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North Korean mines were a serious obstacle for the U.S. Navy in the 1950s. 

A four-hour rescue effort managed to save 170 crew. Here's What You Need to Know: Korea was no piece of cake. At noon sharp on October 12, 1950, the minesweeper USS Pirate had just completed a busy but productive morning off the North Korean port of Wonsan when everything went wrong at once.  Hours earlier, the small, 625-ton vessel had led the five ships of Mine Division 32 based in Sasebo, Japan through two belts of contact mines laid in a channel just one mile wide, and fourteen miles long leading into Wonsan Harbor in North Korea.  At the time U.N. troops were on the offensive followin...

We left off with my grandfather and his ship the USS Sway (AM-120) setting sail from Norfolk, Virginia en route to Miami, Florida. They underwent extensive refitting and repairs while in Norfolk and more would follow in Miami along with an unexpected family secret. 28–29 March 1945 Enroute to Miami. 1345: Left division on orders of CominDiv 18 to give medical aide to USS ATR-78. 1512: Medical officer left for tug in tug's whale boat. On advice of medical officer plane requested from NAS Jacksonville, Fla., to take acute appendicitis case to hospital. Stood by tug until plane arrived at...

When we left the USS Sway (AM-120) in our last installment, she had just departed Algeria en route to the United States. The Sway had been in the European/North African theater of operations since 1943. She had participated in operations Shingle and Dragoon, had come under fire in Italy and Southern France, and been involved in a friendly-fire incident with General Mark Clark. Now she was en route to the United States for a major overhaul and refit before reporting to the Pacific Fleet for operations against Japan. My grandfather had joined the ship in May 1944, and as of 1 January 1945 he ...

Jason Schreck is a graduate of Christopher Newport University with a Bachelor's in History. He has spent the last 7 years on an ongoing project to research the military history of as many family members as possible, as a part of his ongoing genealogy research. The last two years of which have been dedicated primarily to researching the military records of his two grandfather's military service during the Second World War and beyond. His main areas of research are military, cold war and space age history.