Commissioning
The USS Reeves was a member of the Leahy-class of destroyer leaders. She was named in honor of Admiral Joseph Mason Reeves, who served as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Fleet from 1934 to 1936.
Built at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Seattle, the keel of the Reeves was laid down on July 1, 1960. She was launched on May 12, 1962. She was commissioned on May 15, 1964.
Underway
Assigned to the Pacific Fleet, the Reeves was homeported at Long Beach, Calif. She made her first deployment to the Western Pacific in April 1965. For most of her six-month cruise, she operated in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of Vietnam as part of battle groups supporting the carriers USS Oriskany and USS Midway. She returned to Long Beach in early November 1965, but redeployed to the Western Pacific a little more than six months later, in May 1966. For the next two years, she was homeported at the Japanese port city of Kokosuka; during this time, the Reeves spent 312 of 493 days at sea operating in the Gulf of Tonkin. For her performance during her two-year stint in the Far East, the Reeves was awarded the Navy Unit Commendation.
In early 1969, the Reeves was ordered to Bath, Maine, to undergo a major overhaul. The overhaul began on March 10 and lasted more than 18 months, with the ship returning to active duty on Aug. 29, 1970. In June 1971, she was redeployed to the Western Pacific. She returned to Pearl Harbor, her new homeport, on Dec. 20, 1971 and stayed there for the next 10 months. In September 1972, she was deployed to the Western Pacific once more, spending most of the cruise off the Vietnam cost.
In February 1980, the Reeves arrived in the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf to serve with a large U.S. task force responding to the seizure and taking of U.S. hostages at the embassy in Tehran, Iran. Even though the hostages were released in January 1981, the Reeves returned for a second stint from March-May of that year as tensions between the two nations remained high.
The Reeves was re-based at Yokosuka for most of the 1980s, spending much of the time monitoring the activities of the Soviet Pacific Fleet. In several occurrences, the Reeves was assigned to take part in special operations, which included close surveillance of Soviet surface ships. During one instance, the crew of the Reeves taunted the nearby Soviet carrier Minsk, operating near the port of Vladivostok, by playing rock and roll tunes over the loudspeaker system when the Minsk was within earshot. In 1984, she is awarded the Meritorious Unit Commendation.
In November 1986, the Reeves, USS Rents and USS Oldendorf visited the Chinese port of Qingdao for a six-day port of call. They were the first U.S. Navy vessels to visit the People’s Republic of China since the communists took control of the country in 1949.
In July 1987, the Reeves was deployed to the Persian Gulf to take part in the start in Operation Earnest Will, the escorting of reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers to prevent attacks from the Iranian Navy. In June 1989, the Reeves and USS Fife rescued 92 Vietnamese refugees on a sinking ship in the South China Sea. The two ships took the refugees to a United Nations refugee camp to Thailand a week later.
On October 30, 1989, the Reeves is hit from a bomb dropped by a Navy F/A-18 Hornet by mistake during an exercise in the Indian Ocean. The bomb creates a five-foot hole in the bow and injures five sailors, but does not cause critical damage.
Decommissioning
The Reeves was decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on Nov. 12, 1993. She was towed to the coast of Australia, where she was sunk as a target during a live-fire exercise on May 31, 2001.
Characteristics of the USS Reeves
Class and type: Leahy class frigate
Displacement: 5912 tons
Length: 533 ft
Beam: 55 ft
Draft: 21 ft
Propulsion: 2 shaft; gear turbines; 4 boilers; 85,000 shp
Speed: 32 knots (37 mph; 59 km/h)
Range: 8,000 nmi (15,000 km) at 20 knots (23 mph; 37 km/h)
Complement: 37 officers and 408 enlisted
Armament: 2 × Mark 10 Terrier SAM; 1 × ASROC ASW system; 4 × 3 in(76 mm)guns (removed in favour of the Harpoons during 1980s); 6 × 12.75 in(324 mm)ASW TT
Career:
Name: USS Reeves (DLG-24)
Namesake: Joseph M. Reeves
Builder: Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Washington
Laid down: 1 July 1960
Launched: 12 May 1962
Acquired: August 14, 1970
Commissioned: 15 May 1964
Decommissioned: 12 November 1993
Struck: 12 November 1993
Fate: Sunk as target, 31 May 2001
Timeline:
July 1960: Keel of USS Reeves laid down
May 1962: USS Reeves launched
May 1964: USS Reeves commissioned
April 1965: USS Reeves makes first deployment to the Western Pacific
1966—68: USS Reeves makes two-year forward deployment to Yokosuka, Japan
November 1986: USS Reeves makes first visit to Communist China by U.S. Navy ship in nearly 40 years.
1987: USS Reeves takes part in Operation Earnest Will in the Persian Gulf
Crewmembers of the USS Reeves:
An unofficial list of crew members that served on the USS Reeves 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=cg_24
Greg Thielen (served June 1981—September 1985): “Lots of memories! Learned to stutter, learned to drink, learned to fix things…”
Jeff Edwards (served June 1981—June 1983): “My first ship, and boy did we have a hell of a time!”
John Duffy (served June 1981—July 1984): “I served aboard USS Reeves twice; 1981-1984 & 1990-1993 (until decommissioning).”
Links
http://navysite.de/cg/cg24.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Reeves _(CG-24)
