This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Donald Finley, QM3
to remember
Finley, Miles Rush, Jr., CAPT USN(Ret).
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Contact Info
Home Town New Orleans, LA
Last Address 3890 Nobel Dr San Diego, CA
Date of Passing Jan 07, 2010
Location of Interment Buried at Sea, Pacific Ocean
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
My Mother and Father lived a long happy life together and in retirement traveled around the world to many countries.
Other Comments:
Capt Miles R Finley, Jr, USN (Ret.) Passed away on January 7, 2010. He had Alzheimer's disease. His wife, Barbara F (McCann) Finley, preceded him in death. She passed Thanksgiving morning , November 23, 2006 of complication due to diabetes.
My father graduated from the Naval Academy Class of 1943 which was graduated early in June 1942. He served as commanding officer on several ships, and staff officer on several staff duty locations. I remember Dad taking me as a small boy to sea on day exercise cruises. There were dependent cruises also.
Dad took command of the USS Shields (DD-596) on July 15,1950 through April 2, 1952. He commissioned her as a regular duty ship from a reserve duty ship. Her home port as a reserve ship was on the Sacramento River in Sacramento, CA. Dad brought her down the river to the San Francisco Bay and out under the Golden Gate Bridge and off to the Pacific for duty.
Some 20 years later, I was just about to finish my 6 year enlisted reserve duty obligation. I was doing weekend a month drilling duty in San Diego, CA. The Navy assigned me to the USS Shields (DD-596) in 1970. I served on her as a QM3 until 1972. She was to be decommissioned. I then was reassigned for my last few months. I was discharged in 1972. The USS Shields (DD-596) was decommissioned in 1972. It was fun to talk to Dad about our times aboard the USS Shields (DD-596). I will remember many of the "Sea Stories" Dad would tell.
Korean War/Second Korean Winter (1951-52)
From Month/Year
November / 1951
To Month/Year
April / 1952
Description As 1951 drew to a close, a lull had settled over the battlefield. Fighting tapered off to a routine of patrol clashes, raids, and bitter small-unit struggles for key outpost positions. The lull resulted from Ridgway's decision to halt offensive operations in Korea, because the cost of major assaults on the enemy's defenses would be more than the results could justify. Furthermore, the possibility of an armistice agreement emerging from the recently reopened talks ruled out the mounting of any large-scale offensive by either side. On 21 November Ridgway ordered the Eighth Army to cease offensive operations and begin an active defense of its front. Attacks were limited to those necessary to strengthen the main line of resistance and to establish an adequate outpost line.
In the third week of December the U.S. 45th Division, the first National Guard division to fight in Korea, replaced the 1st Cavalry Division in the I Corps sector north of Seoul. The 1st Cavalry Division returned to Japan.
In the air, U.N. bombers and fighter-bombers continued the interdiction campaign (Operation STRANGLE, which the Far East Air Forces had begun on 15 August 1951) against railroad tracks, bridges, and highway traffic. At sea, naval units of nine nations tightened their blockade around the coastline of North Korea. Carrier-based planes blasted railroads, bridges, and boxcars, and destroyers bombarded enemy gun emplacements and supply depots. On the ground, the 155-mile front remained generally quiet in the opening days of 1952. Later in January the Eighth Army opened a month-long artillery-air campaign against enemy positions, which forced the enemy to dig in deeply. During March and April Van Fleet shifted his units along the front to give the ROK Army a greater share in defending the battle line and to concentrate American fire power in the vulnerable western sector.
