Figure 1: USS Everett F. Larson (DD-830) commissioning ceremonies on the destroyer's after deck, 6 April 1945. Taken at the Boston Navy Yard, Massachusetts. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 2: The National Ensign is raised during USS Everett F. Larson's (DD-830) commissioning ceremonies, 6 April 1945. Taken at the Boston Navy Yard, Massachusetts. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 3: USS Everett F. Larson (DD-830), date and place unknown. Courtesy Robert M. Cieri. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 4: Istanbul, Turkey. Sixth Fleet warships anchored off the city during a "good will" visit, 2 March 1950. Note Navy personnel on the landing in left center, with United States and Turkish flags flying nearby. Ships present are (from left to right): USS Glennon (DD-840); USS Charles R. Ware (DD-865); USS Newport News (CA-148); USS Everett F. Larson (DDR-830); and USS Midway (CVB-41). Official US Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 5: USS Gherardi (DMS-30), USS Kenneth D. Bailey (DD-713), USS Murray (DD-576), USS Benner (DD-807) and USS Everett F. Larson (DD-830) in Algiers, 20 May 1954. Courtesy Larry Bohn. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 6: USS Everett F. Larson (DD-830) in August 1957, location unknown. Courtesy Ed Zajkowski. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 7: USS Everett F. Larson (DDR-830) underway in May 1958. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 8: USS Everett F. Larson (DDR-830) on 5 October 1960 at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Courtesy Ed Zajkowski. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 9: USS Everett F. Larson (DD-830) comes alongside USS Mispillion (AO-105) to refuel, during operations in the Gulf of Tonkin, October 1967. Photographed by PH1 Don Grantham, USN. Official US Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 10: USS Everett F. Larson (DD-830) underway off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii, 16 April 1969. Photographed by PH2 G.W. MacDonald, USN. Official US Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 11: Loss of USS Frank E. Evans (DD-754), 3 June 1969. Frank E. Evans's stern section tied up alongside USS Everett F. Larson (DD-830), after she was cut in two in a collision with the Australian aircraft carrier Melbourne. The ships were participating in Southeast Asian Treaty Organization exercises in the South China Sea when the collision occurred. Photographed by PH2 Robert Green, USN. Official US Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 12: Loss of USS Frank E. Evans (DD-754), 3 June 1969. Frank E. Evans's stern section tied up alongside USS Everett F. Larson (DD-830), after she was cut in two in a collision with the Australian aircraft carrier Melbourne. The ships were participating in Southeast Asian Treaty Organization exercises in the South China Sea when the collision occurred. Photographed by PH2 J.C. Borovoy, USN. Official US Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 13: Loss of USS Frank E. Evans (DD-754), 3 June 1969. SH-3 helicopters from USS Kearsarge (CVS-33) join search-and- rescue operations over the stern section of USS Frank E. Evans, as USS Everett F. Larson (DD-830) stands ready to offer assistance (at right). A Royal Australian Navy frigate is also present. Frank E. Evans was cut in two in a collision with the Australian aircraft carrier Melbourne during Southeast Asian Treaty Organization exercises in the South China Sea. Official US Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 14: USS Everett F. Larson (DD-830) fires her forward 5-inch guns while supporting South Vietnamese troops in Vietnam's Military Region One, 1972. Photographed by PH1 C.R. Pedrick, USN. This image was received by the Naval Photographic Center in May 1972. Official US Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 15: Republic of Korea (ROK) Jeong Buk (DD-916) (ex-USS Everett F. Larson, DD-830) as a museum ship at the Gangneung Unification Park, Gangneung, South Korea, on 1 November 2007. Courtesy Robert Hurst. Click on photograph for larger image.
Named after Everett Frederick Larson (1920-1942), a decorated Marine who was killed on Guadalcanal, USS Everett F. Larson (DD-830) was a 2,425-ton Gearing class destroyer that was built by the Bath Iron Works at Bath, Maine, and was commissioned on 6 April 1945. The ship was approximately 390 feet long and 41 feet wide, had a top speed of 35 knots, and had a crew of 367 officers and men. Everett F. Larson was armed with six 5-inch guns, 12 40-mm guns, 11 20-mm guns, ten 21-inch torpedo tubes, and depth charges.
Shortly after being commissioned, Everett F. Larson was converted into a radar picket ship and sent to the Pacific in August 1945, several weeks before Japan surrendered. The ship arrived at Tokyo Bay, Japan, on 29 September 1945, after the war ended, and spent the next fifteen months in the Far East, assisting in the occupations of both China and Japan. Everett F. Larson returned to the United States in late 1946 and arrived at San Diego, California, on 21 December. She then was sent to her new home base at Newport, Rhode Island, where she arrived on 19 March 1947 to join the US Navy’s Atlantic Fleet.
While serving with the Atlantic Fleet, Everett F. Larson was re-designated DDR-830 in March 1949 because of her radar capabilities. She made seven deployments to the Mediterranean and was active in numerous Atlantic Fleet operations and training exercises. The ship also participated in anti-submarine warfare (ASW) exercises off the eastern coast of the United States and in the Caribbean as well.
In June 1956, Everett F. Larson returned to the Pacific and remained there for the rest of her career. She completed four Far Eastern deployments between March 1957 and March 1961. During the last six months of 1962, Everett F. Larson was modernized as part of the “Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization” (FRAM) II program, which replaced her distinctive radar features with a mostly new superstructure that contained a hangar for DASH helicopter drones. The ship also received some new anti-submarine weapons and was once again designated DD-830 after the overhaul was completed.
From 1963 to 1970, Everett F. Larson was sent to the western Pacific on an annual basis. From 1965 until the end of her career, the ship used her 5-inch guns to bombard targets along the coast of Vietnam. During the war in Vietnam, Everett F. Larson also served as a plane guard for aircraft carriers, patrolled in the Sea of Japan for several weeks in January 1968 during the famous Pueblo Crisis, and participated in numerous training exercises involving US warships and those from allied navies in the region. During one such exercise on 3 June 1969, Everett F. Larson came to the rescue of the destroyer USS Frank E. Evans after that ship was cut in two in a terrible collision with the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne. Seventy-four American sailors were killed when the bow section of Frank E. Evans sank after the collision. Everett F. Larson assisted in salvaging the stern section of the ship, which was later brought to the Philippines and sunk as a target in Subic Bay on 10 October 1969.
In 1971 and 1972, Everett F. Larson made two final deployments with the Seventh Fleet off the coast of Vietnam. The ship returned to the United States in July 1972. USS Everett F. Larson was decommissioned at the end of October 1972 and was transferred to the Republic of Korea (ROK) Navy. The ship was renamed Jeong Buk (DD-916) and was initially “on loan” to South Korea. But South Korea must have liked the ship, because it remained in the ROK’s Navy for nearly three decades. Jeong Buk was finally retired in 2000 and was converted into a museum ship at the Gangneung Unification Park, Gangneung, South Korea. The ship remains there to this day. It is a fitting tribute to a fine warship that was originally commissioned into the US Navy in 1945.
