USS Dixie (AD 14)

- decommissioned -

USS DIXIE was the lead ship of a class of five destroyer tenders and the second ship in the Navy to bear the name. Both decommissioned and stricken from the Navy list on June 15, 1982, the DIXIE spent the following months laid-up in the National Defense Reserve Fleet at Suisun Bay, Calif. The DIXIE was sold for scrapping on February 17, 1983. She was scrapped in Taiwan.

General Characteristics:	Awarded: December 27, 1937
	Keel laid: March 17, 1938
	Launched: May 27, 1939
	Commissioned: April 25, 1940
	Decommissioned: June 15, 1982
	Builder: New York Shipbuilding Corp., Camden, N.J.
	Propulsion system: four boilers, geared turbines
	Propellers: two
	Length: 530.5 feet (161.7 meters)
	Beam: 73.2 feet (22.3 meters)
	Draft: 25.6 feet (7.8 meters)
	Displacement: approx. 17,176 tons full load
	Speed: 19.5 knots
	Aircraft: Flight Deck only, however, not suitable for helo landings
	Armament: 4 20mm Mk-68 guns
	Crew: approx. 1000

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Crew List:

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

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History of USS DIXIE:

USS DIXIE, the second United States Navy ship to bear the name, was the lead ship of the DIXIE-class of destroyer tenders and was designed from the outset to provide repair, maintenance, supply and technical support to modern fleet destroyers. The ship was ordered on December 27, 1937, and her keel was laid at the New York Shipbuilding Corporation at Camden, New Jersey, on March 17, 1938. She was launched on May 27, 1939, sponsored by Mrs. A. C. Pickens, and commissioned on April 25, 1940, with Lieutenant Commander G. H. Bahm in command.

After completing her initial preparations on the East Coast, DIXIE departed Norfolk, Virginia, on June 20, 1940, bound for the Pacific. She proceeded to Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, where she tended destroyers of the Battle Force until October 1940. She then shifted to the West Coast and performed similar duties at San Diego, California, which became closely associated with the ship throughout her long career. DIXIE spent much of 1941 supporting Pacific Fleet units from the West Coast. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, bringing the United States into World War II, DIXIE was undergoing overhaul at Mare Island Navy Yard, California. Her repair organization was subsequently employed in preparing ships for wartime operations.

In March 1942, DIXIE returned to Pearl Harbor. She remained there until November, tending destroyers and other fleet units during a period in which the strategic situation in the Pacific changed rapidly. The carrier battles of the Coral Sea and Midway and the beginning of the Guadalcanal campaign shifted the United States Navy from the immediate defensive situation of the first months of the war toward sustained offensive operations. Although DIXIE herself was not a front-line combatant, her workshops allowed destroyers and other ships to receive machinery, electrical, ordnance and structural repairs without returning to the continental United States.

In November 1942, DIXIE moved into the South Pacific logistics network supporting operations in and around the Solomon Islands. From November 1942 until March 1944, she alternated between Noumea, New Caledonia, and Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides. Both anchorages had developed into major Allied staging, supply and repair bases. Destroyers operating from them were engaged in convoy escort, antisubmarine patrols, screening, shore bombardment and the numerous surface and amphibious operations associated with the Guadalcanal campaign and the subsequent Allied advance through the Solomon Islands. DIXIE provided a forward repair capability that reduced the need to send damaged or mechanically deficient ships back to Hawaii or the United States.

In March 1944, DIXIE moved farther forward to the Solomon Islands and established herself at Hathorn Sound in the New Georgia area. The shift reflected the movement of the fleet's logistics infrastructure toward newly secured bases as combat operations advanced through the South and Central Pacific. By September 1944, she had proceeded to Ulithi Atoll in the western Caroline Islands. Ulithi was rapidly becoming one of the largest forward fleet anchorages of the Pacific War and served as a staging and replenishment base for the forces operating against the Philippines and later Iwo Jima and Okinawa. DIXIE remained there until February 1945, servicing ships that returned to the anchorage between operations.

During her period at Ulithi, DIXIE's facilities were also used for command purposes. On November 18, 1944, Rear Admiral Frederick C. Sherman temporarily transferred his staff and administration to DIXIE after hauling down his flag in the battleship SOUTH DAKOTA (BB 57). This was representative of another function for which large tenders could be used: their communications equipment, accommodation and office space allowed them to support command staffs in major forward anchorages.

In February 1945, DIXIE moved to San Pedro Bay, Leyte, in the Philippines. She remained there through the closing months of the war, servicing ships engaged in the operations that followed the liberation of the Philippines and accompanied the campaigns against Iwo Jima, Okinawa and the Japanese home islands. A Navy photograph taken during this period provides a particularly clear illustration of the scale of her repair work, showing six new ALLEN M. SUMNER-class destroyers nested alongside the tender: USS COMPTON (DD 705), USS AULT (DD 698), USS CHARLES S. SPERRY (DD 697), USS ENGLISH (DD 696), USS JOHN W. WEEKS (DD 701) and USS BORIE (DD 704). The ability to work on several destroyers simultaneously was central to DIXIE's purpose as a mobile industrial and maintenance facility.

Following Japan's acceptance of the Allied surrender terms in August 1945 and the formal surrender on September 2, DIXIE moved into occupation-support duties. She serviced ships at Okinawa and subsequently at Shanghai, China. The latter assignment placed her in East Asian waters at a time when the immediate tasks of accepting Japanese surrender, repatriating personnel and redistributing naval forces were taking place against the background of the renewed Chinese Civil War. DIXIE returned to the West Coast in December 1945, ending more than three years of almost continuous service at advanced Pacific bases.

The ship's first major postwar assignment was Operation Crossroads, the series of atomic-bomb tests conducted at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands during 1946. The operation assembled a large target fleet together with repair, salvage, scientific, transport, hospital and support vessels to examine the effects of nuclear weapons against naval ships and equipment. DIXIE was assigned to Joint Task Force 1 and served as flagship of the Repair and Service Unit. Her complement for the operation was recorded as 835. Other major repair ships in the organization included USS AJAX (AR 6) and USS FULTON (AS 11).

DIXIE arrived at Bikini on May 24, 1946, and spent the following weeks supporting preparations for the tests. In advance of Shot Able, the air-dropped atomic bomb scheduled for July 1, DIXIE left Bikini Lagoon at 3:54 p.m. on June 30. When the weapon was detonated at 9:00 a.m. on July 1, she was approximately 22 nautical miles north-northeast of the test area. After the immediate radiological situation had been evaluated, DIXIE returned to Bikini Lagoon later that day and resumed her support duties.

The second test, Shot Baker, was an underwater nuclear detonation and created a much more serious contamination problem among the target ships. DIXIE again left the lagoon before the test, departing on July 24. When the bomb was detonated at 8:35 a.m. on July 25, she was approximately 17 nautical miles east of the test site. She remained outside the lagoon during the immediate aftermath and returned on July 30. Through August, the ships of the support organization continued inspection, salvage, maintenance and radiological work associated with the contaminated target fleet.

DIXIE departed Bikini Atoll at 4:47 p.m. on August 25, 1946, and arrived at Kwajalein the following morning. She remained there until September 9, when she departed for Pearl Harbor. Because vessels associated with Operation Crossroads required continuing monitoring for radioactive contamination, DIXIE subsequently underwent radiological inspection and decontamination procedures at San Francisco. She received operational clearance on October 2, 1946, and final radiological clearance followed by November 22.

DIXIE returned to the Far East in 1947. During this deployment, she was based for part of the time at Tsingtao, China, and supported destroyers operating along the Chinese coast. Her recorded China-service period extended from March 23 through September 14, 1947. A photograph taken at Tsingtao in August shows USS DUNCAN (DD 874) alongside the tender. The deployment took place during the Chinese Civil War, as fighting between the Nationalist government and Communist forces expanded and the United States maintained naval forces at several Chinese ports.

After returning to the United States, DIXIE continued the operational pattern that characterized much of her postwar career: periods of repair and flagship duty at San Diego alternated with deployments to the western Pacific. She returned to Chinese waters in 1949, during the final stages of the Chinese Civil War. Tsingtao again served as one of the bases from which she supported destroyers operating off the coast. As Communist forces advanced and United States personnel were withdrawn from mainland China, DIXIE participated in the naval presence associated with the evacuation. After leaving the mainland she served at Hong Kong as headquarters for the American consul and charge d'affaires. The People's Republic of China was proclaimed on October 1, 1949, after Communist forces had gained control of most of the mainland.

The outbreak of the Korean War on June 25, 1950, once again placed DIXIE's repair and command facilities in direct support of wartime naval operations. Sasebo, Japan, became one of the principal logistics bases for United Nations naval forces operating around Korea, and DIXIE was employed there in support of destroyers and other ships cycling between combat assignments and periods of maintenance.

On September 12, 1950, Rear Admiral Allan E. Smith established his headquarters aboard DIXIE at Sasebo and assumed command of Task Force 95, the United Nations Blockading and Escort Force. Task Force 95 coordinated a multinational naval force responsible for blockade, escort, minesweeping, coastal bombardment and related operations around the Korean Peninsula. DIXIE's extensive communications facilities, staff accommodation and repair organization allowed her to serve both as a command platform and as a tender while remaining at the important Japanese support base.

Early in 1951, DIXIE took part in one of the most unusual operations of her career. United Nations ground forces were advancing again after the Chinese intervention of late 1950, and Task Force 95 conducted Operation Ascendant, an amphibious deception intended to suggest that a landing might be made on the east coast of Korea behind Communist positions. Rear Admiral Smith sailed in DIXIE on January 29, 1951, accompanied by the vessels assigned to the demonstration. The force included attack cargo ships, tank landing ships, rocket-equipped landing ships, minesweepers and gunfire-support vessels.

At 7:00 a.m. on January 30, USS MISSOURI (BB 63), USS MANCHESTER (CL 83) and screening destroyers opened a heavy bombardment of the Kansong area while minesweepers, landing craft and other amphibious units carried out movements intended to resemble preparations for an actual landing. The force retired offshore overnight and returned on January 31 for a second demonstration off Kosong. At 2:00 p.m. that afternoon DIXIE herself opened fire on the shore. She expended 204 rounds against the beach area, an exceptional employment of a destroyer tender in a shore-bombardment role.

DIXIE subsequently continued supporting the naval campaign around Korea primarily from bases in Japan. Her Korean War service was spread over several deployments rather than being limited to Operation Ascendant. Her first Korean-service period extended from July 27, 1950, through February 5, 1951, including qualifying service during the First United Nations Counteroffensive from January 30 through February 3. She returned for another Korean deployment from February 10 through July 27, 1952, with qualifying campaign periods during the Second Korean Winter and Korea Defense Summer-Fall 1952 campaigns. A third period of Korean service lasted from March 9 through September 21, 1953, and included qualifying service during the Third Korean Winter and the final Korea Summer-Fall 1953 campaign.

The armistice signed at Panmunjom on July 27, 1953, ended large-scale combat operations but did not immediately eliminate the requirement for extensive naval support in Japan and Korea. Ships continued to require repair and upkeep while forces were redistributed and the terms of the armistice were implemented. DIXIE ultimately received five battle stars for Korean War service.

During the years following the Korean War, DIXIE resumed the established cycle of Pacific Fleet support operations. At San Diego she periodically served as flagship for Commander, Cruiser Destroyer Force, Pacific Fleet, while western Pacific deployments normally placed her at major support bases such as Sasebo and Subic Bay. Her role at San Diego alternated with that of sister destroyer tenders USS PRAIRIE (AD 15) and USS PIEDMONT (AD 17). The three tenders provided the destroyer force with repair shops, technical specialists, spare parts and administrative facilities and could service several ships alongside simultaneously.

DIXIE continued making Far East deployments throughout the later 1950s. In 1959 and again in 1960, she sailed to the western Pacific to provide tender facilities for Seventh Fleet ships while continuing her San Diego responsibilities between deployments. The strategic setting had changed substantially since her first arrival in the Pacific in 1940: the Navy's western Pacific presence was now centered on Cold War commitments involving Japan, Korea, the Taiwan Strait and Southeast Asia rather than the wartime advance across the Pacific.

In 1961, DIXIE underwent a significant modernization at Mare Island Naval Shipyard. The work adapted the aging tender for continued fleet service and altered her external appearance. Among the visible changes was the removal of the after 5-inch gun positions and alterations to the after deck area. DIXIE completed the yard period and departed Mare Island on June 15, 1961, for her return to San Diego. Despite having entered service before American participation in World War II, she was being retained as an active fleet tender for a new generation of destroyers and escorts.

The ship was again operating in the western Pacific during 1962, continuing the familiar pattern of forward maintenance support. By this period, DIXIE's clientele increasingly included ships whose electronic, sonar, missile and antisubmarine systems were considerably more sophisticated than the destroyers for which she had originally been designed. Her continuing service required repeated changes to her shops, equipment and technical capabilities, while the basic operational concept remained unchanged: combatants came alongside the tender for repairs, maintenance and supply work before returning to fleet operations.

The developing conflict in Vietnam produced another major increase in demand for Seventh Fleet logistics and maintenance. DIXIE received Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal credit for Vietnam-related service from November 23, 1964, through February 26, 1965, and again from February 28 through April 5, 1965. These periods coincided with the expansion of United States naval operations following the Gulf of Tonkin incidents in August 1964 and the transition during early 1965 toward sustained American air and naval operations in Southeast Asia.

DIXIE continued supporting ships rotating between the Vietnam operating areas and western Pacific maintenance ports. On February 28, 1966, she was at Kaohsiung, Taiwan, where USS STICKELL (DD 888) was among the ships alongside. Kaohsiung was used regularly by Seventh Fleet units for upkeep and logistics during the Vietnam War.

A particularly well-documented example of DIXIE's work occurred several months later. USS DAVIS (DD 937) had been providing naval gunfire support along the coast of South Vietnam and departed the combat area on June 10, 1966, after an extended period of operations. The destroyer proceeded to Kaohsiung and moored alongside DIXIE for repairs necessitated by the sustained operational period. USS DAVIS remained with the tender until June 20, when she departed to return to the waters off South Vietnam's I Corps area and resumed naval gunfire support.

Later in 1966, DIXIE was back at San Diego. USS BRONSTEIN (DE 1037) underwent maintenance alongside her from October 26 through November 11 after exercises off the California coast. This was representative of DIXIE's continuing stateside function between overseas deployments: ships could complete relatively concentrated periods of maintenance alongside the tender without entering a naval shipyard. The same support relationship continued during subsequent western Pacific deployments. In 1969, DIXIE was at Subic Bay, one of the principal United States naval logistics and repair bases in Southeast Asia. Navy photographic documentation from that year shows personnel aboard DIXIE installing a replacement 5-inch/38-caliber gun on USS TAUSSIG (DD 746). The job required the tender's lifting equipment together with her ordnance and mechanical repair capabilities and illustrates the scale of work that could be undertaken outside a conventional shipyard.

By the beginning of the 1970s, DIXIE had been in commission for three decades, yet she remained an active element of the Pacific Fleet's maintenance organization. Her original heavy gun battery had progressively disappeared as her function became increasingly concentrated on repair, supply and command support. The ship continued to alternate periods at San Diego with deployments across the Pacific.

From August 16 through September 3, 1971, USS WADDELL (DDG 24) underwent a tender availability alongside DIXIE at San Diego. During this period, DIXIE completed 118 individual work requests for the guided-missile destroyer, while thirteen additional accepted requests remained unfinished at the end of the availability. The work included maintenance and repair of drains, traps, valves and relief valves together with high-pressure welding and sheet-metal work. The recorded workload provides a useful indication of the numerous individual jobs carried out during what otherwise appears in broad operational histories simply as a tender availability.

DIXIE continued western Pacific service during the early 1970s. At Yokosuka, Japan, on February 12, 1973, USS COCHRANE (DDG 21) shifted to Pier 6 and moored outboard of DIXIE and USS PREBLE (DLG 15). USS COCHRANE remained in Yokosuka until February 17 before departing on the homeward portion of her deployment.

Later in 1973, DIXIE was back at San Diego. In September, USS HENRY B. WILSON (DDG 7) moved alongside her for a 30-day pre-overhaul tender availability. The guided-missile destroyer subsequently entered Long Beach Naval Shipyard on October 2. Tender work of this type could precede a major shipyard overhaul by completing maintenance, repairs and preparations that did not require docking or specialized shipyard facilities.

DIXIE returned to the western Pacific during 1974. A photograph taken at Subic Bay records her surrounded by several Seventh Fleet combatants, including USS ROBISON (DDG 12), USS WADDELL, USS DAVIDSON (DE 1045) and USS HEPBURN (DE 1055). USS CONSTELLATION (CVA 64) was also present farther out in the anchorage. Subic Bay remained a central maintenance, supply and staging base for United States naval operations in Southeast Asia during the final phase of American involvement in the Vietnam War.

As the United States military commitment in Southeast Asia declined, DIXIE remained in Pacific Fleet service. She was photographed underway off Southern California on April 1, 1976. Only weeks later, she became involved in a major humanitarian and salvage operation following Typhoon Pamela. Typhoon Pamela struck Guam on May 21, 1976, causing extensive damage to military and civilian facilities as well as vessels and harbor installations around Apra Harbor. Naval training schedules in the area were disrupted and ships and personnel were redirected into relief, repair and harbor-clearance work. Among the Navy vessels participating were USS PEORIA (LST 1183), USS WHITE PLAINS (AFS 4), DIXIE, USS JASON (AR 8), USS PROTEUS (AS 19) and USS TRIPOLI (LPH 10).

DIXIE contributed divers, equipment and technical personnel to the harbor-clearance operation. One of the immediate salvage problems was the tug TR-1, which had sunk in Sumay Cove. DIXIE's divers were assigned to prepare the tug for pumping. Diesel-powered pumps and 4-inch submersible pumps were brought out, cofferdams were fabricated and installed, and the vessel was pumped out. On May 28, TR-1 was dry and afloat and responsibility for the tug was transferred to USS PROTEUS. Divers and salvage personnel from DIXIE, USS JASON, USS PROTEUS and the Ship Repair Facility at Guam simultaneously worked on other damaged and sunken craft obstructing the harbor. DIXIE received Humanitarian Service Medal credit for her participation in the Typhoon Pamela relief effort from May 21 through June 15, 1976.

DIXIE remained in active Pacific Fleet service through the later 1970s. By then, her age was increasingly exceptional for a commissioned United States Navy ship, but her large repair plant and accommodation facilities continued to give her operational utility. Her next major deployment became considerably more significant than originally anticipated because of rapidly changing events in the Middle East. On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants seized the United States Embassy in Tehran and took American personnel hostage during the upheaval that followed the Iranian Revolution. DIXIE departed California on November 5 on what had originally been planned as another deployment toward the western Pacific. The developing crisis caused her to be diverted to Diego Garcia, the British-American support base in the central Indian Ocean, where an expanding United States naval force required additional maintenance and logistics capability.

DIXIE arrived in the Indian Ocean as United States naval forces increased their presence in the region. She received Navy Expeditionary Medal credit for Iran and Indian Ocean operations beginning on December 9, 1979. Instead of making a conventional sequence of western Pacific port calls, the veteran tender spent approximately four and a half months at Diego Garcia supporting ships operating across the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea.

The amount of work performed during this period was substantial. DIXIE provided repair and upkeep services to 31 different ships and completed more than 2,500 individual jobs. Her workshops also manufactured parts for aircraft, while her extensive berthing spaces were used as temporary accommodation for more than 900 sailors and Marines passing through Diego Garcia. The assignment demonstrated the continuing value of a large repair tender at a geographically isolated anchorage where conventional shipyard facilities were limited.

Among the more complex tasks performed at Diego Garcia was the replacement of a 12-ton, 15-foot-diameter propeller on the frigate USS COOK (FF 1083) while the ship was at anchorage. Contemporary Pacific command records described the work as the first propeller replacement under comparable conditions since World War II. DIXIE's repair force also repaired boiler uptakes aboard a cruiser and replaced a main gas-turbine engine on a SPRUANCE-class destroyer.

While still engaged in the Indian Ocean deployment, DIXIE marked the fortieth anniversary of her commissioning on April 25, 1980. She received a Meritorious Unit Commendation for service covering most of the Diego Garcia assignment. Her Navy Expeditionary Medal qualifying period continued through May 10. DIXIE subsequently began the passage back across the Pacific and returned to her San Diego home port on June 12, 1980.

DIXIE's exceptional length of commissioned service soon brought another distinction. On August 18, 1980, the Secretary of the Navy issued instructions providing that the active commissioned ship with the longest total period in active service would fly the First Navy Jack in place of the normal union jack. As the oldest continuously commissioned active ship in the Navy, DIXIE became the first vessel to hold that distinction under the new policy. She began flying the First Navy Jack on April 15, 1981, and retained the distinction for the remainder of her active career.

Despite being more than forty years old, DIXIE made another extended deployment in 1981. She again entered the Indian Ocean support system and received Navy Expeditionary Medal credit for Iran and Indian Ocean service from August 22 through October 20, 1981. During the deployment, she operated at Diego Garcia, where photographs show USS BROOKE (FFG 1) and submarines alongside the tender. Diego Garcia had by this time become an increasingly important forward support location for United States naval forces operating in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea, particularly after the Iranian Revolution and during the continuing Iran-Iraq War.

DIXIE remained overseas into early 1982 during what proved to be her final deployment. After more than four decades of service, the ship returned to the United States for retirement. The maintenance environment of the fleet had changed fundamentally since she had been designed in the late 1930s, and newer tenders and shore-based facilities had assumed the responsibilities once carried by ships of her generation.

USS DIXIE was decommissioned at San Diego on June 15, 1982, and was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on the same day. Her uninterrupted commissioned career had lasted more than 42 years, extending from the prewar Pacific Fleet through World War II, the early Cold War and into the beginning of the 1980s. Following decommissioning, she was transferred to the Maritime Administration for lay-up in the National Defense Reserve Fleet at Suisun Bay, California, on October 14, 1982. Disposition arrangements followed during 1983. The contractual disposal date associated with the ship was February 17, 1983, while records show her withdrawal from the reserve fleet and delivery to the buyer on March 29. DIXIE was subsequently taken to Taiwan for dismantling.

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About the Ship's Name:

The name "Dixie" originated from the early days of Louisiana when the Citizen's Bank issued a ten dollar note bearing the french word "Dix" (ten). The Dixie notes where soon called "Dixies" and Louisiana became known as "Dixieland". As the notes spread throughout the Southern states "Dixie" and "Dixieland" became a pseudonym for the south.

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