Edsall II (DE-129)
1943-1968
Norman Eckley Edsall born 3 June 1873 in Columbus, Ky., enlisted in the Navy 27 June 1898. While serving in the cruiser Philadelphia, Seaman Edsall went ashore with a landing party on 1 April 1899 to suppress hostile natives near Apia, Samoa. He was killed attempting to carry his wounded commander to safety, and is buried on Samoa.
II
(DE-129: displacement 1,200; length 306'; beam 36'7"; draft 8'7"; speed 21 knots; complement 186; armament 3 3-inch, 3 21-inch torpedo tubes, 8 depth charge projectors, 1 depth charge projector (Hedgehog), 2 depth charge tracks; class Edsall)
The second Edsall (DE-129) was laid down on 2 July 1942 at Orange, Texas, by Consolidated Steel Corp.; launched on 1 November 1942; sponsored by Mrs. Bessie Edsall Bracey, sister of Seaman Edsall; and commissioned on 10 April 1943, Lt. Cmdr. Edward C. Woodward in command.
Edsall was schoolship at Norfolk, 20 June to 6 August 1943, for precommissioning crews of escort vessels, then at Miami with the Submarine Chaser Training Center. In March 1944 she joined a tanker convoy at Galveston, assigned to Escort Division 59, whose flagship she became 24 March. Edsall continued escort duty from the Gulf to New York and Norfolk and with one convoy to Argentia. In May she sailed to Bermuda for antisubmarine warfare tests using a captured Italian submarine.
Between 1 July 1944 and 3 June 1945 she ranged Atlantic sealanes guarding seven convoys carrying the very lifeblood to the Mediterranean and Britain. While escorting the sixth convoy en route to New York from Liverpool on 10 April 1945, Edsall along with other escorts were quick to come to the assistance of two tankers in the convoy which had collided. Edsall searched for survivors and helped extinguish fires which broke out.
Edsall sailed for the Pacific on 24 June 1945 but the war ended while she was training at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, and she returned east. She was placed out of commission in reserve at Green Cove Springs, Fla., on 11 June 1946.
Stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 June 1968, she was sold for scrapping in July 1969.
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
18 February 2022
