USS Trippe (DD-403)
The third
USS Trippe (DD-403) was a
Benham-class destroyer in the
United States Navy. She was named for
John Trippe.
Trippe was laid down on
15 April 1937 by the
Boston Navy Yard, launched on
14 May 1938; sponsored by Miss Betty S. Tripper and placed in commission on
1 November 1939, Lt. Comdr. Robert L. Campbell in command.
Trippe spent the remainder of 1939 outfitting at
Boston. In January
1940, she visited
Newport, Rhode Island, to take on
torpedoes and
Yorktown, Virginia, to load
depth charges before heading for the
Gulf of Mexico. Following shakedown training in the Gulf of Mexico and the
Caribbean, she returned to Boston on
20 March 1940. After completing her post-shakedown overhaul,
Trippe departed Boston on
24 June ultimately to join the Caribbean portion of the
Neutrality Patrol. She voyaged via
Hampton Roads to
San Juan, Puerto Rico, where she arrived early in July only to return north at mid-month for a two-day visit to
Washington, D.C.. On
26 July,
Trippe entered San Juan once more to begin Neutrality Patrol duty in earnest.
For eight months, the destroyer roamed the warm waters of the
West Indies to prevent the
European belligerents from waging war in the
western hemisphere. During that period, she escorted
USS Tuscaloosa (CA-37), with
President Franklin Roosevelt embarked, upon a tour of bases in the Caribbean. She saw the President safely into
Charleston, South Carolina, on
14 December and then headed for
Philadelphia and quick repairs. After a two day visit to
Norfolk at the end of the first week in January
1941,
Trippe steamed south to
Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, where she conducted neutrality patrols until spring.
On
21 March, the warship began a two-month overhaul at Boston. On
24 April, while
Trippe continued repairs, President Roosevelt extended the Neutrality Patrol to the very edge of the
German war zone. When
Trippe emerged from her refit in May, she visited Norfolk and then trained out of Newport until early June. On
11 June, she joined the screen of
USS Texas (BB-35) for her first extended patrol in the
North Atlantic. On
29 June,
Texas and her escorts passed through the
periscope sights of a
U-boat. The puzzled German captain almost perpetrated an incident by attacking; but, unable to match Task Force 1's speed, he gave up the chase late that afternoon. Blissfully unaware of the danger, the
battleship steamed on with
Trippe and her sister destroyers. The following day, they ended their patrol at Newport.
Trippe continued patrolling out of Newport, first with
Texas and then with
USS New York (BB-34), through July and the first fortnight in August. On
15 August, the warship shifted her base to Boston and
Provincetown. On the
25th, she cleared Boston to escort
USS Mississippi (BB-41) to
Argentia. After more than a month of training and antisubmarine operations off
Newfoundland,
Trippe departed Argentia on
11 October in company with
USS Yorktown (CV-5),
USS New Mexico (BB-40),
USS Quincy (CA-39),
USS Savannah (CL-42), and seven other
destroyers. After anchoring briefly at
Casco Bay, Maine and patrolling the area between that port and Boston the warships headed for a mid-ocean rendezvous to relieve the
Royal Navy escort of a westbound convoy. On her return voyage,
Trippe parted company with the escort off Portland, Maine, and put into Casco Bay. On
9 November, she departed the Maine coast in the screen of
USS Ranger (CV-4),
USS Vincences (CA-44), and
Quincy to meet another westbound convoy and escort it to the
United States.
In mid-November,
Trippe escorted
Ranger south to the West Indies and screened flight operations conducted from that carrier in the vicinity of
Trinidad until early December. She was returning north with the carrier on
7 December when the
Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor jolted the United States into
World War II. America's entry into the war, however, did not change
Trippe's assignment. She continued to escort transatlantic convoys and to hunt U-boats. She stopped at Norfolk for a week and then headed for Newport on
10 December. Just before dawn on the
16th, an
Army bomber approached her from the north and after making several passes dropped a stick of bombs and reported sinking a German destroyer in
Block Island Sound.
Trippe emerged unscathed the bombs exploded some 200 yards off her bow and continued on to Newport where she arrived that same day.
Over the next 10 months,
Trippe was all over the northwestern
Atlantic. She escorted coastwise traffic between ports along the eastern seaboard. She relieved British warships in mid-ocean and escorted their convoys into American ports as well as screening eastbound convoys as far as mid-ocean where British warships took over. The destroyer patrolled off such diverse places as Argentia,
Newfoundland and the
North Carolina capes. Her escort duties took her as far south as the
Panama Canal and the West Indies, as far north as Newfoundland, and on one occasion, as far east as
Londonderry in northern
Ireland. Twice,
Trippe searched for survivors of torpedoed merchantmen once off
Hampton Roads early in February and again near
Bermuda in June. She also made two fruitless attacks on what she believed to be submerged U-boats. Now and then, she even found time to conduct drills and gunnery training.
In October
1942,
Trippe cleared the
Chesapeake Bay area and steamed north to Newport where she arrived on the
7th. For the next two weeks, she operated with
USS Massachusetts (BB-59) while the new battleship practiced shore bombardment for the upcoming invasion of
French North Africa. During the pre-dawn hours of
19 October, she was steaming for Casco Bay when
USS Benson (DD-421) struck
Trippe on her starboard quarter, killing four
Trippe crewmen and injuring three others. On
13 November,
Trippe completed repairs at
New York and got underway for antisubmarine warfare training at
New London, Connecticut.
Following almost a month of training and escorting coastal convoys,
Trippe departed New York in the screen of her first convoy bound for
Casablanca. She returned to New York on
7 February 1943 and conducted more training. In April, the destroyer made another round-trip voyage to
Morocco and escorted a coastal convoy to Norfolk before heading for the Mediterranean. On
10 May, the warship arrived at
Oran,
Algeria. She then screened convoys between that port and
Bizerte, conducted patrols, and practiced shore bombardment in preparation to support the Allied landings on
Sicily.
On
9 July, the destroyer left Oran in the screen of a Sicily-bound convoy and was still at sea when Allied troops clambered ashore the following day. She arrived off
Gela on the 14th, the day following the landings at that port, and patrolled that area until the 20th when she returned to Oran. However, the destroyer arrived back at Sicily the same day this time at
Palermo. Three days later, the
Luftwaffe attacked the anchorage. To elude
radar, the German medium bombers approached from the south, low over the Sicilian mountains, and circled the targets. As
Trippe zigzagged to evade bombing and strafing planes, her 5-inch battery barked defiantly. When the raid was over, she claimed credit for one of the German eagles
Up north, while Lieutenant General
George S. Patton's armored columns moved across the northern coast of Sicily and side-stepped heavy enemy formations with amphibious landings, the Navy supported his advance.
Trippe left Palermo on
4 August in company with
USS Savannah (CL-42) to support the advance with naval gunfire. On the 5th, she bombarded bridges at
Terranova. During the next two days, the destroyer joined
USS Philadelphia (CL-41) before supporting the landings at Sant Agato di Militello.
Trippe's guns paved the way for the troops landing at Brolo on the 11th, and, on the 16th, her main battery supported the amphibious end-run at Spadafora. The following day, Sicily was declared secured, and
Trippe headed north with three
PT boats to accept the surrender of the
Aeolian Islands of
Lipari and
Stromboli.
The
Italian mainland was the destroyer's next target. In the early hours of
20 August,
Trippe and
USS Wainwright (DD-419) shelled a railroad bridge at Fiume Petrace, then turned south to Bizerte and escorted a convoy to Palermo. Trippe next returned to Bizerte and, on
31 August, proceeded to Oran.
British troops landed at Reggio, Italy, on
3 September to begin the long, bitter drive up the Italian peninsula. Two days later,
Trippe put to sea to escort a convoy to the assault beaches at
Salerno, just south of
Naples. This attack, aimed at turning German defenses in the south of Italy, was launched on the morning of
9 September 1943. The troops ran into heavy enemy resistance. The Luftwaffe and heavy coastal batteries took a heavy toll of the landing force, but Trippe and other fire support ships brought their batteries to bear and helped the troops ashore consolidate their beachhead.
After several round-trip voyages between Salerno and Oran, she returned to the
Bay of Naples on
10 October. Early on the morning of the 13th, while
Trippe was escorting a convoy from Naples to Oran, the German submarine U-S71 attacked the convoy and quickly sank
USS Bristol (DD-453).
Trippe searched briefly for the attacker, but concentrated upon rescuing Bristol's survivors, so the U-boat escaped.
Trippe occupied the next month with convoy operations in the western Mediterranean and patrol work off Oran. On
18 November, she sailed from Gibraltar with
USS Brooklyn (CL-40) and a screen of British and United States destroyers. Off Casablanca, they rendezvoused with battleship
USS Iowa (BB-61), which had just borne President Roosevelt on the first leg of his journey to the Allied conferences at
Cairo and
Teheran.
Trippe escorted Iowa through the Straits of Gibraltar to Oran then screened the battleship as she steamed westward again through the Straits into the Atlantic and proceeded to Casablanca to await President Roosevelt's return. After shepherding her charge to that port,
Trippe turned back to Algiers and resumed her patrol operations.
On the afternoon of
16 December, the destroyer put to sea in company with
USS Edison (DD-439) and
USS Woolsey (DD-437) to hunt for the survivors of a torpedoed merchantman. While searching for castaways, the three warships also sought the U boat itself. Early that evening, they made radar contact on U-78 steaming on the surface.
Woolsey switched on her searchlights, and
Trippe's fire control radar locked onto the target. The two destroyers immediately opened up with their main batteries and pumped salvo after salvo of 5-inch shells into the German submarine. Six minutes after visual contact, U-78 went down for the last time all the way to the bottom. While
Woolsey picked up the German submariners,
Trippe made sure that U-78 had no colleagues lurking in the area. The destroyers then returned to Oran.
At the beginning of
1944, the destroyer was at Palermo, Sicily. On
21 January, she got underway to support the Allied landings at Anzio, located farther up the Italian peninsula near
Rome. The next day, she took station with
Brooklyn and
Edison, and her guns supported the troops going ashore. Two days later, she fought off a Luftwaffe air attack. She returned to gunfire support on the 25th and bombarded enemy troops and vehicles. On
31 January, she pounded troop concentrations and vehicles and demolished an observation post.
Trippe hit two German strong points on
5 February. She was relieved of duty on the gunline on
10 February and returned to Oran, rescuing two downed British flyers along the way.
On
23 February,
Trippe steamed to Casablanca where she joined a hunter-killer group built around
USS Card (CVE-11) and got underway for the United States. During the voyage, the escort carrier and the five destroyers in her screen conducted air, sound, and radar searches for German submarines.
Trippe parted company with the task unit on
4 March and, after a stop at Bermuda, put into New York for a month of upkeep. Following refresher training, she conducted hunterkiller operations out of Casco Bay. Late in May, she escorted
USS Hancock (CV-19) on the first leg of the new carrier's shakedown cruise before joining
USS Cooper (DD-695) for electronics countermeasure experiments in Chesapeake Bay. She put into Norfolk on
3 June, but departed the next day with Ticonderoga (CV-14) for air operations off the Virginia capes. From
19 June until
Independence Day 1944,
Trippe conducted exercises in the
Gulf of Paria near
Trinidad. On
9 July, she returned to Boston with
Hancock and began a 19 day availability. Between
28 July and
23 October, the destroyer made two round-trip voyages between the United States and southern Italy escorting convoys to and from that bitterly contested campaign. For the remainder of the year, she conducted training near Casco Bay and screened
USS Shangri La (CV-38) during air operations near Trinidad. Late in February
1945,
Trippe escorted another convoy to the Mediterranean, this time to Oran. She returned to New York during the first week in April and began a brief yard period.
Repairs complete,
Trippe headed south with a convoy bound for the Canal Zone. She transited the canal, stopped at
San Diego, and arrived in Pearl Harbor on
16 May. She spent several weeks in the
Hawaiian Islands conducting shore bombardment drills in preparation for duty with the 5th Fleet in the Central Pacific. However, the landings for which she prepared never came to fruition. Instead, the ship headed west in mid June and escorted convoys between various islands in the Central Pacific, including
Iwo Jima,
Saipan,
Ulithi, and
Okinawa. The brevity of her stopovers protected her from the wrath of the
kamikazes. She was en route to Okinawa with a convoy on
15 August, when she received word of the cessation of hostilities.
Trippe remained in the
Far East participating in the surrender negotiations with Japanese garrisons remaining in the Marianas and
Bonin Islands. On
5 November, she returned to Saipan and began a month of patrols, training, and air-sea rescue operations north of that island. On
16 December, she cleared
Guam to return to the United States.
Her homecoming was brief, however, for on
16 January 1946, she steamed back to Pearl Harbor to prepare for
Operation Crossroads, the
atomic bomb tests conducted at
Bikini Atoll. Four months later, the tests were ready to go forward.
Trippe entered Bikini lagoon on
1 June. The destroyer missed the first explosion, an air-burst on
1 July; but the second test, an underwater detonation on the 26th, made her so radioactive that it was unsafe to approach her.
Trippe's radioactive contamination forced the Navy to keep her at Bikini where she was subjected to an intensive study.
Trippe was decommissioned there on
28 August 1946. Over the next 18 months, her hull deteriorated to the point of making it almost impossible to keep her afloat. On
3 February 1948, she was towed to deep water off
Kwajalein and sunk by gunfire. Her name was struck from the Navy list on
19 February 1948.
Trippe earned six battle stars for World War II service.
See
USS Trippe for other ships of this name.
