USS Eugene A. Greene (DD 711)

- formerly DDR 711 -
- decommissioned -
- sunk as target -

USS EUGENE A. GREENE was the second GEARING - class destroyer and the first ship in the Navy to bear the name. Originally, the name Eugene A. Greene was assigned to DE 549 on 28 October 1943. However, when the construction of DE 549 was canceled on June 10, 1944, the name was reassigned to DD 711 on July 10, 1944.

From April-December 1952, the EUGENE A. GREENE was converted to a radar picket destroyer and was reclassified DDR 711. This designation was reverted to DD 711 on March 15, 1963. Decommissioned on August 31, 1972, the EUGENE A. GREENE was subsequently loaned to Spain where she was recommissioned as CHURRUCA (D 61). Purchased by Spain on May 17, 1978, the ship continued to serve into the late 1980s. On December 12, 1991, the destroyer was sunk as a target by the Spanish Navy.

General Characteristics:	Awarded: 1942
	Keel laid: August 17, 1944
	Launched: March 18, 1945
	Commissioned: June 8, 1945
	Decommissioned: August 31, 1972
	Builder: Federal Shipbuilding, Newark, NJ
	FRAM I Conversion Shipyard: Boston Naval Shipyard, Boston, Mass.
	FRAM I Conversion Period: 1962 - October 1963
	Propulsion system: four boilers, General Electric geared turbines; 60,000 SHP
	Propellers: two
	Length: 391 feet (119.2 meters)
	Beam: 41 feet (12.5 meters)
	Draft: 18.7 feet (5.7 meters)
	Displacement: approx. 3,400 tons full load
	Speed: 34 knots
	Aircraft after FRAM I: two DASH drones
	Armament after FRAM I: one ASROC missile launcher, two 5-inch/38 caliber twin mounts, Mk-32 ASW torpedo tubes (two triple mounts)
	Crew after FRAM I: 14 officers, 260 enlisted

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS EUGENE A. GREENE. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.

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USS EUGENE E. GREENE Cruise Books:

Mediterranean Cruise Book 1970

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Accidents aboard USS EUGENE A. GREENE:

Date	Where	Events
June 18, 1970	eastern Mediterranean	USS EUGENE A. GREENE collides with the USS WACCAMAW (AO 109) during an underway replenishment. Damage to both ships is minor.

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About the Ship's Name:

Eugene A. Greene, born 21 November 1921 in Smithtown, L.I., N.Y., enlisted in the Naval Reserve 13 January 1941, and after aviation training, was commissioned ensign 30 August 1941. Serving in Bombing Squadron 6 in ENTERPRISE (CV 6), he was killed in action 4 June 1942 in the Battle of Midway. He distinguished himself in breaking through heavy Japanese fighter and antiaircraft opposition to dive bomb a Japanese carrier, and was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for his selfless heroism. The name Eugene A. Greene was assigned to DE 549 on 28 October 1943, canceled on 10 June 1944, and reassigned to DD 711 on 10 July 1944.

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USS EUGENE A. GREENE History:

From commissioning at the close of the Second World War to final disposal after allied service, USS EUGENE A. GREENE traced a long Atlantic-Mediterranean arc that began with postwar shakedown and quickly settled into the patterns of Cold War presence. Commissioned on 8 June 1945, she spent late 1945 and 1946 in Atlantic and Caribbean training and plane-guard duties and, early the next year, worked up at Guantanamo Bay before sailing south with a task group on 13 February 1947 to Montevideo, Uruguay, for the presidential inauguration festivities of Luis Batlle Berres. The itinerary included a goodwill call at Rio de Janeiro and a return to Norfolk on 31 March 1947. On 10 November 1947, she began the first of nine Mediterranean cruises over the next thirteen years, rotating regularly into Sixth Fleet duty for air-defense screens, antisubmarine exercises, and port visits that showcased allied cooperation. Between these deployments, she made northern Europe and Arctic voyages that varied the Atlantic Fleet routine, all while homeported on the U.S. East Coast. During these early tours the destroyer's operations reflected the era's maritime diplomacy - show-the-flag liberty calls and combined exercises balanced by a standing readiness to pivot if regional tensions demanded it.

A major change came with conversion to a radar picket configuration as the Navy adapted to jet-age threats. Out of commission from 1 April 1952 to 1 December 1952, the ship underwent the picket modernization and on 18 July 1952 was redesignated DDR 711. Recommissioned on 1 December 1952, she returned to Atlantic duty as part of the radar early-warning network that screened carrier groups and guarded Atlantic approaches. Through the 1950s she alternated Second Fleet training and Caribbean phases with recurring Sixth Fleet deployments, continuing the mix of carrier-plane guarding, convoy-defense drills, and allied ASW tactics that defined the destroyer force in the decade after Korea. In 1961-1962 her Mediterranean cycle included a detailed port program: Valletta; Thessaloniki and Piraeus; Naples, Gaeta, Livorno, and Genoa; Golfe-Juan; and Barcelona - with Christmas spent in Naples and New Year's in Gaeta. Heavy weather on the westbound Atlantic transit in February 1962 caused starboard-side damage that was repaired stateside ahead of a deeper modernization to come.

As the Navy overhauled its World War II destroyers for the submarine threat of the 1960s, EUGENE A. GREENE received a FRAM I package at Boston Naval Shipyard from 1962 into October 1963 - the life-extension that renewed machinery and habitability, added the ASROC launcher and facilities for the DASH drone helicopter, and updated sensors. In step with that change the ship's designation reverted from picket to standard destroyer on 15 March 1963, becoming DD 711 once more. With FRAM complete she resumed Atlantic workups and Sixth Fleet cycles through the mid- and late-1960s. A 1967-1968 Mediterranean deployment is documented by the ship's cruise book and reflects the period's tempo of air, surface, and ASW exercises, liberty ports around the basin, and routine surveillance of Soviet units as superpower navies shadowed each other at sea.

In 1970, the destroyer again crossed the Atlantic for extended forward duty. Deployment listings place her in a North Atlantic-Mediterranean-Indian Ocean sequence spanning January 1970-January 1971, a pattern consistent with periodic Sixth Fleet detachments eastward through the Suez Canal for presence operations in the Red Sea/Arabian Sea as the United States increased attention to the broader Middle East sea lanes. On 18 June 1970, while conducting an underway replenishment in the eastern Mediterranean, EUGENE A. GREENE was involved in a minor collision with the oiler WACCAMAW (AO 109). Both ships suffered only minor damage and continued their commitments. The 1970 deployment is preserved in a dedicated cruise book, whose imagery and captions trace a long itinerary of at-sea evolutions and port logistics typical of the final Cold War years before detente.

A last Mediterranean cruise followed in late 1971 into mid-1972, rounding out her U.S. service with the familiar rotation of screen and ASW phases, replenishment cycles, and short anchorages at Sixth Fleet hubs before returning to the East Coast to prepare for transfer. EUGENE A. GREENE was decommissioned at Norfolk on 31 August 1972 and loaned that same day to Spain, commissioning into the Armada Espanola as CHURRUCA (D 61). Spain later purchased the ship on 17 May 1978. After service through the end of the Cold War she was stricken on 15 September 1989 and sunk as a target on 12 December 1991.

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USS EUGENE A. GREENE Image Gallery:

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