Named after
US Marine Corps Medal of Honor winner William Deane Hawkins (1914-1943), the
2,425-ton USS Hawkins (DD-873) was a Gearing class destroyer that was built
by the Consolidated Steel Company at Orange, Texas, and commissioned on 10
February 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. Hawkins was armed with six 5-inch guns, 12
40-mm guns, 10 20-mm guns, 5 21-inch torpedo tubes, and depth charges.
Hawkins was converted into a radar picket
ship before steaming to the Pacific in June 1945 to begin combat operations.
But Japan surrendered before she reached the war zone, so Hawkins spent the rest of the year, as well as the first few months
of 1946, in peacetime service in the western and central Pacific. After briefly
returning to the United States and based at San Diego, California, in October
1947, Hawkins was again deployed to
the Far East from 1948 to 1949. The destroyer steamed back to San Diego and was
re-designated DDR-873 in mid-March 1949. Hawkins
was then transferred to the Atlantic Fleet.
Hawkins made her first regular deployment to
the Mediterranean Sea in mid-1950. But the ship was sent to the Pacific in
early 1951 to participate in the Korean War. While
serving four months off the coast of
Korea, Hawkins screened the mobile carrier forces during strikes on enemy positions and supply lines, provided antisubmarine protection, and
controlled jet aircraft during combat
air patrols. She also acted as plane
guard during operations in the Formosa Straits, which were designed to
discourage Communist aggression against the island
of Formosa (later Taiwan). Departing the Far East in June 1951, the destroyer returned to the east coast of the United
States via the Mediterranean.
After serving in the Korean War, Hawkins
spent the bulk of the rest of her career in the Atlantic and the
Mediterranean. She completed a total of sixteen cruises with the US Sixth Fleet
in the Mediterranean and was present there during the 1956 Suez Crisis. From
1961 to 1963, Hawkins supported space
flight operations, took part in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and assisted with the
testing of the submarine-launched “Polaris” ballistic missile.
Hawkins was extensively
overhauled and modernized in 1964 and was re-designated DD-873. She completed
the Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization (FRAM I) program and
received a new superstructure, an antisubmarine rocket (ASROC) launcher, and
facilities for operating drone helicopters. In September 1965, Hawkins returned to the western Pacific
for her fifth (and final) cruise in those waters. The ship steamed back to
America’s east coast in April 1966. Two Sixth Fleet deployments followed from
1966 to 1967 and in 1968. In 1969 and 1971, Hawkins
supported the Apollo space missions. In 1970, she operated with the Standing
Naval Force Atlantic in northern European waters. Three more Mediterranean
cruises followed from 1972 to 1973, from 1975 to 1976, and in 1977. The only
break in this routine came in 1974, when the ship completed a long voyage
around the Cape of Good Hope for operations in the Indian Ocean and the Persian
Gulf.
In December 1977, Hawkins was
used for Naval Reserve training at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. That mission
lasted until the beginning of October 1979, when the destroyer was
decommissioned, stricken from the Naval Vessel Register, and placed in the
“mothball fleet” at Philadelphia. But Hawkins
still had plenty of life left in her. Hawkins
was sold to Taiwan in March 1983 and was re-named Tsu Yang. She remained in service with the Taiwanese Navy until
1998, when the ship was scrapped, ending a career that lasted almost 53 years.
