Commissioning
The USS Lester was a member of the Dealey class of destroyer escorts. She was named in honor of Fred Faulkner Lester, a Navy Medical Corpsman who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for rescuing a wounded Marine under enemy fire during the Battle of Okinawa.
The order to build the Lester was awarded to the Defoe Shipbuilding Company of Bay City, Mich. Her keel was laid down on Sept. 2, 1954; she was launched on Jan. 5, 1956. She was commissioned on June 14, 1957, with Lt. Commander Allan P. Slaff in command.
Underway
The Lester was assigned to the Atlantic Fleet and was homeported at Newport, R.I., as part of Escort Squadron 14. In February 1958, the Lester, which had just completed exercises off the coast of Florida, helped rescue the survivors of the sunken Italian ore ship Bonitoz. In May 1958, she deployed to the Mediterranean as part of an escort for the aircraft carrier USS Wasp.
In July, the Lester and the rest of the 6th Fleet were deployed to the coast of Lebanon and helped avert an international crisis. For this, she was awarded the Armed Forces Expeditionary medal. She left the Mediterranean on Sept. 29 and returned to Newport on Oct. 7.
The Lester was deployed to join Task Force 86 off the coast of Trinidad in February 1959. Later that month, she headed to Latin America on a combination anti-submarine warfare (ASW) training exercise and goodwill tour. When the tour was completed in May, she returned to Boston for an overhaul, where she stayed until September. After leaving Boston, she headed to the waters off of Cuba for exercises with ships from the navies of Great Britain, The Netherlands and Greece.
In January 1960, the Lester participated in Operation Springboard in the Caribbean. In September, she deployed to the North Atlantic for two months and took part in NATO fall convoy exercises.
In August 1962, the Lester deployed to take part in UNITAS III, a multi-national anti-submarine warfare exercise and circumnavigation of South America. She traveled more than 18,000 miles during UNITAS III and received more than 20,000 visitors during goodwill ports of call.
After a second overhaul, the Lester took part in a joint U.S.-Canadian ASW exercise in May 1964. She was re-assigned to Escort Squadron 8 and re-based temporarily at Key West, Fla., in late January 1965. Her mission at Key West served two purposes, surveillance duty and a training ship for the Fleet Sonar School.
In January 1966, the Lester was began serving a seven-month stint as a training ship for the Destroyer Escort Petty Officer Training Program. In October, she returned to the Boston Naval Shipyard for an overhaul. In January, she was deployed to North Atlantic, the Baltic Sea and, later, the Mediterranean. She returned to Newport in September, but redeployed on a similar mission the following February.
Decommissioning
The Lester was decommissioned in 1972 and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on Dec. 14, 1973. She was sold for scrap on July 17, 1974.
Characteristics of the USS Lester (Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Class and type: Dealey-class destroyer escort
Displacement: 1,877 long tons (1,907 t) full load
Length: 314 ft 6 in (95.9 m)
Beam: 36 ft 9 in (11.2 m)
Draft: 18 ft (5.5 m)
Propulsion: 2 × Foster-Wheeler boilers, 1 × De Laval geared turbine, 20,000 shp (15 MW)
1 shaft Speed: 27 knots (31 mph; 50 km/h)
Range: 6,000 nmi (11,000 km) at 12 kn (14 mph; 22 km/h)
Complement: 170
Armament: • 4 × 3″/50 caliber guns
• 1 × Squid ASW mortar
• 6 × 324 mm (12.8 in) Mark 32 torpedo tubes
• Mark 46 torpedoes
Career:
Name: USS Lester
Namesake: Fred Faulkner Lester
Builder: Defoe Shipbuilding Company
Laid down: 2 September 1954
Launched: 5 January 1956
Commissioned: 15 June 1957
Decommissioned: 1972
Struck: 14 December 1973
Homeport: Naval Station Newport, RI
Fate: Sold for scrap, 17 June 1974
Timeline:
September 1954: USS Lester’s keel laid down
January 1956: USS Lester launched
June 1957: USS Lester commissioned
July 1958: USS Lester deployed to the coast of Lebanon
August 1962: USS Lester begins UNITAS III exercise
1972: USS Lester decommissioned
Crewmembers of the USS Lester:
An unofficial list of crew members that served on the USS Lester can be found on the unofficial navy website at: http://navysite.de. This list is compiled by former crewmembers that voluntarily register. Some quoted comments from former crewmembers are listed below; many more are available on the source website at the following Web address:
http://navysite.de/crew.php?action=ship&ship=de_1022
Richard Osburn (served April 1957—September 1960): “Plankowner. Got my sea legs on Lester. Stayed in for 20. Retired as BTCM in 1976. Had a meeting with BTFN Orin Reed and BT-3 Bobby Ridgell a few years ago. (2001 or 2002).”
Doug Stewart (served August 1958—June 1960): “Crossed the equator going on a South American cruise in 1959.”
Links:
http://www.mesotheliomaweb.org/mesothelioma/veterans/navy-destroyers-post-ww2/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Lester
http://navysite.de/crew.php?action=ship&ship=de_1022
