USS Hamner (DD 718)

- decommissioned -

USS HAMNER was the ninth GEARING - class destroyer and was extensively converted as part of the Navy's FRAM I program from January 1962 - December 1962. A veteran of the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the USS HAMNER was both decommissioned and stricken from the Navy list on October 1, 1979. Transfered to Taiwan on December 17, 1980, the HAMNER was recommissioned as YUN HANG by the Taiwanese Navy and served there until decommissioned on December 16, 2003. The ship was sunk as a target by the Taiwanese Navy on September 6, 2005.

General Characteristics:	Awarded: 1942
	Keel laid: April 25, 1945
	Launched: November 24, 1945
	Commissioned: July 12, 1946
	Decommissioned: October 1, 1979
	Builder: Federal Shipbuilding, Newark, NJ
	FRAM I Conversion Shipyard: San Francisco Naval Shipyard, San Francisco, CA
	FRAM I Conversion Period: January 1962 - December 1962
	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

go to the end of the page

Crew List:

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

Click here to view the list.

go to the end of the page

Click here to see which USS HAMNER memorabilia are currently for sale on ebay.

go to the end of the page

USS HAMNER Cruise Books:

go to the end of the page

Accidents aboard USS HAMNER:

Date	Where	Events
January 24, 1971	Gulf of Tonkin	USS HAMNER collides with the USS CAMDEN (AOE 2) during an underway replenishment.

go to the end of the page

About the Ship's Name:

USS HAMNER is named in honor of LT Henry Hamner who was killed in action 6 April 1944. LT Hamner received his commission from the United States Naval Academy in 1942 and was stationed aboard the USS HOWORTH during the Okinawa Campaign. The HOWORTH was attacked by six Kamikaze aircraft and LT Hamner, as Gunnery Officer, directed his fire to shoot down five of the attacking aircraft. The sixth plane crashed into the gun director and LT Hamner lost his life. He was later awarded the Silver Star posthumously for gallantry in action.

go to the end of the page

USS HAMNER History:

USS HAMNER was launched 24 November 1945 by the Federal Ship Building & Drydock Co., Port Newark, N.J.; sponsored by Mrs. Henry Rawlings Hamner, wife of Lt. Hamner; and commissioned 12 July 1946, CDR Joseph B. Swain in command.

After shakedown in the Caribbean, HAMNER reported to the Pacific Fleet 24 December 1946 and immediately departed for her first deployment with the 7th Fleet. The new destroyer spent 9 months operating with Destroyer Division 111 out of various Chinese and Japanese ports before returning to the States for 6 months of training operations. HAMNER followed this pattern of cruises until hostilities began in Korea 24 June 1950. Deployed in the Far East at the time, HAMNER sailed to the Korean coast and began shore bombardment of Communist positions and supply lines. After participating in the evacuation of Yongdok and the defense of Pohang Dong, HAMNER joined Task Force 77 for the amphibious operations against Inchon 15 September 1950.

After operating along the Korean coast to screen carriers whose planes were pounding Communist troops, HAMNER returned to the States in March 1951. She was back on line in October 1951 and continued to prowl waters surrounding the peninsula with various task forces and bombardment groups, effectively damaging and checking the enemy. In March 1952, she spent 5 weeks on shore bombardment off the east coast of Korea near Kojo causing much damage to the enemy. Although frequently under heavy fire from enemy batteries, she was not hit. Returning to the States in May 1952, HAMNER resumed her duties along the Korean coast 2 January 1953, remaining there on the bombline, at the seige of Wonsan Harbor, and on Formosa patrol until the armistice of 27 July 1953.

HAMNER returned to the Western Pacific every year thereafter visiting ports in Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and even Australia in 1956 and 1959.

The destroyer made many good-will visits to Asian ports and engaged in exercises and Formosa patrol. She arrived off Taiwan for six weeks duty with the Taiwan Patrol Force 31 December 1958, just after another flare-up of the Quemoy-Matsu crisis. When not deployed in the Pacific, HAMNER trained out of San Diego. Entering the San Francisco Ship Yard in January 1962, she underwent a Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization (FRAM) overhaul designed to add 10 to 20 years to her operating efficiency. Fitted with a new superstructure and the Navy's most modern electronic equipment, HAMNER left the shipyard 5 December 1962 and, after training, sailed for her 13th WestPac cruise 18 May 1963. During this cruise she was part of the ready amphibious group in South Vietnam coastal waters in September.

HAMNER returned to San Diego 24 November. She operated along the West Coast throughout 1964 and sailed again for the Orient 5 January 1965. Arriving Subic Bay on the 27th, she escorted aircraft carrier HANCOCK (CVA 19) to the Gulf of Tonkin. On 15 March she joined aircraft carrier CORAL SEA (CVA 43) in "Yankee Team" operations. On 10 May she headed north at flank speed to cover SeaBee landings at Chu Lai. "Market Time" operations began 5 days later and on the 20th HAMNER shelled Communist positions in South Vietnam in the first scheduled shore bombardment by the U.S. Nayy since the Korean conflict. Thereafter she screened CORAL SEA, bombarded the Trung Phan area 25 June, and covered the landing of Marines from IWO JIMA (LPH 2) at Qui Nhon 1 July. As mid-July approached, the destroyer headed home, reaching San Francisco on the 26th.

Overhaul at Hunter's Point and operations off the West Coast occupied the next year. HAMNER got underway for her 14th WestPac deployment 2 July 1966. Late in the month she bombarded South Vietnam. Following patrol duty, she steamed up the Song Long Tao River to shell the Rung Sat Special Zone. HAMNER joined TG 77.6 as plane guard for ORISKANY (CVA 34) on 1 October and continued this duty until receiving an emergency call from the carrier at 0730 on the 26th "I am on fire". Speeding alongside, for hours HAMNER sprayed cooling water on her charred and buckled bulkheads. After the fight to save the ship had been won, HAMNER escorted her to Subic Bay for repairs.

Back off Vietnam 6 November, the destroyer spent 2 weeks in Operation "Traffic Cop", shelling Communist junks bringing arms and supplies to the Viet Cong. Within a fortnight, HAMNER had destroyed 67 craft. On 14 and 19 November enemy shore batteries fired on HAMNER and JOHN R. CRAIG (DD 885). Although several rounds sprayed the destroyers with shrapnel, neither ship was damaged. On each occasion, the American ships moved just outside range of the enemy guns and hammered the Communist batteries to silence. Leaving the fighting zone 20 November, a month and a day later, HAMNER reached San Diego, where early in 1967 she began preparations to meet her next challenge.

Beginning in mid-1967, USS HAMNER transitioned from the intense fall 1966 Vietnam deployment back to a pattern of West Coast upkeep and readiness operations that set the stage for a rapid return to the Western Pacific. In June 1967 she represented the Fleet during Portland's Rose Festival Fleet Week, a high-visibility civic visit remembered by crewmen on her rolls. Later that month and into July she was tasked to shadow and report on a Soviet "trawler" (an AGI intelligence collector), a long patrol that ranged from waters off San Francisco north toward the Aleutians, reflecting Cold War surveillance routines then common along the Pacific seaboard. After post-event training out of San Diego, the destroyer got underway again for WestPac in October 1967, routing via Pearl Harbor and into Seventh Fleet waters for carrier screening, coastal patrol, and naval gunfire support off South Vietnam. Ports during this 1967-68 cruise included Yokosuka and Sasebo in Japan, Subic Bay in the Philippines, Kaohsiung on Taiwan, and Hong Kong, a typical pattern for destroyers cycling between "Yankee Station", the South Vietnam gunline, and logistics stops. Crossing-the-Line rites during the voyage are recorded for February 1968. She concluded the tour in March 1968 and returned to the West Coast.

Back home in spring 1968, HAMNER entered a scheduled shipyard period running roughly from May through October, the kind of availability needed to restore machinery and weapons after months of continuous firing and high-tempo steaming. Refresher training followed in November-December 1968 to certify watch teams and weapons crews for combat tasking in the new year. As the Vietnam War shifted into high gear during the Tet anniversary period, HAMNER's early-1968 deployment segment had already highlighted what would be repeated in later tours: long stretches on the gunline interspersed with plane-guard and screen duty for carriers, brief port calls for ammunition and upkeep, and rapid returns to station as operations dictated.

HAMNER sailed west again in mid-1969 for another WestPac deployment that ran roughly June through November. Photographic records place her battling heavy weather en route to Yokosuka, and the cruise book for that year shows the familiar string of ports - Subic Bay for logistics, Hong Kong for rest and maintenance, Japanese bases for minor repairs - between combat assignments. On station she alternated between naval gunfire support along the northern I Corps coast and plane-guard/screen roles for fast carriers working the Gulf of Tonkin.

Another deployment began in September 1970 and continued into March 1971. On 20 September 1970, HAMNER crossed the Equator - an event noted on her unit history - and then settled into the familiar cycle of NGFS missions near the DMZ and carrier screen duty on "Yankee Station". A short stateside refit followed at Long Beach in early-mid 1971 to prepare for the next combat tour.

Her 1972 deployment proved the most demanding of the late war. From February to September 1972, HAMNER operated almost continuously at sea - crew accounts note a 56-day stretch without port - first under Operation FREEDOM TRAIN during April as the North Vietnamese Easter Offensive surged across the DMZ, then under the broader interdiction and strike campaign of LINEBACKER from May onward. She fired sustained naval gunfire support around Quang Tri and along QL-1, and worked close to North Vietnam's coast during the mining and bombardment of the Hai Phong approaches, where crewmen recorded two separate pilot rescues credited to the ship's boats and embarked helicopter detachments - one near the mouth of Hai Phong Harbor in April and another off the Quang Tri coastline in mid-campaign. Between fire missions she loaded ammunition at Subic Bay and, on 4 July 1972, received new gun barrels at Da Nang to restore accuracy after months of high-rate firing. Her cooperation with Navy combat-rescue teams (HC-7 "Big Mothers") and with carrier air wings operating just offshore framed much of this high-tempo period, emblematic of the destroyer force's final major ship-versus-shore gunnery duels of the 20th century.

With U.S. combat operations winding down, HAMNER shifted roles in 1973. On 8 May 1973, she began cross-decking with USS JAMES C. OWENS (DD 776), and on 1 July 1973 she was designated a Naval Reserve Force training ship. Thereafter, her routine centered on reserve readiness cruises rather than forward combat deployments, with periods of upkeep punctuating short operations designed to train Selected Reserve crews. She was eventually berthed at the Naval and Marine Reserve Training Center on Swan Island, Portland, Oregon, where she served as a weekend and two-week-AT platform for Pacific Northwest reservists through the decade.

HAMNER was decommissioned and stricken on 1 October 1979 after more than three decades in commission. On 17 December 1980 she was transferred to Taiwan, where she entered service as ROCS YUN YANG (DD 927) and later, after a modernization that added surface-to-surface missiles, served as a guided-missile destroyer. She was decommissioned on 16 December 2003 and expended as a target off Kaohsiung on 6 September 2005, a final disposition typical for many Cold War destroyers whose steel still served training needs after careers spanning two navies.

HAMNER was awarded five battle stars as well as a Presidential Unit Citation for her outstanding service in Korea.

go to the end of the page

USS HAMNER Documents:

go to the end of the page

USS HAMNER Image Gallery:

Back to Destroyers list.

Back to ships list.

Back to selection page.

Back to 1^st page.