USS Thompson (DD-627) - Post World War II

Post World War II

During September, Thompson moved westward, stopping at Pearl Harbor on 8 September and Eniwetok on 21 September. Arriving at Buckner Bay on 28 September, she put in just in time to take on fuel and head out to sea as a typhoon swirled north. Shortly after the ship returned to Buckner Bay, yet another typhoon warning scrambled the Fleet and set it seaward into the East China Sea once more. On 9 October, the center of Typhoon Louise smashed through Okinawa, but Thompson was well-clear and suffered no damage. She and her sister-ships in Mine Division 61 (MineDiv 61), formed a scouting line four miles (6 km) apart on 10 October, keeping careful lookout while returning to Buckner Bay, searching for life rafts, derelicts, or men in the water.

On 16 October, Thompson, in company with MineDiv61, headed to sea from Buckner Bay to commence sweeping operations in area "Rickshaw" in the Yellow Sea. En route the following day, Thompson sighted several floating mines and destroyed them by gunfire.

On 19 October, the force arrived at "Rickshaw," joined by PGM-29, PGM-30, and PGM-31. Thompson began her initial actual minesweeping at the northeast end of known mine lanes. The following day, Thompson swept her first mine – the first one swept by the task group. By 17 November, "Rickshaw" had been swept clean of Japanese mines, with Thompson scoring high with 64 mines located and destroyed.

After a short tender availability at Sasebo, Japan, the base of operations for MineDiv 61, Thompson steamed to Nagoya, Japan, to become flagship of the task group sweeping nearby waters. Completing this operation by mid-December, the minesweeper steamed back via Wakayama to Sasebo. During the last week in 1945, she assisted in the unsuccessful search for survivors of Minivet (AM-371), sunk by a mine explosion off Tsushima, northwest of Kyūshū, Japan.

The ship spent January and February 1946 in Japanese home waters, and then steamed for Bikini Atoll to assist in sweeping operations to prepare the area for Operation Crossroads tests of atomic bombs to be conducted there in July. Before the tests took place, Thompson headed back to the United States. She remained at San Francisco, through July and then spent two months in overhaul at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California. From Mare Island, she returned to San Francisco to operate out of that port until late in the year. After six months of operation at San Francisco, she sailed for China on 10 February 1947, and proceeded via Pearl Harbor, Guam, and Kwajalein to Tsingtao.

Following six months duty with American occupation forces in Chinese waters, Thompson returned to the United States in early September 1947 and arrived at San Diego, California, on 2 October. Transferred to the operational command of Destroyers, Pacific Fleet, with the abolition of the Pacific Fleet Minecraft command, Thompson operated out of San Diego as a destroyer until 29 April 1948, when she returned again to Mare Island for a two-month overhaul. In July, she returned to San Diego and underwent training operations off the west coast, activities in which she was engaged for the remainder of 1948.

In January 1949, Thompson again set course for China in company with Destroyer Division 52. En route, however, the ships received orders to put about for the west coast after spending a few days in Hawaii, arriving at San Diego on 4 February 1949.

Thompson and three of her sister fast-minesweepers then became Mine Squadron One (MineRon 1) and were assigned to the General Line School at Monterey, California. They alternated in these operations between Monterey and San Diego for the remainder of 1949. After spending the first three months of 1950 in routine exercises and cruises out of San Diego, Thompson steamed for Pearl Harbor on 6 April 1950, for a three-month overhaul.