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General Characteristics Crew List Memorabilia Cruise Books About the Ship's Namesake History Image Gallery to end of page |  |
USS AINSWORTH was the 39th KNOX - class frigate and one of the eight ships of her class transfered to the Naval Reserve Force serving as Reserve Training Frigates (FFT). Each of the eight Reserve Training Frigates had its own reserve crew, and was also assigned four "nucleus crews" which would man the 32 decommissioned KNOX - class frigates in the case of a reactivation of these ships.
USS AINSWORTH (FFT 1090) was decommissioned on May 27, 1994, and was leased to Turkey the same day. There she was recommissioned as EGE. Stricken from the Navy list on January 11, 1995, the ship was finally purchased by Turkey on May 15, 1999.
| General Characteristics: | Awarded: August 25, 1966 |
| Keel laid: June 11, 1971 | |
| Launched: April 15, 1972 | |
| Commissioned: March 31, 1973 | |
| Decommissioned: May 27, 1994 | |
| Builder: Avondale Shipyards, New Orleans, La. | |
| Propulsion system: 2 - 1200 psi boilers; 1 geared turbine, 1 shaft; 35,000 shaft horsepower | |
| Length: 438 feet (133.5 meters) | |
| Beam: 47 feet (14.4 meters) | |
| Draft: 25 feet (7.6 meters) | |
| Displacement: approx. 4,200 tons full load | |
| Speed: 27 knots | |
| Armament: one Mk-16 missile launcher for ASROC and | |
| Aircraft: one | |
| Crew: 18 officers, 267 enlisted |
back to top go to the end of the pageback to top go to the end of the pageCrew List:
This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS AINSWORTH. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.
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back to top go to the end of the pageAbout the Ship's Name:
Vice Admiral Walden Lee Ainsworth, USN, was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 10, 1886. He entered the United States Naval Academy in 1906 and graduated in 1910, beginning a long naval career that spanned the transition from the pre-First World War battleship Navy to the carrier-and-amphibious Navy of the Second World War. Early in his service, he served in battleships and transports, took part in the Veracruz operation in 1914, and served during the First World War in transport and cruiser assignments.
During the interwar period, Ainsworth developed a strong professional background in ordnance, gunnery, navigation, and staff work. He commanded destroyers, served at the Naval Academy, attended the Naval War College, and later became commanding officer of USS MISSISSIPPI (BB 41) shortly after the United States entered the Second World War. In 1942, he moved into major Pacific Fleet command roles, first with destroyer forces and then with cruiser-destroyer task forces in the South Pacific.
Ainsworth became best known for his command of cruiser and destroyer forces during the Solomon Islands campaign, where his forces operated in the contested waters known as "the Slot". His task groups carried out bombardments, interdiction missions, and night surface actions during the Allied effort to isolate and retake Japanese-held positions in the central Solomons. His leadership during the Battle of Kula Gulf in July 1943 brought him the Navy Cross, and he also received the Distinguished Service Medal and the Legion of Merit for later wartime service, including operations connected with the recapture of Guam.
After the war, Ainsworth commanded the Fifth Naval District and retired from the Navy on December 1, 1948, with the rank of Vice Admiral. He died in Washington, D.C., on August 7, 1960, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
back to top go to the end of the pageUSS AINSWORTH History:
USS AINSWORTH (DE 1090), later USS AINSWORTH (FF 1090) and finally USS AINSWORTH (FFT 1090), was a KNOX-class ocean escort, frigate, and training frigate named for Vice Admiral Walden Lee Ainsworth, a United States Navy officer whose career extended from the early twentieth century through the Second World War and who was closely associated with destroyer, cruiser, and surface-force command in the Pacific. The construction contract for USS AINSWORTH was awarded to Avondale Shipyards on August 25, 1966. She was laid down at Avondale's Westwego, Louisiana, yard on June 11, 1971, launched on April 15, 1972, and sponsored by Mrs. Katharine Gardner Ainsworth, the widow of Vice Admiral Ainsworth. She was acquired by the Navy on February 1, 1973, and commissioned at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Portsmouth, Virginia, on March 31, 1973.
After commissioning, USS AINSWORTH began her first operational training cycle. On June 11, 1973, she departed Norfolk and headed for Port Everglades, Florida, to prepare for sensor tests and calibration. She then proceeded to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for shakedown training. During that early Caribbean period, she visited Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and then La Guaira, Venezuela. From La Guaira she joined warships of four other navies in a voyage to Maracaibo, Venezuela, to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the Battle of Lake Maracaibo, the 1823 naval victory associated with Venezuelan independence. That early cruise gave the new escort both technical training and an early diplomatic presence role in the Caribbean and northern South America. On her way back to the United States, she made recruiting visits at New Orleans, Louisiana, and Miami, Florida, before reaching Norfolk on August 16, 1973.
After her return to Norfolk, USS AINSWORTH began preparing for her post-shakedown overhaul. She got underway on October 16, 1973, and two days later entered Charleston Naval Shipyard in South Carolina. The yard work began at a moment of high tension in the Middle East. The Yom Kippur War had broken out on October 6, 1973, and the United States Navy was watching the eastern Mediterranean closely because the war had brought American, Soviet, Israeli, and Arab interests into sharp contact. Less than a week after her post-shakedown work began, USS AINSWORTH was placed in a 36-hour ready-standby status so that she could, if required, deploy quickly toward the Mediterranean. The immediate crisis eased enough for her to resume repairs, and the Charleston work was completed late in February 1974.
During the first half of 1974, USS AINSWORTH operated along the United States East Coast and in the West Indies. On July 18, 1974, she began a long voyage in which she circumnavigated South America. She sailed south by way of the West Indies to Brazil and then continued down the Atlantic coast of South America. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Montevideo, Uruguay, were among her ports of call before she rounded Cape Horn. After entering the Pacific, she turned north and visited Valparaiso, Chile, and Callao, Peru. She then reentered the Atlantic through the Panama Canal. After additional stops at La Guaira and Cumana, Venezuela, she proceeded home by way of Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico, and reached Norfolk on December 16, 1974. The cruise demonstrated the kind of long-range endurance expected of a KNOX-class escort and gave the ship experience across both Atlantic and Pacific approaches to South America during the Cold War, when the United States maintained regular naval relationships throughout the Western Hemisphere.
Following leave and upkeep, USS AINSWORTH underwent tender availability and then prepared for operations in the Caribbean. These operations lasted until March 24, 1975, when she again headed home. She arrived in Hampton Roads on March 27, 1975. Apart from a midshipmen training cruise during the second half of June and a short return to the West Indies from August 22 to August 29, she worked mainly in the Norfolk-Virginia Capes area until early autumn. On June 30, 1975, during the Navy-wide redesignation of ships, she was reclassified from DE 1090 to FF 1090.
On October 3, 1975, USS AINSWORTH departed across the Atlantic for her first Mediterranean deployment. This began a recurring pattern in her active career: deployments to the United States Sixth Fleet alternating with operations along the East Coast and in the Caribbean. The Mediterranean remained a central maritime theater of the Cold War. Soviet naval forces were active there, the Arab-Israeli conflict remained a constant strategic concern, the eastern Mediterranean was politically unstable, and the Sixth Fleet maintained a forward American naval presence on NATO's southern flank. USS AINSWORTH reported to the Sixth Fleet at Rota, Spain, on October 13, 1975, and relieved USS CAPODANNO (FF 1093). During the rest of October, she visited Tangier, Morocco, operated in the western Mediterranean, and made a port call at Malaga, Spain.
USS AINSWORTH left the Mediterranean on October 31, 1975, and spent the next three weeks in Exercise Ocean Safari in the northern Atlantic. Ocean Safari was a major allied maritime exercise designed to test North Atlantic command, control, antisubmarine warfare, carrier operations, and reinforcement concepts. From November 22 to November 28, 1975, USS AINSWORTH visited Portsmouth, England, in company with USS BOWEN (FF 1079). She then headed back toward Gibraltar and rejoined the Sixth Fleet at Rota on December 3, 1975. During the next five months, she operated almost the full length of the Mediterranean and visited ports in Italy, Greece, Turkey, France, and Spain before beginning her return home on April 26, 1976. She reached Norfolk on May 5, 1976.
After returning from the Mediterranean, USS AINSWORTH spent most of the rest of 1976 operating in the Hampton Roads-Virginia Capes area. One exception was a trip up the Chesapeake Bay to Annapolis, Maryland, in late September and early October for a visit to the United States Naval Academy. The rest of the year was devoted to local operations, upkeep, and preparations for the next Caribbean and Mediterranean cycle.
On January 17, 1977, USS AINSWORTH sailed for the Caribbean. She stopped at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Fort-de-France, Martinique; and San Juan, Puerto Rico, before taking part in Exercise Caribex 1-77 from February 11 to February 21, 1977. Caribbean exercises gave Atlantic Fleet ships operating space for antisubmarine warfare, surface tactics, weapons training, and coordination with other fleet units in a warmer-water environment less constrained by North Atlantic weather. USS AINSWORTH returned to Norfolk on George Washington's Birthday, February 22, 1977, and began preparing for another deployment to European waters.
USS AINSWORTH departed across the Atlantic on March 31, 1977. She reached Rota on April 12, sailed for Skaramangas, Greece, on April 16, and arrived there on April 21. She remained at Skaramangas for about a month before proceeding by way of Souda Bay, Crete, to the Ionian Sea. In the Ionian Sea, she took part in Sixth Fleet operations that, except for short runs to nearby ports, kept her busy until mid-July. On July 15, 1977, she sailed for the Levant and visited Haifa, Israel, from July 20 to July 24. She then turned westward, reached Naples, Italy, on July 29, and underwent a tender availability there until August 11. After three days at Augusta Bay, Sicily, she participated in Sixth Fleet Exercise National Week XXIII from August 16 to August 22. National Week exercises were recurring Sixth Fleet events designed to test readiness, command procedures, air and surface coordination, and the ability of deployed ships to operate together in a crisis. Afterward, while operating in the western Mediterranean, USS AINSWORTH called at ports in France, Alicante in Spain, and Lisbon in Portugal. She sailed for home on October 10, 1977, and reached Hampton Roads on October 21.
USS AINSWORTH remained in Hampton Roads until November 28, 1977, when she got underway for Exercise Marcott 3/77, a joint exercise with Canadian warships. The exercise kept her busy until she returned to Norfolk in mid-December. This North American allied exercise work again reflected the central Cold War concern of coordinating United States and Canadian maritime forces in the western Atlantic and approaches to the North Atlantic sea lanes. After the exercise, she closed the year in Norfolk.
USS AINSWORTH devoted the full month of February 1978 to the Atlantic Fleet's annual readiness exercise. She then spent the first twelve days of March in upkeep at Norfolk before representing her sister frigates in Exercise Shamrock, a combined weapons test and training demonstration observed by President Jimmy Carter. The event involved major fleet units, including USS DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (CVN 69), USS JOHN F. KENNEDY (CV 67), USS VIRGINIA (CGN 38), USS PETERSON (DD 969), and USS AINSWORTH. Her presence in that group placed a KNOX-class frigate within a high-visibility demonstration of carrier, surface combatant, and escort capabilities. On St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 1978, she arrived at Jacksonville, Florida, and spent the rest of March in that area supporting advanced underway training for surface warfare officers. She returned to Norfolk on April 1, 1978, and then served off the Virginia Capes as a deck-landing qualifications ship for LAMPS Squadrons 30, 32, and 34. During a five-day qualification period, 725 landings were made and 94 pilots were qualified, a large training effort that underlined the importance of helicopter operations to the KNOX-class antisubmarine mission.
After further operations in the Norfolk-Virginia Capes area, USS AINSWORTH entered Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for her first regular overhaul. The overhaul kept her in the yard until March 1, 1979. USS AINSWORTH got underway from Philadelphia for her home port on March 2, 1979, and arrived at Norfolk on March 3. She conducted local operations until May 10, when she departed for refresher training in the Caribbean. That West Indies cruise lasted through mid-summer and took her to the Bahamas, Guantanamo Bay, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. After that training period, she returned to Norfolk on August 23. She operated locally until October 1, when she put to sea for twelve days of combined underway training exercises along the East Coast and in waters off Puerto Rico. She returned home on October 13 and began preparing for another overseas deployment.
On November 10, 1979, USS AINSWORTH got underway for a deployment that would take her through the Mediterranean and into the Persian Gulf. She proceeded by way of the Azores to Rota. After entering the Mediterranean, she continued through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea toward the Persian Gulf and transited the Strait of Hormuz on December 9, 1979. While in the Middle East, she visited Jidda, Saudi Arabia; Djibouti; and Sitra, Bahrain. She departed Sitra on December 22, 1979, and began eighty-four consecutive days underway at sea, remaining ready to respond to any emergency arising from the crisis created by Iran's seizure of the United States Embassy in Tehran and the detention of American hostages. The regional context was severe: the Iranian Revolution had transformed the political landscape of the Gulf, the hostage crisis had created a direct confrontation between Washington and Tehran, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 intensified American concern about access to the Indian Ocean and the approaches to the Persian Gulf.
On March 11, 1980, after that long at-sea period, USS AINSWORTH finally put into Muscat, Oman, for fuel as she began her voyage homeward. Three days later, she topped off her fuel at Djibouti and continued through the Red Sea, the Suez Canal, and the Mediterranean toward Gibraltar. After brief stops in the Azores and at Bermuda, she ended the deployment when she arrived at Norfolk on April 17, 1980.
After a month of leave and upkeep, USS AINSWORTH took part in Exercise CompuTex 4-80 and carried out naval gunfire support qualifications. At the end of a four-day visit to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, she got underway for home on June 19, 1980, and proceeded by way of Port Everglades, Florida, to Norfolk, which she reached on June 23. Two days later, she entered Norfolk Naval Shipyard for a restricted availability that lasted until August 11. After that shipyard period, she began preparing for overseas movement and got underway on August 29 for Exercises United Effort and Teamwork 80. These exercises kept her at sea in the North Atlantic and North Sea until she arrived at Copenhagen, Denmark, on September 24. Teamwork-series exercises were major allied events designed to test reinforcement, convoy protection, antisubmarine warfare, command and control, and maritime operations in northern European waters. USS AINSWORTH also put into Oslo, Norway; Leith and Rosyth, Scotland; and Portsmouth, England, on her way home. She reached Norfolk on November 2, 1980.
USS AINSWORTH remained in the Norfolk area into the new year. On January 6, 1981, she sailed for Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, where she supported submarine training until January 9. She then prepared for Exercise ReadEx 1-81 and gunfire qualifications, work that kept her busy until February 17, when preparations began for another deployment to the Middle East. She got underway on March 18, 1981, and reached Rota on March 29. After transiting the Suez Canal and the Red Sea from April 14 to April 17, she entered the Indian Ocean and headed again toward the Persian Gulf. After refueling at Sitra, Bahrain, she operated near the Strait of Hormuz until May 11 and then took part in a passing exercise in the Gulf of Oman with the British ships HMS BACCHANTE and HMS MINERVA.
After the Gulf of Oman exercise, USS AINSWORTH conducted battle-group operations with USS AMERICA (CV 66) and then visited Kenya. En route to Mombasa, she crossed the equator on May 23, 1981. After completing another passing exercise on June 3, this time with two fast patrol boats of the Kenya Navy, she sailed for Sitra in company with USS KITTY HAWK (CV 63) on the way to the Persian Gulf and conducted operations with that carrier's battle group. Following almost a month of work in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf, USS AINSWORTH sailed for Djibouti on July 8 to begin the first leg of her voyage home. She took part in further exercises with HMS BACCHANTE and HMS MINERVA in the Gulf of Oman and in operations with USS AMERICA in the Arabian Sea. She reentered the Mediterranean on July 19 and reached Haifa, Israel, two days later. On July 24 she headed westward, stopped at Palermo, Sicily, from July 27 to August 8, and then operated with USS NIMITZ (CVN 68) and USS FORRESTAL (CV 59) until August 19. On the last two days of those operations, she took part in a missile exercise in the Gulf of Sidra, in international waters off Libya. The Gulf of Sidra was a recurring point of United States-Libyan tension because Libya claimed waters there far beyond the limit recognized by the United States, and American naval operations challenged those claims as a freedom-of-navigation issue.
After arriving at Rota on August 22, 1981, USS AINSWORTH took part in Exercises Ocean Venture and Magic Sword. She then sailed for home on September 4 with the battle group built around USS FORRESTAL and reached Norfolk on September 15. Following a month of leave and upkeep at Norfolk, the ship moved to the York River on October 15 to take part in ceremonies marking the bicentennial of the American victory at Yorktown. On October 20, she headed for the Bahamas to serve as a school ship in antisubmarine warfare training for future commanding officers on the Autec range at Andros Island. She returned to Norfolk on November 2 and, three days later, entered Horne Brothers Shipyard for a selected restricted availability. This work was completed on January 4, 1982.
Except for short operations in the Caribbean during the latter half of February and the first half of October, USS AINSWORTH spent most of 1982 in the Norfolk area. She weighed anchor again on December 27, 1982. Shortly after departure from Norfolk, she was reported or believed to have struck a whale and suffered damage to her sonar dome. She proceeded to Brooklyn Naval Shipyard, where an emergency replacement of the dome took place over approximately thirty days. After that repair, she continued eastward across the Atlantic by way of Bermuda and the Azores and arrived at Rota on January 7, 1983.
On January 8, 1983, USS AINSWORTH pushed on toward the Levant to serve as a naval gunfire support ship backing the multinational peacekeeping force at Beirut, Lebanon. She served off Lebanon from January 13 to January 29. This was part of the wider American naval presence connected with the Multinational Force in Lebanon after the 1982 Israeli invasion and the evacuation of Palestine Liberation Organization forces from Beirut. The security situation around Beirut was unstable, and United States naval forces offshore provided communications, presence, logistics, and, when ordered, fire-support capability for forces ashore. After completing this Lebanon-related period, USS AINSWORTH proceeded through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, and the Gulf of Aden to the Arabian Sea.
After a tender availability at Masirah, Oman, USS AINSWORTH got underway with the USS AMERICA battle group for Weapons Week operations near Diego Garcia, the American naval base in the Indian Ocean. After those exercises, she arrived at Male in the Maldive Islands on March 7, 1983, for a port visit. She got underway again on March 13 and worked her way back with USS AMERICA's battle group to Masirah, which she reached on March 26. Two days later, she sailed for Kenya and put into Mombasa on April 5. On April 11, she headed back toward the northern Arabian Sea in company with USS AMERICA and, en route, took part in a passing exercise that included Australian warships. She also took part in submarine exercises with USS BOSTON (SSN 703). She transited the Suez Canal on April 30 and conducted special operations in the central Mediterranean with USS NIMITZ's battle group before being detached from the Sixth Fleet on May 10 for the return home. USS AINSWORTH arrived at Norfolk on May 20, 1983, and began post-deployment leave and upkeep.
After post-deployment work, USS AINSWORTH's ensuing operations along the East Coast took her to New England waters. On August 10, 1983, she departed Hampton Roads for an overhaul at Charleston Naval Shipyard. The yard work included upgrading of the ship's sonar equipment and installation of a close-in weapon system, changes that reflected the Navy's continuing effort to keep KNOX-class frigates useful in an evolving threat environment. The overhaul lasted into the spring of 1984. USS AINSWORTH sailed for Norfolk on March 28, 1984, and reentered her home port the next day.
For the remainder of 1984 and into 1985, USS AINSWORTH operated mainly along the East Coast, except for a run to the Bahamas during the second week of July 1984 for acoustic trials on the Autec range. Late in March 1985, she traveled south to Florida and then to the West Indies, where she conducted shore-bombardment practice at Vieques Island, Puerto Rico. She returned north to Norfolk in mid-April and operated in the immediate vicinity until late summer.
On August 27, 1985, USS AINSWORTH stood out of Norfolk bound for another tour of duty with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. During the next seven months, she escorted carriers of the Sixth Fleet as they moved throughout the Mediterranean. She participated in exercises testing the fleet's readiness and its ability to operate with allied naval forces. When not engaged in exercises, she made goodwill port calls. This deployment occurred during a period of growing United States-Libyan tension in the central Mediterranean and Gulf of Sidra. The Sixth Fleet was maintaining freedom-of-navigation operations, carrier presence, and allied readiness at a time when Libyan claims and military activity were an important concern for American naval planners. USS AINSWORTH completed turnover formalities at Rota early in April 1986, set out across the Atlantic on April 6, and stood into Norfolk again on April 16, 1986.
Following the usual month of post-deployment leave and upkeep, USS AINSWORTH entered Norfolk Shipbuilding & Drydock Company for a twelve-week repair period. After emerging from the yard on August 12, 1986, she operated in the immediate vicinity of Norfolk, either in the lower Chesapeake Bay or just off the Virginia Capes, until early October. On October 4, she headed south to the Florida coast, where she spent the rest of the month carrying out refresher training. She returned to Norfolk on October 31 and spent the remainder of 1986 in port.
A National Archives image documents USS AINSWORTH underway off Augusta Bay, Sicily, on October 17, 1987. A dedicated 1988 Mediterranean cruise book also exists, confirming a later Mediterranean cruise cycle.
During the late 1980s, USS AINSWORTH remained a Norfolk-based Atlantic Fleet frigate. Her work was shaped by the final phase of the Cold War. Soviet naval power still mattered operationally, but the political relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union was changing rapidly. Atlantic Fleet frigates continued to provide escort capability, antisubmarine training, carrier and amphibious support, allied interoperability, and presence in the Mediterranean and Caribbean.
On September 30, 1990, USS AINSWORTH was assigned to the Atlantic Reserve Fleet. This was the first step in a late-career change from regular fleet service toward reserve training and mobilization support. On December 15, 1991, she was formally reclassified from FF 1090 to FFT 1090, becoming a training frigate. She was one of only eight KNOX-class ships subject to this redesignation. Under this arrangement, the ship remained commissioned but shifted toward reserve training and reserve-force support. Each of the reserve training frigates had its own reserve crew and was also associated with nucleus crew arrangements intended to support other KNOX-class frigates if reactivation became necessary. This change reflected both the Navy's effort to maintain reserve mobilization depth and the changing strategic environment at the end of the Cold War. The Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991, but the Navy still required trained reserve surface-warfare personnel and usable hulls to support contingency plans.
USS AINSWORTH remained in this training-frigate role into the early 1990s. By then, the strategic environment that had shaped her design had changed fundamentally. The United States Navy was reducing, transferring, or retiring many older Cold War escort ships. KNOX-class frigates, built primarily for open-ocean antisubmarine warfare, were increasingly removed from front-line American service as the Navy shifted to newer surface combatants and post-Cold War missions.
In 1993, USS AINSWORTH took part in Operation Support Democracy off Haiti as part of Combined Joint Task Force 120. The operation followed the September 1991 military overthrow of Haiti's elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and the subsequent international effort to pressure the Haitian military regime. After the United Nations embargo went into effect on October 18, 1993, United States and allied ships worked to enforce maritime restrictions around Haiti. USS AINSWORTH served in this context as a training frigate assigned to embargo-enforcement and maritime-interdiction duties. On November 26, 1993, she intercepted the Honduras-flagged freighter BLACK EAGLE in the Windward Passage north of Haiti. The boarding and inspection of BLACK EAGLE was recorded as the 100th boarding or inspection since the embargo had entered into force. This event is a significant late-career operational marker for USS AINSWORTH, showing that even after her reclassification as a training frigate she remained capable of carrying out real-world maritime-interdiction duties shortly before her decommissioning.
On March 8, 1994, 160 Turkish officers and petty officers boarded USS AINSWORTH and began familiarizing themselves with the ship. Civilian inspectors assisted in preparing the transfer process. This reflected the planned movement of the ship to Turkey, one of several former KNOX-class frigates transferred to allied navies after their American service. On May 27, 1994, USS AINSWORTH was decommissioned at Naval Station Norfolk and leased to Turkey the same day. She entered Turkish Navy service as TCG EGE (F 256). She was struck from the United States Naval Vessel Register on January 11, 1995, and was finally purchased by Turkey on May 15, 1999.
TCG EGE was decommissioned by Turkey on March 21, 2005. Instead of being scrapped, she was preserved as a museum ship. She became one of the principal exhibits of the Inciralti Sea Museum at Izmir, together with other former Turkish naval vessels.
USS AINSWORTH's recorded awards included the Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation, the Navy Battle "E", the Navy Expeditionary Medal with one star, the National Defense Service Medal with one star, the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, the Sea Service Deployment Ribbon, and the Coast Guard Special Operations Service Ribbon.
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