_underway_following_her_FRAM_II_modernization%2c_circa_the_mid-1960s_(NH_99522).jpg) Perkins underway following her FRAM II modernization, c. mid-1960s. | |
| History | |
|---|---|
 United States | |
| Name | USSPerkins |
| Namesake | George H. Perkins |
| Builder | Consolidated Steel Corporation,Orange, Texas |
| Laid down | 19 June 1944 |
| Launched | 7 December 1944 |
| Commissioned | 4 April 1945 |
| Decommissioned | 15 January 1973 |
| Reclassified |
|
| Stricken | 15 January 1973 |
| Identification |
|
| Fate | Transferred toArgentina, 15 January 1973 |
 Argentina | |
| Name | ARAComodoro Py |
| Acquired | 15 January 1973 |
| Stricken | 1984 |
| Identification | D 27 |
| Fate | Sunk as a target, 15 June 1987 |
| Class overview | |
| Preceded by | Seguí class |
| Succeeded by | Hércules class |
| General characteristics | |
| Class & type | Gearing-classdestroyer |
| Displacement | 3,460 long tons (3,516 t) full |
| Length | 390 ft 6 in (119.02 m) |
| Beam | 40 ft 10 in (12.45 m) |
| Draft | 14 ft 4 in (4.37 m) |
| Propulsion | Geared turbines, 2 shafts, 60,000 shp (45 MW) |
| Speed | 35knots (65 km/h; 40 mph) |
| Range | 4,500 nmi (8,300 km) at 20 kn (37 km/h; 23 mph) |
| Complement | 336 |
| Armament |
|
USSPerkins (DD/DDR-877) was aGearing-classdestroyer in theUnited States Navy. She was the third Navy ship named for CommodoreGeorge H. Perkins USN (1835–1899).
Perkins was laid down by theConsolidated Steel Corporation atOrange, Texas on 19 June 1944,launched on 7 December 1944 by Mrs. Larz Anderson (Isabel Weld Perkins) andcommissioned on 4 April 1945.
Following shakedown offCuba,Perkins entered theNorfolk Navy Yard for conversion to aradar picket destroyer. In July 1945 she underwent refresher training, rendezvoused with theaircraft carrierBoxer on 20 July, and headed for thePacific. AtPearl Harbor she joined Destroyer Division 52 (DesDiv 52) and on 19 August sailed for theFar East. She enteredTokyo Bay the day of the formalJapanese surrender, on 2 September, and on the 3rd joinedTask Force 38 (TF 38). Operations in theMarshalls,Marianas, and off Japan followed and in April 1946 she returned to Pearl Harbor. On the 28th she arrived atSan Diego, California whence she operated for the next year.
In May 1947, she returned to the Far East for three months on the China station, two weeks of which were spent offQinhuangdao, on theBohai Sea, observingCommunist Chinese forces.
Perkins returned to California in October and in January 1948 sailed to the Marshalls for theatomic bomb test series "Operation Sandstone". Overhaul followed her return to San Diego in June and on 4 January 1949 she departed the west coast for another tour off the China coast. Arriving atQingdao on 7 February, she was redesignatedDDR–877 on 18 February. Scheduled exercises soon began, but, in addition, she was called on to lift foreign residents of Tsingtao toHong Kong as Communist forces took over the former city in May. In June she battled her firsttyphoon, and after visitingSingapore in August, she returned to San Diego.
Engaged in training exercises off the west coast and yard overhaul for the next year,Perkins, reassigned to DesDiv 11, sailed west again in mid-August 1950. She served onSAR station in the central Pacific, returned to the west coast in October, and on 2 February 1951 got underway for the embattled coast ofKorea. Between March and September she performed screening andplane guard duties for the carriers of TF 77 and carried out gunfire support and shore bombardment missions with TF 95. On 25 SeptemberPerkins arrived atYokosuka, Japan from the bombline and the next day continued on toward the United States. In June 1952 she returned to Korea. She spent July entirely on the bombline, shifted briefly to TF 77, then steamed south for duty on theTaiwan Patrol. By 8 September she was back on the bombline. On 15 October, while coveringminesweeping operations preparatory to an amphibious feint againstKojo, 35 miles (56 km) north of the battlefront, one of her crew was killed and 17 were wounded by two near misses from Communist shore batteries. Only slightly damaged, she continued her combat activities and for the remainder of her tour alternated gunfire support operations with carrier escort duties.
At the end of the yearPerkins returned to the United States. In July 1953 she completed a six-month overhaul and in August she returned to the Far East. There six months she patrolled off the Korean coast andTaiwan Strait and participated in exercises from Japan to the Philippines. After that deploymentPerkins continued to rotate between duty with the7th Fleet in thewestern Pacific and operations with the1st Fleet off the west coast. In July 1956 she contributed to the information gathering effort of theInternational Geophysical Year (IGY) by "chasing"weather balloons and in September 1959 helped TF 77 forestall overt hostilities during theLaotian crisis.
In March 1962 she entered theLong Beach Naval Shipyard forFleet Rehabilitation and Modernization (FRAM). RedesignatedDD-877, on 30 September, she emerged from the Mark II overhaul and conversion in December with a new superstructure configured forQH-50 DASH. The "new" destroyer spent the next ten months exercising off the west coast and in mid-October 1963 resumed annual deployments to WestPac, her first mission to conduct operations with the carrierHancock in theSouth China Sea. Continuing to alternate 7th Fleet and 1st Fleet duty tours into 1970, each ofPerkins's WestPac deployments returned her to the South China Sea where, off the coast ofVietnam, she served as plane guard for carriers on "Yankee Station" in theTonkin Gulf, participated in "Sea Dragon" and "Market Time" operations, patrolled on search and rescue duties and carried outnaval gunfire support missions during the conflict.
Perkins was decommissioned and stricken from theNaval Vessel Register on 15 January 1973, transferred toArgentina. She was renamedARAComodoro Py (D-27), and served in theArgentine Navy. She was stricken in 1984.
On 15 June 1987,Comodoro Py was sunk as atarget offMar del Plata by atorpedo fired from the Argentine NavyTR-1700-classsubmarineARA Santa Cruz.
Perkins earned threebattle stars during theKorean War.
This article incorporates text from thepublic domainDictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entries can be foundhere andhere.
Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in 1987 | |
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| Shipwrecks |
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| Other incidents |
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39°15′00″S57°00′00″W / 39.250°S 57.000°W /-39.250; -57.000
