Guided Missile Frigate

FFG 26  -  USS Gallery

 

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery patch crest insignia

FFG-26 USS Gallery Oliver Hazard Perry class guided missile frigate

Type, Class:

 

Guided Missile Frigate; Oliver Hazard Perry - class (short hull)

planned and built as FFG 26

Builder:

 

Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine, USA

STATUS:

 

Awarded: February 28, 1977

Laid down: May 17, 1980

Launched: December 20, 1980

Commissioned: December 5, 1981

Decommissioned: June 14, 1996

 

Fate: stricken: June 14, 1996

transferred to Egypt (lease) on September 26, 1996

renamed ENS Taba (F-916); in service in Egyptian Navy

Homeport:

 

-

Namesake:

 

Named after and in honor of the 3 brothers -

Rear Admirals Daniel, Philip and William Gallery

> see history, below;

Ship's Motto:

 

MANU FORTI  'with a strong hand'

Technical Data:

(Measures, Propulsion,

Armament, Aviation, etc.)

 

see: INFO > Oliver Hazard Perry - class Guided Missile Frigate

 

ship images

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery Oliver Hazard Perry class guided missile frigate

 

USS Gallery FFG-26 Perry class frigate

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery Oliver Hazard Perry class guided missile frigate

 

USS Gallery FFG-26 Perry class frigate

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery  FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery combat information center CIC

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery

 

 

Daniel Vincent,                           William Onahan,                           Philip Daly Gallery

 

Daniel Vincent Gallery Rear Admiral US Navy     William Onahan Gallery Rear Admiral US Navy     Philip Daly Gallery Rear Admiral US Navy

 

 

Namesake & History:

Rear Admirals Daniel Vincent, William Onahan & Philip Daly Gallery:

 

 

Rear Admiral Daniel Vincent Gallery (July 10, 1901 – January 16, 1977):
 
Daniel Vincent Gallery was a distinguished officer in the United States Navy who saw extensive action during World War II. He fought in the Second Battle of the Atlantic, and his most notable achievement was the capture of the German submarine, U-505, on June 4, 1944. In the post-war era, he was a leading player in the so-called "Revolt of the Admirals" - the dispute between the Navy and the Air Force over whether the U.S. Armed Forces should emphasize aircraft carriers or strategic bombers. Gallery was also a prolific author, both of fiction and non-fiction.

Early life and career

In 1917, at the age of sixteen, Daniel V. Gallery entered the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. He graduated a year early, in 1920, and went on to compete in the Olympic Games in Antwerp on the U.S. wrestling team.

He had three younger brothers, all of whom pursued careers in the U.S. Navy. Two brothers, William O. Gallery and Philip D. Gallery, also rose to the rank of Rear Admiral. The third brother, John Ireland Gallery, was a Catholic Priest and Navy Chaplain.

Daniel Gallery was an early naval aviator, winning first place at the National Air Races in a race-tuned Douglas Devastator torpedo plane in the late 1930s. Assigned as the Naval Attachė in London prior to America's entry into the war, he earned his flight pay by ferrying Spitfires from the factory to RAF aerodromes; he liked to claim that he was the only U.S. Naval Aviator who flew Spitfires during the Battle of Britain - but they were unarmed.

World War II

In 1942, Gallery took command of the Fleet Air Base in Reykjavík, Iceland where he was awarded the Bronze Star for action against German submarines. It was there that he first conceived his plan to capture a U-boat.

In 1943 Captain Gallery was appointed commander of the escort carrier USS Guadalcanal (CVE-60), which he commissioned. In January 1944 he commanded antisubmarine Task Group 21.12 (TG 21.12) out of Norfolk, Virginia with the Guadalcanal as the flagship. TG 21.12 sank the German submarine U-544.

In March 1944 Task Group 22.3 was formed with the Guadalcanal as the flagship. On April 9 the task group sank U-515 (commanded by the top U-boat ace Kapitänleutnant Werner Henke). After a long battle the submarine was forced to the surface among the attacking ships and the surviving crew abandoned ship. The abandoned U-515 was hammered by rockets and gunfire before she finally sank. Captain Gallery recognized that this would have been a perfect opportunity to capture the vessel and decided to be ready the next time such an opportunity presented itself. The next night aircraft from the task group caught U-68 on the surface, in broad moonlight, and sank her with one survivor, a lookout caught on-deck when the U-boat crash dived to avoid the attack.

On the next cruise of Task Group 22.3 Captain Gallery took the unusual step of selecting and training a boarding party in the event that they could capture a U-boat. On June 4, 1944 the task group crossed paths with U-505 off the coast of Africa. Spotted by two F4F Wildcat fighters flying off Guadalcanal while running on the surface to charge batteries, her captain, Oberleutnant Harald Lange dived the boat to avoid the fighters. They were able to see the submerged submarine and vectored destroyers onto her track. The experienced antisubmarine warfare team laid down patterns of depth charges that shook U-505 up badly, popping relief valves and breaking gaskets, resulting in water sprays in her engine room.

It should be noted that after a brilliant start to her career under Kapitanleutnant Loewe, U-505 had acquired a reputation as a 'bad luck boat.' She had been the object of a systematic sabotage campaign by dockyard workers in the French Resistance. Her previous skipper had been unable to complete a war patrol for more than a year. Every time he took her out, before she had been on patrol more than a few days, materiel failures would require Kapitanleutnant Peter Zschech to turn back for repairs. On her last patrol, following an attack on a convoy Zschech had been cornered by destroyers and killed himself with a pistol in his control room, leaving his executive officer to extricate the submarine from the trap and bring her back to port. Rather than break up the crew, Grossadmiral Karl Doenitz hand-picked Lange as the new skipper in an attempt to keep the story about Zschesch's suicide in action a secret, for reasons of fleet morale. As might be expected under those conditions, crew confidence in their boat was fragile.

When the minor leaks took place in the engine room, the engine gang panicked and rushed forward into the control room, yelling that the hull was cracked and the boat was sinking. Lange had no choice but to blow all main ballast and try to save his crew. Thinking the boat was mortally wounded, he ordered U-505 to the surface, abandoned and scuttled by taking the cover off the sea strainer, standard procedure in scuttling.

Captain Gallery's boarding party from the destroyer escort USS Pillsbury (DE-133) was ordered to board the foundering submarine and if possible capture her. The destroyers in range used their .50 caliber and 20 mm antiaircraft guns to chase the Germans off the sub so the boarding party could get aboard her. They found the cover to the sea strainer and the nuts that held it in place and closed it again, thus eliminating the possibility of the U-boat sinking for the moment. The boarders located the sub's Enigma coding machine and the current code books and removed them (a primary goal of the mission because it would enable the codebreakers in Tenth Fleet to read German signals in clear, without having to break the codes first), and got her under control, making U-505 the only foreign man-of-war captured in battle on the high seas by the United States Navy since the War of 1812.

This incident was the last time that the order, "Away All Boarders!" was given by a US Navy captain. Lt. Albert David, who led the boarding party, received the Medal of Honor for his courage in boarding a foundering submarine that presumably had scuttling charges set to explode — the only Medal of Honor awarded in the Atlantic Fleet during World War II. Task Group 22.3 was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation and Captain Gallery received the Distinguished Service Medal for capturing U-505.

He also received a blistering dressing-down from Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations, who pointed out that unless U-505's capture could be kept an absolute secret, the Germans would change their codes and change out the cipher wheels in the Enigma. Gallery managed to impress his crews with the vital importance of maintaining silence on the best sea story any of them would ever see. His success made the difference between his getting a medal or getting a court-martial. (The line between brilliance and daring and lunatic stupidity is sometimes very fine; and it is interesting that two noted naval historians, Samuel Eliot Morison and Clay Blair, Jr. are on opposite sides of Gallery's case.)

Toward the end of World War II Captain Gallery was given command of the aircraft carrier USS Hancock (CV-19).

Post-World War II service

After promotion to rear admiral he became Assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations and, later, commanded Carrier Division Six during the Korean War.

The "Revolt of the Admirals"

During the so-called "Revolt of the Admirals" during Louis Johnson's tenure as Secretary of Defense, Gallery wrote a series of articles for The Saturday Evening Post criticizing Johnson's plans to scrap the carrier fleet, subsume the Marine Corps into the Army, and reduce the Navy to a convoy-escort force. The final article, "Don't Let Them Scuttle the Navy!" was so inflammatory that Gallery barely escaped court-martial for insubordination. Although he was not court-martialed, the episode cost Gallery his third star, a possible shot at the position of Chief of Naval Operations and effectively finished his career, though he served twelve more years on active duty. At the time of his retirement, he was Number 2 in seniority on the Rear Admirals' List.

Command of the Tenth Naval District

Admiral Gallery's final command was of the Tenth Naval District in San Juan, Puerto Rico, from December 1956 to July 1960. During this command, with the help or the Rotary and Lions clubs, he established the first Little Leagues in Puerto Rico. It was also there that he first heard the steel bands of Trinidad. He was so taken by the sound that he invested $120 in steel drums for the band assigned to him, establishing the first all-American and only military steel band in 1957. The Tenth Naval District Steel Band - or Admiral Dan's Pandemonaics, as they called themselves - became the US Navy Steel Band and toured the world as ambassadors of the U.S. Navy until 1999.

Admiral Gallery retired from the Navy in 1960. He was one of the few Rear Admirals of his era to be retired as only a Rear Admiral. Shortly before his retirement the custom of granting officers who held decorations for valor an honorary promotion to the next higher rank upon retirement (a custom unique to the U.S. Navy known as a "tombstone promotion" for the obvious reason that the only place it would matter would be on your tombstone) was abolished. Most of Gallery's contemporaries retired as Vice Admirals.


Rear Admiral William Onahan Gallery (June 22, 1904 – 1981):
 
William Onahan Gallery was born on 22 June 1904 in Chicago, Illinois. Gallery entered the United States Naval Academy in 1921, the second of three brothers who would graduate from the Naval Academy.

He received his commission as a United States Navy ensign in 1925. He served aboard the battleship USS New Mexico from 1925 to 1927, followed by duty aboard the USS Farragut from 1927 to 1930.

In 1930, Gallery reported for flight training in Pensacola, Florida. After nine months of training, he was awarded his wings as a naval aviator and assigned to Patrol Squadron 6 until 1933. He then transferred as an aviator to the USS Omaha, where he served until 1935.

From 1935 to 1937, he served at the Aeronautical Engineering Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Then from 1937 to 1939, he served in Fighter Squadron 6 on the USS Enterprise. His last assignment before World War II at the Naval Air Station in Alameda, California.

In 1941, at the start of World War II, Gallery served on the staff of Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid where he participated in the Battle of Santa Cruz; and then was based at Guadalcanal where he served in combat with the First Escort Carrier Task Group.

Gallery then joined the PBY night raider ("Black Cats") on the USS Half Moon. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his method of destroying Japanese night raiders.

On return to the States, he was promoted to the rank of Captain and took command of the USS Chicago. He followed this command with duty at Eglin Air Force Base; after which he was commanding officer of the USS Siboney, then the Naval Air Station Guantanamo, Cuba. This was followed by an assignment as Deputy Chief of Naval Operation (Air), then command of the USS Princeton in 1950.

Rear Admiral William Gallery retired from the United States Navy in June 1955. He died in 1981 and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors.


Rear Admiral Philip Daly Gallery (October 17, 1907 – November 29, 1973):
 
Rear Admiral Philip Daly Gallery was one of the heroic destroyer men of World War II.

Like his brother, Rear Admiral Daniel Gallery, he was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. Prior to service in the Pacific during World War II, he earned the Legion of Merit for his foresight and leadership in the organization and administration of the Anti-Aircraft Training Test Center at Dam Neck, Virginia.

On 29 December 1943, he took command of the destroyer USS JENKINS, earning a second award of the Legion of Merit and two Bronze Stars for distinguished service and combat achievements during the Marshalls, New Guinea, Philippine, and Borneo Campaigns.

After World War II, he commanded Destroyer Division 72; was Executive Officer of the Naval Powder Factory; and commanded the Fleet oiler USS PASSUMPIC. In 1950, he became Officer in Charge of the Gunfire Support School, then commanded the cruiser USS PITTSBURGH from June of 1953 until December of 1954. He later served as commander of the Surface Anti-Submarine Detachment, and served on the staff of the Commander of Operational Development Force of the Atlantic Fleet until his retirement in 1958.

At the time of his death in 1973, he was associated with the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne.

He was buried with full military honors in Section 3 of Arlington National Cemetery, adjacent to his two brothers.

 

USS Gallery (FFG 26):

 

-- FFG 26 history wanted --

 

patches

 

FFG-26 USS Gallery patch crest insignia   FFG-26 USS Gallery patch crest insignia

 

 

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