Very dear friends,
I am opening a new thread in this forum to introduce my new project to you all: the destroyer D25 Jorge Juan, that served with distinction in our Spanish Navy for many years, first as a member of the Desron 21, and then as a high seas patrol ship, assigned to the Ferrol Division.
She served with so high distintion in WW2 that I cannot resist to write some brief notes about her.
Jorge Juan was one of the units of the second series of the prolific Fletcher class, one of those that received the squared bridge. Of course she was not born as Jorge Juan, but as USS McGowan DD678, having the name of counter admiral Samuel McGowan, a brilliant logistics administrator.
As it was the case in WW2, her construction was meteoric, and lasted six mothns sharp: keel on June 30th. 1943 in the Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, Kearny, New Jersey; she was launched on Nov. 14th. with the assistance of Mrs. Rose McGowan-Cantey, sister of the late Cadm. McGowan, and commisioned on Dec. 20th.1943. She fought with distintion in the war, with a climax in the torpedo attack against the Japanese fleet in the famous action off Surigao Straits, in the battle of Leyte Gulf, in which Fuso was sunk.
This is her profile at the time:
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She was decommisioned in 1946, to be comissioned again in 1951 to take part in the Korean War. She was deployed afterwards with the 6th. Fleet in the Meditarranean, where she took part in the Suez Crisis in 1956 and the actions off the Lebanese coast in 1958, before being transferred to the Spanish Navy on Dec. 1st. 1960 in Barcelona.
This was McGowan in the mid 50´s, with the post war modifications: tripod mast, main armament already reduced to four and upgraded AA baterry with the common 75 mm. guns. Her crew can truly say that they were serving in a place where many other people usually go only to their honeymoon.
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Upon her arrival to Spain she was named D25 Jorge Juan, after Captain Jorge Juan y Santacilia, eminet navigator, mathematician, astronomer and naval constructor. A fully illustrated 18th. century gentleman.
The ship was already a veteran when she arrived in our Navy, and was one of the members of the spearhead unit of our Navy, the Desron 21, that had an extremely intense service until its units were replaced by the Descubierta-class corvettes in the mid.80´s. This was her atractive outline in the mid.60´s, at the peak of her service in the Desron 21:
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Desron 21 had a very useful active life, that marked a before and an after in our Navy. Active, although aliquando non incruenta, as Almirante Valdés can testify, after finding a pier that perhaps was not there before:
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I have not found details of this incident, but I have no doubt whatsoever that somebody had to give long, careful and painful explanations to somebody else.
Anyhow, everybody knows that to make an omelette you have to break the eggs before, and that only those who never do anything make no mistakes.
To say nothing of the mere fact that not only these incidents were scarce, but also that they were not exclusive of our Navy. USS Hatfield, a flushdecker, that once found the pier as well:
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And even USS Wisconsin herself…
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… who starred an incident in the "interesting" chapter when she boarded USS Eaton with this brilliant outcome, that certainly could have been much worse:
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Special merit to USS Belknap, that got under the structures of USS J.F. Kennedy, to discover at her own expense that alu structures burn way easier than steel ones:
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And when at work, Europeans can do it as well and with spectacular success, as minehunter Grömitz not too long ago:
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And not to mention the stranding of USS Missouri at Hampton Roads, or the exclusive way in which USS Eisenhower mended Urduliz´s bow also in Norfolk en 1988, or how HMS Camperdown finished HMS Victoria´s carreer in an incident that has got its own honour place in the anthology of naval absurd. So, whatever Navy is clean of fault, cast the first stone.
With all the normal incidents proper of very active units, Desron 21 rendered very useful services and made History in our Navy. The beautiful lines of Jorge Juan were familiar to many ports, first as destroyer and then as a patrol ship, before being decomissioned and scrapped in Ferrol in 1988.
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I hope this construction will be of your interest.
Willie.
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They are now like this:
