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USS Meredith (DD 890)

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USS MEREDITH was one of the GEARING - class destroyers and the fourth ship in the Navy to bear the name. Decommissioned on June 29, 1979, MEREDITH was transferred to Turkey the same day and recommissioned as SAVASTEPE. There she remained in service until 1994 and was subsequently scrapped.

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Crew List:

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

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USS MEREDITH Cruise Books:

• Mediterranean Cruise Book 1964

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USS MEREDITH History:

USS MEREDITH was laid down by the Consolidated Steel Corp., Orange, Tex., 27 January 1945; launched 28 June 1945; sponsored by Miss Juliette S. Kopper, great-great-great-grandniece of Sergeant Meredith; and commissioned 31 December 1945, Comdr. W. B. Vindeman in command.

Following sea trials and shakedown exercises in the spring of 1946, MEREDITH was employed, for a brief period, in training submarine officers at New London, Conn., before steaming south to serve as plane guard for RANDOLPH (CVA 15) during the 1946 midshipmen summer cruise. In the late fall, she pointed her bow northward for operations off Newfoundland and Greenland. Remaining in the western Atlantic the following year, she cruised from Maine to the Caribbean, participating once again in a midshipmen training cruise.

The first part of 1948 was spent in conducting experimental tests for the Operational Development Force, after which, in May, she sailed, with other ships of her squadron, DesRon 6, for her first oversea deployment. From that time, until 1953, she got underway in the spring of each year for the Mediterranean and duty with the 6th Fleet. Her 2d Fleet employment for the same period included Arctic maneuvers (November 1949) and several Caribbean cruises, as well as training cruises with reservists and another midshipmen summer cruise (1952).

On 7 January 1953, MEREDITH entered the Norfolk Naval Shipyard for habitability conversion which lasted into November. She then resumed the alternation of duty tours with the 2d and 6th Fleets. During her 1958 oversea deployment, she served briefly with the Middle East Force as she and HMS LOCH FYNE stood by in the Euphrates Delta area after the Iraqi revolution of 15 July.

Toward the end of the following year, MEREDITH, reassigned to DesRon 14, was slated for FRAM (Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization). Entering the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, 28 June 1960, she remained for 1 year and 2 days during which time her bridge was enclosed, her torpedo deck was modified to allow the installation of ASROC, and her 7-year-old 3-inch battery was replaced by a helicopter hanger and flight deck to accommodate the DASH (Drone Antisubmarine Helicopter), weapons system.

On 1 July 1961, the -new- MEREDITH sailed for her new home port, Mayport, Fla. After refresher training, she got underway for a good will tour of various ports in the Caribbean and along the west coast of Africa from Freetown, Sierra Leone, to Capetown, Republic of South Africa. While en route she collected oceanographic data which included piscatoral and avian surveys as well as hydrologic information. Returning to Mayport, 18 February 1962, she further tested and evaluated the ASROC system before heading north to embark midshipmen for the fourth time. In August, the destroyer once again transited the Atlantic for oversea deployment. This time, as in 1958, part of that deployment (14 October to 1 December) was spent with MidEastFor, the remainder in the Mediterranean.

Through 1963 she operated from Mayport with Destroyer Squadron 14 in the Western Atlantic and Caribbean, a routine that combined type training, gunnery and ASW exercises, and readiness work-ups typical for FRAM-updated GEARING-class ships whose mission set now centered on ASROC, Mk-32 torpedoes, and the QH-50 DASH drone.

In 1964, MEREDITH embarked on a lengthy Sixth Fleet deployment with the Mayport-based carrier group built around USS SHANGRI-LA (CVA 38). The group - whose screen included destroyers such as USS GOODRICH (DDR 831), USS WALDRON (DD 699), and the guided-missile frigate USS WILLIAM V. PRATT (DLG 13) - completed the Mediterranean cruise and was back at Mayport by 23 May 1964 after roughly eight months overseas. The deployment reflected the period's emphasis on NATO interoperability, presence, and contingency readiness as Washington focused on Cold War stability in the Mediterranean basin.

Through 1965, MEREDITH continued Sixth Fleet and Western Atlantic tasking and is documented in port at Palma, Mallorca, underscoring her continued Mediterranean presence that year. In November-December 1965 she shifted to NASA duties as part of the Atlantic recovery force for Project Gemini. Postal and philatelic records and recovery-force lists place MEREDITH as a Secondary Recovery Ship for GEMINI 6A (launched 15 December; splashdown 16 December 1965) and GEMINI 7 (launched 4 December; splashdown 18 December 1965), supporting the primary carrier USS WASP (CVS 18) and the broader Atlantic pickup net. The assignment tied an East Coast FRAM destroyer into the space program's maritime safety architecture at the height of the Gemini campaign.

After local operations from Mayport in 1966, MEREDITH's operational focus pivoted toward Southeast Asia. Early in 1969, she transited the Panama Canal to the Western Pacific for a six-month Seventh Fleet deployment, alternating gunline naval gunfire support with plane-guard and screen duty for carriers on Yankee Station in the South China Sea. During this cruise MEREDITH rescued five North Vietnamese fishermen found adrift on three small rafts in international waters - a humanitarian episode noted in contemporary naval chronologies - and later transferred the men and their rafts alongside another U.S. combatant. These missions illustrate the blend of combat, escort, and ad hoc search-and-rescue that characterized destroyer work in theater.

Following the North Korean shootdown of a U.S. Navy EC-121 reconnaissance aircraft on 15 April 1969, MEREDITH was retasked from Southeast Asia to Northeast Asia with other U.S. units for special operations in the Sea of Japan under TASK FORCE 71. The flagship USS OKLAHOMA CITY (CLG 5)'s command history records the combined force's departure from Yankee Station on 17 April 1969 and special-operations dates of 18-25 April, before detachment toward Yokosuka. Ships named in company during the surge included ENTERPRISE (CVAN 65), CHICAGO (CG 11), TICONDEROGA (CVA 14), PERRY (DD 844), GURKE (DD 783), and JOHN W. WEEKS (DD 701), with MEREDITH among the destroyer screen - an unmistakable signal of U.S. resolve in the aftermath of the EC-121 incident.

By late 1969, MEREDITH had returned to Mayport and resumed Atlantic commitments. Crew records and Navy library holdings confirm a subsequent Mediterranean deployment in 1970-1971 with the Sixth Fleet, followed by stateside yard work and refresher training. She then redeployed for another Mediterranean tour from December 1971 into mid-1972, a period documented in cruise book collections and veterans' recollections that note a turnover at Rota, Spain, in the opening phase of that cruise. These back-to-back Mediterranean rotations reflected the drawdown of large-scale Vietnam employment for many Atlantic Fleet destroyers and a return to the long-standing 2nd/6th Fleet rhythm.

MEREDITH remained active with Atlantic Fleet exercises and deployments into the mid-1970s. In early 1975, she entered an overhaul period at Jacksonville, Florida. On 8 April 1975 a yard-period accident - an explosion and fire in a freshwater tank located forward - killed two civilian workers. The incident appears in official compendia of post-war naval accidents and illustrates the hazards associated with deep maintenance on aging steam plants even when a ship is in the yard and away from operational duty. After repairs and trials she returned to fleet service, continuing training and readiness operations from her Mayport home port.

Into the later 1970s, MEREDITH continued in serviceable condition. An official U.S. Navy photograph records her at sea during the decade, representative of her ongoing readiness cycle as the GEARING-class gradually yielded to newer destroyers and frigates. She was decommissioned at Mayport on 29 June 1979 and transferred the same day to Turkey, where she entered service as TCG SAVASTEPE (D 348). The U.S. Navy struck MEREDITH from the Naval Vessel Register on 7 December 1979. After Turkish service through the mid-1990s, she was scrapped in 1995.

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About the Ship's Name:

Jonathan Meredith, born in Bucks County, Pa., about 1772, enlisted in the Marine Corps 6 June 1803 and was promoted to sergeant 1 August of the same year.

During an engagement in the harbor of Tripoli 3 August 1805, Sergeant Meredith saved the life of Lt. John Trippe of VIXEN, who with a party of nine men had boarded a Tripolitan ship. Heavily outnumbered, the boarding party fought a fierce hand‑to‑hand combat, in which Trippe was severely wounded; Meredith protected him from what would have been the final blow. Four days later Meredith was killed in the explosion of Gunboat No. 3 during a similar attack against the Tripolitans.

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USS MEREDITH Image Gallery:

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