USS Parsons (DDG 33)

USS Parsons in her DD configuration serving as DD 949

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Accidents aboard USS PARSONS:

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USS PARSONS History:

USS PARSONS entered the Fleet as a FORREST SHERMAN-class destroyer when she was commissioned at Charleston, South Carolina, on October 29, 1959, following construction at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula (keel laid June 17, 1957; launch August 17, 1958). After trials and shakedown, she shifted to her first Pacific homewaters and, by February 1960, was operating from San Diego with the 1st Fleet. Her first Western Pacific cruise began in October 1960 under 7th Fleet control and set a long-term rhythm of carrier screening, anti-submarine training, and port visits across Japan and the Philippines before she returned in July 1961 for upkeep. On October 6, 1961, she entered Long Beach Naval Shipyard for improvements to communications and anti-submarine warfare systems, then resumed coastal training in early 1962. A second WESTPAC began in November 1962 as tensions over Cuba and Southeast Asia kept tempo high. She was back on the California coast by July 1963, having expanded her carrier-escort experience (including work with MIDWAY (CVA 41) and HANCOCK (CVA 19) that autumn) and completed a 1965 midshipmen training cruise that ranged to San Francisco, Puget Sound, and Hawaii.

To convert the all-gun destroyer into a guided-missile combatant, PARSONS decommissioned at Long Beach on January 19, 1966, for a major rebuild that replaced most of her superstructure and installed a Mk 13 guided-missile launcher and AN/SPG-51 fire control, ASROC, and a modernized sensors suite while retaining the forward 5-inch/54. Reclassified DDG 33 on March 15, 1967, she recommissioned on November 3, 1967, and rejoined the Pacific Fleet. A demanding post-conversion test period followed, culminating in September 1968, when she became flagship of Destroyer Squadron 31 and deployed at once to the Western Pacific for Vietnam War duty. On that tour she alternated Yankee Station carrier-screen service with on-station training and acted as ASW training coordinator with COMDESRON 31 embarked. Liberty and logistics calls included Kaohsiung, Yokosuka, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Sasebo. She returned to San Diego on May 12, 1969.

Early 1969 placed the ship again in Japanese waters - contemporary command-history summaries note PARSONS moored at Sasebo at the start of the year - before she settled into local operations on the U.S. West Coast. On December 12, 1969, while operating off Southern California, PARSONS collided with and sank the Filipino fishing vessel ORIENT. The fishing crew was rescued, and the destroyer returned to port for the ensuing administrative and maintenance actions. Through 1970, she continued readiness operations out of San Diego, cycling weapons tests, engineering drills, and type commander inspections as the Fleet prepared for further Western Pacific tasking.

A major basing shift came in late 1971. As part of the Navy's permanent forward-deployment of Destroyer Squadron 15, PARSONS moved from San Diego to Yokosuka, Japan, with eligible families relocating to Navy housing in Yokosuka and Yokohama. From December 1971 through December 1972, she operated continuously in support of the Vietnam War: providing naval gunfire support in I and IV Corps (most often near the DMZ in support of Marine units), serving on both the northern and southern rescue stations in the Tonkin Gulf for downed aircrew, and screening carriers on Yankee Station during the high-tempo air campaign of 1972. The forward-deployed posture tightened turnaround time between line periods and built close ties with shore support in Japan as the ship rotated between combat tasking and brief upkeep at Subic Bay and Japanese ports.

In 1973, PARSONS remained in the Western Pacific as the cease-fire took hold and U.S. naval roles shifted from sustained combat to deterrence, surveillance, and residual support of post-cease-fire obligations at sea. She continued picket, escort, and contingency tasks through the year, balancing brief port calls with long stretches under way as Seventh Fleet forces reoriented from wartime patterns. In 1974, she made what ship and class records mark as her final Vietnam-related underway periods and departed the theater around December 19, 1974, closing a multi-year sequence of Southeast Asia operations that had ranged from gunfire support to combat air patrol control and search-and-rescue coverage.

The mid- and late-1970s placed the ship in a steady cadence of 7th Fleet employment from Japan: group air-defense exercises, anti-submarine warfare tracking drills, and allied engagements with regional partners, interspersed with upkeep in Yokosuka. Her missile battery and modernized combat system made her a natural screen and plane-guard unit for carriers moving between the Sea of Japan, the Philippine Sea, and the South China Sea, and she periodically shifted south to Subic Bay or Singapore for logistics. These years also reflected a broader U.S. rebalancing toward Indian Ocean presence, a trend that would define her final years.

By 1979-1980, after the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and the subsequent hostage crisis, the Navy surged surface forces to the Arabian Sea's "Gonzo Station". PARSONS deployed westward with other cruisers and destroyers to screen carriers on extended line periods and to maintain a continuous air-defense and surveillance presence in austere conditions far from major repair facilities. Returning across the South China Sea on October 29, 1980, she encountered an overloaded refugee craft and took aboard 110 Vietnamese "boat people" roughly 330 miles south of Saigon, transferring them safely in coordination with regional authorities - a humanitarian episode widely recorded in Navy and press accounts from the period.

In 1981-1982, PARSONS continued WestPac and Indian Ocean employment as needed while the surface force phased in newer air-defense combatants. She decommissioned on November 19, 1982, after nearly twenty-three years in commission, and was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on December 1, 1984. Used as a live-fire target, she was finally sunk on April 25, 1989 - closing the record of a destroyer that spanned early Cold War Atlantic service, conversion to a missile ship, intensive Vietnam War duty from both San Diego and Yokosuka, and the forward presence operations of the Indian Ocean crisis years.

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Homeports of USS PARSONS:

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USS PARSONS Image Gallery:

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