(DE-239: dp 1,200; l. 306'0"; b. 36'7"; dr. 12'3"; s. 21.2 k. (tl.); cpl.
216; a. 3 3", 8 40mm.; cl.
Edsal
)
The second
Sturtevant
(DE-239), a destroyer escort, was laid down on
15 July 1942 by the Brown Shipbuilding Co., at Houston, Tex.; launched on 3
December 1942; sponsored by Mrs. William North Sturtevant - see
Ensign Albert Sturtevant
), and commissioned on
16 June 1943, Lt. Comdr. Frederick W. Hawes in command.
After shakedown in the vicinity of Bermuda and training off the Rhode Island
coast,
Sturtevant
began 21 months of convoy escort duty in the Atlantic.
On 24 September, she got underway to screen her first convoy to Casablanca and
Gibraltar. After two more such Atlantic crossings, she was assigned to
Londonderry
- bound convoys and made five voyages to that Irish port.
Sturtevant
rounded out her Atlantic service with two convoys each to Liverpool,
England, and Cardiff, Wales, and one to Southampton, England. Between
crossings, the destroyer escort was repaired and overhauled at the New York Navy
Yard and trained at Casco Bay, Maine, and at Montauk Point, Long Island. In all,
Sturtevant made 13 successful round-trip voyages across the Atlantic and back.
On 9 June 1945, she entered the New York Navy Yard for post-voyage
availability.
Sturtevant
emerged from the yard 38 days later with her
antiaircraft defenses strengthened considerably. En route to Pearl Harbor, she
trained for 14 days in the Guantanamo area and stopped briefly at San Diego. By
the time
Sturtevant
arrived in Hawaiian waters, the war was over. No
longer needed in the Pacific, the destroyer escort was ordered back to the
Atlantic Fleet, carrying passengers to San Pedro on the first leg and reaching
Charleston, S.C., on 25 September. There she started preparations for
decommissioning and inactivation with the Atlantic Reserve Fleet. In October,
she shifted to the inactive fleet berthing area at Green Cove Springs, Fla.,
where she was decommissioned on 24 March 1946.
After six years of inactivity in Florida,
Sturtevant
was
recommissioned on 3 August 1951, Comdr. R. B. Redmayne in command. For the next
four years, she operated along the Atlantic coast of the United States and in
the Caribbean Sea. Her operations carried her as far north as the coast of
Labrador and as far south as Cuba. Much of the time she spent in the Caribbean
was devoted to work in conjunction with the Fleet Sonar School at Key West,
Fla., and with the Hunter - Killer Forces of the Atlantic Fleet.
After visiting ports in northern Europe during a midshipman cruise conducted
in the summer of 1955, she resumed her training duties with the Fleet Sonar
School and normal operations for another year. She joined another midshipman
cruise, in July and August of 1956; this time to Panama and Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba. On 31 October 1956,
Sturtevant
entered the Philadelphia Naval
Shipyard for conversion to a radar picket destroyer escort ship. The conversion
process lasted until 5 October 1957, when she was recommissioned as DER-239.
On 7 February 1958, she departed Philadelphia for the Pacific Ocean, calling at
Newport, R.I.; San Juan, P.R.; Rodman in the Canal Zone; Acapulco, Mexico; and
San Diego before arriving in Pearl Harbor on 18 March. Upon completion of
further
training in Hawaii, she became one of the original ships of the Pacific
Early Warning Barrier. She continued to so serve in the Pacific Fleet until June
of 1960, when she was placed out of commission and berthed with the San Diego
Group of the Pacific Reserve Fleet. There she remained until the fall of 1972
when an inspection and survey board found her to be unfit for further naval
service. Her name was struck from the Navy list on 1 December 1972, and, on 20
September 1973, her hulk was sold to the National Metal and Steel Corp.,
Terminal Island, Calif., for scrapping.
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