Tin Can Sailors - The National Association of Destroyer Veterans

Built by Maine’s Bath Iron Works, the USS GLOVER was authorized as environmental research ship AGER 163, but by her commissioning on 17 April 1965, she’d been redesignated a destroyer escort research ship, AGDE‑1. She was essentially a modification of the GARCIA (DE‑1040) class, the first of which was two years ahead of her. As it turned out, AGDE-1 was in a class by herself, the only destroyer escort specifically built for antisubmarine warfare (ASW) research and development.

From her home port in Newport, Rhode Island, the GLOVER began her career with the latest ASW equipment. She had a raised stern to accommodate her experimental sonar equipment. One of her most important features was the ability to run more silently than her contemporaries in the fleet. Her machinery was mounted on shocks to lessen its various sounds, and she had additional equipment designed specifically to mask noise. Fin stabilizers and a pump jet propulsion system further contributed to her running silently. The last was characterized by a shrouded propellor to reduce its cavitation, thus its noise.

She spent the fall of 1969 off the Bahamas where she tested her tracking equipment against torpedoes test-fired at her by submarines. In one form or another, such tests continued throughout most of the GLOVER’s career, during which she spent ten years as AGDE‑1. Because of her mission as a research vessel, she seldom engaged fully in fleet operations. She did operate with a special group designated Destroyer Development Group Two whose purpose was to develop tests and evaluate new equipment for the navy’s ships. The group included the USS BROWNSON (DD‑868), USS PURVIS (DD‑709), USS GAINARD (DD‑706),USS DICKSON (DD‑708), USS GLENNON (DD‑840), USS WITEK (DD‑848), and the USS WILKINSON (DL‑5).

During her first deployment to the Mediterranean, the GLOVER’s testing operations were conducted under the watchful eyes of Soviet ships and aircraft, a situation that prevailed during subsequent Mediterranean cruises in the 1970s. In the fall of 1970, open warfare broke out in Jordan between Palestinian guerrillas and King Hussein’s army, which brought an attack on Jordan by Soviet-backed Syria. When the U.S. responded by sending the Sixth Fleet to the eastern Mediterranean, the crisis interrupted the GLOVER’s sonar testing, while she was on escort duty with the fleet during the ten-day war. By this time, the ship’s crew had discovered that because of her unique propulsion system, she didn’t back up easily producing tense moments during docking or getting underway. She required a tug to assist in approaching and leaving a dock. Attempting it without a tug, meant fairly serious bumps and scrapes against piers and similar harbor structures in the process.

In 1974 she transferred her home port to Norfolk where she was redesignated AGFF‑1 on 13 July 1975. As a fast frigate, she began to take part in ASW fleet exercises and used her unique capabilities to support hunter‑killer groups, amphibious forces, and ocean convoys. She received yet another designation on 1 October 1979. While crossing the Red Sea en route to Djibouti for refueling, she received the hull number of a canceled KNOX‑class fast frigate. Thereafter she was identified as the FF‑1098.

Back home, the GLOVER was put to a new test, this time as one of the first, if not the first, combatant ships to have women assigned as part of the crew. She was chosen for the program mainly because of her previous service as research and development vessel, which required special accommodations for civilian engineers during tests of new equipment. A female navy lieutenant and four women in their last year at the Naval Academy reported for duty, and their time aboard was deemed a success when they disembarked several weeks later.

In August 1980, the GLOVER began an overhaul at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia, and by 1982 was well into a busy schedule of fleet operations and exercises. Deployment to the Mediterranean and special operations off Central America took her into in the fall of 1984. That year, she steamed to Northern Europe to represent the U.S. at the International Navy Festival in Kiel, Germany. The GLOVER ended the year with a return to the Caribbean to show the flag. Two major fleet exercises highlighted 1985, and, then, in the winter of 1986, she was again in the Caribbean. This time, as part of a drug intervention program, she patrolled the area for vessels involved in running drugs and stopped and searched likely suspects.

Early in 1987, the GLOVER headed for the North Atlantic, putting into ports in Nova Scotia, the Netherlands, West Germany, England, Scotland, Norway and, finally, headed west to Marblehead, home town of her namesake, Revolutionary War General John Glover. Back in Norfolk, she began a series of equipment upgrades, starting with a new ASROC launcher. The work continued in Charleston with installation of a new experimental sonar system. After sea tests of the new sonar, she moved on to Boston for nearly a year of extensive overhaul. Equipped with an up-to-date experimental towed‑array sonar system, she put it through rigorous tests and submarine-tracking exercises.

On 15 June 1990, the GLOVER received her last classification. This time she was designated the T‑AGFF 1, and transferred to the Military Sealift Command in Groton, Connecticut. There, stripped of her armament, she served as a sonar-trials ship until she was deactivated on 28 August 1992. Stricken from the navy list on 29 November 1992, the GLOVER was sold on 15 April 1994 as scrap for $80,743.79 to N. R. Acquisition Inc. of New York City.