USS Quail (AM-15)

Quail alongside Coast Battleship No. 4 (ex. USS Iowa) off Panama, early 1923. A Pennsylvania-class battleship is in the background.

Quail steamed to Kirkwall, Scotland, to join the North Sea Mine Sweeping Detachment. She operated with this force clearing the North Sea of mines until 25 November 1919. She operated with the Atlantic Fleet in Cuban waters during early 1920, and then along the U.S. East Coast. In September 1922 she was attached to the submarine base at Coco Solo, Panama Canal Zone, operating in the Caribbean.

Quail made a cruise to the east coast in late 1923, and in 1925 she was at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for repairs. In 1927 she spent time patrolling the west coast of Nicaragua, and later joined the fleet in the Caribbean for maneuvers. From July 1928 to January 1929, she was on the east coast, operating between Virginia and Massachusetts. She returned to Coco Solo in 1929. Following duty with the control force in the Panama Canal area from 1929 to 1931, Quail operated out of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, from 1931 to 1941, including in her duties a period of survey work off Alaska. On 25 July 1940 the Quail landed a force to construct a naval air station on Palmyra Atoll.

In 1932, the USS Quail visited the French Frigate shoals, anchoring near East Island of the French Frigate Shoals.[1] Using a seaplane tendered from the ship, some of the first aerial photographs of the islands were taken.[2]

At the outbreak of war with Japan, the USS Quail was in the Philippines. During the defense of Corregidor in the Battle of Corregidor (1942), Lieutenant Thomas James Eugene “Jimmy” Crotty, Coast Guard Academy Class of 1934, served as the executive officer of the Quail. She shot down enemy aircraft and swept mine fields to keep open a channel providing access to the South Harbor at Corregidor. This enabled U.S. submarines to safely pass and surface at night, delivering goods and removing critical personnel from Corregidor. After the Quail was gutted of arms, her crew then went ashore to aid in the defense of the island and Crotty commanded a force of Marines and Army personnel manning 75mm beach guns firing down on enemy forces landing on Corregidor's beaches.

Damaged by enemy bombs and guns, Quail was scuttled on 5 May 1942 by U.S. forces to prevent her capture. Part of her crew, Lt Cmdr. John H. Morrill and 17 others, escaped to Darwin, Australia, in a 36-foot motor launch. The rest of the crew became prisoners of war of Imperial Japan. A number were sent to Japan to become slave laborers for Japanese companies. Chief Petty Officer Virgil Byrd, sick with wet beriberi and the beginnings of congestive heart failure, was beaten to death on 11 May 1943 at the POW Camp #3D Yodogawa in Osaka, Japan, for selling an extra pair of shoes to a Japanese workman.  Byrd was beaten unconscious, revived, and beaten again three times, and died that evening. The POW Camp supplied Allied POW slave labor to Yodogawa Steel Works, Ltd.

With Corregidor's capitulation on 6 May 1942, Crotty became the first Coast Guard prisoner of war since the War of 1812, when the British had captured U.S. Revenue Cutter Service cuttermen. He was one of the hundreds of men forced on to the Bataan “Death March”, finally making it to the prison compound at Cabanatuan in the Philippines. He died of diphtheria in July 1942 in the Cabanatuan POW Camp.[3]

Quail received one battle star for World War II service.

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.

• Photo gallery of USS Quail (AM 15) at NavSource Naval History
• USS Quail (AM 15)
• Vessels/Mine Warfare: USS Quail (AM-15)
• USN Ships – USS Galveston (Cruiser # 17, later PG-31 and CL-19)