USS Mason (DE-529)
{{other ships|USS Mason}}
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{{Infobox ship image |Ship image=File:USS Mason DE-529.jpg |Ship caption=USS Mason with dazzle camouflage}} {{Infobox ship career |Hide header= |Ship country=United States |Ship flag={{USN flag|1945}} |Ship name=Mason |Ship namesake= |Ship ordered= |Ship awarded= |Ship builder= |Ship original cost= |Ship yard number= |Ship way number= |Ship laid down=14 October 1943 |Ship launched=17 November 1943 |Ship sponsor= |Ship christened= |Ship completed= |Ship acquired= |Ship commissioned=20 March 1944 |Ship recommissioned= |Ship decommissioned=12 October 1945 |Ship maiden voyage= |Ship in service= |Ship out of service= |Ship renamed= |Ship reclassified= |Ship refit= |Ship struck=1 November 1945 |Ship reinstated= |Ship homeport= |Ship identification= |Ship motto= |Ship nickname= |Ship honours= |Ship honors= |Ship captured= |Ship fate=Sold for scrap 1947 |Ship notes= |Ship badge= }} {{Infobox ship characteristics |Hide header= |Header caption= |Ship class={{sclass|Evarts|destroyer escort}} |Ship displacement= {{convert|1140|ST|t|abbr=off}} |Ship length={{convert|289|ft|5|in|m|abbr=on}} |Ship beam={{convert|35|ft|1|in|m|abbr=on}} |Ship height= |Ship draft={{convert|8|ft|3|in|m|abbr=on}} |Ship depth= |Ship power= |Ship propulsion= |Ship sail plan= |Ship speed={{convert|21|kn}} |Ship range= |Ship endurance= |Ship complement=156 officers and men |Ship sensors= |Ship EW= |Ship armament=*3 × 3-inch/50-caliber guns
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USS Mason (DE-529), an {{sclass|Evarts|destroyer escort}}, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named Mason, though DE-529 was the only one specifically named for Ensign Newton Henry Mason. USS Mason was one of two US Navy ships with largely African-American crews in World War II. The other was {{USS|PC-1264}}, a submarine chaser.{{cite web |url=http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/011264.htm |title=Submarine Chaser PC-1264 |access-date=21 August 2007 |publisher=NavSource Naval History}} These two ships were manned by African Americans as the result of a letter sent to President Roosevelt by the NAACP in mid-December 1941. Entering service in 1944, the vessel was used for convoy duty in the Battle of the Atlantic for the remainder of the war. Following the war, Mason was sold for scrap and broken up in 1947.
Namesake
Newton Henry Mason (24 December 1918 – May 1942) was a United States Navy fighter pilot who was killed in action at the Battle of the Coral Sea.
Mason was born in New York City on 24 December 1918. He enlisted as a seaman in the United States Naval Reserve on 7 November 1940 and on 10 February 1941 was appointed an aviation cadet. Assigned to U.S. Navy Fighting Squadron 3 (VF-3) aboard the aircraft carrier {{USS|Saratoga|CV-3|6}} as a Grumman F4F Wildcat fighter pilot in September 1941, he reported to VF-3 while it was stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Ewa, Territory of Hawaii, in January 1942 after Saratoga had been damaged by a Japanese submarine torpedo.Lundstrom, p. 64.
Later reassigned to Fighting Squadron 2 (VF-2), Ensign Mason{{'}}s first and only aerial combat occurred during the Battle of the Coral Sea on 8 May 1942, when he disappeared during action with Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft and was declared missing in action, probably the victim of Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters from the Japanese aircraft carrier Shōkaku.Lundstrom, pp. 333, 618–619.
Mason was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his skill and courage in battle.
Service history
Mason's keel was laid down in the Boston Navy Yard, on 14 October 1943. She was launched on 17 November 1943, sponsored by Mrs. David Mason, the mother of Ensign Mason, and commissioned on 20 March 1944.
Following a shakedown cruise off Bermuda, Mason departed from Charleston, South Carolina, on 14 June, escorting a convoy bound for Europe, arriving at Horta Harbor, Azores, on 6 July. She got underway from Belfast, Northern Ireland, headed for the East Coast on 26 July, arriving at Boston Harbor on 2 August for convoy duty off the harbor through August.
On 2 September, she arrived at New York City to steam on 19 September in the screen for convoy NY.119. Mason reached Falmouth, Cornwall, with part of the convoy 18 October, and she returned to New York from Plymouth, England, and the Azores on 22 November.
On 18 October, Mason supported Convoy NY-119 in a severe North Atlantic storm.{{cite web |url=http://www.ussmason.org/story/5convoy.htm |title=The Ordeal of Convoy NY-119 |work=Proudly We Served Website |access-date=23 January 2012}} The ship suffered and self-repaired critical structural damage and still rescued ships from the convoy. The crew of Mason was not awarded a letter of commendation until 1994 for meritorious service during this action.{{cite web |url=http://www.jodavidsmeyer.com/combat/bookstore/ussmason.html |title=USS Mason and Black Sailors in the WWII Navy |work=African-Americans Proudly Serving in WWII |access-date=23 January 2012}}{{cite web |url=http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=5704 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041106171554/http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=5704 |url-status=dead |archive-date=6 November 2004 |title=USS Mason’s History Makes for Bright Future |author=PCU Mason Public Affairs |date=7 February 2003 |publisher=U.S. Navy |access-date=23 January 2012}}
Mason joined Task Force 64 at Norfolk, Virginia, on 17 December. Two days later she sailed in convoy for Europe, passing by Gibraltar on 4 January 1945 to be relieved of escort duties. Continuing to Algeria, she entered Oran on 5 January for the formation of Task Group 60.11. The escort ship cleared Oran 7 January. Four days later the Mason made radar contact with a surface target. She rang up full speed with all battle stations manned to attack the presumptive submarine, rammed, and dropped depth charges. Unable to regain contact, the ship returned to the contact point, where searchlight revealed the target—a wooden derelict about {{convert|100|by|50|ft}}. Mason then steamed to Bermuda for repairs, entering St. George's Harbor on 19 January. Five days later she reached the New York Navy Yard.
On 12 February Mason departed Norfolk in convoy for the Mediterranean Sea, arriving off Gibraltar on 28 February. She cleared Oran 8 March to guard a convoy to Bermuda and Chesapeake Bay before returning to New York 24 March. After sonar exercises off New London, Connecticut, and fighter-director training with naval aircraft from Quonset Point, Rhode Island, she steamed from Norfolk 10 April with another convoy to Europe, leaving the convoy at Gibraltar 28 April. Mason was two days out of Oran en route to the East Coast when the end of World War II in Europe was announced on 8 May.
Mason arrived at New York on 23 May for operations along the East Coast into July. From 28 July to 18 August she served as a school ship for the Naval Training Center, Miami, Florida. On 20 August she arrived at New London to be outfitted for long-range underwater signal testing in the Bermuda area into September. Mason departed from Bermuda on 8 September for Charleston, arriving there two days later. Mason was decommissioned on 12 October, was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 November 1945, and was sold and delivered to New Jersey, on 18 March 1947 for scrapping.
The {{sclass|Arleigh Burke|destroyer}} {{USS|Mason|DDG-87}} was named in honor of Mason's mostly African American enlisted crew,{{Cite web|title=History|url=https://www.public.navy.mil/surflant/ddg87/Pages/History.aspx|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200216070834/https://www.public.navy.mil/surflant/ddg87/Pages/History.aspx|archive-date=16 February 2020|access-date=30 July 2023|website=United States Navy}} and the 2004 film Proud dramatizes their story.
References
{{Reflist}}
- {{DANFS|https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/m/mason-ii.html}}
- Kelly, Mary Pat (1999). Proudly We Served: The Men of the USS Mason. Annapolis: US Naval Institute Press. {{ISBN|978-1-55750-466-1}}.
External links
- {{Commons category-inline|USS Mason (DE-529)}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20000925225714/http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-m/de529.htm Photo gallery] at the Naval History & Heritage Command
- [http://www.navsource.org/archives/06/529.htm Photo gallery] at Navsource.org
{{Evarts class destroyer escort}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mason (DE-529)}}
Category:African-American history of the United States military
Category:Evarts-class destroyer escorts
Category:Ships built in Boston
Category:World War II frigates and destroyer escorts of the United States