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USS O'Callahan (FF 1051)

USS O'CALLAHAN was the tenth GARCIA - class frigate and the first ship in the Navy to honor Captain Joseph Timothy O’Callahan. Decommissioned on December 20, 1988, the O'CALLAHAN was given to Pakistan where she was recommissioned as ASLAT. Returned to the US Navy on November 14, 1993, and stricken from the Navy list the same day, the ship was sold for scrapping on March 29, 1994.

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS O'CALLAHAN. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.

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• Click here to see which USS O'CALLAHAN memorabilia are currently for sale on ebay.

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USS O'CALLAHAN Cruise Books:

• WestPac Cruise Book 1971

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About the Ship's Name:

Joseph Timothy O'Callahan was born in Roxbury, Mass., on 14 May 1905. After attending Boston College High School, he entered the Society of Jesus at the novitiate of St. Andrew-on-Hudson in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. He completed his philosophical studies at Weston College in 1929 and became a member of the physics department at Boston College. He was ordained a priest on 20 June 1934.

After serving as a tertian for a year at St. Robert's Hall in Connecticut, Fr. 'Callahan studied at Georgetown, taught Cosmology at Weston, and, in 1938, arrived at Holy Cross to teach mathematics and physics. In 1940, he became head of the mathematics department and founded a mathematics library. Soon thereafter, he surprised everyone by applying for a commission as a Navy chaplain. On 7 Aug 1940, he was commissioned a Lieutenant, Junior Grade, in the Navy Chaplain Corps.

After serving at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola Fla., he reported to the USS RANGER (CV 4). O'Callahan's great hope was to be assigned to the Philippines. His youngest sister, Alice, a Maryknoll nun, had been imprisoned in a Japanese detention camp there. For three years, the O'Callahan family hadn't heard a word about her fate. Her brother hoped to discover his sister's circumstance first-hand.

On 2 March 1945, O'Callahan received orders to report for duty to the USS FRANKLIN (CV 13), a 27,000 ton Essex Class Aircraft Carrier, part of an armada called Task Force 58. Shortly after dawn the next day, the FRANKLIN steamed out of Pearl Harbor.

On 19 March, at 0707, O'Callahan was having breakfast in the wardroom when out of a cloud bank came a plane, flying 360 miles an hour at a height of 75 feet. The plane dropped a 500-pound bomb on the center of the flight deck, swung around and dropped a second bomb on the aft. The ship exploded into flame. And, according to all reports, in the midst of the chaos and carnage was Fr. O'Callahan. Wounded by shrapnel (which earned him a Purple Heart), O'Callahan stayed at his post for three days and nights, ministering to the dying, putting out fires, tending the wounded, hosing down armed bombs, and jettisoning live ammunition. O'Callahan moved through smoke-filled corridors amidst explosion after explosion, saving lives and performing last rights over the dying.

On 3 April 1945, under her own steam, the USS FRANKLIN arrived back at Pearl Harbor.

On 23 Jan 1946, in Washington, D.C., President Harry Truman presented Father O'Callahan with the Congressional Medal of Honor. That night, Chaplain O'Callahan reported to his new post aboard the carrier USS FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT (CV 42).

12 Nov 1946, O'Callahan was released from the Navy with the rank of Captain, U.S.N.C.C. He returned to Holy Cross College to teach philosophy, but a future of much-deserved peace and study was not to be. In December of 1949, he suffered the first in a series of strokes.

In 1956, the film Battle Stations, depicting O'Callahan's heroics aboard the FRANKLIN, was released. Also that year, he published his best-selling memoir, I Was Chaplain on the FRANKLIN.

O'Callahan died on 18 March 1964, the eve of the 19th anniversary of the FRANKLIN's ordeal.

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USS O'CALLAHAN History:

USS O'CALLAHAN was a GARCIA-class destroyer escort named for Captain Joseph Timothy O'Callahan, a Jesuit priest and U.S. Navy chaplain whose conduct aboard USS FRANKLIN (CV 13) during World War II earned him the Medal of Honor. Joseph O'Callahan died on March 18, 1964, less than a month after the keel of the new destroyer escort bearing his name had been laid. The contract for the new ship had been awarded to Defoe Shipbuilding Company of Bay City, Michigan, on March 21, 1963. USS O'CALLAHAN was laid down there on February 19, 1964, and launched on October 20, 1965. Her sponsor was Sister Rose Marie O'Callahan, Joseph O'Callahan's sister, who was associated with Maryknoll College in the Philippines and became the first Roman Catholic nun to sponsor a U.S. Navy ship.

USS O'CALLAHAN was commissioned at Boston Naval Shipyard in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 13, 1968, with Robert L. Brown in command. After completing fitting-out work at Boston, she departed on August 16 for her assigned Pacific Fleet home port at San Diego, California. During the transfer she called at Norfolk, Virginia, Charleston, South Carolina, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, before continuing through the Caribbean. She transited the Panama Canal on August 31 and proceeded north along the Pacific coast to Southern California. Her assignment placed her with the Pacific Fleet at a time when U.S. naval forces were heavily engaged in Southeast Asia and the requirement for escorts, anti-submarine ships and naval gunfire-support vessels remained high.

On October 1, 1968, USS O'CALLAHAN departed San Diego for 25 days of electronics and weapons-system testing off the Pacific Northwest. The work was intended to test and evaluate the systems of the recently commissioned ship before formal shakedown training. During the northern operating period, she visited Vancouver, British Columbia, on October 20. After returning south, USS O'CALLAHAN began shakedown operations from San Diego on November 4. On November 14, she conducted an underway replenishment with USS PASSUMPSIC (AO 107). The remainder of the year was occupied by the normal sequence of engineering exercises, weapons training, equipment trials and crew qualification required to bring a newly commissioned ship to full operational readiness.

On January 31, 1969, USS O'CALLAHAN departed San Diego for Hawaii in company with USS JOHN A. BOLE (DD 755). The ships arrived at Pearl Harbor on February 6. USS O'CALLAHAN then conducted at-sea training in Hawaiian waters through February 17, including exercises intended to develop proficiency in the anti-submarine, engineering and weapons tasks for which the ship had been designed. She departed Pearl Harbor on February 17 and returned to San Diego on February 26. On March 4 she entered Long Beach Naval Shipyard for a post-shakedown availability. The yard period continued through approximately the middle of May and allowed deficiencies revealed during shakedown to be corrected and required alterations and repairs to be completed. After leaving the shipyard she resumed training operations from San Diego in preparation for her first deployment to the Western Pacific.

John Alfred Coiner assumed command of USS O'CALLAHAN on December 12, 1969. During the following months, the ship completed the preparations necessary for her first extended Seventh Fleet deployment. By April 1970 she was operating off Vietnam. The conflict was then entering a period of gradual reduction in the number of U.S. ground forces, but American naval and air forces remained deeply involved in combat operations. Destroyer escorts such as USS O'CALLAHAN could be assigned to carrier screening, anti-submarine patrols, surveillance, escort work and naval gunfire support, and her 5-inch guns made her useful for operations close to the South Vietnamese coast.

USS O'CALLAHAN operated in the Vietnam combat area from April 4 through April 20, 1970. Between April 13 and April 18, she and USS TURNER JOY (DD 951) provided naval gunfire support associated with South Vietnam's 21st Division. From April 17 through April 19 USS O'CALLAHAN was also employed against targets in the III Corps area in support of forces that included the 1st Australian Task Force. Airborne naval gunfire observers directed fire against Viet Cong bunker complexes, defensive positions and supply areas.

After completing this phase of Vietnam operations, USS O'CALLAHAN moved north for duties associated with the continuing American naval presence around the Korean Peninsula. She operated in the Korean area from May 8 through June 5, 1970. Although the immediate crisis created by North Korea's seizure of USS PUEBLO (AGER 2) in January 1968 and the destruction of a U.S. Navy EC-121 reconnaissance aircraft in April 1969 had passed, relations remained tense and the United States maintained substantial naval and air forces in Northeast Asia. USS O'CALLAHAN's service in the area formed part of this wider Cold War commitment.

The ship subsequently returned to Southeast Asian waters. She was again in the Vietnam operating area from June 20 through June 29 and from July 28 through August 3, 1970. During her first Western Pacific deployment she alternated between assignments off Vietnam, operations elsewhere in the western Pacific and the logistics and maintenance periods necessary to sustain Seventh Fleet operations. Subic Bay in the Philippines was among the ports used during the deployment. The large American naval installation there was one of the principal support centers for Seventh Fleet ships serving off Vietnam and throughout the western Pacific. USS O'CALLAHAN also performed escort and screening duties associated with U.S. naval forces operating in the region before eventually returning to San Diego.

USS O'CALLAHAN deployed again to the Western Pacific during the 1970-71 period. By the spring of 1971, she was once more engaged in Seventh Fleet operations in Southeast Asia. From May 3 through May 17, 1971, she operated in the Vietnam area. Marvin Gilford Smith Jr. assumed command on May 13 while the deployment was in progress. Following this Vietnam period, the ship again shifted to waters associated with operations around Korea and remained there from May 23 through June 18.

USS O'CALLAHAN returned south and operated in the Vietnam area from June 29 through July 21, 1971. By this stage the policy of Vietnamization was transferring increasing responsibility for ground combat to South Vietnamese forces, while U.S. naval forces continued carrier operations, reconnaissance, logistics, coastal surveillance and other missions throughout the theater. USS O'CALLAHAN continued to perform the escort, anti-submarine and general surface duties expected of a Seventh Fleet destroyer escort. Her deployment also included operations elsewhere in the western Pacific. She returned once more to the Vietnam area from September 1 through September 5, 1971, completing the last Vietnam campaign period credited to her for that deployment before eventually returning to the United States.

Following her return, USS O'CALLAHAN resumed Pacific Fleet training and maintenance. During 1972, she underwent a particularly important development in her aviation capability. The Navy was introducing the Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System, which replaced the limitations of earlier unmanned anti-submarine helicopter concepts with a manned SH-2 helicopter operating directly from surface escorts. The helicopter greatly extended the distance at which a ship could search for, classify and attack submarines and could also perform utility, logistics and search-and-rescue missions. USS O'CALLAHAN was modified to support this system and became one of the early operational platforms for the new ship-helicopter combination.

William Carl Dunham assumed command of USS O'CALLAHAN on July 21, 1972. On September 6, the ship was operating off Oahu during Rim of the Pacific 1972, a multinational anti-submarine exercise involving ships of the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. USS O'CALLAHAN was photographed underway during the exercise with the alterations associated with her Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System conversion clearly visible. The exercise reflected the continuing Cold War emphasis on coordinated anti-submarine warfare in the Pacific, where the Soviet Union maintained a substantial and increasingly capable submarine force.

Later in 1972, USS O'CALLAHAN returned to the western Pacific with an embarked SH-2 helicopter detachment. By early 1973, she had become the first ship of her particular destroyer-escort group to operate the Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System operationally. The manned helicopter expanded her anti-submarine search area far beyond that possible using the ship's hull-mounted sonar alone and also increased the range of missions that could be undertaken by the frigate-helicopter team.

The deployment placed USS O'CALLAHAN back off Vietnam during the final weeks before the Paris Peace Accords. On January 13, 1973, personnel from the ship served as naval gunfire spotters in the vicinity of the Cua Viet River in northern South Vietnam. The area near Cua Viet and the former Demilitarized Zone remained contested during the closing phase of the war. USS O'CALLAHAN subsequently qualified for the Combat Action Ribbon for actions on January 18 and January 26, indicating that she remained involved in combat conditions only days before the formal ceasefire.

The Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 27, 1973, and the ceasefire formally took effect on January 28. American naval operations did not end immediately. At 12:15 on January 28, USS O'CALLAHAN relieved USS BROOKE (DEG 1) as escort for the Positive Identification Radar Advisory Zone station in the Gulf of Tonkin. The station formed part of the radar and air-surveillance system maintained by Seventh Fleet forces and allowed the United States to continue monitoring air activity during the transition from active combat to post-ceasefire operations.

USS O'CALLAHAN subsequently participated in Operation End Sweep, the American effort to clear mines from North Vietnamese waters in accordance with the Paris Peace Accords. The United States had laid extensive minefields during the 1972 mining campaign against North Vietnamese ports, including the approaches to Haiphong, and the peace agreement required their removal or neutralization. From March 27 through April 2, 1973, USS O'CALLAHAN served as part of the Surveillance and Notification Line Force assigned to Task Force 78 during the mine-clearance operation. Her role placed her among the surface ships positioned in support of the minesweeping forces carrying out one of the principal naval obligations arising from the peace settlement.

After completing her remaining western Pacific commitments, USS O'CALLAHAN began her return to the United States. On April 17, 1973, she departed Yokosuka, Japan, in company with USS ORLECK (DD 886), USS BROOKE, USS LEONARD F. MASON (DD 852) and USS EPPERSON (DD 719). The homeward-bound ships passed from Seventh Fleet to Third Fleet operational control on April 20. They crossed the International Date Line and made a brief stop at Midway Island on April 23 before continuing east. USS O'CALLAHAN reached Pearl Harbor on April 25 and departed Hawaii on April 26 with her travel mates for the final passage toward Southern California.

Fred Wilkin Bailey assumed command of USS O'CALLAHAN on January 18, 1974. The ship again deployed to the western Pacific during 1974, this time with an SH-2 helicopter detachment from Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron Light 33 embarked. Detachment Seven remained aboard for approximately five and a half months. The deployment demonstrated that the shipboard helicopter system, which had still been comparatively new during the preceding cruise, had become an integrated element of USS O'CALLAHAN's operational capabilities. During the 1974 deployment, the ship and her helicopter conducted anti-submarine and anti-ship missile-defense exercises with P-3 maritime patrol aircraft and other Seventh Fleet units. The helicopter was also used for logistics flights, personnel transfers, naval gunfire-support related work and search-and-rescue missions. During one incident, the detachment recovered two aviators who had ejected over Subic Bay. In another, the helicopter rescued a parachutist who had become trapped in tall trees in terrain that was difficult to reach from the ground.

USS O'CALLAHAN also operated in connection with major carrier forces during the deployment. She was recorded operating with USS KITTY HAWK (CVA 63) on several occasions, including June 23, June 26, June 29 and July 5, 1974. Such operations formed part of the normal pattern of escort, anti-submarine screening and coordinated fleet activity conducted by surface escorts supporting carrier formations. USS O'CALLAHAN also made a documented visit to Kaohsiung, Taiwan, during 1974 before eventually completing the deployment and returning to the United States.

USS O'CALLAHAN remained active in major Pacific Fleet exercises during 1975. On April 7, she conducted an underway refueling from KITTY HAWK during Rim of the Pacific 1975. The multinational exercise again involved coordinated operations among Pacific allied navies and provided training in anti-submarine warfare, air defense, surface operations and other fleet tasks.

A Navy-wide change in surface-ship classifications took effect on June 30, 1975. On that date, USS O'CALLAHAN was redesignated from destroyer escort DE 1051 to frigate FF 1051. Clarence E. McRight Jr. assumed command on October 6. The geopolitical setting of USS O'CALLAHAN's service had by then changed significantly. South Vietnam had collapsed on April 30, 1975, bringing to an end the conflict that had dominated the first several years of the ship's operational career. Her principal missions again centered on the broader Cold War requirements for anti-submarine warfare, carrier escort, surveillance, fleet readiness and cooperation with allied naval forces in the Pacific.

USS O'CALLAHAN continued serving with the Pacific Fleet through the second half of the 1970s. Joseph Charles Strasser assumed command on October 11, 1977. In 1978, the frigate completed another Western Pacific deployment, continuing the pattern of Seventh Fleet service that had characterized much of her career. Subic Bay remained an important support center for U.S. ships operating in the region, while USS O'CALLAHAN continued to perform the anti-submarine, escort and general surface-warfare functions for which the GARCIA-class had been designed.

Robert Terrell Bunnell assumed command on October 19, 1979. USS O'CALLAHAN undertook another extended Pacific cruise during 1980. She participated in South Pacific Cruise 80 in company with USS KINKAID (DD 965) and USS COOK (FF 1083). The cruise extended her operations into the South Pacific and represented a different geographical emphasis from the Vietnam-era deployments that had concentrated heavily on the South China Sea and waters off Southeast Asia. By this stage, the principal strategic framework for U.S. naval operations was again the global competition with the Soviet Union, with Pacific Fleet ships required to maintain readiness over an enormous operating area stretching from the west coast of North America to East Asia, the South Pacific and Indian Ocean.

During the 1981 period, USS O'CALLAHAN underwent substantial maintenance in the Puget Sound and Bremerton area and subsequently carried out post-maintenance sea trials. A shortage of qualified communications personnel aboard the frigate resulted in radiomen from USS ENTERPRISE (CVN 65) being temporarily assigned to assist with communications-equipment testing during these trials. The episode provides a documented indication of the testing and requalification work required before USS O'CALLAHAN could return to full operational status following maintenance.

Frederick M. Frick assumed command on October 10, 1981. USS O'CALLAHAN then prepared for one of the longest peacetime deployments of her career. During 1982, she deployed as part of forces associated with the ENTERPRISE carrier battle group and operated across the Pacific and into the Indian Ocean. The strategic environment of the early 1980s differed substantially from that of her Vietnam service. The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, which had begun in December 1979, the Iranian Revolution and subsequent hostage crisis, and the Iran-Iraq War had greatly increased the importance of the Indian Ocean and North Arabian Sea to American naval planning. The United States maintained carrier forces in the region both as a deterrent and as a means of responding rapidly to crises affecting the Persian Gulf and surrounding areas.

During the 1982-83 deployment USS O'CALLAHAN performed the traditional tasks of a carrier escort, including anti-submarine screening, surface surveillance, coordinated exercises and protection of the carrier force. The lengthy deployment required operations across large areas of the western Pacific and Indian Ocean. During the return phase in 1983, USS O'CALLAHAN participated in Fleet Exercise 83-1 in the North Pacific. On April 29, 1983, she returned to San Diego. The arrival concluded a deployment of approximately eight months.

Mark Chester Skoog assumed command of USS O'CALLAHAN on July 15, 1983. In 1984, the frigate made another Western Pacific deployment. The cruise continued her long association with the Seventh Fleet and included operations in the western Pacific during a period in which U.S. naval strategy increasingly emphasized the ability to operate forward against the expanding Soviet Pacific Fleet. Maintenance requirements formed a substantial element of the deployment, and USS O'CALLAHAN spent part of the cruise in the Subic Bay area for repair work before resuming operations. She subsequently returned to the United States after completion of the deployment.

USS O'CALLAHAN remained in Pacific Fleet service during 1985. Leslie Wilsdon Hewett assumed command on August 16. In September 1986, USS O'CALLAHAN entered Todd Pacific Shipyards in Seattle, Washington, for a major regular overhaul. The Navy contract for the work was valued at approximately $16.6 million and called for completion by September 11, 1987. The extensive overhaul was intended to maintain the operational usefulness of a ship that had already been in commission for more than eighteen years. Work during a regular overhaul encompassed the repair and refurbishment of machinery, electrical installations, electronics, structural components and other shipboard systems, followed by testing and requalification before return to fleet operations.

Gary Werner Schnurrpusch assumed command on August 15, 1987, while the overhaul period was nearing its scheduled conclusion. USS O'CALLAHAN subsequently progressed through the post-overhaul process of trials, equipment testing and crew training needed to restore operational readiness.

In 1988, USS O'CALLAHAN undertook what became the final substantial cruise of her U.S. Navy career, operating in the northern Pacific and Alaskan region during the NorPac 88 period. The deployment took the frigate into the colder northern operating environment that remained strategically important during the final years of the Cold War. Northern Pacific exercises allowed U.S. naval forces to train in waters closer to Soviet Far Eastern bases while also testing ships and crews under demanding climatic and oceanographic conditions. On August 30, 1988, USS O'CALLAHAN returned to her home port at San Diego at the conclusion of the northern Pacific cruise. She was photographed passing Point Loma and Naval Air Station North Island while members of the crew manned the rails. Her return came less than four months before the end of her U.S. Navy service.

USS O'CALLAHAN was decommissioned at San Diego on December 20, 1988, with Gary Werner Schnurrpusch as her final commanding officer. She had served in the U.S. Navy for slightly more than twenty years and five months. Decommissioning did not immediately end the ship's active life. On February 8, 1989, the former USS O'CALLAHAN was transferred on lease to Pakistan and entered Pakistani naval service as PNS ASLAT (F 265). The transfer formed part of a program under which several former U.S. Navy escorts were made available to Pakistan. The former USS BROOKE was transferred at the same time and became PNS KHAIBAR (D 163).

PNS ASLAT remained in Pakistani service until 1993. The vessel was subsequently returned to United States possession at Singapore late that year. On March 29, 1994, the former USS O'CALLAHAN was sold to Trusha Investments Pte. Ltd. for disposal. She was subsequently taken to Hong Kong and broken up for scrap.

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