USS GLENNON DD-840

A Tin Can Sailors Destroyer History

USS GLENNON DD-840

The Tin Can Sailor, October 2001

Launched by the Bath Iron Works of Bath, Maine, on 14 July 1945, the GLENNON (DD-840) was commissioned at the Boston Naval Shipyard on 4 October 1945. She spent the spring of 1946 in the North Atlantic and the North Sea with the cruisers HELENA (CA-75) and HOUSTON (CL-81) and the destroyer CONE (DD-866). For the rest of that year and most of 1947, she was engaged in routine training in the Caribbean and operations along the East Coast. Fleet exercises in the Caribbean and a Mediterranean deployment carried her through 1948.

The GLENNON engaged in several midshipman cruises, reserve training exercises, and deployments to the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic until January 1954 when she joined the Hunter-Killer Forces of the Atlantic Fleet to cruise the eastern seaboard. In April 1954 she began a tour of duty in Northern Europe, much of it spent as escort for the BALTIMORE (CA-38). Two more midshipman cruises, fleet training in the Caribbean, and deployments with DesRon 14 to the Mediterranean took her into 1958. That October, the GLENNON became part of Destroyer Development Group 2, an experimental destroyer force. In 1959, she was busy with experimental project operations in the Narragansett Bay area and in Bermuda with the HAZELWOOD (DD-531).

After receiving new sonar equipment in early 1960, she went through an intense period of testing the new sonar domes as well as torpedoes and ECM systems. She interrupted her experimental project work in 1961 for plane guard duty with the carrier INTREPID (CV-11), participation in the Project Mercury space shot, and U.S./Canadian exercises in the North Atlantic. She again manned an Atlantic recovery station in 1962 for the historic space flight of Major John Glenn. In August she began her year-long FRAM I overhaul at the Boston Naval Shipyard. From refresher training in Cuba in August 1963, she went on to Culebra Island for gunfire support training and a stint as antisubmarine warfare school ship at Key West. While on this duty, she rescued four Cuban refugees adrift in the small boat.

The next two years were spent in testing new PADLOC passive sonar equipment, an air search anti-jamming device, and a new ECM system. In June 1965 the GLENNON escorted the battleship MASSACHUSETTS (BB-59) to Fall River, Massachusetts, where she became a historic ship memorial. During antisubmarine warfare exercises in 1966, the destroyer took part in the first operational employment of PADLOC, which demonstrated the system’s great potential. Other ships involved in the exercises were the WASP (CVS-18), the CONYNGHAM (DDG-17), CORRY (DD-817), WILLIAM M. WOOD (DD-715), ROBERT L. WILSON (DD-847), WALLER (DD-466), LAFFEY (DD-724), THORNBACK (SS-418), SKIPJACK (SSN-585), SCORPION (SSN-589), and TINOSA (SSN-606). Operations in the Caribbean, along the East Coast with the WITEK (DD-848) and HUGH H. PURVIS (DD-709), and a South American cruise with the NORFOLK (DL-1), GYATT (DD-712), SENNET (SS-408), and MULLINNIX (DD-944) occupied the GLENNON through 1967. In March 1968 she deployed with the WILLIAM R. RUSH (DD-714) and GAINARD (DD-706) for a destroyer school cruise to the Caribbean, and in June she began a seven-month deployment with a two-hundred-ship NATO Force whose exercises were under close observation by Soviet ships and aircraft. Overhaul and antisubmarine warfare, gunfire support, antiaircraft warfare, and other exercises in the Caribbean with the McCLOY (DE-1038), CHARLES S. SPERRY (DD-697), RICH (DD-820), DAMATO (DD-871), and LOWRY (DD-770) preceded her move to Charleston, South Carolina in 1969.

A 1970 deployment to the Middle East, service in the Indian Ocean, Red Sea, and Persian Gulf with the HAROLD J. ELLISON (DD-864), and fleet exercises took her into 1972 when she got underway for the Western Pacific and Vietnam. She arrived on the gun line on 19 May 1972 and after several periods of steady round-the-clock firing, she returned to the states in September. During exercises off the Virginia Capes in April 1973, while trying to refuel from the CALOOSAHATCHI (AO-98), fourteen of her crew were injured necessitating her return to Charleston. By June 1973 the GLENNON was underway for the Mediterranean and North Sea where she operated with the ELMER MONTGOMERY (DE-1082), RICHARD E. BYRD (DDG-23), CONYNGHAM (DDG-17), DALE (DLG-19), SARSFIELD (DD-837), NEW (DD-818), and JOHN F. KENNEDY (CVA-67) until December.

During 1974, she was outfitted with new experimental sonar and computer data systems followed by testing in the Caribbean with the LAPON (SSN-661), GRAYLING (SSN-646), and TIGRONE (AGSS-419). The GLENNON spent most of 1975 as a test platform for continued technical evaluations of sonar systems. More tests, plane guard duty with the AMERICA (CV-66), NATO exercises, and a Caribbean cruise ended her long career.

On 1 October 1976, three days short of her thirty-first birthday, the GLENNON was decommissioned and struck from the navy’s register. She was sunk as a target off Puerto Rico on 26 February 1981.

USS GLENNON DD-840 Ship History

Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, July 2015

The second Glennon (DD-840) was launched 14 July 1945 by the Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine; sponsored by Miss Frances Reading Glennon, granddaughter; and commissioned 4 October 1945, Comdr. George W. Pressey in command.

After shakedown off Cuba, Glennon sailed from Boston 12 February 1946 for Europe and visited many of the nations washed by the North Sea before returning to New York in August of the same year. Undergoing upkeep at Boston and overhaul at Newport, Glennon conducted refresher training out of Guantanamo Bay during April and May 1947. For the next 12 months she engaged in a rigorous schedule of tactics along the New England coast and down the eastern seaboard to ports of Florida. In February and March 1948 she took part in combat fleet exercises and maneuvers in waters ranging from Cuba to Trinidad and the Panama Canal.

Sailing from Norfolk in June 1948, Glennon served with the Midshipman Practice Squadron and made calls at Portugal, Italy, and French Morocco. She joined the 6th Fleet in August 1948 for Mediterranean duty, returning stateside in January 1949 for overhaul at Boston. In the winter of 1949-50 she was part of Operation “Frostbite,” a cold weather exercise near the Davis Strait, subsequently to sail from Newport 4 January 1950 for another “Med” cruise.

Upon return to the United States, she made a series of reserve training cruises along the eastern, seaboard and engaged in type training along the New England coast and into the Caribbean Sea. Underway from Newport 8 January 1951, she embarked on another “Med” cruise, returning to Boston in May for overhaul followed by refresher training out of Cuba.

Glennon spent January and February 1952 with a carrier task force conducting cold weather training in waters ranging northward to the Davis Straits. From April to October she was flagship of Destroyer Squadron 8, and stood out in June for the Mediterranean, returning to Annapolis in September 1952. For more than a decade the destroyer continued her already established peacetime operation pattern. Highlights of this exacting duty included participation as a recovery station ship in the 1961 and 1962 Project Mercury flights, and in the search for the lost nuclear powered submarine Thresher. In August 1961 Glennon was called away suddenly to join the task force for the Project Mercury space shot carrying Major Grissom. In early 1962 she was again chosen to man an Atlantic recovery station for the historic three orbit flight of Maj. John Glenn. An extensive overhaul at Boston terminated 24 July 1963, and through the remainder of that year Glennon trained in the Caribbean, acted as school ship for the Antisubmarine Warfare School at Key West, Fla., and put in at Boston in November for refitting. The years 1964 and 1965 found Glennon continuing her ASW work. In September 1964 she was chosen to carry guests to the America’s Cup Races. Later in May 1965 she conducted exercises called “Mule 65” in which U.S. Army cadets from West Point were given shipboard indoctrination. Through 1967 Glennon continued to operate with the U.S. Atlantic Fleet.