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USS Sellers (DDG 11)

USS SELLERS was the tenth ship in the CHARLES F. ADAMS - class of guided missile destroyers and the first ship in the Navy named after Admiral David F. Sellers. Last homeported in Charleston, SC., USS SELLERS was stricken from the Navy list on November 20, 1992, and spent the following years berthed at the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility (NISMF), Philadelphia, PA, until sold for scrapping in 2004.

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Crew List:

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

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Accidents aboard USS SELLERS:

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About the Ship's Name, about Admiral David Foote Sellers, USN:

David Foote Sellers was born in Austin, Texas at an Army Post, on 4 February 1874, the son of Major Edwin E. Sellers and Mrs. (Olive Lay Foote) Sellers. He was appointed to the United States Naval Academy as a Naval Cadet from New Mexico and entered the Academy on 1 May 1890. Graduated on 8 June 1894, fifth in his class, he served the two years at sea then required by law, and was commissioned Ensign in the United States Navy on 1 July 1896. Through subsequent promotions, he attained the rank of Rear Admiral on 2 June 1927, held the temporary rank of Vice Admiral in 1932-1933, and that of Admiral in 1933-1934. After his retirement on 1 March 1938, he was commissioned in the grade of Admiral on the Retired List of the Navy effective 16 June 1942 (Act of Congress).

After graduation from the Naval Academy in 1894, he had continuous sea duty until May 1898, serving in USS MASSACHUSSETS, USS ESSEX and USS ALLIANCE. On 24 May 1898, he reported to the Receiving Ship INDEPENDENCE, and when detached on 9 July, reported aboard USS PHILADELPHIA, in which he served during the Spanish-American War. He took part in the Samoan Campaign in 1899, and was in Philippine waters during the Philippine Insurrection, on board USS NEW YORK, while serving in the staff of Rear Admiral Frederick Rodgers. Detached from duty aboard NEW YORK in October 1904, he assumed command of the Torpedo Boat Destroyer STEWART, serving as Commanding Officer until May 1907.

Serving next in the Bureau of Navigation of the Navy Department in Washington, D.C., he had additional duty as Naval Aide to the White House, serving until June 1908. Later that month, he joined the crew of USS NEW HAMPSHIRE, to serve as Aide on the staff of Rear Admiral William S. Cowles, Commander in Chief, Asiatic Fleet. He was detached from this duty by orders dated 30 November 1909, and after duty in connection with the fitting out of USS MICHIGAN at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, served in that Battleship from her commissioning in 1910 until he was detached on 16 May 1912.

Reporting to Hampton Roads, Virginia, he served temporarily as Aide to the Commander of a Division of German ships which was visiting the United States at that time, and on 9 July was sent to San Francisco for duty in connection with the Panama Pacific International Exposition. From 4 February 1914 until 19 May 1915, he served as Executive Officer of USS ARKANSAS, then successively commanded USS SALEM and USS BIRMINGHAM, completing his tour of BIRMINGHAM on 9 June 1916. He attended the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island during the next nine months, and on 23 April 1917, just after the United States entered World War I, he was detached to command of USS AGAMEMNON, an Atlantic Fleet transport ship, remaining in command through the last months of hostilities.

He was awarded the Navy Cross for service during World War I, the award accompanied by the following citation: "For exceptionally meritorious service in a duty of great responsibility as Commanding Officer, USS AGAMEMNON, engaged in the important, exacting and hazardous duty of transporting troops and supplies to European ports through waters infested with enemy submarines and mines, and as Commanding Officer, USS WISCONSIN in the Atlantic Fleet..."

After the War, he served for a year on the staff of the Naval War College, then on 12 April 1920, was ordered to the Navy Department for a second tour of duty in the Bureau of Navigation. While there, he also served as Aide to the Secretary of the Navy, the Honorable Edwin Denby, from 30 September 1921 until 28 February 1922. On 1 March he assumed command of USS MARYLAND. Upon completion of that tour in command, he reported as Commander of the Naval Training Station in San Diego, California. Completing that tour in September 1926, he then reported as Chief of Staff to the Commander, Scouting Fleet, continuing in that duty until he was promoted to the grade of Rear Admiral on 2 June 1927.

On 8 July 1927, he was assigned as Commander, Special Service Squadron. He served in that capacity until May 1929, during the uprisings in Nicaragua. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal by the President of the United States with the following citation: "For exceptionally meritorious service to the Government in a position of great responsibility as Commander, Special Service Squadron from 8 July 1927 to 12 May 1929 during the disturbed conditions in the Republic of Nicaragua. Throughout this time, Rear Admiral Sellers handled with great skill and diplomacy the many delicate situations which arose incident to the pacification of Nicaragua prior to the presidential election on 4 November 1929, during the election and subsequent to it. As the Senior Officer Present, he coordinated the activities of the Marine Brigade on shore, which was a part of his command, with the activities of the Nicaraguan Government, the Guardia National and the officers of the United States Army on election duty. In the discharge of his duty of protecting lives and property, he displayed strength and initiative coupled with wisdom and tempered by kindness and humanity."

In June 1929, he was appointed Judge Advocate General of the Navy for a four year term, but on 1 August 1931, was instead ordered to report on 15 September as Commander Battleship Division ONE, Battle Force, U.S. Fleet. A year later, he was designated Commander Battleships, Battle Force, with the accompanying rank of Vice Admiral; and on 10 June 1933, he became Commander in Chief. United States Fleet with the rank of Admiral. He served as Commander in Chief until 18 June 1934 when he reported as Superintendent of the Naval Academy, in which capacity he served until his retirement from active duty on 1 March 1938.

Retired in his permanent grade of Rear Admiral, he was advanced to the grade of Admiral on the Retired List on 16 July 1942, according to the Act of Congress of that date. That Act allowed an officer to retire in the highest grade in which he served on active duty. Admiral Sellers died at the Naval Hospital, Bethesda, Maryland, on 27 January 1949; and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He was survived by his wife, the former Anita Clay Evans of Chattanooga, Tennessee, who resided in Washington, D.C. until her death there on 2 August 1954.

In addition to awards of the Navy Cross and the Distinguished Service Medal, Admiral Sellers had been awarded a Special Letter of Commendation by the War Department for service during World War I, and was awarded the Spanish Campaign Medal, Philippine Campaign Medal, Mexican Service Medal, Second Nicaraguan Campaign Medal, and World War I Victory Medal with Transport Clasp. He also had been awarded the Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal for service as a member of the Landing Force from USS PHILADELPHIA during the Samoan Insurrection from 14 March until 18 May 1899. Admiral Sellers wore the following foreign decorations: Gold Medal of Merit and the Medal of Merit, both from the government of Nicaragua; and the Order of Abdon Calderon from the government of Equador.

Admiral Sellers was staunch advocate of battle training under realistic conditions, and of the Navy air arm. He insisted on the most modern flight equipment, and recognized the importance of air power in strategic planning. Following his retirement from active duty, he was known for the active interest he took in civic, welfare and church affairs. He was a long-time member of the Board of Directors of Children's Hospital in Washington, D.C., the city in which he and his wife maintained a home for almost fifty years.

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USS SELLERS History:

USS SELLERS entered service on 28 October 1961 and, after completing fitting-out at Boston on 18 January 1962, shifted to her long-time Atlantic Fleet homeport at Charleston, South Carolina. Assigned to Destroyer Squadron 6 and built around the then-new TARTAR guided-missile system, she spent her first year in shakedown training and combat-systems trials in the Western Atlantic and Caribbean, settling into the Cold War routine of an East Coast destroyer: short upkeep in Charleston, refresher periods at Guantanamo Bay, and periodic missile exercises that certified her for fleet air-defense and anti-submarine roles as a Sixth Fleet picket. From June 1963 onward - except in 1970 - she deployed part of each year with the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, reflecting Washington's determination to keep a visible naval presence from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Levant as crises flared and receded along NATO's southern flank. During the June-October 1963 cruise her ports included Rota, Souda Bay (Crete), Cyprus, Genoa, Cannes, Naples, Beirut, and Gibraltar, a pattern of liberty and logistics calls that mirrored the Sixth Fleet's circuit of allied bases and anchorages while carrier task groups rotated through the central and eastern Mediterranean. In these early deployments, SELLERS routinely screened carriers, took plane-guard stations, and joined gunnery and anti-submarine exercises with American and allied ships while honing the missile team that would later fire STANDARD missiles in place of TARTAR as the system modernized through the decade.

Through the mid-1960s SELLERS kept up the tempo of Mediterranean commitments. She alternated Charleston maintenance and Caribbean refresher training with months embarked in Sixth Fleet formations, visiting familiar Italian and French ports and occasionally shifting eastward for presence operations off the Levant whenever regional tensions rose. On 22 July 1965 she changed commanding officers, part of the normal rotation within Destroyer Squadron 6, and by 1969, she had been reassigned to Destroyer Squadron 4, still based on the U.S. East Coast but oriented toward the same forward-deployed cycle. The Mediterranean was the Navy's barometer in those years: SELLERS's deployments placed her under the tactical control of carrier task groups as the Arab-Israeli front periodically spiked and superpower navies shadowed one another at distance. After a dense run of Sixth Fleet duty in the late 1960s, 1970 was the lone year she did not deploy forward, a pause used for Western Atlantic operations, inspections, and shore periods that preserved machinery and hull for the next cycle.

Across the early 1970s the destroyer resumed regular Sixth Fleet commitments. A 1972-1973 Mediterranean deployment followed the familiar arc - Gibraltar to the central Med and onward as tasking required - underscoring the U.S. Navy's continuing role stabilizing sea lines and supporting diplomacy in the detente era. SELLERS remained Charleston-based and Atlantic-focused, with intervening shipyard and tender availabilities to keep her weapons and engineering plants up to standard. In 1977, she again crossed to the Mediterranean, operating with carrier groups and NATO escorts and visiting a round of allied ports between periods of exercises that combined anti-air, anti-submarine, and replenishment-at-sea drills - exactly the picket and screen work her class was designed to perform.

The ship's highest-profile multinational assignment came in 1982, when SELLERS joined NATO's Standing Naval Force Atlantic (STANAVFORLANT). On 1 September 1982, she formed up in a five-nation screen underway in the Gulf of Mexico - HMS DANAE, HMCS IROQUOIS, HNLMS VAN NES, FGS AUGSBURG, and SELLERS - during a stateside phase of the group's rotation that showcased integrated tactics and command-and-control across allied navies. That same year she conducted live-fire missile work associated with her STANAVFORLANT duty, expending STANDARD missiles in controlled shots supported by U.S. Navy drone operations. Through these deployments SELLERS's role was classic Cold War surface warfare: maintain a continuous, combined presence, defend high-value units against air and submarine threats, and demonstrate alliance cohesion from the North Atlantic into NATO training areas and U.S. coastal waters.

In 1984, SELLERS deployed from April to November for a combined Mediterranean-Indian Ocean itinerary that carried her through the Suez Canal to operations connected to the simmering "Tanker War" phase of the Iran-Iraq conflict. The mission set was presence and sea-lane security alongside U.S. and allied ships, with routine Strait transits bracketed by time in the Eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea. The broader context was the steady escalation of attacks on merchant shipping in the Gulf. Sixth Fleet units moving to and from the region provided additional surface combatants to the Middle East Force while retaining flexible options to surge back into the Levant or central Med if required. SELLERS's months on station emphasized readiness at condition watches, frequent replenishment, and coordinated air-defense and surface-search duties - all while keeping up with inspections and limited port logistics calls that marked long deployments far from Charleston.

The latter 1980s brought more of the same steady pressure of operations punctuated by maintenance. SELLERS rotated through Atlantic Fleet exercises, completed selected restricted and tender availabilities to preserve combat systems and boilers, and embarked on additional Sixth Fleet and NATO periods as the Cold War wound toward its close. Crew accounts and imagery from the decade place her repeatedly in multinational formations and back in home waters between cruises, a rhythm common to the CHARLES F. ADAMS class as newer AEGIS ships began to assume the most demanding air-defense duties. By 1989, her long service was drawing to an end. On 31 October 1989, SELLERS was decommissioned after twenty-eight years in commission, closing out her career where she had spent so much of it - on the Atlantic Fleet roster with Charleston as her last homeport. She was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 20 November 1992, moved to the inactive fleet facility before disposal, sold on 25 July 1995, and finally scrapped in 2004, one of the last of the early guided-missile destroyers to leave the lists after three decades of routine yet consequential presence missions at sea.

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Homeports of USS SELLERS:

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USS SELLERS Image Gallery:

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