USS Basilone (DD/DDE-824) was a of the United States Navy, named for Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone (1916–1945), who was awarded the Medal of Honor for "extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry in action...." in the defense of Henderson Field during the 1942 Guadalcanal campaign.
Construction and commissioning
Basilone was laid down on 7 July 1945 at Orange, Texas, by the Consolidated Steel Corporation, Ltd; launched on 21 December 1945; and sponsored by Sgt Lena Mae Basilone, USMCWR, GySgt John Basilone's widow. After lying inactive for more than two years, the ship was slated for conversion to an escort destroyer (DDE).
towed Basilone from Orange, Texas, to Quincy, Massachusetts, where the ship was converted by the Bethlehem Steel Co. Redesignated DDE-824 on 28 January 1948, Basilone was commissioned on 26 July 1949. The designation "DDE" stood for "escort destroyer". Escort destroyers were modified destroyers with their torpedo tubes removed to make space for more anti-aircraft guns.
Service history 1949–1954
Following commissioning, Basilone proceeded to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, whence she carried out shakedown training during late October and November. She returned to New England to spend Christmas in Boston, Massachusetts, before concluding shakedown at Key West in January 1950. On 1 February, the escort destroyer returned to Boston for a seven-week post-shakedown availability. After putting in at Norfolk, Virginia, on 24 March, Basilone conducted local operations and served as a unit of the Surface Anti-Submarine School at Key West during the rest of 1950 and most of 1951. She spent late November and early December in the West Indies conducting training and then returned to Norfolk where she occupied the rest of the year and the first quarter of 1952 preparing for her first deployment to the Mediterranean.
On 18 April 1952, the escort destroyer departed Norfolk, loaded ammunition, and headed for Tangier, Morocco. Following Mediterranean operations in mid-May, Basilone visited Sicily; Marseille, France; Naples, Italy; and Gibraltar before leaving the Mediterranean on 17 June. After a brief replenishment stop in the Azores, the warship stood into Norfolk on the 28th. With the exceptions of an amphibious exercise at Onslow Beach, North Carolina, in August and a repair period at the New York Naval Shipyard in September, she spent most of the summer close to Norfolk until deploying to the Mediterranean once again on 22 September. Basilone reached Tangier on 6 October and touched briefly at Gibraltar before joining the 6th Fleet. Aside from the usual operations, the escort destroyer visited Naples; Augusta, Sicily; Cannes, France; and Algiers, Algeria before departing the Mediterranean via Gibraltar on 26 November.
Basilone returned to Norfolk early in December and began a period of leave and upkeep. At the end of the first week in 1953, she resumed normal operations out of Norfolk and remained so engaged until the beginning of February when she headed south to the West Indies to carry out several weeks of anti-submarine warfare (ASW) drills. Late in March, the warship reentered Norfolk to prepare for another tour of duty with the 6th Fleet. She put to sea on her way back to the Mediterranean on 17 April. Basilone served with the 6th Fleet for about three months, returning to Norfolk late in June. The escort destroyer then entered the Norfolk Naval Shipyard for a brief availability before making a series of short cruises from her homeport to Key West, Mayport, Florida, and San Juan, Puerto Rico In September, she operated locally out of Norfolk and then underwent a tender availability in October preparatory to beginning a three-month regular overhaul at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard on 4 November.
Basilone completed the repair and maintenance work on 11 February 1954 and resumed an active employment schedule. She sailed south to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, whence she completed her post-overhaul refresher training. After returning to Norfolk in mid-April, the warship readied herself to deploy to the Mediterranean once more, embarking on that assignment on 4 May. Basilone participated in 6th Fleet exercises throughout the summer months and, while doing so, called at ports from Algeria to Turkey. She spent considerable time off the French Riviera where took part in festivities celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Allied landings in World War II. In September, she headed back to the United States, arriving back in Norfolk on 28 September. After a tender availability, Basilone resumed a normal schedule of operations, largely competitive division exercises conducted locally off the Virginia Capes during November.
1955–1962 February and March 1955 found Basilone under the operational control of ComAntiSubLant participating in a series of ASW helicopter evaluation exercises. She spent most of April in port at Norfolk undergoing a tender availability and carried out type training near the Virginia Capes in May. From early June to early August, the warship took part in a midshipman training cruise to European waters, during which she visited Valencia, Spain; Weymouth, England; and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Basilone returned to Norfolk on 4 August and commenced a pre-overhaul tender availability that she had to interrupt twice to get underway to evade two hurricanes. Finally though, after almost three weeks of service to the Operational Development Force, the escort destroyer entered the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on 13 September to begin a three-month overhaul. Basilone completed the repairs just in time to return to Norfolk for Christmas.
Basilone spent the first quarter of 1956 pierside at Norfolk. In April, when she finally did get underway, she ventured only as far as the waters of Chesapeake Bay. At the end of April, however, the warship embarked on a training cruise that took her to the West Indies. Returning to Norfolk in mid-June, Basilone spent the summer of 1956 engaged first in a familiarization cruise for West Point Cadets and then in a training cruise for Naval Academy midshipmen to Halifax, Nova Scotia. In September, she participated in Exercise "New Broom VI" then toured NATO countries for advanced ASW exercises. In November, the destroyer escort sailed to the Mediterranean to supplement the 6th Fleet during the Suez Crisis. Basilone returned to Norfolk in mid-December.
Over the next five years, the warship continued to alternate tours of duty with the 6th Fleet with periods of service along the east coast and in the West Indies while based at Norfolk. During her deployment to the Mediterranean Sea in the summer of 1958, Basilone joined other 6th Fleet units in patrolling the coast of Lebanon in response to internal political upheavals in that country.
In 1962, however, a break came in her east coast-Mediterranean cycle of operations. After conducting local ASW exercises during mid-January and making a futile round-trip voyage to Mayport, Florida, and back late in the month to support the recovery of Col. John Glenn's Mercury flight which had to be delayed because of weather and technical difficulties, Basilone again departed Norfolk on 17 February along with her eight DesRon 36 squadron mates to rendezvous with the aircraft carrier for the voyage across the Atlantic. The task group paused near Bermuda to assist with the recovery of Col. Glenn's space capsule and then resumed the journey to northern European waters.
The task group stopped at Portsmouth, England, between 28 February and 7 March and visited Rotterdam in the Netherlands from the 15th to the 22nd. From Rotterdam, the warships crossed the North Sea to call at Glasgow, Scotland, between 30 March and 5 April and carried out exercises in nearby waters until 8 April when they moored at Moville, Ireland. After a visit to Plymouth from 12 April to 24, Basilone recrossed the North Sea early in May to stop at Flensburg, Germany, for 10 days from the 4th to the 14th. The escort destroyer and her colleagues then spent a week at Moss, Norway, between 21 May and 28 and conducted more exercises at sea before returning to Norfolk on 16 June.
Basilone stayed in port at Norfolk until early August. On 7 August, the same day that she resumed local underway activity, the warship was reclassified a destroyer and redesignated DD-824. The destroyer conducted ASW training with Wasp and the submarine and then paid a visit to New York City from 18 August to 22. During the month between 23 August and 24 September, Basilone carried out normal training missions in the Virginia Capes operating area. Near the end of September, she left Norfolk on her way south for and extended period of drills and exercises in the West Indies. The eruption of the Cuban Missile Crisis in mid-October, found Basilone still engaged in training operations out of Guantanamo Bay. She immediately joined the "quarantine" of Cuba that finally forced the removal of the Russian nuclear missiles from the island; Basilone served on the quarantine from 24 October to 18 November 1962.
1963–1966
She returned to Norfolk for the last weeks of 1962. After holiday stand down, the warship resumed local operations during the second week of January 1963. In mid-February, Basilone returned to the West Indies where she carried out a month of training near Puerto Rico. She reentered Norfolk on 21 March and, for the next ten weeks, got underway infrequently and only operated locally. In June 1963 Basilone was assigned North Atlantic duties to provide a homing beacon off the coast of Ireland for President Kennedy's pending flight to Europe. While on station for the flight, Basilone sustained a serious crack in her hull near the keel during a severe North Atlantic storm. (Waves were estimated to be at approximately in size) The crack was leaking over a minute and was getting worse. Welding repairs attempts were unsuccessful and an emergency repair attempt at the shipyard in Londonderry, Ireland away was denied. Basilone was ordered to stay on station until Air Force One radioed receipt of Basilones homing beacon. Basilone was then to be immediately released approximately 25 June for return to Norfolk, Virginia. D & S Piers for a pierside repair attempt. When the pierside repair attempt was deemed unsuccessful, Basilone was dispatched to Yorktown, Virginia, to unload ammunition and then sent on to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard for drydock repairs on the hull.
In preparation for overhaul and modernization she left Norfolk on 27 July bound for the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. From July 1963 to 26 April 1964, Basilone underwent a Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization (FRAM I) overhaul at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. Modifications completed, the destroyer followed her arrival at her new homeport of Newport, Rhode Island, on 1 May with three weeks of shakedown training at Newport and Norfolk.