USS English DD-696
Crew Memories

Ronald Drinkhouse
Served aboard English from early "53 to late "55. Left as Engineer Officer. Lots of good old fashioned memories. Revisited old DD Piers in Norfolk several years ago. New DD resemble light cruisers. I was DC Officer when we hit DD702 in exercises off Norfolk. Took off the whole bow forward of #1 gun mount. We went up to Philadelphia and spent about four months there getting a new bow welded on.

James Holderfield
I caught the English in Sasebo, Japan in Dec. 1950. Our first mission after I joined her was the evacuation of Hungnam. I was 17 year old and believe me I didn't realize just what war was. I soon found out. I was aboard in all four of the battle stars won. When we returned to the states, we had won the title of "The Little Mo" because of the amount of shelling we had done with the 5" gun mounts.

After we entered the dry docks in Portsmouth, they removed the 40mm guns and replace them with 3" mounts. They removed the 20mm guns from the flying bridge and replaced them with hedgehogs. After the dry dock we went to Gitmo for shake down. After that we went to the Med. In 1954 She sailed again to the Med.

I was a short timer by then and was transferred to the USS Massey DD778 where I served until discharge June 4, 1954. The Skipper of the English while I was aboard was Capt. Toner. He was a real good Skipper. Keep me updated with other crew members as you find them.

Subject: USS English DD-696
Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 21:14:54 EDT
From: Shel Goodrich at [email protected]

Dave, a former crew member of the DD-696 recently visited Taiwan and was given VIP treatment by their navy. The English was sold to them in 1970 and is still active in their navy. They had a request that the ship's web site refer to them as the ROC (Republic of China) rather than the Taiwanese Navy. Is it possible to make this change in the website? I have no idea where the original information came from for the website and was surprised to see my name as a contact person. Please advise if I should contact another source.

Many thanks,
Shel Goodrich

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