Named for a region which lies just east of the Appalachian Mountains in Pennsylvania, Virginia and the Carolinas, USS Piedmont (AD-17), was a Dixie class destroyer tender which was laid down by the Tampa Ship Building Company of Tampa, Florida on December 1, 1941, launched December 7, 1942 and commissioned on January 5, 1944. Piedmont displaced 17,176 tons when full and could make 18.5 knots. Piedmont was over 530 feet in length. Though lightly armed with 4 x 5"/38 DP and 4 x 2 40mm and 23 x 20mm guns, her principle role was resupply and repair of Naval destroyers. During the month of July 1944 alone, 99 ships were provisioned with 888 tons of stores. Piedmont served in that repair and replenishment role during the occupation of Japan, the Korean war and the Vietnam war.
   An interesting note is of the involvement of Piedmont and of the ship that would serve eventually as the DASH concept, development and trials ship, that being the USS Hazelwood (DD-531):

   "The most badly battered of the battle damaged ships serviced by PIEDMONT at Ulithi was destroyer HAZELWOOD (DD-531) which came alongside 4 May 1945. Her entire bridge superstructure was a mass of tangled wreckage, a bomb explosion had blown a 15 by 15 foot hole in her starboard side, main deck; her forward stack had been completely destroyed; extensive bomb damage extended down to her second platform, and her interior and fleet radio room had been destroyed. Numerous dead had still to be removed from the wreckage. All repairs effected were temporary and on 24 May HAZELWOOD sailed for the United States and a Navy Yard for rebuilding."

YELLOWSTONE performed faithful service to the Fleet for the next 28 years, providing repair, supply, and auxiliary services (power and fresh water, etc.) not only to destroyers (the purpose for which she was designed) but also to aircraft carriers and submarines. In time, this valuable adjunct to the fleet earned a reputation for reliability and dependability that caused some to nickname her "Old Faithful", after the famous geyser in Yellowstone National Park. The destroyer tender also earned the coveted battle efficiency "E" award 10 times.

   YELLOWSTONE was deployed to the Mediterranean 11 times between 1947 and 1968. Her ports of operation ranged from Izmir, Turkey, to Naples, Italy; from Venice to Taranto, from Suda Bay, Crete, to Gibraltar. From 1962 through 1970, YELLOWSTONE acted as a "at sea" training facility for Naval technicians charged with maintaining DASH on destroyers. YELLOWSTONE also maintained 3 QH-50C/D aircraft on board to replace losses on destroyers.

     On July 1, 1961, USS JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, Jr. arrived at New York Naval shipyard for her FRAM ( Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization ) overhaul. There the Mark I overhaul (replaced one 5" gun for a new helicopter flight deck and hangar aft) and conversion brought on board the newest in technical equipment and weaponry, including ASROC and DASH. By May 1962, the FRAM work was complete and USS JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, Jr. conducted a shakedown cruise until August. By October 22, KENNEDY was assisting with  the quarantine order issued by President Kennedy to prevent offensive missiles from being placed in Cuba. She remained on patrol in the Caribbean until December 7, 1962 when she returned to Newport. Additional highlights of KENNEDY's career: In 1965- assistance in qualifying two Polaris submarines; the U.S. Man In Space program-1965, Recovery operations following the successful 4-day flight of Gemini 12- 11/65; 

    By December 1972,  the Kennedy had taken her final cruise to the Mediterranean with the sixth fleet, as a member of DesRon 24. Upon her return to Norfolk, the ship was then decommissioned and stricken on July 1 1973 from the Navy Register of Ships.

     Today, it is with great pleasure to state that the USS JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, Jr.(DD-850) proudly exists to this day and that she is berthed at Battleship Cove in Fall River, Massachusetts. The volunteers there are restoring Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. to her FRAM-1 state and will have a completely new QH-50C DASH exhibit to show how the Drone Anti-Submarine helicopter operated from her decks. It has been a pleasure for the Gyrodyne Helicopter Historical Foundation to be a part of assisting in that effort.

     OUR ONLY BATTLESHIP TO OPERATE DASH, was the USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62). While the DASH command and control equipment WAS installed on the NEW JERSEY while she was in Subic Bay in September 1968, the irony is that the equipment was NOT for the ASW version of DASH, but the Gun-Spotting surveillance version of DASH called SNOOPY.  

By May 1951, NEW JERSEY was using helicopters operating from aft of her aft turret as gun spotting and rescue aircraft. These aircraft operated where the crane had been used to hoist the former OS2U Kingfisher sea planes from sea and reset them on her aft catapults. These new helicopters were used as she supported ground forces during the Korean war.

For the Vietnam war, the NEW JERSEY was Recommissioned on 6 April 1968. Fitted with improved electronics and an actual helicopter landing pad and with her 40-millimeter battery removed, she was tailored for use as a heavy bombardment ship. Her 16-inch guns, it was expected, would reach targets in Vietnam inaccessible to smaller naval guns and, in foul weather, safe from aerial attack. 

It was during this time in September 1968, that the SNOOPY control and telemetry system was installed on the NEW JERSEY while she was berthed in Subic Bay. While NEW JERSEY was not to actually fly the SNOOPY QH-50s FROM her own decks, NEW JERSEY was to operate with destroyers that did. After the QH-50s were flown off the destroyer deck, NEW JERSEY would then take command of the aircraft for gun-spotting. While the basic QH-50 worked well with Destroyers using 5" guns that had a range of 10 miles for shore bombardment, the NEW JERSEY's 16" guns required a longer range QH-50 to accommodate the 22.8 mile range of those guns and loiter time over the targets to be destroyed. While the longer range QH-50D was being tested, the NEW JERSEY entered the fight near the 17th Parallel on 30 September 1968, the dreadnought fired her first shots in battle in over sixteen years. 

Firing against Communist targets in and near the so-called Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), her big guns destroyed two gun positions and two supply areas. She fired against targets north of the DMZ the following day, rescuing the crew of a spotting plane forced down at sea by antiaircraft fire. 

The next six months self into a steady pace of bombardment and fire support missions along the Vietnamese coast, broken only by brief visits to Subic Bay and replenishment operations at sea. In her first two months on the gun line, New Jersey directed nearly ten thousand rounds of ammunition at Communist targets; over: 3,000 of these shells were 16-inch projectiles.

Are you concerned about our U.S. Armed forces and the effects of the terrorist attacks made on our soil on September 11, 2001?

If so, we urge all visitors to make a donation to the American Red Cross to help aide the victims and families of not only the attacks on Tuesday, September 11 2001, but ALSO the attack on the destroyer USS COLE (DDG-67) which was attacked by terrorists while in Aden harbor, on October 12, 2000; killing 17 of her crew.