A Tin Can Sailors Destroyer History
USS MEREDITH DD-890
The Tin Can Sailor, April 2001
Launched at Orange, Texas, on 27 January 1945, the MEREDITH (DD-890) was commissioned on 31 December 1945. Her first duties included training submarine officers at New London, Connecticut and operations off Newfoundland and Greenland with the PUTNAM (DD-757) and in the western Atlantic from Maine to the Caribbean. In May 1948, she sailed with DesRon 6 for the Mediterranean, where she was one of the ships in the UN patrol off Palestine. Her deployment with the Sixth Fleet was repeated every spring through 1953. During that time, she also participated in Arctic maneuvers and various Caribbean, reserve, and midshipman cruises with the Second Fleet.
Following an eleven-month yard period in 1953 for conversion from 40-mm guns to 3-inch/50-caliber rapid-fire guns and living compartment improvements, she resumed her deployments with the Second and Sixth Fleets. In 1956 she was a unit of Task Force 26 during the Suez Crisis and two years later, she served with the Middle East Force as she and HMS LOCH FYNE stood by in the Euphrates Delta after the Iraqi revolution in July.
The MEREDITH was reassigned to DesRon 14 and in March 1960, en route to Norfolk, she rescued three survivors of a disabled fishing boat. That same year, she underwent her FRAM I conversion at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. In July 1961, the “new” destroyer, carrying the latest antisubmarine warfare weaponry, the ASROC and DASH systems, reported to her new home port in Mayport, Florida. She spent the rest of 1961 on a good will tour through the Caribbean and along the west coast of Africa and collected oceanographic data along the way. She was back in the Mediterranean in August 1962 and continued to alternate duty with the Sixth Fleet and operations in the Western Atlantic. In 1965 her fleet operations included participation in the Gemini recovery project.
January 1969 found the MEREDITH en route to the Western Pacific with the NOA (DD-841), STRIBLING (DD-867), and LEARY (DD-879). At 0800 on 9 May she got underway to relieve the ROWAN (DD-872) as shotgun for the STERETT (DLG-31) in the Sea of Japan. She was relieved by the SOUTHERLAND (DD-743) on 24 May. Four days later, she took her position on the gun line and during the afternoon of 31 May completed the first firing mission against enemy targets in her career. She remained on the gun line supporting American forces in the Southern I Corps area until 9 June. The MEREDITH was back off the coast of Vietnam on 29 June firing in support of operations in the Da Nang area. On 13 July she was relieved by the RUPERTUS (DD-851) and steamed to Subic Bay for an overhaul.
Ten days later, she returned to Vietnam and the Southern II Corps area for gunfire support followed by search and rescue duty as shotgun for the BIDDLE (DLG-34). On the morning of 30 July, the MEREDITH rescued five North Vietnamese fishermen and three rafts in heavy seas. On 1 August, the CHICAGO (CG-11) relieved the BIDDLE, which took the fishermen picked up by the MEREDITH with her to Da Nang. Soon after the WILTSIE (DD-716) arrived to take her place, the MEREDITH began her homeward voyage and was back in Mayport on 16 September.
The first half of 1970 was spent in reduced operating status followed by an August deployment to the Mediterranean where she was assigned to a reconnaissance station off the coast of Israel during the Jordanian Crisis. She began 1971 conducting surveillance of Soviet ship movement in the eastern Mediterranean and then continued with more routine operations and port visits until her return to Mayport in February. A year later, she was headed back to duty with the Sixth Fleet where she alternated periods of surveillance of Soviet surface ships and submarines with routine exercises and operations. Back in the western Atlantic in December 1972, she conducted surveillance on Soviet surface units south of Cuba.
August 1973 brought a major career change when the ship was transferred to DesRon 34 of the Naval Reserve Force, which included the HAROLD J. ELLISON (DD-864), ROBERT H. McCARD (DD-822), CONE (DD-866). She conducted her first training cruise in October. During the ensuing years, she engaged in a variety of successful training cruises and exercises and antisubmarine warfare operations. Disaster struck in 1975 during her regular overhaul in the Jacksonville Shipyard. On 8 April, two shipyard workers were killed in an explosion in a fresh water tank in the destroyer’s forward fireroom. The following January 1976, the ship was conducting weekend drills when a wave broke over the port quarter washing two men over the lifelines. One of the men was knocked unconscious, but the other acted quickly, not only to save himself but to pull the injured man to safety.
The final chapter in the story of the MEREDITH was not written until 5 August 1960, when her sunken hulk was raised by a French company and was sold for scrap the following month.
