Commissioning
The USS Koelsch, (DE/FF-1049: frigate), was named for Lieutenant (JG) John Kevin Koelsch, a Medal of Honor recipient. Koelsch was part of the United States Navy’s Garcia class of frigates, the eighth boat in the class. Defoe Shipbuilding and Construction Company of Bay City, Michigan, earned the contract in March of 1963 and laid down her keel on February 19, 1964. Koelsch launched on June 8, 1964. She was commissioned on June 10, 1967, carrying two hundred thirty-one enlisted men and sixteen officers under the command of CDR John A. Buck.
Underway
Koelsch started her first European-Mediterranean cruise from her new homeport of Newport, Rhode Island, in August 1968 and returned home that December. From January until late March of 1969, she stayed in drydock in Boston for post-shakedown availability. She spent the month of April carrying out exercises off the Virginia coast, and then in May she joined the task group led by the carrier Wasp in the eastern Atlantic. She returned to Newport in July for upkeep, and then took part in Operations Squeeze Play I in October and Squeeze Play II in December, which involved testing her antisubmarine capabilities.
Koelsch also took part in Operation Squeeze Play III in the western Atlantic starting in February of 1970, as well as more antisubmarine exercises, until the beginning of March. She spent the last two weeks of April conducting independent exercises off the Virginia coast before taking part in Squeeze Play IV in May and Squeeze Play V in June. For her outstanding performance in the Squeeze Play exercises, Koelsch earned the Rhode Island Navy League’s ASW Trophy as the best antisubmarine ship. From mid-September to late December, she stayed at the Boston Naval Shipyard for overhaul.
She began her refresher training in January 1971. Koelsch‘s refresher cruise included visits to Guantanamo Bay, Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico, St. Croix, USVI, and Kingston, Jamaica. She received orders to investigate a report about a Soviet submarine tender ship near the coast of Cuba that March. She reported no incident with either the submarine tender ship or the sub itself. During the summer, she took part in more Squeeze Play exercises as well as two midshipmen training cruises. That autumn saw Koelsch take part in several exercises, including a joint US-Canadian simulation in November.
Koelsch left Newport in March 1972 to join an operation with the navies of Portugal and Spain. She was on her way to join Destroyer Squadron 24 in mid-May but had to put in to Norfolk Naval Base to make repairs to her engineering section. After the repairs were completed, she made it back to Newport at the end of May. She started her first extended deployment in mid-June with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. She took part in task force operations until early July and made a stop in Naples for upkeep later that month. She took on antisubmarine operations in the Aegean Sea in August and participated in a NATO amphibious exercise in early September. During the last week of September, Koelsch put in to Athens for repairs on her boiler, then rendezvoused with other ships conducting ASW exercises in early October. For most of the rest of that month, she stayed in Barcelona for upkeep. She arrived back in Newport in December, now a unit of the US Second Fleet.
Koelsch took part in exercises to measure the effectiveness of new sonar tactics in March of 1973 and made two midshipmen training cruises that June. She made Destroyer School training cruises from late July until mid-August. She arrived at her new homeport of Mayport, Florida, on August 26. After she qualified for Naval Gunfire Support in October, she left for deployment to the Indian Ocean in November. She rendezvoused with her fellow classmate USS Brumby at Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico, and they sailed in company for their new assignment.
After making several port calls and taking part in exercises with the navies of Great Britain and Iran, Koelsch returned to Mayport in May, 1974, then headed to the Charleston Naval Shipyard in June for a scheduled overhaul until March of 1975. During that overhaul, she received several new systems ranging from firefighting and navigation to sonar and sewage collection. That May, she underwent more testing, retraining and evaluation cruises with the new equipment. On June 30, as part of a Navy-wide program, Koelsch was reclassified from a destroyer escort (DE) to a frigate (FF). After a refresher training cruise near Guantanamo Bay, she took part in the exercises CaribEx 1-76 in August, CompTUEx 3-76 in October and CompTUEx 4-76 in November.
From mid-January to mid-February 1976, Koelsch took part in antisubmarine warfare operations during the exercise CaribEx 2-76. In April, she left Mayport for a deployment in the Mediterranean with the Sixth Fleet. During that time, she took part in antisubmarine exercises Open Gate 76 and Sharem XXI. She also assisted with the evacuation of American citizens from Beirut, Lebanon, in June and July. Additional exercises followed through the summer and fall, with Galaxy Griddle and Side Saddle in September and Display Determination in October. She returned to Mayport in Late October and underwent significant upgrades and repairs well into January.
After completing antisubmarine exercises and weapons systems qualifications, Koelsch returned to Mayport in mid-February of 1977. She sailed into Norfolk in March for upkeep and preparation for Operation Cleansweep. In June, she moved north to Rhode Island for antisubmarine exercises near Narragansett. During the last week of July, she took part in ASW Week I. The exercise Sharem XXIII took up the first ten days of August. She used this time to accumulate more information and submarine tracking strategies for later evaluation. That October, Koelsch worked with NATO ships for the exercise Display Determination 77 and ASW Week II. She also participated in the NATO exercise Iles D’Or 77 in November and Poopdeck 2-77 in December before returning to Mayport on December 23.
Koelsch left Mayport to take part in exercise ReadiEx 1-78 in February 1978. After she finished her naval gunfire support qualifications, she returned to Mayport on March 1. She sailed into the Bethlehem Steel Shipyard in Baltimore on April 3 to begin another overhaul. After more than a year in drydock, Koelsch carried out sea trials off the coasts of Maryland and Virginia, and then reached Mayport in July 1979. She spent the rest of the summer conducting sound trials, weapons tests, and midshipmen training cruises. She took part in CompTUEx 1-80 in early October, and then spent the next six weeks preparing for a lengthy deployment to the Mediterranean. At the beginning of her deployment in early December, she worked through antisubmarine warfare tactics and task group operations. She spent the holidays docked in Toulon, France, until early January.
Koelsch started 1980 with more battle group operations followed by the exercise PhibLEx 3-80 off the Greek coast. She passed through the Suez Canal in early February and crossed the equator on February 12. She carried out surveillance operations on a Soviet antisubmarine task group in March and a Soviet helicopter cruiser in April before arriving back in Mayport in May. She spent July and early August taking part in the exercise ReadiEx 2-80 followed by CompTUEx 5-80 in early October and sea trials in November. After receiving upgrades to her communications and navigation systems, Koelsch sailed to the Mediterranean for another deployment with the Sixth Fleet. That December, she joined the Middle East Force in the Persian Gulf.
For the first two months of 1981, Koelsch sailed the Straits of Hormuz conducting radar picket and patrol operations. After a few stops, she arrived back at Mayport in late April. She spent the last two weeks of June sailing along the US east coast. She then joined the UNITAS XXII battle group in mid-July and headed for the South Atlantic to carry out operations with units from the navy of Brazil before coming back home at the end of August. She spent September and October under inspection and preparing for ReadiEx 1-82 in November.
Koelsch sailed out of Mayport on January 27, 1982, for the Mediterranean to carry out more antisubmarine exercises. She passed through the Suez Canal and entered the Persian Gulf in March to conduct radar picket duties, which would last until the end of April. She spent most of June in operations with other units of the Sixth Fleet near Lebanon before heading back home. She returned to Mayport in mid-July and conducted local operations until mid-October. She left for the Coastal Drydock and Repair Corporation’s facilities in Brooklyn, New York for an overhaul that would last nearly twelve months. She completed her dock trials and sea trials in late October of 1983 and returned to Mayport at the end of the month. After a month of inspections and testing, she was ready for duty again by December.
In January of 1984, Koelsch commanded a search and rescue mission for a downed US Drug Enforcement Agency helicopter that crashed near the Bahamas. Her crew was able to save two Bahamian law enforcement officers from the crash. After weapons testing and a post-overhaul shakedown cruise, she conducted refresher training during February and into March. She took part in the exercise CompTUEx 2-84 in April and headed back to Mayport to start a restricted availability period that lasted through the month of May. Starting in August, she participated in ReadiEx 2-84, which lasted until early September. She began another Mediterranean deployment in October, during which she trained with the submarine USS Gato and made contact with an unidentified submarine.
As she left the port of Palma in January of 1985, Koelsch suffered damage to one of her boilers, injuring an engineering crewman. She retuned to Palma before leaving for Barcelona to undergo repairs. With her boiler repairs completed, she left Barcelona in February and steamed for Naples to carry out antisubmarine operations in the Mediterranean. In March, she joined up with the guided missile cruiser USS Wainwright as they both sailed to the Black Sea. During her time in the Mediterranean, she earned the Hook’em Award for ASW Excellence. She returned to Mayport in May and left again in mid-June for ASW special operations. She had to undergo emergency repairs in Bermuda to fix another boiler in July. The arrival of Hurricane Isabel in October forced her out of Mayport to Blount Island for her own protection. She sailed back after the storm passed and underwent sea trials, inspections, upgrades and exercises through the rest of the year.
Koelsch assisted in the recovery of debris from the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in January 1986. After several inspections and a readiness review, she entered selective restricted availability in April. Starting on September 1, she spent more than six weeks carrying out refresher training and exercises. She sailed back to Mayport in December after several exercises and a stint in cooperation with US Coast Guard law enforcement operations.
During a law enforcement mission in January 1987, Koelsch, along with members of a Coast Guard team, recovered eighteen kilograms (forty pounds) of cocaine on board a Columbian-registered ship and arrested all twenty crewmen, then transferred the contraband, crewmen and ship to US authorities in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She conducted several successful weapons tests in March before rejoining the anti-narcotics efforts. She returned to Mayport in late April and underwent alterations and repairs on her boiler system into the first week of May. From August until October, Koelsch carried out special operations in the eastern Pacific and Central America. She also participated in Fleet League Week in New Orleans in late October before returning to Mayport.
Koelsch left home in January for a trip to Bath Iron Works in Maine for another overhaul. However, the Commander in Chief of the Atlantic Fleet issued a stop-work order as all ships of Koelsch’s class were to be decommissioned and sold to foreign navies. Due to schedule changes, funding issues and labor stoppages, the work required to make KOELSCH available until February of 1989.
Decommissioning
Koelsch was decommissioned on May 31, 1989 and stricken from the Naval Register on August 19, 1994. After her decommissioning, she was leased to the Pakistani Navy and renamed SIQQAT. Pakistan returned the ship to the US Navy, who sold her for scrap in 1994.
Characteristics of the USS Koelsch (Source: Wikipedia)
Class and type: Garcia-class frigate
Displacement: 2,624 tons (light)
3,400 tons full
Length: 414 ft 6 in (126.3 m)
Beam: 44 ft 1 in (13.4 m)
Draft: 24 ft 6 in (7.5 m)
Propulsion: 2 Foster-Wheeler boilers, 1 steam turbine, 35,000 shp, single screw
Speed: 27 knots
Range: 4,000 nautical miles (7,000 km) at 20 knots (40 km/h)
Complement: 16 officers, 231 enlisted
Sensors and processing systems: AN/SPS-40 air search radar
AN/SPS-10 surface search radar
AN/SQS-26 bow mounted sonar
Armament: 2 x 5″/38 Mk 30(2×1)
1 8-tube ASROC Mk16 launcher (16 missiles)
6 x 12.75 in (324mm) Mk 32 (2×3) torpedo tubes, Mk 46 torpedoes
2 x MK 37 torpedo tubes (fixed, stern) (removed later)
Aircraft carried: Gyrodyne QH-50 (planned) / SH-2 LAMP
Career:
Namesake: Lieutenant (JG) John Kevin Koelsch
Ordered: 20 March 1963
Builder: Defoe Shipbuilding and Construction Company of Bay City, Michigan
Laid down: 19 February 1964
Launched: 8 June 1965
Commissioned: 10 June 1967
Decommissioned: 31 May 1989
Struck: 19 August 1994
Fate: Sold to Trusha Investments Pte. Ltd, c/o Jacques Pierot, Jr. & Sons, Inc., of New York City for $625,824. Scrapped in Hong Kong
Timeline:
February 1964 – USS Koelsch keel laid down
June 1966 – USS Koelsch launched
June 1967 – USS Koelsch commissioned
August 1968 – USS Koelsch deployed to Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean
April 1969 – USS Koelsch conducted individual exercises near Virginia capes
May 1969 – USS Koelsch deployed to Eastern Atlantic
September 1970 – USS Koelsch underwent overhaul in Boston Naval Shipyard
June 1972 – USS Koelsch deployed to Mediterranean
March 1973 – USS Koelsch took part in National Week exercise near Souda Bay, Crete
November 1973 – USS Koelsch deployed to Indian Ocean
June 1974 – USS Koelsch underwent overhaul in Charleston Naval Shipyard
June 1975 – USS Koelsch reclassified from destroyer escort (DE) to frigate (FF)
April 1976 – USS Koelsch deployed to Mediterranean
January 1977 – USS Koelsch took part in exercise CaribEx 1-77
July 1977 – USS Koelsch deployed to Mediterranean
April 1978 – USS Koelsch underwent overhaul in Baltimore, Maryland
November 1979 – USS Koelsch deployed to Mediterranean and Middle East Force
July 1980 – USS Koelsch took part in exercise ReadiEx 2-80
November 1980 – USS Koelsch deployed to Mediterranean and Middle East Force
November 1981 – USS Koelsch took part in exercise ReadiEx 1-83
January 1982 – USS Koelsch deployed to Mediterranean and Middle East Force
October 1982 – USS Koelsch underwent overhaul in Brooklyn, New York
October 1983 – USS Koelsch carried out post-overhaul sea trials
October 1984 – USS Koelsch deployed to Mediterranean
January 1985 – USS Koelsch required repairs on 1A boiler
January 1986 – USS Koelsch took part in debris recovery from space shuttle Challenger accident
January 1987 – USS Koelsch confiscated forty pounds of cocaine from Columbian-registered vessel
October 1987 – USS Koelsch deployed to Eastern Pacific
January 1988 – USS Koelsch started overhaul in Portland, Maine
May 1989 – USS Koelsch decommissioned
August 1994 – USS Koelsch stricken from Naval Vessel Register
Crewmembers of the USS Patterson:
An unofficial list of crewmembers that served on the USS Koelsch can be found on the unofficial navy website at: http://navysite.de. This list is compiled by former crewmembers that voluntarily register. Some quoted comments from former crewmembers are listed below; many more are available on the source website at the following web address:
http://navysite.de/crew.php?action=ship&ship=FF_1049
Bill Parsons: (Served from June 1967 – July 1968) “Plank Owner. Went to Gitmo on the shakedown. Hung out drinking coffee in the signal shack. Hello Kelly, Delzer, Vick, Powers, Young, Torres, Butch and Wilkie (you carried my sea bag when I got out)”
Bruce Durand: (Served from February 1970 – June 1972) “I was a Hull Technician. While onboard Koelsch I went to Maine, Canada, Portuguel, Spain, Cuba, Virgin Islands (St Croix), Puerto Rico. Would love to hear from anyone that was onboard with me.”
Cliff Mansfield: (Served from 1977 – 1980) “I still have dreams that I’m back on the Koelsch. Not sure why or if I like it or not. That ship really stayed underway most of time when she wasn’t in the shipyards. Remember the Iran hostage rescue attempt?”
Joe Walker: (Served from August 1982 – October 1986) “On the Koelsch over 4 years! Remember a lot of the snipes and o’s & other rates. Good times. Converted to IS in USNR & found myself turning 40 in Iraq with a Toyota and an M4. Can say the Nav never failed to give me some good stories.”
Larry Hicks: (Served from August 1986 – May 1989) “I served on board the USS Koelsch during the last years of her life. I made a Central American deployment on board the Koelsch. I was completed an overhaul in Portland, Maine and decommissioning in Charleston, SC “
Links:
http://www.mesotheliomaweb.org/mesothelioma/veterans/navy-destroyers-post-ww2/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Koelsch_(FF-1049)
http://navysite.de/crew.php?action=ship&ship=FF_1049
http://www.navsource.org/archives/06/06021049.htm
http://www.destroyersonline.com/usndd/ff1049/contents.htm
http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/k5/koelsch.htm
