USS Watts
USS Watts (DD-567) underway, circa 1955
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History | |
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United States | |
Namesake | John Watts |
Builder | Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation |
Laid down | 26 March 1943 |
Launched | 31 December 1943 |
Commissioned | 29 April 1944 |
Decommissioned | December 1964 |
Stricken | 1 February 1974 |
Fate | Sold for scrap, 5 September 1974 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Fletcher-class destroyer |
Displacement | 2,050 tons |
Length | 376 ft 6 in (114.7 m) |
Beam | 39 ft 8 in (12.1 m) |
Draft | 17 ft 9 in (5.4 m) |
Propulsion | 60,000 shp (45 MW); 2 propellers |
Speed | 35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph) |
Range | 6500 nmi. (12,000 km) at 15 kt |
Complement | 329 |
Armament |
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USS Watts (DD-567) was a Fletcher-class destroyer of the United States Navy.
Namesake
Little is known about John Watts other than that he was an American merchant captain at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. Probably born about 1778, location unknown but most likely in Virginia, he was captain of the 18-gun, armed merchantman Planter in 1799. Watts is remembered for an action between Planter and a 22-gun French privateer which took place on 10 July 1799 in the eastern Atlantic during the Quasi-War with France. During that five-hour engagement, Watts and Planter's 43-man crew successfully fought off two concerted attacks by the more heavily armed Frenchman and thwarted the privateers' attempt to take the American ship. Watts and his crew received a generous reward for their efforts from Lloyd's Coffee House in London, the forerunner of the world-famous insurance company Lloyd's of London.Watts presumably continued in merchant service after the adventure with the French privateer, but he never served in the United States Navy. John Watts died in 1823, again location unknown.
Construction and commissioning
Watts was laid down on 26 March 1943 at
1944
Following two weeks of testing and calibrating equipment in
During the next seven months, the destroyer operated with the other units of DesDiv 113 as a part of the Navy's
Her first attempt came after more than two months of operations which might be characterized as routine—as much so as possible in the stormy northern Pacific. On 14 October, she departed Massacre Bay, Attu, for her first bombardment mission with the cruisers and destroyers of the North Pacific Force. Bad weather foiled that mission and the next which began on 24 October. Late in November, however, she departed Attu for her third attempt at bombarding the Kurils. That one proved successful; and, on the night of 23 and 24 November, her guns joined those of the other warships of the force in pounding airfields and installations on Matsuwa To. During the retirement from the Kurils, heavy seas lashed the task force. Fortunately, the same storms which buffeted Watts and her sister ships kept enemy air power grounded, and the bombardment group arrived safely back at Attu on 25 November. After two weeks of badly needed repairs at Dutch Harbor, she returned to Attu on 21 December, following a brief stop at Adak.
1945
On 3 January 1945, the destroyer steamed out of Massacre Bay for another sweep of the waters surrounding the northern Kurils. The climax of that operation came on 5 January when she joined in successful shelling of the Suribachi area of
After a brief return to Attu, Watts departed the Aleutians on 22 February and headed for Hawaii with
On 21 May, when she arrived at
Mercifully, her stay at Okinawa proved brief. In mid-June, she received orders to join the screen of
The Japanese capitulation on 15 August 1945 found the ship steaming in Japanese waters screening TF 38.
A bit under a month later, on 10 September, she entered
1951–1957
Watts remained in reserve until—to bolster the Navy during the Korean War—she was recommissioned on 6 July 1951.
During the first 42 months of the second phase of her career, Watts operated with the Destroyer Force,
On 7 January, she put to sea from
That assignment continued until December at which time Watts was reassigned to the
1958–1964
In December 1957, the destroyer entered the Long Beach Naval Shipyard for what was to have been her decommissioning overhaul. In June 1958, however, a reprieve arrived in the form of orders to shift home port to Seattle, Wash., and become a Naval Reserve training ship as the flagship of Reserve Escort Squadron 1 (ResCortRon 1). Watts served with the reserve training program for almost four years, from June 1958 to March 1962. Throughout the entire period, the Seattle-Tacoma area remained her base of operations. She provided a platform upon which naval reservists could reacquaint themselves with the intricacies of and skills necessary to constructive Navy service. During her more than three years of reserve training cruises, she ranged the length of the western coast of the United States from San Diego, Calif. in the south to the Canada–US border. She also cruised farther north to make goodwill calls at Canadian ports such as Victoria, British Columbia. During the summer of 1959, she became the first Naval Reserve training ship to participate in a regular Fleet exercise with her reserve crew embarked.
In December 1961, the destroyer was undergoing a yard period when the
Watts completed another 30 months training reservists out of the Seattle-Tacoma area. In mid-1963, one of her training cruises took her to Hawaii; but, for the most part, she operated just off the west coast. In December 1964, Watts was decommissioned and placed in reserve at Bremerton. She remained there for almost a decade. On 1 February 1974, her name was struck from the
Watts earned three
References
- This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.