U.S.S. Asheville III

The boats depicted in this image from the Tacoma Boatbuilding Company booklet, donated to the Walter Ashe collection by E.L. Hupp of Waylor, Missouri, are, in the top left, the “PGM-84” U.S.S. Asheville, and in the bottom right, the first U.S.S. Asheville, the “PG-21.” The first U.S.S. Asheville was built in the Charleston, South Carolina shipyard and commissioned on July 6, 1918, and the third, patrol motor gunboat Asheville, was built in Tacoma, Washington State, commissioned August 9, 1966, and served the U.S. Navy until its decommissioning on January 31, 1977. This page is dedicated to the U.S.S. Asheville PGM-84, which saw active duty during the Vietnam War, and received fourteen battle stars for its service.³

The Tacoma Boatbuilding Company was contracted by the Navy to build PGM – “Patrol Gunboat Motorized” – ships, of which the U.S.S. Asheville commissioned in 1966 was the first; the type of PGM ships that the Tacoma Boatbuilding Company produced were named Asheville-class gunboats in its honor.⁴

The U.S.S. Asheville PGM-84’s keel was laid on April 15, 1964. The ship was an advancement in American gunboat construction and was one of numerous new classes of military equipment deployed by the United States in the Vietnam War. The war’s legacy as a guerrilla conflict, fought between American infantry and Viet Cong conscripts, often erases the deployment of new military technology by the United States. That construction on the PGM-84 began in 1964 is consistent with the expansion in the U.S. military presence in Vietnam and former French Indochina at this time. While the United States diplomatically recognized South Vietnam, it was not – at the time of the U.S.S. Asheville’s keel being laid – officially involved in the South’s war against the communist North. Even so, construction of new ships like the U.S.S. Asheville PGM-84 and other forms of military build-up were a part of the pro-Southern policy pursued by the United States. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident in August 1964 brought the United States – formerly just a military advisor and supplier of arms to anti-communist South Vietnam – into the war in earnest that same year. The U.S.S. Asheville PGM-84 was commissioned – officially inducted into the Navy – at Tacoma, Washington just a little more than two years later.⁶

Gunboats like the U.S.S. Asheville PGM-84 and other Asheville class ships were used to try to counter the Viet Cong’s control of inland regions, and to run reconnaissance missions along rivers and estuaries for bombing campaigns meant to flush out North Vietnamese troops and weaken their ability to harass American and South Vietnamese-held cities, and strategic points, from the countryside. In Norman Friedman’s U.S. Small Combatants, he explains:

“Vietnam was on the LRO’s mind; the PGM had a definite role. It could patrol off the coasts of countries supporting unfriendly guerrillas or subversives, keeping track of coastal shipping, blockading gun-runners, and if need be, opposing enemy craft smaller than destroyers. It could also support minor amphibious operations ashore. The LRO described the PGM as suitable for destroyer-type missions in waters where destroyers could not go or could not be risked … In Vietnam, the big PGs found little use for their high speed, but they were valued for their sea-keeping and heavy gun. In the Market Time coastal blockade, they could remain on station longer than small craft and were less expensive to run than destroyers. The usual duty cycle was seven or fourteen days on, three off. Their shallow draft made them useful river gunboats, in which role they were used extensively, but being lightly built, they were subject to damage.”⁷

The PGM-84 U.S.S. Asheville was deployed prolifically throughout the Vietnam War, participating in major strategic events like the U.S. and allies’ Market Time Operation, a large-scale naval blockade of the North’s coast to restrict the North’s ability to supply troops south of the front lines:

“From 3 June until 6 June, ASHEVILLE patrol[sic] the Market Time Area 3. During this period she detected and inspected fifteen steel hulled vessels, detected seventy-three wooden hulled vessels, inspected forty-six and boarded sixteen … ASHEVILLE patrolled area 2 from 9 to 15 June and detected twenty-one steel hulled vessels, inspected twenty and boarded and searched one. One-hundred twenty-nine wooden hole vessels were detected, forty-six inspected and eighty-two boarded and searched. ASHEVILLE also detained four junks, forty-six persons, and five shipments, or portions of shipments, of unmanifested cargo including U.S. Government military issue material, contraband American made goods, and one extremely large shipments of the illegal medicine and medical supplies.”⁹

The PGM-84 also saw direct combat, as in June of 1970, when the PGM-84 “was used extensively for quick reaction gunfire support, bunker destruction, harassment and interdiction fire in known enemy positions.” On June 15, 1970, the PGM-84 was fired on while exiting Song Cua Lon River, where “A total of seven rockets were fired of which two hit the ASHEVILLE with one detonating in the Power Supply Room.” The one casualty of the incident was the engineering officer, who received a wound to the knee.¹⁰

On the 1st of August, 1974, the PGM-84 “began the long voyage to duty with the Naval Reserve in Chicago, Ill.” The PGM-84 arrived in at the Naval Reserve on October 28th, 1974, and spent the remainder of its career in the Navy as a training platform on the Great Lakes, until the PGM-84 was placed out of commission on the 31st of January, 1977.¹¹

Specifications¹²

• Length: 165 feet
• Beam: 24 feet
• Draft: 9.5 feet
• Displacement: 240 Long Tons, 537,600 lbs.
• Diesel Power: (2) Cummins V-12, 875 horsepower each
• Turbine (jet) Power: General Electric LM1500, 14,000 horsepower
• Fuel: 50 Tons, JP-5
• Electrical Generators: (2) Cummins 6 cycle, 190 horsepower, 100 kilowatts each
• Propellers: (2) Lisan Variable pitch, 6 foot diameter
• Armament: 3”/50 caliber enclosed mt. 40MM single mount, (2) twin .50 caliber machine guns, miscellaneous small arms. Mark 63 Gunfire Control System w/AN/SPG-50 radar
• Communications: (1) AN/WRC-1 High Frequency Transceiver, (2) AN/ARC 27 Ultra High Frenquency[sic] Transceiver
• Radar: (1) Ratheon Pathfinder, rotation: 80 RPM, range: 48 miles
• Personnel: 3 Officer, 21 Enlisted
• Estimated total cost (in ~1966 U.S. dollars): $4,000,000

1. Eugene Black, Box M1999.02.2.9, Folder M99.2.2.9, “Navy Photo by PH3 Eugene Black,” Walter Ashe Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville, Asheville, NC., U.S.
2. E.L. Hupp, Box M1999.02.2.9, Folder M99.2.2.9, U.S.S. Asheville PGM-84 Commemorative Booklet, Walter Ashe Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville, Asheville, NC.
3. E.L. Hupp, Box M1999.02.2.9, Folder M99.2.2.9, U.S.S. Asheville PGM-84 Commemorative Booklet, Walter Ashe Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville, Asheville, NC.; W. Eric Emerson, The USS Asheville and the Limits of Navalism in Western North Carolina (The North Carolina Historical Review 89, 2012).; Box M1999.02.2.9, Folder M99.2.2.9, “USS Asheville (PG-84) Official History,” Summary, Walter Ashe Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville, Asheville, NC.
4. E.L. Hupp, Box M1999.02.2.9, Folder M99.2.2.9, U.S.S. Asheville PGM-84 Commemorative Booklet, Walter Ashe Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville, Asheville, NC.; Norman Friedman, “Evolution of the ASHEVILLE Class of Patrol Gunboats: An Excerpt from U.S. SMALL COMBATANTS by Norman Friedman, Naval Institute Press 1984,” (Patrol Gunboat Reunion Association), July 24, 2006, accessed March 4, 2019, https://www.gunboatriders.com/theboats/evolution_of_the_asheville_class.html.
5. E.L. Hupp, Box M1999.02.2.9, Folder M99.2.2.9, U.S.S. Asheville PGM-84 Commemorative Booklet, Walter Ashe Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville, Asheville, NC.
6. E.L. Hupp, Box M1999.02.2.9, Folder M99.2.2.9, PGM-84, U.S.S. Asheville PGM-84 Commemorative Booklet, Walter Ashe Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville, Asheville, NC.; Pat Paterson, “The Truth About Tonkin,” U.S. Naval Institute, accessed March 4, 2019, https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2008/february/truth-about-tonkin.
7. Norman Friedman, “Evolution of the ASHEVILLE Class of Patrol Gunboats: An Excerpt from U.S. SMALL COMBATANTS by Norman Friedman, Naval Institute Press 1984,” (Patrol Gunboat Reunion Association), July 24, 2006, accessed March 4, 2019, https://www.gunboatriders.com/theboats/evolution_of_the_asheville_class.html.
8. Norman Friedman, “The Fast PGM Scheme 5, 19 October 1961,” “Evolution of the ASHEVILLE Class of Patrol Gunboats: An Excerpt from U.S. SMALL COMBATANTS by Norman Friedman, Naval Institute Press 1984,” (Patrol Gunboat Reunion Association), July 24, 2006, accessed March 4, 2019, https://www.gunboatriders.com/theboats/evolution_of_the_asheville_class.html.
9. Lt. Franklin D. Julian, Box M1999.02.2.9, Folder M99.2.2.9, “USS Asheville (PG-84) Official History,” Year of 1969, Walter Ashe Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville, Asheville, NC.
10. Lt. Neil L. Kozlowski, Box M1999.02.2.9, Folder M99.2.2.9, “USS Asheville (PG-84) Official History,” Year of 1970, Walter Ashe Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville, Asheville, NC.
11. Box M1999.02.2.9, Folder M99.2.2.9, “USS Asheville (PG-84) Official History,” Summary, Walter Ashe Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville, Asheville, NC.
12. E.L. Hupp, Box M1999.02.2.9, Folder M99.2.2.9, U.S.S. Asheville PGM-84 Commemorative Booklet, Walter Ashe Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville, Asheville, NC.