KOELSCH AND NEAL

John K. Koelsch was English, born in London and educated at the Choate School.  In 1940 he joined the Royal Air Force and fought in the Blitz.  He came to the United States in 1942 and joined the US Naval Reserve as an aviation cadet.  He was commissioned an Ensign on 14 September 1942 and flew torpedo bombers through WWII.  Remaining in the US Navy after the war, he completing a Bachelors degree in 1949 at Princeton.

With the outbreak of the Korean conflict he joined Helicopter Squadron 1 (HU-1) at Miramar, California, and learned to fly the two-seater Sikorsky H-5.  Helicopters, unarmed in this day, were used for medevac, reconnaissance, and recovery of downed pilots.  Summer of 1951 found Koelsch flying with the Helicopter Utility Squadron HU-2 “Fleet Angels” from USS PRINCETON (CV-37) off the eastern coast of North Korea.

In the late afternoon this day, PRINCETON received a distress call from USMC CPT James V. Wilkins, whose F4U Corsair had gone down deep in North Korea about 35 miles southwest of Wonson.  Wilkins parachuted to safety but sustained serious leg burns.  Despite the approaching darkness, foul weather, low ceilings, and enemy fire, Koelsch choppered to the Anbyon Valley.  A pass over the valley yielded no sign of the flier, yet Koelsch persisted.  On a second pass in thickening fog, Aviation Machinist’s Mate 3^rd Class George M. Neal spotted a collapsed parachute.  Wilkins was quickly located, and as enemy small arms fire erupted, a hoist was lowered to the Marine.  But the enemy fire took its toll as he was being raised.  The helo sputtered, the engine smoked, and with Wilkins still dangling, Koelsch guided the H-5 to a crash landing on a mountainside.  Quickly Neal and Koelsch rounded up the Marine and ducked under cover.  For three days the trio hid in the North Korean countryside.  When no rescue choppers were seen, they decided to strike for the coast, which they reached six days later.  Here they were captured while hiding in a native hut.

The three were taken to a POW camp where they were barely fed and subjected to beatings and brainwashing almost daily.  Such prisoners were often coerced into making propaganda statements and false confessions.  Koelsch endured the beatings and resisted such demands.  But shortly his weakened condition became complicated with dysentery.  Koelsch died in enemy custody on 16 October 1951.  For his disregard of personal safety in recovering the downed aviator, and his conduct as a POW, LTJG Koelsch was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.  Wilkins and Neal survived to be exchanged after the armistice in 1953.  Neal was awarded the Navy Cross.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  10 JUL 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 3 “G-K”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977. pp. 679-80.

Secretary of the Navy Public Affairs.  “SECNAV Names Destroyer in Honor of US Navy, Korean War Veteran.” 26 March 2019, AT: web.archive.org/web/20190326174417/https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story.id=109029/ retrieved 9 August 2024.

United States Congress.  United States of America’s Congressional Medal of Honor Recipients and their Official Citations.  Columbia Heights, MN: Highland House II, 1994, p. 203.

USS Koelsch (DE-1049) Commissioning.  Program from Commissioning Ceremony.  10 June 1967.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Koelsch is interred in Arlington Cemetery.  Our Garcia-class Cold War destroyer escort DE-1049, later FF-1049, remembers LTJG Koelsch.  AD3 Neal passed away on 1 December 2016 and also rests in Arlington.  Our Arleigh Burke-class destroyer GEORGE M. NEAL (DDG-131), currently under construction, honors the Navy Cross recipient.

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                                 ADVENTURES OF A NAVY BLIMP

The years between the World Wars saw the development of lighter-than-air zeppelins and blimps, initially useful in the civilian common carrier industry by virtue of their sustained cruising capabilities.  These same cruising and loitering potentials made blimps ideal for anti-submarine patrols off our coasts during WWII, and our Navy employed several classes of blimps for that purpose.  But these blimps often found themselves handy for a variety of other tasks.

K-67 was one such blimp operating out of Moffett Field near San Francisco.  Japanese submarines rarely visited our west coast, and K-67’s patrols with Squadron ZP-31 were often boring.  Her crew welcomed the occasional odd mission, as happened after her arrival in July 1943.  A man suspected of dodging his draft board was thought to be working on a fishing boat, out of reach of shore authorities.  K-67 was sent to locate that fishing boat at sea, which she did.  Her crew dropped messages wrapped around oranges, and the gentleman in question was corralled!

Then on this date K-67 was tapped for a rescue mission.  A Navy F6F Hellcat had crashed at sea, and a PBY Catalina sent to rescue her pilot landed hard in the heavy swells and split her seams.  The PBY quickly flooded down enough to prevent her ever getting airborne again.  Working in concert with K-59, K-67 was sent to locate the downed flyers near San Nicholas Island off Southern California.  Once overhead the crew of the PBY could be seen clinging to their half-sunken Catalina, but the pilot of the F6F floated face-down in the waves, apparently swimming weakly.  K-67’s pilot, ENS John Hoag, vectored nearby ships to the scene, then dove dangerously low to only 20 feet off the waves.  He dropped an automatically inflating life raft that landed within 15 feet of the F6F pilot, who made no effort to gain the raft.  In a desperate attempt to save the drowning pilot, ARM1c J.A. Sosnowski suspended himself on a rope 10 feet below the blimp’s gondola.  He had nearly reached the victim when a large wave knocked him away.  Soaked, but still clinging to the line, Sosnowski was towed through the water by Hoag, who skillfully maneuvered the blimp to bring the First Class safely within reach of the PBY.  Before any further rescue attempts were made, the crew of the PBY determined the pilot had drowned.

USS McFARLAND (DD-237) arrived in the next 30 minutes.  She recovered all the personnel and sank the flooded PBY with gunfire.  McFARLAND, herself, had an interesting history.  Commissioned DD-237 after WWI, she was converted to seaplane tender AVD-14 in 1940.  She was re-converted to DD-237 on 1 December 1943 and operated out of San Diego in carrier pilot training duties.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  16 MAY 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 4 “L-M”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1969, pp. 299-300.

Shock, James R.  U.S. Navy Airships 1915-1962: A History by Individual Airship.  Edgewater, FL: Atlantis Pub., 2001, p. 119.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  McFARLAND remembers, Captain of the Forecastle John McFarland, a Union sailor in the Civil War.  McFarland was in sickbay on 5 August 1864 when his ship, USS HARTFORD, led RADM Farragut’s squadron into Mobile Bay.  McFarland left his sickbed to man the wheel of HARTFORD as Farragut “damned the torpedoes” and charged ahead.  McFarland was awarded the Medal of Honor.

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                                             PALAWAN RESCUE

On the night of 13 August 1944, USS FLIER’s (SS-250) surface transit of the Balabac Strait off Borneo was suddenly blasted by a deafening explosion.  Like her sister, ROBALO (SS-273), two weeks earlier, FLIER had struck a Japanese mine.  The screech of twisting steel, the rush of water, and the cries of men only briefly split the night, for within 30 seconds the sub slipped 300 feet below.  Only 13 reached the surface.  After struggling for 15 hours in the water, eight washed up on Mantangula Island in the Philippines.

News of the overdue ROBALO and FLIER crackled across the radios at 7^th Fleet Headquarters in Brisbane, Australia, on 24 August.  Friendly natives had delivered the eight worn-out FLIER survivors to an Army coast watcher near Brooks Point on the Philippine island of Palawan.  Four earlier survivors from Robalo had not been so lucky.  They had fallen in with natives allied to the Japanese and been turned over to the enemy.  Evacuation was requested, but first 7^th Fleet Intelligence began a devilish game of confirming the message.

The coast watcher dispatch read as if it had been drafted by a naval officer, and it was signed by “Crowley”–FLIER’s skipper was CDR John D. Crowley.  Over the next days, however, Brisbane’s rescue scenarios were put on hold after it was learned that the non-com OIC of the Palawan coast watcher unit, an Army SGT named Corpus, had committed suicide (not an unusual fate among WWII coast watchers in the South Seas).  This news was followed on the 28^th by another transmission from Crowley requesting a pick-up at 2000 on 30 August off the Brooks Point lighthouse.  Security signals to be used by the survivors and by the lighthouse were detailed.  Crowley concluded with an additional request to co-evacuate several British missionaries and their families, who were fugitives from the Japanese.  This turn threw the authenticity of the message into question.  US intelligence held that the Brooks Point lighthouse was under enemy control.  Had the coast watch station been overrun?  Was it being used to lure an American sub into a trap?

In truth, the lighthouse was in the possession of pro-American guerrillas, and, in disregard for the possible danger, the “go-ahead” for a rescue was given.  Braving enemy waters on her 4^th war patrol, REDFIN (SS-272) appeared off Palawan this night and successfully retrieved CDR Crowley, his FLIER crewmen, and the missionaries.  Similar rescues by US submarines occurred throughout the war.  Were they retrieving shipwrecked seamen, extracting covert operatives, or recovering downed pilots, “lifeguard” operations by WWII submariners stand as one of their greatest unsung contributions.

Watch or more “Today in Naval History”  6 SEP 24

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Burns, R.C.  “Palawan Rescue”.  Proceedings, Vol 76 (6), June 1950, pp. 652-53.

Campbell, Douglas A.  Eight Survived.  Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2010.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 2, “C-F”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1963, p. 416.

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