Figure 1: USS Charleston (PG-51) under construction at the Charleston Navy Yard, Charleston, South Carolina, circa February 1936. US Navy photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 2: USS Charleston (PG-51) at the Panama Canal circa 1938. Photograph courtesy of Darryl Baker. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 3: USS Charleston (PG-51) circa March 1944, place unknown. US Navy photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 4: USS Charleston (PG-51) circa March 1944, place unknown. US Navy photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 5: Camouflage Measure 31, Design 3D. Drawing prepared by the Bureau of Ships for a camouflage scheme intended for gunboats of the Erie PG-50 class. This plan, approved by Captain Logan McKee, USN, is dated 25 February 1944. It shows the ship's port side and superstructure ends. USS Charleston (PG-51) wore this camouflage design. Official US Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 6: Camouflage Measure 31, Design 3D. Drawing prepared by the Bureau of Ships for a camouflage scheme intended for gunboats of the Erie PG-50 class. This plan, approved by Captain Logan McKee, USN, is dated 25 February 1944. It shows the ship's starboard side. USS Charleston (PG-51) wore this camouflage design. Official US Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 7: USS Charleston (PG-51) during World War II, date and place unknown. US Navy photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 8: Stern view of USS Charleston (PG-51) during World War II, date and place unknown. US Navy photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 9: United States Training Ship (USTS) Charleston as she appeared at Boston, Massachusetts, in 1951. Courtesy of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 10: USTS Charleston at the Boston Shipyard, Boston, Massachusetts, in the fall of 1955. She is seen here in dry dock just before deploying for a three-month training cruise to the Mediterranean in January 1956. Courtesy of CDR Jack Dowd, USNR, Ret. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 11: Stern view of USTS Charleston at the Boston Shipyard, Boston, Massachusetts, in the fall of 1955. She is seen here in dry dock just before deploying for a three-month training cruise to the Mediterranean in January 1956. Courtesy of CDR Jack Dowd, USNR, Ret. Click on photograph for larger image.
Named after the city in South Carolina, USS Charleston (PG-51) was a 2,000-ton Erie class gunboat that was built by the Charleston Navy Yard at Charleston, South Carolina, and was commissioned on 8 July 1936. The Erie class was supposed to be a modern version of the old “Peace Cruisers” of the Denver class, which were used primarily as gunboats in the Caribbean, off South and Central America, and with the Asiatic Fleet. USS Charleston was approximately 328 feet long and 41 feet wide, had a top speed of 20 knots, and had a crew of 236 officers and men. The ship initially was armed with four 6-inch guns, but four 1.1-inch guns, six 20-mm cannons, and two depth-charge tracks were added once the United States entered World War II. Although Charleston was supposed to perform the same duties as a normal fleet cruiser, she was too slow, too small, and too lightly armored to perform that task. She, therefore, was primarily used as a standard gunboat to protect American lives and property in countries around the world.
After her shakedown cruise off the east coast of the United States, Charleston left Norfolk, Virginia, on 24 February 1937, sailed to the Mediterranean and joined Squadron 40T, a task force created to protect American lives and interests in that part of the world during the Spanish Civil War. While with that squadron, Charleston visited ports in Yugoslavia, Italy, and Algeria before returning to the United States on 24 April for an overhaul. On 9 July, the ship left Charleston and headed for Balboa in the Panama Canal Zone. Once there, Charleston became the flagship for the Special Service Squadron and participated in various naval exercises off Panama until 1 March 1938, when she returned to Charleston.
Charleston was assigned to the Caribbean from April to October 1938. From January 1939 to June 1940, the gunboat participated in Army-Navy exercises, conducted patrols off the east coast of the United States, and visited ports in Central America and Mexico. Then on 8 September 1940, Charleston left Norfolk and was sent to Seattle, Washington, where she began her new job as flagship for the Commander of the Alaskan Sector, Thirteenth Naval District. From November 1940 to November 1941, Charleston made five cruises from Seattle to Alaska and the Aleutian Islands.
After the United States entered World War II on 7 December 1941, Charleston was assigned to numerous patrol and convoy escort duties in the Alaska/Aleutian Islands area of operations. Aside from four trips Charleston made to west coast ports for overhauls, the ship was based at either Dutch Harbor or Kodiak in the Aleutians for the rest of the war. Although her primary jobs were patrol and convoy escort duties, Charleston also transported and landed military reconnaissance parties, assisted ships in distress, and participated in the assault on the island of Attu in the Aleutians, which took place on 11 May 1943. Two days later, Charleston’s guns supported US Army troops on Attu by bombarding enemy positions at Chichagof Harbor. The gunboat also screened and protected American transports that were anchored off the island. During a Japanese aerial attack on 22 May, Charleston avoided several torpedoes that were aimed at her and her guns shot down one of the attacking aircraft. Charleston provided gunfire support for Army troops until enemy resistance ended and she assisted in the occupation of the island by escorting convoys between Attu and Adak in the Aleutians. While assigned to the Aleutians campaign, Charleston completed 130 escort missions which included a total of 253 convoyed ships.
By the end of the war, Charleston was overhauled and prepared for duty in the Far East. On 25 November 1945, the ship arrived at Hong Kong. She also made a trip to Shanghai before returning to the United States on 4 March 1946. USS Charleston was decommissioned in San Francisco, California, on 10 May 1946 and transferred to the Massachusetts Maritime Academy on 25 March 1948. She was used as a training ship for the academy until 1959, when she was sold to an Italian investor who planned to convert the ship into a floating nightclub and hotel. The final fate of the ship is unknown.
USS Charleston represented the end of the famous “Gunboat Era,” when relatively large seagoing warships (not small, coastal craft) were built specifically to protect American lives and property during peacetime in distant lands around the world. They were never meant for major fleet actions and usually acted alone, whether off the shores of Mexico, South or Central America, and the Caribbean, or defending American interests in the Far East, especially in the Philippines and China. The Erie class was not that successful and only two ships in this class were built. But gunboats like USS Charleston provided invaluable service to the US Navy over several decades. After World War II, all of the gunboat’s duties were performed by larger fleet units, such as aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, or even frigates. But the day of the “Peace Cruisers” and gunboats, ships that were specifically designed to defend American lives and property in far-off countries, was over.
