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USS Harlan R. Dickson (DD 708)

USS HARLAN R. DICKSON was one of the ALLEN M. SUMNER - class destroyers and the first ship in the Navy to bear the name. Unlike many other ships in her class HARLAN R. DICKSON did not receive a FRAM (Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization) overhaul. Both decommissioned and stricken from the Navy list on July 1, 1972, the HARLAN R. DICKSON was sold for scrapping in June 1973.

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS HARLAN R. DICKSON. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.

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USS HARLAN R. DICKSON History:

USS HARLAN R. DICKSON was launched 17 December 1944 by the Federal Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., Kearny, N. J.; sponsored by Mrs. Mildred Mae Studler, mother; and commissioned at New York 17 February 1945, Comdr. Paul G. Osier in command.

After shakedown in the Caribbean, HARLAN R. DICKSON departed New York for the Pacific 5 August 1945, but with the Japanese capitulation was ordered back to Solomons, Md., for experimental mine work. She finally joined her squadron at Pearl Harbor 12 December and remained in the Pacific for tactical training until March 1946. Returning to the east coast, HARLAN R. DICKSON engaged in further training until sailing 2 February 1947 for the first of what were to become regular cruises in the Mediterranean with the 6th Fleet. In addition to visiting many Mediterranean ports, the destroyer sailed into the Red Sea before returning to the States 14 August.

This year established a pattern which HARLAN R. DICKSON was seldom to break: six months of duty in the Mediterranean alternating with training and fleet maneuvers along the East Coast and in the Caribbean. During her second tour with the 6th Fleet, HARLAN R. DICKSON served under the United Nations blue-and-white flag December 1948-January 1949 as the world peace organization strove to mediate the Palestine crisis - only one in many that developed in the Mediterranean "Sea of History" from 1945 on. In 1953 she participated in at sea training. On her sixth Mediterranean cruise, 2 July to 4 December 1956, HARLAN R. DICKSON played a key role in another crisis situation, this time evacuating American citizens from Haifa, Israel, as war threatened between Israel and Egypt. Her career entered still another phase September 1959 when she began service as a recovery ship on the Atlantic coast missile range to retrieve test capsules fired from Cape Canaveral, now Cape Kennedy.

HARLAN R. DICKSON's constant participation in both fleet and NATO exercises to keep her fighting ability and readiness at a peak paid rich dividents in October 1962 as she joined a hunter-killer antisubmarine unit in the quarantine of Cuba during the offensive missile crisis. After the crisis subsided, HARLAN R. DICKSON continued her vital duty in maintaining America's strength and showing friend and foe alike her determination to maintain both peace and freedom. HARLAN R. DICKSON joined Operation "Springboard" in the Caribbean, visiting San Juan and Santo Domingo before returning to Newport 4 February 1963. On 7 March she commenced her 10th Mediterranean deployment with the 6th Fleet. While in the Persian Gulf, HARLAN R. DICKSON represented the United States in Khargex VI, an exercise designed for the perfection of working relationships with the Iranian and British Navies. After a brief stop in the Mediterranean she returned to Newport in September.

Coming off a busy 1963 that had ended with a Mediterranean-Persian Gulf deployment and her return to Newport in September, HARLAN R. DICKSON entered the Boston Naval Shipyard for a scheduled overhaul on 2 January 1964. Yard work that winter refreshed hull, machinery, and combat systems, preparing the ship for a shift from forward deployments to Atlantic Fleet training duties.

In March 1964 she received what would become her defining late-career assignment: HARLAN R. DICKSON and USS GAINARD (DD 706) were designated the two destroyers attached to the Naval Destroyer School at Naval Station Newport, Rhode Island (the forerunner of today's Surface Warfare Officers School). As a school-ship she embarked successive classes of prospective surface warfare officers for at-sea practicums in Narragansett Bay and the nearby operating areas, then stretched out for short deployments to the Caribbean to exercise shiphandling, engineering casualty control, CIC procedures, gunnery, and underway replenishment with the same standards expected of deploying Fleet units.

Concurrently from 1964 onward, HARLAN R. DICKSON also supported the First Naval District (Boston) as a U.S. Naval Reserve training ship. Her routine two-week Reserve embarkations typically began by getting underway from Boston in company - often with USS COMPTON (DD 705) - to rendezvous with a U.S. submarine off New England, conduct anti-submarine exercises, and then proceed to Halifax, Nova Scotia, for a short liberty and logistics stop before returning south. On board, reservists drilled on navigation and seamanship, propulsion and damage-control drills, and live-fire familiarization with the 5-inch/38 battery and inherited ASW weapons. This blended Destroyer School and Reserve-Force pattern kept the ship at sea frequently but within the Atlantic seaboard training box rather than on long overseas cruises.

Through 1965-1966, the destroyer's calendar stayed anchored to Newport school-ship tasking and the Boston Reserve cycles, framed by short pier-side availabilities for inspections and corrective maintenance. Although many SUMNER-class destroyers underwent FRAM modernizations, HARLAN R. DICKSON did not receive FRAM. She instead sustained reliability through incremental upkeep and targeted updates appropriate to her training roles. The absence of a FRAM package - uncommon among her sisters by the mid-1960s - meant she retained the classic SUMNER silhouette and systems mix while remaining fully serviceable for officer and reservist instruction at sea.

In 1967-1968 she continued this rhythm without interruption. Officer classes cycled aboard for underway periods that began with harbor sorties in Narragansett Bay, proceeded to formation steaming and replenishment-approach drills on local ranges, and - when schedules and weather allowed - extended into brief Caribbean phases before returning to Newport for classroom follow-on. Reserve embarkations from Boston kept up through summers and winters alike, with Halifax a recurring port of call on the two-week cruises. The broader geopolitical backdrop - escalation in Southeast Asia and intensified U.S.-Soviet naval shadowing in the Atlantic and Mediterranean - did not alter HARLAN R. DICKSON's assignment. She remained committed to the Fleet's training pipeline while newer escorts and FRAM'd cans filled front-line roles.

Across 1969-1970 she maintained the same dual-track employment. Short shipyard and tender availabilities were scheduled between school blocks to preserve boilers, auxiliaries, and electronics. At sea, the syllabus emphasized bridge resource management long before the term came into common use, engineering-plant drills with casualty simulations, and CIC watchstanding under real-world traffic conditions off the New England coast. In the Reserve program, her crews ran practical evolutions - man-overboard recoveries, tactical signaling, replenishment approaches, and gun shoots - to keep Naval Reservists current within the skills matrix mirrored from deploying destroyers.

By 1971-early 1972, as the Navy accelerated the retirement of non-FRAM SUMNERs, HARLAN R. DICKSON remained in Boston-Newport service while inactivation planning proceeded. She continued to embark short-duration Reserve cruises and to support the Destroyer School's underway practicums into the first half of 1972, then shifted pier-side for off-load and preservation work. The Navy decommissioned and struck HARLAN R. DICKSON on 1 July 1972, ending more than twenty-seven years in commission. The ship was subsequently sold for scrapping on 18 May 1973, bringing her administrative lifecycle to a close.

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About the Ship's Name:

Harlan R. Dickson was born in Columbus, Ohio, on 16 September 1914. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1936 and was designated a Naval Aviator three years later. During the first six months of the Pacific war, while flying with Bombing Squadron Five (VB-5) from USS YORKTOWN (CV 5), he distinguished himself during the Raid on Tulagi and the Battle of Coral Sea in early May 1942 and the Battle of Midway in June. He subsequently served with four other scouting and bombing squadrons and took command of Bombing Squadron Eighteen (VB-18) in September 1943. Lieutenant Commander Dickson was killed in an aircraft crash in California on 5 February 1944.

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USS HARLAN R. DICKSON Image Gallery:

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