USS Richard L. Page

History
United States
Namesake	Richard L. Page
Ordered	24 May 1963
Builder	Bath Iron Works
Laid down	4 January 1965
Launched	4 April 1966
Acquired	27 July 1967
Commissioned	5 August 1967
Decommissioned	30 September 1988
Stricken	12 January 1994
Fate	Disposed of by Navy title transfer to the Maritime Administration, 28 March 1994
General characteristics
Class and type	Brooke class frigate
Displacement	3,426 tons full
Length	414 ft (126 m)
Beam	44 ft (13 m)
Draft	14 ft 6 in (4.42 m)
Propulsion	2 Foster-Wheeler boilers, 1 General Electric geared turbine
Speed	27.2 knots
Range	4,000 nautical miles
Complement	14 officers, 214 crew
Sensors and processing systems	AN/SPS-52 3D air search radar AN/SPS-10 surface search radar AN/SPG-51 missile fire control radar AN/SQS-26 bow mounted sonar
Electronic warfare & decoys	AN/SLQ-32 T-Mk 6 Fanfare towed acoustic torpedo decoy
Armament	1 × 5"/38 caliber gun 1 × Mk 22 RIM-24 Tartar/RIM-66 Standard missile launcher (16 missiles) 1 × 8 cell ASROC launcher 2 × 3 12.75 in (324mm) Mk 32 torpedo tubes, Mk 46 torpedoes 2 × MK 37 torpedo tubes (fixed, stern, removed later)
Aircraft carried	SH-2 Seasprite

USS Richard L. Page (FFG-5) was a

In mid-October 1967, Richard L. Page moved from Boston to her homeport of Naval Station Newport, Rhode Island, then sailed south for shakedown exercises in the Caribbean. On 21 December 1967, she returned to Newport and, after post-shakedown availability, began operations with Escort Squadron SIX (CORTRON 6). Into 1968, she operated in the western Atlantic and, in the fall, she deployed to the Mediterranean for duty with the 6th Fleet. On that duty until 10 February 1969, she returned to Newport on 18 February and in March 1969 resumed operations with the 2nd Fleet. On 1 July 1969, she relieved USS Brumby (DE-1044) as flagship of Destroyer Division ONE TWO(DESRON 12), then conducted exercises in the Caribbean.

Richard L. Page spent all of 1971 and the first eight months of 1972 in port at Newport and in operations along the east coast of the United States and in the Caribbean. In mid-August 1972, she steamed out of Newport, bound for an extended deployment with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean.

From 1973 to 1975, she was forward deployed to Athens, Greece, and on 30 June 1975 she was reclassified as a guided missile frigate with the new hull number of FFG-5. Returning from Europe, Richard L. Page underwent a year-long modernization overhaul, returning to the Atlantic Fleet and a new homeport of Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia in 1976. Over the next four years, she repeatedly deployed to the Mediterranean, Middle East, the eastern coast of Africa, and Northern Europe, interspersed with brief periods in her stateside homeport of Norfolk.

During this same four-year period, in 1979, Richard L. Page was the recipient of both the

The ship and crew was also the 1979 recipient of the Battenberg Cup.^{[6][circular reference]}

References

• This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.
• This article includes information collected from the Naval Vessel Register, which, as a U.S. government publication, is in the public domain. The entry can be found here.