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The BRISTOL was
launched on 29 October 1944 at San Pedro, California, and was
commissioned on 17 March 1945. She steamed for the Western Pacific in
June and arrived at Guam in July to join a logistic support task group
supplying Task Force 38. On 5 August 1945, the BRISTOL collided with the
ASHTABULA (AO-51), damaging her bow. She returned to Guam for repairs
and then proceeded to Japan for occupation duty. She returned to San
Pedro in March 1946.
In April 1946 the
BRISTOL reported to the Atlantic Fleet and operated along the East Coast
until February 1947 when she steamed to England for a cruise in European
waters that lasted until August. Upon her return, she served as a naval
reserve training ship operating out of New Orleans, Louisiana. During
the summer and fall of 1950, the BRISTOL visited several Caribbean ports
with interim periods of training at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The BRISTOL’s home
port was changed to Newport on 21 October 1950. In March 1951, she
proceeded to the Mediterranean for duty, returning to Newport during the
summer. On 2 October 1951, she began a round-the-world cruise which took
her through the Panama Canal to California, Hawaii, Midway, Japan,
Okinawa, and Korea where she served from 31 October to 27 February 1952.
She then returned to Newport via the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean,
arriving in April 1952. The BRISTOL spent the summer in Boston
undergoing an overhaul.
Following refresher
training at Guantanamo Bay, she got underway for a five-month tour of
duty in Northern Europe and the Mediterranean. She was in Amsterdam when
disastrous floods struck the Netherlands, and her crew assisted flood
victims with money and clothes. Her deployment with the Sixth Fleet
ended in May 1953. That summer, a midshipman cruise took her to the
Caribbean and then, it was back to the Boston Naval Shipyard for
repairs.
The BRISTOL began
1954 with a trip to England and Ireland and finished the year with
routine operations along the East Coast and fleet exercises in the
Atlantic and Caribbean. She spent the spring of 1955 in antisubmarine
warfare training and then got underway for the Mediterranean in July.
Antisubmarine duty, NATO exercises, a midshipman cruise, and overhaul
occupied her through 1956. A midshipman cruise to Valparaiso via the
Panama Canal, NATO exercises north of the Arctic Circle, a Mediterranean
cruise, another midshipman cruise to Europe, fleet exercises, a
Caribbean cruise, and routine operations along the East Coast kept her
busy until the spring of 1960 when she was assigned duty as an
engineering school ship.
On 6 May 1960, the
BRISTOL put to sea as part of the search and rescue detail during the
president’s flight to Paris for a summit conference. That duty was
followed by a trip to Denmark with the U.S. Ambassador and Naval
Attaché. During her 1960 Mediterranean deployment, the ship transited
the Suez Canal to patrol Middle Eastern waters. She spent Christmas and
New Year’s in France and returned to Newport in February 1961. That
April she participated in Operation Mercury, visiting the Canary Islands
before returning to Newport. While in the Caribbean in 1961, the BRISTOL
was involved in disaster operations in the wake of Hurricane Hattie in
Honduras. She later joined the task force operating off the coast of the
Dominican Republic near Santa Domingo. Back in the Mediterranean in
March 1962, she relieved the WREN (DD-568) and made stops in Greece,
Turkey, and Sicily. She left the Mediterranean bound for Newport with
the HARLAN R. DICKSON (DD-708) in May. The BRISTOL was again underway
for the Mediterranean in February 1963. A brief stint on Red Sea patrol
and joint operations with the Italian and French navies completed her
Sixth Fleet tour. She again stood by as rescue destroyer during the
president’s flight to Europe and then visited the Azores and
Newfoundland.
In September 1963,
the BRISTOL was transferred to Reserve Destroyer Squadron Thirty and her
home port was shifted to New York. Her reserve training cruises took the
destroyer from Nova Scotia to the Great Lakes and the Caribbean and into
the Atlantic for fleet exercises. During her Great Lakes cruise in July
1965, the BRISTOL participated in the search for survivors of a downed
Canadian jet fighter plane in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Training
operations off Florida and in the Caribbean were followed by gunfire
support exercises at Bloodsworth Island, Maryland, training marine air
spotters for Vietnam. She concluded her career with routine reserve
training cruises and was finally decommissioned and stricken from the
naval register on 21 November 1969.
She was sold to
Taiwan on 9 December 1969, and served in that navy as the HUA YANG until
1993.
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