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USS Richard L. Page (FFG 5)

USS RICHARD L. PAGE was the 5^th ship in the BROOKE - class of guided missile frigates. Decommissioned on September 30, 1988, RICHARD L. PAGE was given to Pakistan in March 1989 where the ship was renamed TABUK.

The ex-RICHARD L. PAGE was returned to the US Navy in Singapore on January 15, 1994 . There 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 RICHARD L. PAGE. 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 RICHARD L. PAGE memorabilia are currently for sale on ebay.

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USS RICHARD L. PAGE Cruise Books:

• Mediterranean Cruise Book 1977-78
• Mediterranean Cruise Book 1979

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Accidents aboard USS RICHARD L. PAGE:

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About the Ship's Name:

Richard Lucian Page, born in Clarke County, Va., on 2 December 1807, entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman in 1824; was promoted to lieutenant in 1834; and to commander in 1855. Sea duty, included assignments as executive officer and commanding officer of INDEPENDENCE during the Mexican War, commanding officer of the brig PERRY on the African Station 1852-54, and commanding officer of the sloop-of-war GERMANTOWN on the East Indies Station 1857-60. He also served three tours of duty ashore as an ordnance officer and one tour as executive officer at the Norfolk Navy Yard.

With the secession of Virginia, Page, then assigned to the Norfolk Navy Yard, resigned from the U.S. Navy and, after joining the staff of Governor Letcher of Virginia, began organizing a State navy and constructing fortifications along rivers of the Tidewater area.

Commissioned Commander in the Confederate Navy in 1861, he served as ordnance officer at the Norfolk Navy Yard and at Charlotte, N.C. In 1864 he was commissioned Brigadier-General in the Confederate Army and placed in charge of the outer defenses of Mobile Bay. There, he defended Fort Morgan until that fort fell to Union forces under Farragut and Granger on 23 August 1864. Page, a prisoner for the remainder of the Civil War, returned to Norfolk after his release and, from 1875 to 1883, served as superintendent of public schools. Brigadier General Page died at Blueridge Summit, Pa., on 9 August 1901.

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USS RICHARD L. PAGE History:

USS RICHARD L. PAGE was the fifth ship of the BROOKE-class guided missile destroyer escorts, a small Cold War class built to combine ocean escort duty, antisubmarine warfare, and guided missile air defense in a compact steam-powered hull. The ship was ordered from Bath Iron Works at Bath, Maine, on May 24, 1963. Her keel was laid on January 4, 1965, and she was launched and christened on April 4, 1966, sponsored by Miss Edmonia Lee Whittle and Mrs. Nannie Page Trinker, granddaughters of the namesake. USS RICHARD L. PAGE was commissioned at Boston Naval Shipyard, Boston, Massachusetts, on August 5, 1967, as USS RICHARD L. PAGE (DEG 5), with Commander Milton J. Schultz Jr. in command. At commissioning she was assigned to Escort Squadron 6 at Newport, Rhode Island.

In mid-October 1967, after commissioning work at Boston, USS RICHARD L. PAGE sailed south for shakedown training in the Caribbean. The shakedown period tested the new ship's engineering plant, combat systems, damage control organization, communications procedures, watch teams, and weapons systems under operating conditions. She returned to Newport on December 21, 1967. After post-shakedown availability, she began operations with Escort Squadron 6. During 1968, she operated in the western Atlantic, continuing the normal early-service cycle of training, equipment checks, engineering work, upkeep, and fleet exercises expected of a new Atlantic Fleet escort.

In the fall of 1968, USS RICHARD L. PAGE deployed to the Mediterranean for duty with the Sixth Fleet. On October 11, 1968, she was photographed anchored off Rapallo, Italy, in company with USS GAINARD (DD 706). This first Mediterranean deployment placed the new escort in one of the Navy's central Cold War operating areas. The Sixth Fleet maintained a continuous U.S. presence among NATO allies, monitored Soviet naval activity, and supported American policy in a region shaped by NATO-Warsaw Pact confrontation, the continuing effects of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, and political tension around the eastern Mediterranean. USS RICHARD L. PAGE remained with the Sixth Fleet until February 10, 1969. She returned to Newport on February 18, 1969, and in March resumed Second Fleet operations in the western Atlantic.

On July 1, 1969, USS RICHARD L. PAGE relieved USS BRUMBY (DE 1044) as flagship of Destroyer Division 122. She then conducted exercises in the Caribbean and remained within the Newport-based Atlantic Fleet cycle of local operations, upkeep, East Coast training, Caribbean exercises, engineering readiness, and squadron work. A photograph from August 1970 places her underway in the Atlantic. She spent 1971 and the first eight months of 1972 in port at Newport and in operations along the U.S. East Coast and in the Caribbean. This work kept her within the Atlantic Fleet's normal training and readiness pattern while the Navy continued to sustain global commitments in the Mediterranean, North Atlantic, Caribbean, and western Pacific.

In mid-August 1972, USS RICHARD L. PAGE departed Newport for an extended Sixth Fleet deployment in the Mediterranean. This cruise led into a more unusual period of her service. From 1973 to 1975 she was forward deployed to Athens, Greece, as part of the U.S. Navy's Mediterranean force structure. A forward-deployed escort based near the operating area gave the Sixth Fleet a ready surface combatant without requiring a transatlantic rotation for every commitment. During these years, Mediterranean naval operations were shaped by NATO requirements, Soviet naval activity, Arab-Israeli tension, and the unstable strategic environment of the eastern Mediterranean.

During the forward-deployed period, USS RICHARD L. PAGE operated with other U.S. ships assigned to the Mediterranean. A July 1974 photograph places her in the harbor at Athens with USS BARRY (DD 933) and USS SAMPSON (DDG 10). On October 6, 1974, USS RICHARD L. PAGE was photographed in the Kithira Strait in the eastern Mediterranean while passing the Soviet KASHIN-class guided missile destroyer KRASNY KRIM. The encounter was typical of Cold War naval life in the Mediterranean: U.S. and Soviet warships often operated close to one another, requiring disciplined navigation, steady communications, and careful observation without direct confrontation.

On June 30, 1975, while USS RICHARD L. PAGE was still in this broader Mediterranean phase, the Navy reclassified its surface combatants. The former guided missile destroyer escorts of the BROOKE-class became guided missile frigates. From that date the ship was designated USS RICHARD L. PAGE (FFG 5). The change did not by itself alter her basic equipment or mission, but it brought her into the terminology used for the later Cold War frigate force. In the summer of 1975 the forward-deployed Destroyer Squadron 12 arrangement in the Mediterranean ended, and the squadron returned to the United States.

After returning from Europe, USS RICHARD L. PAGE entered a year-long modernization overhaul. The overhaul removed her from regular operations but prepared her for the next phase of Atlantic Fleet service. When she returned to the fleet in 1976, she did so with Norfolk, Virginia, as her new home port. Norfolk placed her at the Atlantic Fleet's principal surface-force base, close to the Virginia Capes operating areas, Norfolk Naval Shipyard, major fleet staffs, and the support structure for Atlantic, Mediterranean, Caribbean, North Atlantic, and Middle East deployments. On June 7, 1976, she was photographed underway off Hampton Roads, and on July 6, 1976, additional aerial views showed the ship at sea off Virginia in her reclassified guided missile frigate configuration.

During the second half of the 1970s, USS RICHARD L. PAGE became one of the more heavily employed Atlantic Fleet frigates of her type. Over the next four years, she repeatedly deployed or operated in the Mediterranean, the Middle East, waters off eastern Africa, northern Europe, the Caribbean, and the western Atlantic, with relatively short periods at Norfolk between commitments. A Mediterranean cruise book exists for 1977-1978, confirming another deployment in that period. The cruise fitted the standard late-1970s Sixth Fleet pattern of escort operations, antisubmarine training, air-defense exercises, allied port visits, and presence missions at a time when the Mediterranean remained one of the principal points of contact between U.S., NATO, and Soviet naval forces.

USS RICHARD L. PAGE was again deployed in 1979. Ship's operations that year extended beyond the Mediterranean into the Red Sea and Indian Ocean connection. On March 1, 1979, USS RICHARD L. PAGE transited the Suez Canal with USS DAVIS (DD 937) and USS DONALD B. BEARY (FF 1085). The three Sixth Fleet ships were sent to replace three Seventh Fleet ships that had been operating in the Indian Ocean since November 1978. This movement placed USS RICHARD L. PAGE in a region receiving increased U.S. naval attention because of instability around the Arabian Peninsula, conflict and tension near the Horn of Africa, the aftermath of the oil shocks of the 1970s, and concern over sea routes leading toward the Persian Gulf. On March 7, 1979, USS RICHARD L. PAGE was at Djibouti, moored alongside USS DAVIS. Djibouti's position near the western entrance to the Gulf of Aden made it an important stop in the maritime route between the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the approaches to the Arabian Sea.

The year 1979 also marked a high point in USS RICHARD L. PAGE's readiness record. She received the Battle Efficiency "E" from Commander, Naval Surface Force Atlantic as the best guided missile frigate among Atlantic Fleet guided missile frigates. She also received the Battenberg Cup for 1979, identifying her as the Atlantic Fleet surface warship judged to have the highest overall operational excellence. These awards reflected not a single event, but the cumulative result of inspections, engineering performance, combat-system readiness, command performance, retention, seamanship, and sustained operations during a demanding multi-year period.

In early 1980, USS RICHARD L. PAGE shifted temporarily to Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for sonar and electronic-warfare upgrades. She returned to the fleet in August 1980. After the yard period she conducted independent operations in the Caribbean and the western Atlantic, then completed refresher training at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Refresher training after a major maintenance or modernization period tested damage control, engineering drills, weapons procedures, shiphandling, communications, watchstanding, and the ability of the ship's departments to operate together under pressure. After completing that work, USS RICHARD L. PAGE returned to Norfolk and took part in Exercise Solid Shield 81, a major Atlantic Fleet exercise involving naval, amphibious, and supporting forces.

During the remainder of 1981, USS RICHARD L. PAGE operated as the U.S. unit of Standing Naval Force Atlantic. STANAVFORLANT was NATO's standing multinational Atlantic naval force, composed of ships from several allied navies and intended to maintain readiness, interoperability, and visible alliance presence in the North Atlantic. Service with the force required continuous multinational operations rather than a short bilateral exercise. Ships assigned to STANAVFORLANT worked with allied frigates, destroyers, and support ships, practiced common communications and tactics, and demonstrated NATO's ability to maintain a standing surface force outside a purely national daily operating structure. For USS RICHARD L. PAGE, the assignment connected her directly to NATO's North Atlantic maritime posture during a period of renewed Cold War tension.

In late 1983, USS RICHARD L. PAGE deployed with the USS JOHN F. KENNEDY (CV 67) carrier battle group. This deployment included Mediterranean operations during the Lebanon crisis, where U.S. naval forces supported American and multinational peacekeeping commitments after the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and amid the instability that followed. USS RICHARD L. PAGE's Mediterranean duties placed her within the Sixth Fleet presence connected with Lebanon, where U.S. carriers, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, amphibious ships, and support vessels operated in a complex political and military environment. The deployment also included North Atlantic and Norwegian-area operations, part of the broader NATO effort to maintain access, exercise reinforcement routes, and demonstrate readiness near the maritime approaches associated with the Soviet Northern Fleet.

After returning to Norfolk in 1984, USS RICHARD L. PAGE entered another yard period at Bath Iron Works in Maine. The overhaul continued into the mid-1980s and kept the ship away from regular fleet operations while she received maintenance and modernization work needed to extend her service. She returned to fleet service from 1986.

On April 21, 1987, USS RICHARD L. PAGE was involved in a serious accident off Virginia. During a high-speed run in heavy fog, she collided with and sank the disabled fishing vessel CHICKADEE, which was under tow by another fishing boat. The incident later drew attention because it led to calls for increased drug testing of sailors, although no drug use aboard USS RICHARD L. PAGE was uncovered. The accident stands apart from the ship's normal deployment record, but it was part of her final operating history and occurred during the last phase of BROOKE-class U.S. service.

By the late 1980s, the BROOKE-class frigates were nearing the end of their American careers. They remained useful escorts and training platforms, but their steam plants, limited missile capacity, older combat systems, and compact early-1960s design belonged to a previous generation. The newer OLIVER HAZARD PERRY-class guided missile frigates were entering service in large numbers, and gas-turbine surface combatants were increasingly central to the Navy's surface force. In 1987, the Navy decided to retire the BROOKE-class frigates from U.S. service in 1988 and 1989 and make them available for transfer. USS RICHARD L. PAGE continued to operate from Norfolk until near the end of her U.S. Navy career.

USS RICHARD L. PAGE was decommissioned on September 30, 1988, after 21 years and almost two months of commissioned service. After decommissioning, USS RICHARD L. PAGE did not go immediately to scrapping. On March 31, 1989, she was leased to Pakistan and entered Pakistani naval service as PNS TABUK, with the hull number D163. The transfer took place within a broader period of U.S. security assistance to Pakistan during and after the Soviet-Afghan War. The strategic setting later changed when U.S. policy toward Pakistan was affected by concerns over Pakistan's nuclear program and the Pressler Amendment. The former USS RICHARD L. PAGE remained in Pakistani service until the lease period ended in the 1990s. U.S. records list her as struck from the Naval Vessel Register on January 12, 1994. By March 29, 1994, she had been returned to U.S. custody at Singapore and sold for scrapping to Trusha Investments Pte. Ltd., through Jacques Pierot Jr. & Sons Inc. of New York.

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USS RICHARD L. PAGE Image Gallery:

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