USS Menges (DE-320)

History
Official USCG photo of USS Menges (DE-320), date and location unknown.
United States
Namesake:	Herbert Hugo Menges
Builder:	Consolidated Steel Corporation, Orange, Texas
Laid down:	22 March 1943
Launched:	15 June 1943
Commissioned:	26 October 1943
Decommissioned:	January 1947
Struck:	2 January 1971
Fate:	Sold for scrapping
General characteristics
Class and type:	Edsall-class destroyer escort
Displacement:	1,253 tons standard 1,590 tons full load
Length:	306 feet (93.27 m)
Beam:	36.58 feet (11.15 m)
Draft:	10.42 full load feet (3.18 m)
Propulsion:	4 FM diesel engines, 4 diesel-generators, 6,000 shp (4.5 MW), 2 screws
Speed:	21 knots (39 km/h)
Range:	9,100 nmi. at 12 knots (17,000 km at 22 km/h)
Complement:	8 officers, 201 enlisted
Armament:	3 × 3 in (76 mm)/50 guns (3 × 1) 2 × 40 mm AA guns (1 × 2) 8 × 20 mm AA guns (8 × 1) 3 × 21 in (530 mm) torpedo tubes (1 × 3) 8 × depth charge projectors 1 × depth charge projector (hedgehog) 2 × depth charge tracks

The USS Menges (DE-320) was an Edsall-class destroyer escort built for the United States Navy during World War II. Named for Ensign Herbert Hugo Menges (a naval aviator who was killed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor), she was the first U.S. naval vessel to bear the name.

Menges was laid down by Consolidated Steel Corporation of Orange, Texas on 22 March 1943; launched 15 June 1943, sponsored by Mrs. Charles Menges, mother of the late Ensign Menges; and commissioned 26 October 1943 with Lieutenant Commander Frank M. McCabe, USCG, in command. After shakedown off Bermuda, Menges spent January 1944 on "schoolship" duty in the lower Chesapeake Bay. On 26 January she got underway from Norfolk for New York City, and on 31 January departed for Europe, on the first three-month-long deployment escorting convoys. On the night of 20 April her convoy, UGS 38, while off the coast of Algiers en route to the east coast of the U.S., was attacked by 30 German torpedo bombers. After shooting down one of the planes, Menges rescued 137 survivors of the USS Lansdale (DD-426), sunk by a torpedo, and two German aircrew.

On 3 May 1944, Menges was 15½ miles astern of the convoy chasing down a radar contact when she was hit at 0118 hours by an G7es acoustic torpedo from U-371 (which was in turn sunk the next day by USS Joseph E. Campbell (DE-70), USS Pride (DE-323) and other warships). The explosion was so violent that the aft third of the ship was destroyed, killing 31 men and wounding 25. However, Commander McCabe properly refused to give the order to abandon ship as long as there was chance of saving her. In addition, several of the crew members heroically jumped astride torpedoes loosened in the blast to disarm them. Menges, thanks to such creditable action, remained afloat.

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