she was reinstated on the Naval Register on 10 August 1950 and assigned to LST Division 32. She was then recommissioned on 30 August 1950.

LST-715 at Kobe, Japan: the main deck (18kb)
Photo Copyright ©by J. R. Mitchell, ETSN,
all rights reserved, used with permission.

The following day she sailed to Kobe, Japan and commenced loading aboard Marine Corps combat cargo, ammunition, rations, vehicles and 16 LVTs along with 382 Marine Corps personnel.

Underway on 2 September, she rendezvoused with Task Group 90 and on 15 September was in the harbor off Inchon, Korea. After disembarking her Marine personnel in the LVTs, she commenced transferring ammunition from the SS Aiken Victory to the beach. She encountered no enemy opposition. Later she was used as a vehicle transport in the area.

Departing on 15 October 1950, she moved to the opposite coast of Korea and participated in the Wonsan invasion which lasted from 25-31 October. Until 18 November she was on various duties along the coasts of Korea and then returned to Yokosuka where she remained until 5 December 1950.

LST-715 at Inchon, Korea: 15 September 1950
Click on this thumbnail to see complete photo (99kb).

With the advent of Communist Chinese forces into the Korean conflict, the need for the redeployment of Marine Forces in the north was needed and the LST 715 was dispatched on 13 December 1950 to Hungnam where she arrived six days later. Until four days after Christmas, the LST transported troops and equipment from the port of Wonsan to Pusan and Pohang.

Leaving Yokosuka on 31 March 1951, she stopped for two days at Pearl Harbor and arrived at San Diego on 19 April for a yard overhaul and various training exercises. Departing from San Diego on 22 October, she returned to Yokosuka on 26 November. Used on various logistic missions between Japan and Korea, the LST 715 upped anchor in Yokosuka on 21 August and returned to San Diego via Pearl Harbor on 19 September where she stayed until 22 June 1953, when she left for her third tour of duty in the Far East.

From 21 July 1953 to 17 March 1954 she operated in the waters around Japan and Korea and then returned to San Diego for a yard overhaul on 16 August. Leaving San Diego on 3 January 1955 she arrived in Yokosuka on 1 February and remained until 4 April when she headed back to San Diego where she moored on 27 April 1955.

The following information was sent to me by a former shipmate:

I was assigned to the 715 and boarded her on 4/2/53 serving on her until early in January, 1954.

Contrary to your information, we sailed from San Diego for Hawaii (10 days) around May 20th, 1953, with some Marines and their vehicles which we unloaded at a Marine base & sailed on to Pearl Harbor, for refueling. We stayed there for a few days, over the Memorial Day holiday (I went on liberty with a home town buddy and his buddy from the LST 802 for that day). We sailed to Yokosuka, Japan with the 802 & 1 or 2 other LST(s)(20 days). We were scheduled to go into dry dock there, but with the ending of the Korean Conflict pending, we were sent to Pusan, Korea, arriving there either 45 or 1 hr & 45 minutes after the cease fire, which was 10 PM, June 27th (June 26th in the USA) earning us a battle star for being in Korean waters before the end of the fighting. (The cease fire lasted 12 hours, from 10 am to 10 PM.) We stayed a few days before being sent to Koje Do, the main prison camp where the North Korean prisoners were being held. We made several trips, until mid December, taking some of them to Inchon, where they were bused to Seoul for exchanging. A few refueling and resupplying trip were made to Sasebo, Japan during that time.

Over the Christmas and New Years holidays, we spent time on R&R (rest and recreation)in Kogashima (for Christmas) and Nagoya, Japan, (for New Years) on the way back to Yokosuka. It was there, in early January, that I took a transfer to the USS Satyr, ARL 23, a converted LST, for repairing LST. (Ironically, we had to temporarily repair the LST 715 which had been in a collision with the LST 914 during night maneuvers, off Okinawa, sometimes during February or March of 1954.) I believe that the 715 returned to San Diego during the summer of 1954.

Site Index | LST-715