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Built by Bethlehem
Steel’s Staten Island yard, USS FORREST ROYAL (DD-872) was launched on
17 January and commissioned on 29 June 1946. Based in Pensacola,
Florida, her early missions involved tests for the Bureau of Ships,
escort and plane guard duty, and antisubmarine warfare exercises in the
Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.
By September 1950 she
was headed. for the Pacific and the Korean War zone. Her first
assignment was with the minesweeping force clearing the waters around
Chinnampo, a port essential to supply operations for the Eighth Army.
She was off Chinnampo again on 5 December with several Australian,
Canadian, and British destroyers to cover the evacuation of American and
Korean soldiers and civilians. To reach them in time, the ships had to
enter the port at night without lights and in a blinding snow storm,
avoiding treacherous mud flats and islands and staying within the swept
channel marked by buoys that couldn’t be detected by radar. With a few
minor mishaps, they stood into the port at about 2250 and were anchored
off the city by 0240. The FORREST ROYAL took station farthest up the
river and once the army reported all personnel off the beach, she and
the other destroyers began shelling port installations. When they left
at 1842, the port was ablaze.
Between 20 and 24
December DD-872 engaged in the bombardment of Hungnam during X-Corps
evacuation. She delivered call, interdiction, illumination, and
harassing fire. Also on the gun line were the St. PAUL (CA-73),
ROCHESTER (CA-124), NORRIS (DDE-859), ENGLISH (DD-696), BORIE (DD-704),
WALLACE L. LIND (DD-703), HANK (DD-702), ZELLARS (DD-777), MASSEY
(DD-778), and CHARLES S. SPERRY (DD-697). Upon completion of the
mission, she joined the blockade off Korea’s northeast coast, and turned
her guns on shore positions near Kisamon Tan. She continued in her fire
support and bombardment roles in the vicinity of Kingnang and Sachonjin
Ni until 1 February 1951. On 4 February, she served as plane guard for
the BATAAN (CV-29) during air strikes off the west coast of Korea. In
March she was back on the gun line off Chumunjin and at mid-month
conducted shore bombardment at Wonsan with additional bombardment
missions against Kansong, Yangyang, and Haku. The destroyer also engaged
in shore bombardment, blockade, and escort duty along the Korean coast,
and extensive operations with carrier task forces until the end of May.
Early in June 1951 she headed for home.
Routine operations,
European and Mediterranean cruises, NATO exercises off Norway,
antisubmarine exercises off Northern Ireland, and more Atlantic coast
and Caribbean exercises took the ROYAL through July 1954. From August
1954 to March 1955, she circled the globe. Along the way, she operated
in Japanese and Philippine waters, the Indian Ocean, and the
Mediterranean. Her next deployment with the Sixth Fleet was between
September 1956 and April 1957. During the Suez Crisis, when the canal
was closed, she patrolled along the Egyptian coast and later circled
Africa to assume her duties in the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, and Gulf of
Suez.
A midshipman cruise in
the summer of 1957, NATO operations, and landing exercises with
amphibious ships at Puerto Rico, led to a transatlantic voyage to land
marines at Beirut, Lebanon, between 20 and 28 August. Six days after her
arrival off Beirut, she was ordered to accompany the carrier ESSEX to
the Far East and patrol of the Taiwan Straits in response to the renewed
Communist Chinese shelling of Quemoy and Matsu. The ROYAL returned home
in September via Capetown, South Africa.
A highlight of 1959 was
the ROYAL’s participation in ceremonies celebrating the opening of the
St. Lawrence Seaway and a cruise through the Great Lakes. In March 1960,
she sailed once more for duty with the Sixth Fleet and the Middle East
Force. The following spring she entered the Boston Naval Shipyard for
her FRAM I conversion during which she received the Antisubmarine Rocket
(ASROC) and Drone antisubmarine helicopter (DASH) systems.
She was operating out
of Mayport and Key West, Florida, in October 1961 when President Kennedy
ordered the quarantine of Cuba and was one of the first destroyers to
arrive in the area. When the crisis ended, she returned to testing her
new weapons systems until August 1963 when she deployed to the
Mediterranean. Early in 1964, she participated in Polaris test firings
at Cape Kennedy, Florida, followed by a midshipman cruise to Northern
Europe. January 1965 found the ROYAL midway between Florida and Africa
as part of the recovery team for the unmanned test flight of Gemini II.
A year later, she was in the Mediterranean and when her deployment with
the Sixth Fleet ended, she conducted a midshipman cruise to the
Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. In September 1966 she was part of the
recovery force for the two-man Gemini XI space flight and took part in
LANTFLEX-66, one of the largest fleet exercises in ten years.
The ROYAL joined the
WARE (DD-865), BARNEY (DDG-6), and DAHLGREN (DLG-12) in February 1967
for the transit to the Western Pacific and operations off the coast of
Vietnam. In mid-April she was on Yankee Station plane guarding the BON
HOMME RICHARD (CVA-31) when her guns were needed by U.S. forces ashore
at Da Nang in South Vietnam. She covered the 150 miles to her
destination in less than eight hours. She became flagship for DesRon 16,
commanding all naval gun fire support ships in the area. From 23 April
to 6 May the ROYAL expended some 2,600 rounds of 5-inch projectiles in
missions in the I and II Corps area and night harassment and
interdiction fire in Da Nang Harbor. Following operations on Yankee
Station and plane guarding the BON HOMME RICHARD and HANCOCK (CVA-19),
the ROYAL joined Operation Sea Dragon on 20 May and twice in five days
received intense counterbattery fire and heavy shrapnel but no direct
hits. On 29 May the destroyer moved south to the Demilitarized Zone,
again serving as flagship for DesRon 16 during a nine-day operation
along the entire length of the Vietnam coastline from the DMZ 570 miles
south through all four corps areas to the Gulf of Siam. While plane
guarding the CONSTELLATION (CVA-64) on 2 August, the ROYAL recovered a
downed pilot who had been forced to eject from his A-4C Skyhawk in the
Tonkin Gulf. She began her trip home the following day and arrived in
Mayport on 19 September 1967.
Operations out of
Mayport and in the Caribbean, ASW exercises off Puerto Rico with the
AULT (DD-698) and McCAFFERY (DD-860) in 1968, duty as Sonar School Ship
at Key West, midshipman cruises, and plane guarding filled her schedule
until her decommissioning on 27 March 1971. She was transferred to the
Turkish government, renamed the ADATEPE, and struck from the navy’s list
on 1 February 1973. She served there for an additional twenty years. |
