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Launched on 30
September and commissioned 26 December 1944, the DOUGLAS H. FOX (DD-779)
arrived off Okinawa on 5 May 1945. At 1900 on 17 May, the FOX, VAN
VALKENBURGH (DD-656), and LCS-53 were on Picket Station 9 when her radar
picked up a bogey at 70 miles. Twenty-eight minutes later, the FOX’s
guns splashed the first of the incoming planes. Almost immediately more
planes appeared swarming like angry bees around the FOX whose gunners
were firing on as many as three targets on a side. They quickly brought
down three more planes, and shot the tail assembly off another. At 1934
the tailless plane flew the length of the ship, hitting the port yardarm
before hurtling over the bridge and into the deck between the forward
5-inch gun mounts. The plane had released its 500-pound bomb, which
plowed through one of the mounts and also crashed into the main deck.
The explosion and gasoline from the plane started a large fire forward,
but damage control parties extinguished it within minutes. The FOX’s
Number 3 mount and her machine gunners kept on firing and brought down
another plane that crashed just off her fantail spewing gasoline over
the fantail and causing another fire, which was soon under control. The
kamikaze killed seven of her crew and wounded thirty-five.
In the meantime, the
VAN VALKENBURGH was still fighting off attackers. Finally at 2100, the
CONVERSE (DD-509) arrived to provide medical care and half an hour later
the WILLIAM D. PORTER (DD-579) appeared to relieve the FOX as radar
picket Number 9. Escorted by the CONVERSE, the FOX got underway under
her own power. After temporary repairs at Kerama Retto to patch the
gaping hole in her deck, she was headed for San Francisco.
After repairs, she
sailed in September 1945 for Norfolk. Local operations and plane guard
duty with the new carrier FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT (CVB-42) took her to
December 1946. She got underway in July 1947 for her first tour of duty
in the Mediterranean. On 29 September 1947, while underway for Trieste,
the FOX struck a mine left from the war. The damage to her stern killed
three men and injured twelve. Following temporary repairs, the ocean tug
LUISENO (ATF-156) towed her to Boston. Back on duty in June 1948, she
cruised the Mediterranean, Africa, and South America. En route to
Guantanamo Bay in July 1949, the FOX and the WILLARD KEITH (DD-775)
collided. After repairs at Portsmouth Navy Yard, she got underway for
Charleston where she was decommissioned on 21 April 1950.
The outbreak of war in
Korea brought the FOX back into service on 15 November 1950. After East
Coast operations, she got underway for the Far East in January 1952
where she screened Task Force 77 ships off Korea and with the MANCHESTER
(CL-83) participated in the bombardment of Wonsan and fired on targets
along Korea’s east coast. In May, while shelling enemy factories,
troops, gun emplacements, and railroads, she took a port side hit that
injured three men but did little damage to the ship. Later, she captured
26 sampans badly crippling North Korea’s fishing industry. She ended her
Korean deployment in June 1952, sailing for Norfolk through the Indian
Ocean and the Mediterranean. She returned to Korea in February 1954 and
patrolled the coast during the uneasy truce.
Midshipman training
cruises, tours of duty in the Mediterranean, NATO exercises in the North
Atlantic, operations out of Norfolk, and service in the Red Sea and
Persian Gulf took her into June 1960. That year ended with East Coast
operations, maneuvers north of the Arctic Circle, and a Caribbean patrol
during political unrest in Central America. A Sixth Fleet deployment,
antisubmarine warfare operations in the Atlantic, FRAM II conversion,
and base defense duty in the aftermath of the Cuban Crisis completed
1962. During 1963, she conducted midshipman cruises and operations off
the Virginia Capes and in the Caribbean. Mediterranean deployments with
DesRon 36; sonar school training cruises out of Key West; antisubmarine
warfare, NATO, and fleet exercises; and a fruitless thirty-day search
for the nuclear submarine SCORPION (SSN-589) took her into the fall of
1968. En route to the Far East in September, she suffered a severe fire
in the after fireroom, which ultimately cost three men their lives and
injured several others. Diverted to Charleston, South Carolina, for
repairs, she did not continue her transit to the Pacific until January
1969.
By February she was
underway for Vietnam to support forces ashore and engage in search and
rescue and escort duty in the combat zone and operations in the Taiwan
Straits and Sea of Japan until July 1969. By October, she was in
Philadelphia to begin her new career as a reserve training ship serving
with the HANK (DD-702), LOWRY (DD-770), and CHARLE S. SPERRY (DD-698).
She was decommissioned and struck from the navy’s list on 15 December
1973 and sold to Chile as MINISTRO PORTALES on 8 January 1974. She was
disposed of in 1990. |
