USS WEEDEN DE-797 Ship History
Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, April 2022
Weeden (DE-797) was laid down on 18 August 1943 at Orange, Texas, by the Consolidated Steel Corp.; launched on 27 October 1943; sponsored by Mrs. Alice N. Weeden, grandmother of the late Ensign Weeden; and commissioned at the CIty Docks, Orange, Texas, on 19 February 1944, Lt. Cmdr. Charles F. Tillinghast, Jr., USNR, in command.
After a fitting-out period complicated by the necessity for repairs to her power plant, the new escort vessel departed Galveston, Tex., on 30 March 1944 for her shakedown cruise. Arriving at Bermuda on 5 April, she spent the rest of the month in training exercises; left Bermuda on 1 May; and arrived in Boston on the 6th. She completed voyage repairs on the 14th and moved to Provincetown, Mass., where she served for a month as target ship for the Atlantic Fleet Torpedo Squadron Training School. Near the end of June, she reported for duty in Escort Division (CortDiv) 56.
On 4 July 1944, she departed Boston in the screen of a convoy bound for Bizerte, Tunisia. The entire round-trip voyage, during which she escorted convoys in both directions, occupied her time until 18 August when she reentered Boston. After training exercises at Casco Bay, Maine, she rendezvoused with another Bizerte-bound convoy near Norfolk in mid-September.
About half way across the ocean, CortDiv 56 received orders to part company with the convoy and head for Plymouth, England, where they picked up a convoy of tank landing ships [LSTs] bound for the U.S.. Arriving home on 25 October 1944, she again completed voyage repairs and conducted antisubmarine exercises at Casco Bay. On 17 November, she joined another transatlantic convoy at Norfolk. That voyage took her via Gibraltar to Oran, Algeria, thence back to Boston where she arrived at the end of the last week in December. She completed repairs in the Boston Navy Yard, Charlestown, Mass., early in January 1945 and then moved to Norfolk where she served briefly as a school ship.
On the morning of 31 January 1945, Weeden departed Norfolk for duty with the Seventh Fleet in Task Unit 29.6.5, consisting of the high speed transports Alex Diachenko (APD-123) (Capt. T.C. Thomas, officer in tactical command) and Tattnall (APD-19), escorting the attack cargo ship Lenoir (AKA-74). Soon after passing the Chesapeake Sea Buoy abeam a quarter of an hour into the first dog watch, Weeden’s war diarist reflected: “Took departure for Panama Canal Zone. Speed of advance 15 knots. Goodbye to the United States for no one knows how long?”
She transited the Panama Canal on 7 February 1945 and then proceeded independently toward the Soiuthwest Pacific. She ultimately laid in a course for Manus in the Admiralty Islands where she arrived late in the month.
After a week of repairs at Manus, the warship received orders assigning her to the Philippine Sea Frontier and got underway for Leyte. From March to September, she served under that command, escorting convoys both among the various islands of the Philippines and between the Philippines and U.S. bases in other island groups. Her first escort assignment was a round-trip voyage to Ulithi and back to Leyte. In April, she saw a convoy safely to Hollandia, New Guinea, and returned to Leyte with a formation of tugs.
Early in May 1945, she made a high-speed mail delivery on the Philippine circuit, visiting Zamboanga, Mindoro, Iloilo, Manila, and Subic Bay. For the remainder of May and the entire month of June, she operated in the Philippines-either patrolling the entrance to San Pedro Bay, Leyte; escorting convoys from Leyte to Manila; or making the inter-island mail run.
In July 1945, Weeden made two round-trip voyages escorting convoys between Leyte and Ulithi. At the conclusion of the second run, she steamed to Subic Bay where she joined the escort of a convoy bound for Okinawa. She departed Subic Bay on 27 July with a large group of tank landing ships and medium landing ships [LSMs] and, after evading a typhoon, arrived at Okinawa on 4 August. Three days later [7 August], the escort vessel started back to Leyte. During her return voyage, the atomic bomb fell on Japan; and, soon after her arrival at Leyte, the Japanese capitulated.
Over the next few weeks, Weeden completed escort missions in support of the developing occupation of former Japanese territory. Late in August, she made a round-trip voyage to Okinawa and back to Manila. Following that, the destroyer escort screened a British escort carrier to Nagasaki, where the latter ship picked up former Allied prisoners of war [POWs] for repatriation. On the return voyage, Weeden herself transported 70 former Dutch POWs as far as Okinawa and then continued on to Subic Bay for repairs.
En route, she received orders to assume plane guard duty on a station located about 100 miles north of Luzon. She performed that duty for four days and then resumed her voyage to the Philippines. She arrived in Subic Bay on 26 September and remained there, undergoing repairs, until 10 November.
After a stop at Manila from the 10th to the 26th, Weeden got underway to return to the United States. En route she stopped at Eniwetok and Pearl Harbor before arriving in San Pedro, Calif., on 17 December. After five months of inactivity, she was finally placed out of commission on 9 May 1946 and was berthed with the San Diego Group, Pacific Reserve Fleet.
In November of 1946, Weeden resumed activity though she remained out of commission. On the 20th, she reported for duty training naval reservists in the Eleventh Naval District. After almost four years of that duty, she changed status once more when she was placed in commission, in reserve, on 26 May 1950. Almost three months later, Weeden reported for duty with the Pacific Fleet, though her mission, Naval Reserve training in the Eleventh Naval District, appears to have remained the same. Over the next seven years her training cruises took her north to British Columbia, south as far as Callao, Peru, and west to the Hawaiian Islands. Her center of operations, however, remained the coast of California.
On 26 November 1957, Weeden began inactivation overhaul at Portland, Oregon. She was decommissioned on 26 February 1958 and was berthed at Astoria, Oregon, with the Columbia River Group, Pacific Reserve Fleet. She remained there just over a decade until 30 June 1968, at which time her name was stricken from the Navy List. She was sold to Zidell Explorations, Inc., of Portland, Oregon, on 27 October 1969 to be broken up for scrap.
