USS Borie (DD-704)

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USS Borie
USS Borie wearing camouflage paint, date and location unknown.
History
United States
NameBorie
NamesakeAdolph E. Borie
Builder
Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company
Laid down29 February 1944
Launched4 July 1944
Commissioned21 September 1944
Decommissioned1 July 1972
Stricken1 July 1972
FateTo Argentina 1 July 1972
Argentina
NameHipólito Bouchard
Namesake
Hippolyte de Bouchard
Acquired1 July 1972
Decommissioned1984
Stricken1984
IdentificationD-26
FateBroken up for scrap 1984
General characteristics
Class and typeAllen M. Sumner-class destroyer
Displacement2,200 tons
Length376 ft 6 in (114.76 m)
Beam40 ft (12 m)
Draft15 ft 8 in (4.78 m)
Propulsion
  • 60,000 shp (45,000 kW);
  • 2 propellers
Speed34 kn (63 km/h; 39 mph)
Range6,500 nmi (12,000 km; 7,500 mi) at 15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Complement336
Armament

USS Borie (DD-704), an

Secretary of the Navy under President Ulysses S. Grant
.

Construction

Borie (DD-704) was

launched on 4 July 1944 by Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co., Kearny, New Jersey sponsored by Mrs Albert Nalle (née Patty Neill Borie, great-grandniece of Adolph E. Borie); and commissioned
on 21 September 1944.

Service history

World War II

Borie joined the

Task Force 38 in its raids on the Japanese home islands. On 9 August, four kamikazes attempted to crash into Borie, one achiving a hit on superstructure between the mast and the 5-inch gun director, causing extensive damage, killing 48 men, and wounding 66. The 3 other were shot down or missed. Due to the hit the Borie's rudder was locked.[1]

Korean War

The damaged destroyer returned to

.

In 1961 she completed her

F-8 Crusader pilot whose plane crashed in a landing attempt on the aircraft carrier Shangri-La
.

Vietnam War and decommissioning

In February 1968, Borie began her

Phan Thiet and in the Mekong Delta. Returning to peacetime operations in 1969, Borie became a naval reserve training ship until June 1972, when she was decommissioned. She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register
on 1 July 1972.

Service in the Argentine Navy

She was sold to the Argentine Navy and renamed Hipólito Bouchard (D-26) after the Argentine privateer, Hippolyte Bouchard and had four Exocet anti-ship missiles fitted in 1977–78.[2] ARA Bouchard saw action in the Falklands War, forming a part of the escort for the aircraft carrier Veinticinco de Mayo during the initial Argentine invasion on 2 April 1982. On 26 April Bouchard and sister ship Piedra Buena formed the escort for the cruiser ARA General Belgrano when Belgrano set out from Ushuaia in response to the approaching British Task Force, and was present when on 2 May 1982, Belgrano was torpedoed and sunk.[3] In author Michael Rossiters' 'Sink the Belgrano', (Random House, London, 2009), it says Belgrano was unable to send any Mayday signal because of electrical failure; this and poor visibility meant the two escorting destroyers, (both also ex-United States Navy vessels), were unaware of the sinking until some hours later. A total of 323 men were killed. During the torpedo attack, the crew felt an impact which was believed to have been one of the three torpedoes fired from HMS Conqueror. They later found four cracks in the hull which were thought to have been a torpedoe striking at the end of its run.[4][5]

On the night of 17/18 May a helicopter was tracked by the radar of Bouchard, who sent a message to her sister ship

SH-3 Sea King reconnaissance mission on Río Grande had been launched by the British from HMS Invincible as a prelude to Operation Mikado, but after detecting the Argentine radar signal, the crew of the Sea King and members of the SAS flew to Chile, where they destroyed their aircraft.[7] Argentine Navy reports claim that Bouchard shelled a submarine and a number of inflatable boats while on patrol two miles off Rio Grande on the evening of 16 May 1982, during an alleged British attempt to land special forces on Tierra del Fuego.[8]

She was broken up for scrap in 1984.

Awards

Borie received three

battle stars for her World War II services and four battle stars for her participation in the Korean War
.

Notes

  1. ^ "William Alexion". StoryCorps Archive. Retrieved 30 January 2023.
  2. ^ Gardiner & Chumbley 1995, p. 7
  3. ^ Burden et al 1986, pp. 179–182
  4. .
  5. ^ Sethia, Narendra (18 October 2000). "Hit by two torpedoes". The Guardian.
  6. ^ Mikado: la operación que no fue Archived 22 April 2009 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)
  7. ^ El Bouchard y el Fracaso de la Operación Británica Mikado by Eugenio L. Facchin y José L. Speroni (in Spanish)

References

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.

Further reading

External links