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USS Hepburn (FF 1055)

USS HEPBURN was the fourth KNOX - class frigate. Decommissioned on December 20, 1991 and stricken from the Navy list on January 11, 1995, HEPBURN was finally sunk as a target on June 4, 2002. The exact location of the SINKEX was 047° 05' North, 127° 17' West.

USS HEPBURN was last homeported in San Diego, Ca.

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS HEPBURN. 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 HEPBURN memorabilia are currently for sale on ebay.

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USS HEPBURN Cruise Books:

• WestPac Cruise Book 1985
• WestPac Cruise Book 1986-87

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Accidents aboard USS HEPBURN:

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About the Ship's Name:

Admiral Arthur Japy Hepburn was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on October 15, 1877, and graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1897. His naval career spanned nearly five decades and included service in the Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II. During the Spanish-American War, he took part in operations against the Spanish fleet off Santiago de Cuba. During World War I, he commanded the former German passenger liner USS KAISER WILHELM II and later served as commander of the U.S. naval base at Queenstown, Ireland, for which he received the Navy Distinguished Service Medal.

During the interwar period, Hepburn held a succession of senior naval assignments, including service as Director of Naval Intelligence and as a naval adviser at international arms-limitation conferences. On June 24, 1936, he became Commander in Chief, United States Fleet, with the rank of Admiral. In 1938, he headed the influential Hepburn Board, which examined the Navy's requirements for additional and expanded bases throughout the United States and its overseas territories. Its recommendations contributed significantly to the expansion of American naval infrastructure before World War II, including facilities in the Pacific, Alaska, the Caribbean and the continental United States.

During World War II, Hepburn served as Chairman of the Navy's General Board and also participated in the 1944 Dumbarton Oaks Conference that helped prepare the framework for the United Nations. He retired from active naval service in 1945. Admiral Arthur Japy Hepburn died on May 31, 1964, at the age of 86.

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USS HEPBURN History:

USS HEPBURN was authorized on July 22, 1964, and laid down by Todd Shipyards Corporation at San Pedro, California, on June 1, 1966. She was launched on March 25, 1967, sponsored by Mrs. Arthur J. Hepburn and Mrs. Joseph R. Barse, and was delivered to the Navy on June 27, 1969. HEPBURN was commissioned at Naval Station Long Beach on July 3, 1969, with Commander Stuart D. Landersman in command, and was assigned to Destroyer Squadron 13. During her initial outfitting and shakedown period in 1969, HEPBURN operated along the U.S. and Canadian Pacific coasts, calling at San Francisco, Bremerton, Nanaimo and Vancouver before continuing to Pearl Harbor. During 1970 she completed additional training, including a midshipman cruise and a dependents cruise, while preparing for her first Western Pacific deployment.

HEPBURN departed Long Beach on January 5, 1971, for her first WESTPAC deployment. She called at Pearl Harbor from January 11 to 13, stopped at Midway on January 16 and Guam on January 23, and reached Subic Bay in the Philippines on January 27. After a short stay there, she departed on January 29 for operations off South Vietnam. On January 31, HEPBURN began naval gunfire support duties and became the first ship of the KNOX-class to participate in combat operations in the Vietnam War. Until February 6, she provided gunfire support for allied forces ashore, including the Australian 1st Task Force and elements of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division.

After leaving the gun line, HEPBURN spent part of the following week conducting surveillance of a Soviet naval group moving northward through the South China Sea. She arrived at Sasebo, Japan, on February 14 for her first Japanese port visit and remained there for approximately one week. A period of operations in the Sea of Japan followed, during which Soviet warships maintained close observation of the American force. HEPBURN subsequently spent periods at Sasebo and Yokosuka before returning to sea. From March 21 through April 2 she operated on a Pacific reconnaissance and patrol station in the Sea of Japan with USS GRIDLEY (DLG 21) and USS TOWERS (DDG 9). These operations formed part of the continuing U.S. naval presence near the Soviet Far East and the Korean Peninsula during a period when Cold War surveillance of opposing naval forces was routine.

Following five days at Subic Bay, HEPBURN proceeded to the northern search-and-rescue station in the Gulf of Tonkin. During this assignment she became the first ship of her class to embark a UH-2 helicopter detachment for the mission, an early demonstration of the value of operating a manned helicopter from the large flight deck designed into the KNOX-class. While underway in the Gulf of Tonkin on April 29, 1971, Commander John W. Sellers relieved Commander Landersman as commanding officer. HEPBURN completed her northern search-and-rescue assignment on May 4 and began a six-day visit to Hong Kong on May 5. On May 13 she joined USS RANGER (CVA 61) for approximately four weeks of carrier escort and plane-guard duty. This period included another stay at Subic Bay from May 20 to 28 and a visit to Yokosuka from June 1 to 6. HEPBURN then accompanied RANGER eastward across the Pacific. She left Seventh Fleet operational control on June 9, separated from the carrier near San Francisco on June 16 and returned to Long Beach on June 18. During the 164-day deployment she had spent 109 days underway.

After post-deployment leave, maintenance and training, HEPBURN began preparing for another prolonged Western Pacific deployment in 1972. On March 1, she went to the San Clemente Island range complex for calibration work involving her gyro and radar systems, but a main steam throttle problem forced an early return. Repairs and upkeep followed. On March 20, she was moved by tugs to Todd Shipyard at San Pedro and entered dry dock on April 3. She left dry dock on April 11 and conducted sea trials the following day, although thrust-bearing difficulties required further urgent attention. The work was completed in time for HEPBURN to participate from April 19 to 27 in COMPTUEX 10A-72, a combined U.S.-Canadian exercise that included anti-air, amphibious and anti-submarine warfare training. HEPBURN concentrated particularly on convoy and ASW work southwest of San Diego and exercised her SQS-26 sonar. On April 28, she loaded ammunition at Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach.

HEPBURN departed for the Western Pacific in May 1972 and again entered the operational environment surrounding the Vietnam War. From June 8 to 26, she participated in anti-submarine warfare sweeps in the South China Sea in company with USS BADGER (DE 1071), USS MARVIN SHIELDS (DE 1066) and USS TICONDEROGA (CVS 14). Commander Destroyer Squadron 23 was embarked in HEPBURN during this phase as commander of the participating task unit. During the summer, HEPBURN moved between carrier-support, surveillance and search-and-rescue assignments in Seventh Fleet waters. On August 8, Commander William C. Manes relieved Commander Sellers as commanding officer.

On August 9, HEPBURN was relieved from search-and-rescue duty by MARVIN SHIELDS and headed north. After a short Taiwan Strait patrol she reached Sasebo on the morning of August 13 and underwent a tender availability alongside USS HECTOR (AR 7). HEPBURN departed Sasebo on August 21 to return to the Gulf of Tonkin, conducting another Taiwan Strait patrol while en route. During a four-day period on the middle search-and-rescue station, the ship encountered approximately ten tons of baled rice floating at sea after a typhoon and destroyed the drifting material with gunfire because it represented a navigation hazard.

USS BADGER relieved HEPBURN from the search-and-rescue station on September 1. HEPBURN then joined USS MIDWAY (CVA 41) as rescue destroyer and plane guard until September 10, when USS DENNIS J. BUCKLEY (DD 808) relieved her and HEPBURN returned to the middle search-and-rescue station. USS HAROLD E. HOLT (DE 1074) relieved her there on September 17, enabling HEPBURN to proceed to Subic Bay for upkeep from September 19 to 28.

On September 28, HEPBURN departed Subic Bay in company with USS SARATOGA (CVA 60) and headed back toward the Gulf of Tonkin. MARVIN SHIELDS relieved her from carrier-support duties the next day, after which HEPBURN was ordered to the coast near Quang Ngai for naval gunfire support. There, she operated with USS HENRY W. TUCKER (DD 875) and USS HOLLISTER (DD 788) in support of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam's 4th Regiment, 2nd Division, in the Mo Duc, Duc Pho and Quang Ngai areas. During approximately a week on the gun line HEPBURN fired roughly 540 rounds in a variety of missions against identified positions, staging areas and troop concentrations. Reported post-mission assessments credited the combined firing with casualties and damage to structures and other targets ashore. On October 1, the ships temporarily moved southward to refuel and avoid Typhoon Lorna before resuming operations.

On October 5, HEPBURN was detached from the gun line and assigned to MIDWAY as a mutual-support ship, remaining with the carrier until October 12. She reached Subic Bay on October 14. On October 22, HEPBURN sailed for Hong Kong, arriving on October 24. During the visit she assumed duties as Senior Officer Present Afloat, Administrative, from USS WASHTENAW COUNTY (LST 1166). USS MOUNT HOOD (AE 29) relieved her on November 1, and HEPBURN returned to sea the following day.

HEPBURN reached the northern search-and-rescue area and relieved USS HENRY B. WILSON (DDG 7) on November 4. She subsequently provided mutual support for USS JOUETT (DLG 29) until November 12 and then resumed rescue-destroyer duties with SARATOGA. USS WILTSIE (DD 716) relieved her on November 20, and HEPBURN reached Subic Bay on November 23. She departed two days later for Yokosuka, where she arrived on November 29 and joined USS ROBISON (DDG 12), USS ENGLAND (DLG 22) and MARVIN SHIELDS for the homeward passage. The four ships left Yokosuka on December 1, fueled at Midway on December 4 and passed from Seventh Fleet to First Fleet operational control on December 6. HEPBURN stopped at Pearl Harbor on December 9 and arrived at Long Beach on December 15, ending a deployment of almost seven months. The remainder of the year was devoted to post-deployment stand-down.

During 1973 and 1974 HEPBURN returned to the normal Pacific Fleet cycle of maintenance, qualification work and exercises from the West Coast. Her primary mission remained anti-submarine warfare, while her Vietnam experience had also demonstrated the versatility of the class in carrier escort, search-and-rescue and naval gunfire support. The end of direct U.S. military involvement in Vietnam in 1973 changed the operational emphasis of Pacific Fleet escorts, and HEPBURN's later deployments increasingly concentrated on ASW, surveillance, carrier support and showing naval presence across the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean.

On June 30, 1975, the Navy carried out a fleet-wide reclassification intended to bring American ship categories into closer alignment with international terminology. HEPBURN was consequently reclassified from destroyer escort to frigate.

Late in 1975 HEPBURN deployed to the Western Pacific and became part of an Indian Ocean task group composed of USS FOX (CG 33), USS GRAY (FF 1054), USS PASSUMPSIC (AO 107) and HEPBURN. The group sailed from Subic Bay in December 1975. Its operations reflected the growing importance the U.S. Navy attached to a regular presence in the Indian Ocean after the political upheavals and regional conflicts of the early 1970s. The ships called at Singapore before continuing westward to Karachi, Pakistan. During the subsequent passage from Karachi toward the southern Indian Ocean, the American group passed an anchorage used by Soviet naval forces off Socotra, illustrating the continuing U.S.-Soviet competition for access and influence around the Indian Ocean.

The task group later called at Mombasa, Kenya; Reunion; and Diego Garcia. While operating in the Arabian Sea, the ships conducted what Navy accounts described as the first extensive acoustic survey of those waters, collecting environmental information important to anti-submarine sonar performance. Such data were particularly valuable for a ship like HEPBURN, whose principal Cold War mission depended on understanding local water conditions affecting sonar detection ranges. The group returned to Subic Bay in March 1976 before HEPBURN eventually returned to her normal Pacific Fleet operating cycle.

After further operations and upkeep in 1976 and 1977, HEPBURN entered a major overhaul at the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco. The work was carried out by Triple A Machine Shop, which had leased the facility after the Navy closed the yard. HEPBURN was one of three KNOX-class frigates whose major overhauls there were completed during 1978. The availability restored machinery and combat-system readiness and prepared the ship for another series of long overseas deployments.

In August 1979, HEPBURN departed on another WESTPAC deployment. Her itinerary included Guam, Subic Bay, Australia, Hong Kong and Yokosuka. In Australian waters she participated in Exercise Kangaroo III, a large multinational exercise involving U.S., Australian and New Zealand forces. Among the other American surface combatants involved were USS CHICAGO (CG 11) and USS LANG (FF 1060). The exercise tested combined maritime, amphibious and air operations and provided experience operating with allied command structures in the southwestern Pacific.

After Kangaroo III, HEPBURN proceeded to Melbourne, where she embarked the U.S. Seventh Fleet Band, and then continued to Fremantle and Perth. Her visit coincided with celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of the establishment of the Swan River Colony and the founding era of Western Australia. The deployment subsequently continued through the Western Pacific. On the homeward passage in February 1980, HEPBURN escorted HENRY B. WILSON back toward the United States, completing another extended Pacific deployment.

HEPBURN again deployed in 1981 on a seven-month WESTPAC cruise. After leaving San Diego, she made her first port call in Hawaii and then continued toward the Philippines with a brief stop at Guam. Pattaya Beach, Thailand, followed before the ship crossed the South China Sea to Hong Kong. After five days there she returned to the Philippines and subsequently headed south to Singapore. Passage through the Strait of Malacca brought HEPBURN into the Indian Ocean, where she operated during a period of substantial U.S. naval activity following the Iranian Revolution, the continuing Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. She stopped at Diego Garcia for repairs before proceeding to Geraldton, Western Australia. On the return portion of the deployment she spent approximately a month in the Philippines before making brief stops at Guam and Hawaii on the final transit to the United States.

The 1981 deployment also included one of HEPBURN's most significant humanitarian episodes. While operating off the Gulf of Thailand, the ship sighted a small boat containing thirteen Vietnamese refugees, ten men and three women. They had been at sea for four days and had only about one gallon of fuel, one gallon of fresh water and two cups of rice remaining. HEPBURN brought them aboard and provided medical attention, food, clothing and accommodation. Around April 30, while crossing the South China Sea, the ship encountered another twelve-foot boat carrying twenty people - sixteen adults and four children - who had been at sea for ten days and had gone six days without food. They too were taken aboard and cared for by the crew.

A third refugee boat was encountered while HEPBURN was proceeding toward Hong Kong. The approximately twenty-five-foot craft contained twenty-two people who had been without food or water for five days, and several were in significantly worse physical condition than those rescued earlier. They received medical treatment and care aboard HEPBURN and gradually recovered. The three rescues brought a total of fifty-five Vietnamese refugees aboard the frigate. They were eventually transferred to Hong Kong immigration authorities for further processing and resettlement. During the Indian Ocean portion of the same deployment, HEPBURN operated with major carrier forces as USS KITTY HAWK (CV 63) and its battle group relieved the USS AMERICA (CV 66) group, placing the frigate back in the carrier-screen and anti-submarine role for which she had originally been designed.

A further WESTPAC and Indian Ocean deployment followed in 1982-83. HEPBURN operated as part of the Pacific Fleet carrier force and was photographed in October 1982 in company with the battle groups centered on USS ENTERPRISE (CVN 65) and MIDWAY. On January 1, 1983, she was operating with USS SACRAMENTO (AOE 1) during underway support operations. The cruise again combined carrier escort, anti-submarine work and sustained forward presence in the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean at a time when the Iran-Iraq War and continued Soviet activity gave the region considerable strategic importance. HEPBURN returned to the United States in 1983 and spent much of the following period in maintenance, local operations and preparation for her next deployment.

Immediately before her 1985 deployment, HEPBURN became the subject of an unusual and technically demanding underwater repair. On January 24, 1985, the ship reported striking a whale while underway and subsequently developed severe shaft vibration and an abnormal acoustic signature. Divers from Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit ONE inspected the propeller on January 25 and found a 62-inch tear along the edge of one blade. A replacement propeller weighing approximately twelve and a half tons arrived on January 27. Because putting the frigate into dry dock would have delayed her scheduled deployment and imposed substantial additional cost, Commander Naval Surface Force Pacific decided on January 30 to replace the propeller while HEPBURN remained afloat. Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit ONE and USS SAMUEL GOMPERS (AD 37) were assigned the task.

Diving began on February 1. The operation proved difficult because fittings around the propeller had been heavily welded and staked and because the available lifting arrangements required modification. An initial attempt to pull the damaged propeller with hydraulic equipment was unsuccessful after a large stud failed. On February 7, Navy divers and explosive-ordnance personnel used carefully placed detonating cord in two controlled shots to free the propeller from the shaft. The replacement was then installed, and by February 14 it had been fitted and air-tested. Sea trials that evening, however, revealed an unacceptable acoustic signature, an especially serious defect for an anti-submarine frigate whose effectiveness depended on minimizing self-generated underwater noise.

The Navy therefore decided to repeat the entire procedure. Beginning on February 16, the divers worked around the clock in twelve-hour shifts while another propeller was flown from Norfolk. The final working dive was completed shortly before midnight on February 20. After successful sea trials, HEPBURN was able to depart on the morning of February 21 for her scheduled deployment. The two successive waterborne propeller changes had required more than 380 hours of diver bottom time and avoided the lengthy delay and approximately one million dollars in costs associated with drydocking the ship.

HEPBURN spent the following months on another Western Pacific deployment, including operations in Philippine waters and with Pacific Fleet carrier forces. Her continuing use in the mid-1980s reflected the extensive modernization that allowed KNOX-class frigates to remain useful anti-submarine escorts well beyond the period originally anticipated for them. By this stage, ships of the class could operate the SH-2F Seasprite under the LAMPS I concept, and HEPBURN's combat systems had evolved considerably from those carried when she first deployed to Vietnam.

Her next major deployment, in 1986-87, again took HEPBURN through the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean and this time into the Persian Gulf. The Iran-Iraq War had by then developed into the so-called Tanker War, with merchant shipping, oil terminals and vessels operating in Gulf waters increasingly exposed to attack. U.S. warships maintained a continuous presence to monitor the fighting, protect American interests and keep the region's principal sea routes under observation. HEPBURN operated with the Middle East Force and used Bahrain as one of the support locations for operations in the Gulf. Other U.S. and allied ships were operating throughout the same restricted waters, where Iranian, Iraqi and Soviet activity required intensive surveillance.

HEPBURN's presence in the Persian Gulf is documented particularly clearly in April 1987. On April 7, she transferred JP-5 aviation fuel at sea to USS STARK (FFG 31), which was then conducting patrol operations connected with the Iran-Iraq War. The event occurred only weeks before STARK was struck by two Iraqi Exocet missiles on May 17, 1987. HEPBURN's deployment therefore took place during the final months before the United States greatly expanded its direct involvement in protecting Gulf shipping under Operation Earnest Will. HEPBURN herself had completed her principal Gulf deployment before the major convoy phase of that operation began.

Following the 1986-87 deployment, HEPBURN underwent another significant maintenance period. A Selected Restricted Availability performed by A&E Industries extended into 1988 and was intended to preserve the material condition of a ship that was approaching two decades of service. She nevertheless remained operational and undertook another Western Pacific deployment during late 1988 and early 1989.

On February 2, 1989, HEPBURN joined USS CURTS (FFG 38), USS OUELLET (FF 1077) and units of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force for ASWEX 89-1JA. The exercise continued through February 6 and involved combined anti-submarine operations with Japanese surface ships and a Japanese submarine. It represented precisely the type of allied ASW training for which HEPBURN had been designed more than twenty years earlier and took place as U.S. and Japanese naval forces continued to monitor Soviet submarine activity in the northwestern Pacific during the final years of the Cold War.

Back on the U.S. West Coast, HEPBURN participated in the Portland Rose Festival in June 1989. She was among a group of Pacific Fleet ships proceeding up the Columbia River for the event from June 8 to 13. The group included USS KANSAS CITY (AOR 3), ENGLAND, USS COPELAND (FFG 25), USS GARY (FFG 51), USS BARBEY (FF 1088), GRAY and USS ALBERT DAVID (FF 1050). In August, HEPBURN was operating at the joint U.S.-Canadian Nanoose underwater test range in the Strait of Georgia off Vancouver Island, an area used for torpedo and undersea-warfare testing.

On October 1, 1989, HEPBURN was assigned to the Naval Reserve Force, Pacific, at San Diego. The transfer marked the beginning of the final phase of her commissioned career. Rather than being immediately withdrawn from service, she continued operating as a reserve-force frigate, providing training and maintaining a mobilization capability while the Navy began reducing its older surface fleet. This period coincided with a rapid change in the strategic environment: the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, the Warsaw Pact subsequently disintegrated, and the Soviet Union itself ceased to exist in December 1991. The reduced requirement for large numbers of dedicated Cold War anti-submarine escorts made the older KNOX-class an early target of the post-Cold War force reduction.

HEPBURN continued reserve-force service from San Diego through 1990 and 1991. USS HEPBURN was decommissioned on December 20, 1991, after approximately twenty-two and a half years of commissioned service. She remained in Navy custody after decommissioning and was formally struck from the Naval Vessel Register on January 11, 1995. Plans were subsequently considered for transferring the former frigate overseas; in the late 1990s Congress authorized a potential transfer to Greece for use as a source of spare parts for Greek KNOX-class frigates, but HEPBURN ultimately remained in U.S. possession.

After more than a decade out of commission, the former HEPBURN was selected for use as a target. On June 4, 2002, she was sunk during a fleet weapons exercise in the eastern North Pacific at approximately 47°05' North, 127°17' West. The wreck came to rest in water reported as about 1,452 fathoms deep.

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