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Military History

An essay compiled by Perkins List Member: James Fulton Perkins
Please contact Jim for any questions or additional information.



The USS Perkins

Third in a line of distinguished fighting ships, the radar picket destroyer U.S.S. Perkins was named for Commodore George H. Perkins, USN.  The first U.S.S. Perkins was launched in 1910 and participated in World War I in convoy duty and anti submarine duty.  It was sold on June 28,1935.  The second U.S.S. Perkins was launched on December 31,1935, but unfortunately was lost at sea in the South Pacific on November 29,1943 when she collided with the Australian troopship Duntroon. 

The U.S.S. Perkins DD877 was built by the Consolidated Steel Corporation in Orange, Texas.  Her keel was laid on June 19,1944 and she was launched December 7,1944.  Mrs. Larz Anderson, a daughter of the late Commodore George H. Perkins officiated.  She was placed in commission on April 5,1945 under the command of Commander T.M. Fleck, USN. 

After her fitting out for sea, the new destroyer got underway for her shakedown cruise at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  She left there on May 20,1945 for the Norfolk Navy Yard to complete her conversion to a radar picket ship and on July 10 was back off Cuba for another shakedown. 

Leaving on July 25,1945 she escorted the Boxer through the Panama Canal and to San Diego, proceeding on to Pearl Harbor.  While the ship was at the Hawaiian base the Japanese surrendered to the Allies to bring World War II to a close. 

The U.S.S. Perkins was still necessary for occupation duty, however, and she got underway on August 20 for Iwo Jima.  She left Tokyo Bay arriving on September 2, the day on which the formal surrender document was signed aboard the U.S.S. Missouri. 

She remained on active duty with the Pacific Fleet earning the Navy Occupation Service Medal. 

Between World War II and the Korean conflict the U.S.S. Perkins served three major tours of duty in Asiatic waters.  She performed evacuation of residents of Tsingtao, China to Hong Kong to prevent their capture by invading Communists, participated in “Operation Sandstone”, the second A-bomb test on Eniwetok and was a escort ship to President Truman on his historic trip for a conference with General MacArthur 

During the Korean War, the U.S.S. Perkins served three more tours in the western Pacific.  She spent the entire month of July 1952 firing 4000 rounds from her main guns and over 5000 rounds of 40mm spending six consecutive days on the bombline while being fired upon.  The U.S.S. Perkins completed 31 days of around the clock bombardment of enemy military installations along the east coast of North Korea.  Considered by the Navy to be the longest consecutive tour completed by any ship. 

The U.S.S. Perkins has been taken under fire by enemy shore batteries five times and effectively silenced all enemy batteries without assistance.  Later, however, she wasn’t so lucky when during amphibious operations off Kojo, South Korea a shell burst over the ship killing one man, the first and only sailor to lose his life aboard the U.S.S. Perkins. 

During the cruise of 1959 the U.S.S. Perkins encountered the worst typhoon in Japanese history.  Typhoon Vera, as it was called, left 27,000 homeless and damages at $400 million, including the U.S.S. Perkins.  Temporary repairs were made at Kyushu Island and she was order to Long Beach, California for dry-dock and a major overhaul. 

In 1962 the U.S.S. Perkins emerged from the shipyard a modernized fighting ship with sophisticated weaponry and electronic gear and a new addition to the Navy, DASH.  DASH is a torpedo-dropping helicopter flying of the fantail of a ship.  The U.S.S. Perkins was the first destroyer to be outfitted and sent out with this new fighting machine. 

In the summer of 1966 the U.S.S. Perkins departed her homeport of San Diego for the Seventh Fleet doing duty off South Vietnam.  During this time the officers and crew were awarded the Fleet Citation for Outstanding Performance in Action due to gunfire action against a North Vietnamese shore battery on November 4,1966. 

From 1966 until 1971 the U.S.S. Perkins alternated between deployments to Wes Pac and as a training vessel for the Naval Reserve. 

During her last year of service the U.S.S. Perkins performed just as she had during the previous 27 successful years, bring her mobility and firepower to bear in the continuing effort to insure global peace through the strength of the Free World.  Thankfully she will continue to fulfill this same important mission for many years in the navy of an Allied nation. 

On January 15,1973 the U.S.S. Perkins DDR877 was decommissioned as a United States ship and transferred to the Navy of the Republic of Argentina, thus ending a illustrious naval chapter in Perkins history.

 

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