Figure 1: USS Harlan
R. Dickson (DD-708) off Manhattan Island, New York, en route from her
builders, Federal Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company, Kearny, New Jersey, for
delivery to the Navy in February 1945. US
Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 2: USS Harlan R. Dickson (DD-708) underway in
Hampton Roads, Virginia, 8 May 1964. US
Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 3: USS Harlan R. Dickson (DD-708) underway,
during the 1960s. US Naval Historical
Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Named after
Lieutenant Commander Harlan R. Dickson, a highly decorated naval aviator who
was killed in 1944, the 2,200-ton USS Harlan
R. Dickson (DD-708) was an Allen M.
Sumner class destroyer that was built by the Federal Shipbuilding & Dry
Dock Company at Kearny, NJ, and was commissioned on 17 February 1945. The ship
was approximately 376 feet long and 40 feet wide, had a top speed of 34 knots,
and had a crew of 336 officers and men. Harlan
R. Dickson was armed with six 5-inch guns, 12 40-mm guns, 11 20-mm guns,
ten 21-inch torpedo tubes, and depth charges.
After being
commissioned, Harlan R. Dickson spent
the balance of 1945 assigned to the Atlantic Fleet before arriving at Pearl
Harbor, Hawaii, in December 1945. The ship spent most of its time involved with
naval exercises and various training programs before returning to the Atlantic
in March 1946. Harlan R. Dickson engaged
in further training exercises before leaving in February 1947 for duty with the
US Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea. This was the first in a lengthy series
of deployments to the Mediterranean, with occasional trips made farther east to
the Persian Gulf. Throughout the next two decades, these deployments to the
Mediterranean were punctuated by operations in the western Atlantic and in the
Caribbean.
From 2 July
to 4 December 1956, during her sixth Mediterranean cruise, Harlan R. Dickson played a key role in the evacuation of American
citizens from Haifa, Israel, as war loomed between Israel and Egypt. In October
1962, Harlan R. Dickson was assigned
to the hunter-killer antisubmarine task force which participated in the
quarantine of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Once the crisis ended, Harlan R. Dickson resumed her
deployments to the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, always on the lookout for
Soviet warships that were on patrol in the area.
