CHAPTER 3

ARCHIVE INDEX

July 1940-January 1942: USS NEVADA along with classmates Boehm, Cook, Cain, Egan, Hearn, Hill, Jeffrey, Sullivan, Taylor, Treanor, and Witter. In drydock in PH when PH attacked. Sunk in channel. An armor-piercing bomb went through Nesbitt's stateroom. Survival was "the order of the day." Survivors became the salvage crew. NEVADA to be sent to Bremerton for repairs and modernizing. Dec. 31, still in PH. Impressions: "Lots to learn" and lots of time to do it, but officers not interested in teaching. Liberty focal point of schedule. "Old equipment, old officers, old doctrine."

Jan 1942-May 1943: NEVADA (BB 36), the ship was salvaged and refloated in Pearl Harbor in Feb '42 and left Bremerton, in Dec '42 for retraining. May '42: NEVADA reached Bremerton and Nesbitt was promoted to Assistant First Lt., Damage Control Officer. Summer '42: selected to attend graduate program in Naval Construction and Marine Engineering at MIT. Lesson learned: '42 was an enormous transition, from peace to war; from being the very junior to rapid advancement; from very limited advancement to large blocks of unexpected duties, responsibilities and authority; and a total new set of professional goals and disciplines.

Resume: positions include A) CO, TIGRONE (SSR 419), B) ROSS (DD 563), C) ELOKOMIN (AO 55), and D) U.S. Naval Security Station, E) Officer-in-Charge, Office of Legislative Affairs, F) N-1, Staff, Commander in Chief, U.S. Naval Forces, Europe, London, and G) President, National Clay Pipe Institute.

Line listing of service and civilian positions. Resigned USN 1947. GE and Alco Power until 1982; then retired.

1942: a. O'Neill was on board the PHOENIX heading for Australia, escorting merchant men carrying a squadron of Army Air Corps fighter planes, P-40's, and landed in Melbourne. b. At Perth, made a couple of sorties toward the North and the Java straits, the ABDA command was completely disorganized. c. Picked up a convoy consisting of the Langley, and the intent was for us to escort this conglomerate to Tjilichat. At south of the objective, ABDA command ordered us to drop our convoy and proceed west toward Trincomalee. No reason was given.

Shortly after, the Langley was sunk by Japanese carrier planes. Survivors were rescued and about this time, the ABDA command was dissolved, and there we sat, no orders, no boss. d. Witnessed the Saratoga get torpedoed. Lesson learned: 1. Usefulness of a combined command formed on the spot with no previous tactical thought and no combined objective is doubtful. 2. We must base our plans on expected Allied reactions based on realistic evaluation of their capabilities and national determination. 3. Our equipment was probably the best in the world at the time.

"Destroyers": This is an important account of post-World War II destroyer service. (O'Neill did not enter the destroyer community until after World War II -- except for a midshipman cruise in a four-stacker -- so that his perspective is somewhat different from that of other postwar destroyermen. He points out that there was a great postwar movement from the submarine to the destroyer community.)

His first destroyer duty was as XO of the destroyer COLLETT (DD-730). The COLLETT was scheduled for deployment to WesPac in July 1950, but that spring two destroyers in WesPac had collided so the COLLETT and the destroyer SWENSON left in early May for an early start on their tour in the Far East. Gunnery practice on the voyage to Japan served the ship well during her work in offshore naval gunfire bombardment during the upcoming Korean War.

When the vessel arrived in the Far East, it was assigned to patrol the "MacArthur Line" between Japan and Korea to prevent piracy against undefended Japanese shipping by the Nationalist Chinese and South Korean navies. O'Neill recounts one incident during which he intercepted three Nationalist Chinese junks preying on Japanese and Okinawan fishermen. ""Presumably their intent eventually was to go on to Taiwan, but the lure of undefended Japanese and Okinawan fishermen was too much, and they embarked on a run that would have made Blackbeard green with envy." The COLLETT also provided distant cover for a transport, the GENERAL ANDERSON, carrying American diplomats -- including Consul Angus Ward, who had been imprisoned and later expelled by the Chinese -- from China from Tsingtao to Hong Kong.

Following the outbreak of the Korean War, the COLLETT escorted shipping from Japan to Pohang, then participated in the Inchon landing. O'Neill provided a good account of the problems of forcing an entry into Inchon harbor. At 1300 on 13 September 1950, the landing began with a "reconnaissance in force," which, according to O'Neill, "meant draw fire! Six destroyers were to anchor in column in a line stretching from the far side of Wolmi do to Suwolmi do," two islands that guarded the passage from the Flying Fish Channel to the Inchon docks. "The idea was to use probing fire at targets of opportunity to see if we could stir something up. Only five ships actually made it to the anchorage, though. On the way in we hit the first Korean mines. These were the old-style moored mines, contact actuated. Apparently the North Koreans expected us to come in at dawn, at high tide, and had moored their mines at a depth to be effective at that depth of water." As a result, the mines were clearly visible. The last destroyer in the column was detached to destroy the mines with small arms fire. During the firefight, the COLLETT took nine hits and one rifle ball through the stack and one of the shells started a minor fire that was quickly brought under control.

Although O'Neill considered the COLLETT " a tired old ship at this point," Admiral Struble, commander 7th Fleet, decided that since she had been the first to enter Pusan at the outset of the war, the first to enter Pohang, and the first to enter Inchon harbor, that she would lead the destroyers into Wonsan. "The landing at Wonsan was the exact opposite of the one at Inchon. Here nothing worked right." When the landing force encountered mines, "troubles immediately piled up." The COLLETT had an admiral embarked, and a mine expert and a mine division commander, also. "To initiate the J-sweep, a helicopter flew ahead of the sweeps and reported to the COLLETT the location of the mines relative to the sweeps. Unfortunately, neither the admiral nor the mine expert was at home in a CIC, and in the confusion important information was not recognized as such and we needlessly lost the PIRATE and the PLEDGE. (Note: There are Notes on an interview with O'Neill on this incident elsewhere in the Archive. O'Neill makes some interesting comments on the 2,200-ton destroyer and observes some of the difficulties with aluminum superstructures and problems operating in cold weather.)

The COLLETT returned to San Diego and O'Neill was ordered to take command of the recommissioned destroyer ABBOTT in Long Beach. O'Neill recounts in detail his difficulties in getting the ship ready for a trip to Philadelphia for a mobilization overhaul. "The only thing I can say about the modernization of the 2100 destroyer is that it was a disaster from the beginning." The new superstructure was aluminum, which caused all manner of problems. He goes into quite interesting detail about the overhaul and the problems it caused for the ship. (Note: O'Neill describes the removal of the torpedo and gives his observations about destroyers and torpedoes from his perspective as a former submariner. His conclusion was that "the surface torpedo had been relegated to the same priority as mine warfare.) The ABBOTT was then deployed for over two years with the 6th Fleet.

"The years of the Korean War were an education in unpreparedness and the folly of hasty material catch-up."

Ends with the belief that we have not learned from past experiences, especially with mine sweeping.