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Gunboat Photo Archive

Asheville (PG 21)
ex-Gunboat No. 21

Sunk 3 March 1942
Asheville Class Gunboat:

  • Laid down, 9 June 1917 at the Charleston Navy Yard, Charleston, SC
  • Launched, 4 July 1918
  • Commissioned USS Asheville (Gunboat No. 21), 6 July 1920
  • Designated PG-21, 17 July 1920
  • Sunk 3 March 1942 by Japanese destroyers Arashi and Nowaki south of Java, Netherlands East Indies
  • No one will ever know exactly how many men had been on board the Asheville because she undoubtedly took additional military personnel aboard in Tjilatjap, but the number was probably between 160 and 170. The ship's
    normal complement was 166, most of whose names appeared later on the list of missing. The Japanese picked up only one man from the water, probably to determine the name of the vessel they had just sunk. He was
    19-year-old Fireman Second Class Fred Lewis Brown of Fort Wayne, Indiana, who would die in 1945 while a prisoner of war at Makassar, the Celebes. Brown left the only witness account of the Asheville's sinking, related
    to a fellow prisoner who reported it to the Casualty Section of the Bureau of Naval Personnel after the war. According to the former POW:
    Brown was asleep in the fire room when the firing started. Prior to the firing Brown had heard no general quarters alarm given so that it would seem the battle had not been anticipated. Upon running to the deck after
    hearing the firing, he saw that the bridge had been hit and badly damaged and also that the forecastle had been hit. As soon as he got topside he abandoned ship as the rest of the crew were doing. Brown noticed that
    many of the personnel who had been on the deck during the firing had been killed. The survivors were scattered in the water. After the Asheville had sunk, three Japanese destroyers [sic] came alongside of the survivors
    but only one threw out a rescue line. Brown grasped a line and was hauled aboard ship. The rest of the survivors were left in the water by the Japanese. Brown was transferred from the Japanese destroyer to a Dutch
    hospital ship and taken to Makassar, where he was made a prisoner of war. Nothing was ever heard further about the remaining members of the crew.
  • Struck from the Naval Register, 8 May 1942.

    Specifications:

  • Displacement 1,575 (lt), 1760 (fl) t.
  • Length 241' 2"
  • Beam 41' 2"
  • Draft 11' 4"
  • Speed 12 kts.
  • Complement 159 (1942 complement 166)
  • Armament: Three 4"/50 gun mounts and two 3-pounders (1942 Armament was three 4" and four 3"/50 mounts)
  • Propulsion: Three Thorny-Croft Bureau Modified boilers, one 800shp Parsons steam turbine, one shaft (converted to oil in 1922).
    Click on thumbnail
    for full size image    		 Size Image Description Source
    Asheville 142k 9 June 1917
    Keel laying ceremony. The first major warship built at the shipyard    		 Robert Hall
    Asheville 89k Workmen waiting for the signal to begin sliding the Asheville down the ways Robert Hall
    Asheville 52k Asheville christened with pure mountain water from Asheville, NC her namesake Robert Hall
    Asheville 104k 4 July 1918
    Asheville slides into the Cooper River    		 Robert Hall
    Asheville 259k View taken on 11 September 1918, showing a marine railway under construction in the foreground. Asheville is fitting out in the left middle distance. In front of her is USS Walter Adams (SP 400). USS SC-368, with dark numbers painted on her bow, is further to the right.
    U.S. Navy photo NH 45247    		 Original photo: Naval Historical Center
    Replacement photo: Robert Hall
    Asheville 104k In drydock for her final fitting-out Robert Hall
    Asheville 110k c. 1920
    Asheville near completion at the Charleston Navy Yard.
    Courtesy U.S. Warships of World War I    		 Mike Green
    Asheville 81k - Philip R Abbey
    The Yangtze Patrol web site
    Asheville 71k - Scott McCoy
    Asheville 79k Close up of above photo. Scott McCoy
    Asheville 229k Line drawing from the April 2009 edition of Naval History magazine Joe Radigan
    Asheville 81k In Asiatic waters
    U.S. Naval Photographic Center photo from "Gunboats and Marines: The United States in China, 1925-1928" by Bernard D. Cole    		 Robert Hurst
    Sacramento 113k c. 1920.
    USS Sacramento (PG 19), USS Robin (AM 2), and Asheville at Charleston, SC.    		 Vance A. Adams
    Asheville 208k With awnings spread to combat the sun's heat while anchored in the Canal Zone, serving with the Special Service Squadron in the late 1920s.
    National Archive Photo 80-G-1034878    		 Naval Historical Center
    Asheville 118k c. Late 1920s
    A junk makes its way past the gunboat in an unnamed Chinese port.
    U.S. Naval Institute photo from the April 2009 edition of Naval History magazine    		 Joe Radigan
    Asheville 46k 1 March 1942
    The last known photograph of Asheville as she made her escape from Tjilatjap, Java.
    U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command photo by Lion G. Miles from the April 2009 edition of Naval History magazine    		 Joe Radigan
    View the Asheville (PG-21)
    DANFS History entry located on the Haze Gray & Underway Web Site.
    Additional Resources and Web Sites of Interest
    Yangtze River Patrol Memorial
    The Yangtze Patrol
    Back To The Main Photo Index Back To the Patrol Craft/Gunboat/Submarine Chaser Ship Type Index Back to the Patrol Gunboat (PG) Photo Index
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    This page created by Gary P. Priolo and maintained by Joe Radigan
    © 2006 Joseph M. Radigan © 1996 - 2006 NavSource Naval History. All Rights Reserved.