USS Piedmont (AD 17)

- decommissioned -

USS PIEDMONT was the third DIXIE - class destroyer tender and the first ship in the Navy named after the region which lies just east of the Appalachian Mountains in Pennsylvania, Virginia and the Carolinas. Decommissioned on September 30, 1982, the PIEDMONT was transferred to Turkey on October 18, 1982, where she was recommissioned as TCG DERYA (A 576). On August 6, 1987, the ship was officially purchased by Turkey and stricken from the US Navy list. TCG DERYA served until 1994, when she was decommissioned and sold for scrapping.

General Characteristics:	Keel laid: December 1, 1941
	Launched: December 7, 1942
	Commissioned: January 5, 1944
	Decommissioned: September 30, 1982
	Builder: Tampa Shipbuilding Co., Tampa, Fla.
	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

go to the end of the page

Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS PIEDMONT. 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 PIEDMONT memorabilia are currently for sale on ebay.

go to the end of the page

USS PIEDMONT Cruise Books:

go to the end of the page

USS PIEDMONT History:

USS PIEDMONT was laid down by the Tampa Shipbuilding Company at Tampa, Florida, on December 1, 1941, six days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II. She was launched exactly one year later, on December 7, 1942, sponsored by Mrs. Elsa Kauffman, and commissioned on January 5, 1944, with Commander Malcolm D. MacGregor in command. An unusual association with the ship began at the time of her commissioning. Walt Disney attended the commissioning ceremony as an honored guest and subsequently produced a drawing of Doc, one of the seven dwarfs from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, as PIEDMONT's mascot. The association became established as part of the ship's identity and remained connected with PIEDMONT throughout her service. Contemporary Navy material also recorded the unusual custom of referring to the tender with the masculine pronoun.

Early in February 1944, PIEDMONT left Tampa for her shakedown cruise. After completing this initial training and working-up period, she sailed on March 6 for the Pacific, proceeding by way of the Panama Canal and San Diego, California, to Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii. The need for her services was immediate. Less than 24 hours after reaching Pearl Harbor, she had her first Pacific Fleet destroyer alongside for work. PIEDMONT remained at Pearl Harbor throughout April and May while the Pacific Fleet prepared for operations in the Marianas. At one point, seven destroyers were simultaneously moored alongside her while her repair organization was also handling work requests involving more than 50 additional destroyers in the anchorage.

In mid-June 1944, PIEDMONT departed Pearl Harbor and moved forward to Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands. The anchorage had become an important logistics base for the fast carrier forces and other Pacific Fleet units engaged in the advance through the Central Pacific. Ships repeatedly returned there for fuel, ammunition, provisions, repairs and crew rest between operations against the Marianas and Japanese positions farther west. PIEDMONT became part of the floating support organization sustaining these operations. During July alone, she provisioned 99 ships with 888 tons of stores in addition to carrying out her extensive repair workload. August produced a similarly demanding schedule as vessels returned from operations associated with the invasion of Guam.

Individual destroyer records provide examples of the work undertaken during this period. USS BRYANT (DD 665), for example, returned to Eniwetok on August 5, 1944, and remained alongside PIEDMONT for ten days while engineering repairs were completed before she returned to operations. Such availabilities were representative of the purpose for which the tender had been built: machinery and other equipment could be repaired at a forward fleet anchorage without requiring the supported destroyer to make the long voyage back to a major naval yard.

PIEDMONT continued working at Eniwetok until September 5, 1944, when she departed for Seeadler Harbor at Manus in the Admiralty Islands. She arrived on September 10 and reported to the fleet service organization operating there. The move reflected the continuing westward shift of the Navy's logistics system as preparations intensified for operations in the Palaus and the Philippines. PIEDMONT supplied and repaired ships both alongside and elsewhere in the anchorage while naval forces concentrated at Manus.

On November 10, 1944, PIEDMONT was involved in the aftermath of one of the most destructive accidental explosions suffered by the United States Navy during the Pacific War. She was anchored in Seeadler Harbor when USS MOUNT HOOD (AE 11), an ammunition ship lying approximately 3,500 yards away, exploded catastrophically. MOUNT HOOD was destroyed and ammunition, bomb components and fragments of the ship were thrown over a wide area of the harbor. USS MINDANAO (ARG 3), positioned between MOUNT HOOD and PIEDMONT, was severely damaged. PIEDMONT immediately sent fire and rescue parties to MINDANAO and to other vessels requiring assistance.

PIEDMONT herself was struck by debris from the explosion. One member of her crew was killed when the base of a 5-inch projectile struck him. Two 250-pound bombs were hurled onto the tender by the blast. One penetrated the movie locker on the boat deck, while the other entered the forecastle and passed into sleeping spaces. Neither bomb detonated, and personnel in the affected compartments escaped injury. Other fragments and projectiles caused superficial damage to the tender. The precise cause of the explosion aboard MOUNT HOOD was never conclusively established.

As operations in the Philippines intensified, damaged combatants increasingly arrived at Manus for repair. By early December 1944, USS SAUFLEY (DD 465) and USS KILLEN (DD 593), both damaged by Japanese suicide aircraft, were among the ships assigned to PIEDMONT for repair. The growing employment of kamikaze aircraft during the Philippines campaign placed increasingly heavy demands on forward repair facilities because ships frequently arrived with structural damage, destroyed weapons positions, damaged electrical systems and machinery casualties requiring urgent work before they could return to operations or proceed to a larger shipyard.

Early in January 1945, PIEDMONT left the Manus area and proceeded to Ulithi Atoll. Ulithi had developed into the principal advanced fleet anchorage in the western Pacific and was supporting naval operations associated with the Lingayen Gulf landings in the Philippines, the invasion of Iwo Jima and preparations for Okinawa. From January through April, PIEDMONT's repair department completed an average of more than 1,000 job orders each month and recorded nearly 100,000 man-hours of repair work per month.

One of the badly damaged ships handled during this period was USS GANSEVOORT (DD 608), which had been struck by a Japanese suicide aircraft during operations near Mindoro on December 30, 1944. After emergency measures permitted the destroyer to be refloated and removed from the immediate combat area, she eventually reached Ulithi. PIEDMONT carried out temporary repairs sufficient to allow GANSEVOORT to return to the United States under her own power for permanent reconstruction.

The operational cycle at Ulithi also produced a constant flow of ships requiring routine or battle-related maintenance before returning to combat. USS HEERMANN (DD 532), which had been participating in fast carrier operations against Japan, arrived at Ulithi on March 1, 1945, and went alongside PIEDMONT for upkeep. She remained in the anchorage for most of the following week before departing on March 9. USS HAGGARD (DD 555) likewise began an availability with PIEDMONT on March 1. Her work included a short period in floating dry dock for inspection of the underwater hull and repair of her sonar dome, and her availability was completed on March 5.

Damage sustained during operations around Okinawa soon placed even greater demands on PIEDMONT. USS McDERMUT (DD 677) arrived on April 20, 1945, with a hole approximately three feet by five feet in her port sheer strake, which PIEDMONT repaired. On May 1, USS HALE (DD 642) came alongside after sustaining extensive damage to the port side of her bridge in a collision during refueling operations. Three days later, on May 4, USS HAZELWOOD (DD 531) arrived with severe damage caused by a kamikaze attack. Her bridge structure had been heavily damaged, a large opening had been torn in the starboard side of the main deck, the forward stack had been destroyed, and internal spaces, including communications facilities, had suffered extensive damage. PIEDMONT performed temporary work that prepared HAZELWOOD for the passage to a major United States naval yard. HAZELWOOD departed Ulithi on May 24 for permanent repair in the United States.

With organized Japanese resistance on Okinawa approaching its final phase in June 1945, PIEDMONT moved to the naval base at Leyte in the Philippines. The stop provided an opportunity for repairs and rest following the sustained workload at Ulithi, but the stay was relatively brief. On June 30, she departed Leyte and returned to Eniwetok. In anticipation of a major fleet turnaround that was expected later in the summer, part of her repair organization devoted considerable effort to constructing and improving recreation facilities ashore for fleet personnel.

The anticipated fleet return to Eniwetok did not occur as originally planned. Japan announced its acceptance of the Allied surrender terms on August 14, 1945, ending the major combat phase of the Pacific War. PIEDMONT was selected from the Pacific Fleet's destroyer tenders to accompany the first naval forces entering Japanese waters for the occupation. She departed Eniwetok on August 16 to rendezvous with the Third Fleet approximately one day's steaming distance from Japan.

On August 28, 1945, PIEDMONT anchored in Sagami Wan, immediately outside Tokyo Bay. Early on August 30, she entered Tokyo Bay, and on August 31 she moored at Yokosuka Naval Base. While at Yokosuka, PIEDMONT supplied food and clothing to landing forces and to hospital ships preparing to receive liberated Allied prisoners of war. She remained in the Tokyo area supporting occupation forces after the formal Japanese surrender aboard USS MISSOURI (BB 63) on September 2.

PIEDMONT continued occupation duties in Japanese waters into 1946. Her first qualifying period for postwar occupation service extended from September 2, 1945, through February 24, 1946. She subsequently departed for the United States and reached Alameda, California, on March 15, 1946. Her stay on the West Coast was relatively brief. By June 11, she had again entered a qualifying occupation-service period in the western Pacific, which continued through February 2, 1947.

During the winter of 1946-1947, PIEDMONT operated in the Tsingtao, China, area as part of the continuing American naval presence in northern China. The wider political situation was dominated by the resumption and rapid escalation of the Chinese Civil War between Nationalist and Communist forces after the end of the war against Japan. American naval and military forces were simultaneously involved in postwar repatriation, the withdrawal and redistribution of forces and the protection of American interests. PIEDMONT's role remained that of a support ship, providing repair and tender services to naval units operating in the region. Her China Service Medal eligibility during this period extended through March 30, 1947.

The unsettled political situation in East Asia kept PIEDMONT returning to the region during the following years. She again qualified for China service from March 2 through March 10, 1948, and for another short occupation-service period from September 12 through September 15, 1948. A further China Service Medal period followed from May 16 through May 30, 1950. These deployments occurred during the final stages of the Chinese Civil War and the establishment of the People's Republic of China on the mainland in 1949, while American naval forces maintained their regional presence from bases in Japan and elsewhere in the western Pacific.

North Korean forces invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950, beginning the Korean War. PIEDMONT was already in the western Pacific and was serving Seventh Fleet ships from Japan when the conflict began. She remained in the region until relieved in November. Her first formally credited Korean service period extended from September 4 through October 27, 1950. Within that period, she received campaign credit from September 25 through October 15 during the North Korean Aggression phase of the war, encompassing the period in which the military situation changed rapidly following the Inchon landings and the subsequent United Nations advance northward.

PIEDMONT returned for another Korean War deployment from August 1, 1951, through February 12, 1952. Her qualifying campaign periods included January 8 through January 10 and February 6 through February 7, 1952, during the Second Korean Winter campaign. By this stage, the highly mobile fighting of 1950 and early 1951 had largely developed into positional warfare while armistice negotiations continued at Panmunjom. Naval forces maintained the blockade of the Korean coast, conducted gunfire support and interdiction missions, supported carrier air operations and minesweeping, and required the continuous repair facilities provided by tenders based in Japan and other nearby locations.

A third Korean deployment extended from September 9, 1952, through March 9, 1953. PIEDMONT received campaign credit from September 23 through October 3 and November 19 through November 23, 1952, during the Korea Defense Summer-Fall 1952 campaign, and from December 28 through December 30, 1952, and January 24 through January 25, 1953, during the Third Korean Winter campaign. During portions of her Korean War service, PIEDMONT also functioned as flagship for the Commander, United Nations Blockading and Escort Force. Her repair facilities did not serve American ships alone; naval units from Canada, Colombia, New Zealand, South Korea and Thailand were among the allied ships receiving tender services from PIEDMONT during the conflict.

The Korean Armistice Agreement was signed on July 27, 1953, but the requirement for naval maintenance and regional presence continued. PIEDMONT made a fourth Korean-related western Pacific tour from April 11 through July 27, 1954. She ultimately received four battle stars for Korean War service. Her repeated deployments reflected the importance of the Japanese support bases to United Nations naval operations, allowing ships to remain within the western Pacific maintenance system rather than returning across the Pacific for all but the most extensive repairs.

PIEDMONT remained closely associated with the western Pacific during the years following the Korean War. In February 1956, she returned from a six-month Far East deployment that had included the Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan. A contemporary Navy photograph taken at Sasebo during this period showed ten ships, consisting of eight destroyers and two escort vessels, gathered alongside PIEDMONT simultaneously, illustrating the scale on which the tender could operate as a floating repair facility.

In January 1957, PIEDMONT again departed the United States for an extended western Pacific deployment. The cruise included Subic Bay in the Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sasebo, Kobe and Yokosuka. PIEDMONT returned to San Diego in August 1957.

Her 1958 deployment coincided with two major international crises. PIEDMONT departed San Diego on June 23, 1958, and steamed west by way of Pearl Harbor. She reached Yokosuka on July 12. Only three days later, on July 15, she sailed for Subic Bay after the crisis in Lebanon intensified. American forces landed in Lebanon that same day during Operation Blue Bat. PIEDMONT did not proceed to the Middle East but remained available at Subic Bay while the United States adjusted naval deployments in response to developments in the region.

The strategic focus shifted again in August. On August 23, 1958, forces of the People's Republic of China began a major artillery bombardment of the Nationalist-held offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu, beginning the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. On August 28, PIEDMONT departed for Kaohsiung, Taiwan. From there, she provided maintenance support to Seventh Fleet units engaged in convoy and patrol duties in the Taiwan Strait while the United States supported efforts to keep the offshore islands supplied and sought to prevent an expansion of the fighting. After the immediate crisis subsided, PIEDMONT returned to Yokosuka by way of Hong Kong. She departed Yokosuka for San Diego on January 12, 1959.

Between 1960 and 1962, PIEDMONT completed two additional western Pacific cruises. Records document operations and port visits in principal Seventh Fleet support areas including Hawaii, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Philippines. These deployments took place during a period of continuing Cold War tension in East Asia, with American naval forces maintaining commitments involving Korea, Taiwan and the increasingly unstable political and military situation in Southeast Asia.

One of the most serious peacetime incidents of PIEDMONT's career occurred during a visit to Hong Kong. On the morning of November 1, 1961, PIEDMONT was proceeding within Victoria Harbour off North Point with a harbor pilot aboard when she collided with the locally licensed motor boat LO KEE. PIEDMONT struck the smaller vessel on its starboard bow. LO KEE sank within minutes. The subsequent official Hong Kong Marine Department report recorded four passenger fatalities: two persons were recovered dead and two remained missing and were presumed drowned. The accident became the subject of a local marine inquiry.

PIEDMONT subsequently underwent a Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization overhaul at Long Beach, California, which was completed on January 31, 1963. Her weapons arrangement and external appearance changed during her postwar career as the importance of the gun armament originally installed during World War II diminished relative to her primary repair and support mission.

PIEDMONT deployed again to the western Pacific from February through September 1963. Records of the cruise document operations and port periods at Yokosuka as well as visits to Hong Kong and Kobe. The deployment continued the pattern established during the 1950s, with prolonged periods at major fleet support bases interrupted by movements among western Pacific ports.

Another western Pacific deployment followed from June through December 1964. This cruise coincided with the rapid expansion of American naval involvement in Vietnam. PIEDMONT spent approximately three months at Subic Bay servicing destroyers and other Seventh Fleet ships operating in the Gulf of Tonkin and off Vietnam. The Gulf of Tonkin incidents in August 1964 were followed by an increasingly sustained American naval presence off the Vietnamese coast, producing additional demands on the repair, supply and maintenance organizations operating from the Philippines and other western Pacific bases.

Her Vietnam-era support continued on subsequent Pacific deployments. A well-documented example from early 1967 involved USS FLETCHER (DD 445). From February 8 through February 17, 1967, FLETCHER was moored alongside PIEDMONT at Kaohsiung for upkeep. The destroyer again encountered PIEDMONT at Subic Bay from April 17 through April 21 for another tender availability before departing for Australia. USS TURNER JOY (DD 951) required more substantial attention during the same period. After operations off Vietnam and the accumulation of repair requirements, TURNER JOY arrived at Subic Bay on April 18, 1967. Repairs were undertaken in dry dock while a tender availability with PIEDMONT proceeded concurrently. The work prepared TURNER JOY for a planned visit to Australia and New Zealand associated with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea. With repairs and tender work completed, she departed Subic Bay on April 24.

During PIEDMONT's 1968 western Pacific deployment, she continued providing repair services at Subic Bay and Kaohsiung. Combat operations off Vietnam were then at particularly high intensity following the Tet Offensive early in the year, and United States surface ships were heavily employed in carrier screening, naval gunfire support, search and rescue, surveillance and coastal operations. PIEDMONT remained within the western Pacific maintenance network supporting ships rotating to and from these assignments.

PIEDMONT was again in the western Pacific during 1969. Photographic records place her at Yokosuka and Subic Bay. At the latter base, USS VEGA (AF 59) and USS ZELIMA (AF 49) were photographed alongside her. The presence of fleet stores ships together with a destroyer tender reflected the concentration of different logistical functions at Subic Bay, which remained one of the principal support centers for Seventh Fleet operations during the Vietnam War.

Before another deployment in 1970, PIEDMONT continued tending Pacific Fleet ships on the West Coast. The records of USS PERKINS (DD 877), for example, document tender and restricted availabilities involving PIEDMONT and other repair ships at San Diego during preparations for the destroyer's seven-month western Pacific deployment beginning on July 27, 1970. PIEDMONT subsequently completed another western Pacific cruise spanning 1970 and 1971 and continued repair work within the established Seventh Fleet support system.

By 1971, the ship was operating from Southern California with Long Beach forming an important part of her stateside support cycle. From September 17 through October 12, 1971, USS BRONSTEIN (DE 1037) underwent a maintenance availability alongside PIEDMONT after shifting to San Diego. Such scheduled availabilities accounted for much of the tender's routine workload and involved mechanical, electrical, ordnance and structural work that could be accomplished without sending the supported ship into a naval shipyard.

PIEDMONT returned to the western Pacific in 1972 as American naval forces conducted intensive operations connected with the North Vietnamese Easter Offensive and the renewed air and naval campaign against North Vietnam. By May she was at Subic Bay. A Navy photograph dated May 23, 1972, shows USS ROARK (DE 1053) and USS FRANCIS HAMMOND (DE 1067) alongside PIEDMONT for support.

The 1972 deployment also brought PIEDMONT into Vietnamese waters. She received campaign credit for service in the Vietnam operational area from June 29 through July 8, 1972. During this period, she operated at Da Nang and provided repair services to ships associated with the active theater. The tender's presence there formed part of the extensive naval support system required during the renewed fighting of 1972. PIEDMONT returned to California later in 1972 and continued Pacific Fleet duties during 1973. She subsequently made another western Pacific deployment extending into 1974. During this final phase of her Pacific Fleet career, she again operated through the established support areas of the western Pacific before returning to California. Following the deployment, preparations were made for a significant change in assignment from the Pacific Fleet environment in which she had spent most of her career to the Atlantic and Mediterranean.

Late in 1974, PIEDMONT shifted to the Mediterranean and established Naples, Italy, as her home port. From December 1974 until June 1976, she served as a forward-based destroyer tender supporting Sixth Fleet operations. The arrangement placed a large repair facility close to ships operating throughout the Mediterranean and enabled many categories of maintenance to be completed without returning vessels to the United States. PIEDMONT serviced both United States and allied naval vessels during this approximately eighteen-month period. The records of individual Sixth Fleet ships provide detailed examples of PIEDMONT's work at Naples. USS CAPODANNO (FF 1093), newly redesignated from destroyer escort to frigate on July 1, 1975, spent July 2 through July 14 at Naples in tender availability alongside PIEDMONT. When the maintenance period was completed, CAPODANNO returned to Mediterranean exercises and carrier task-group operations.

USS FAIRFAX COUNTY (LST 1193), which had deployed from Little Creek, Virginia, on July 28, 1975, and participated in amphibious exercises in the Mediterranean, spent much of October at Naples in a tender availability alongside PIEDMONT. The landing ship had previously participated in Exercise Deep Express with British, Italian and Turkish forces in the Aegean Sea before entering Naples for maintenance.

USS AYLWIN (FF 1081) arrived in the Mediterranean during October 1975 expecting to participate in scheduled exercises, but a boiler casualty altered her program. She proceeded instead to Naples for approximately two weeks of repairs alongside PIEDMONT. With the work completed, AYLWIN departed Naples on November 2 and proceeded to Toulon, France, to join allied forces participating in Exercise Isle d'Or.

PIEDMONT's accommodations and communications facilities also allowed her to function as a headquarters platform. During the latter part of 1975, the staff of Commander, Cruiser-Destroyer Group 12 shifted through several locations in the Mediterranean and eventually embarked in PIEDMONT at Naples. The staff was aboard the tender when USS BELKNAP (CG 26) was catastrophically damaged after colliding with the aircraft carrier USS JOHN F. KENNEDY (CV 67) during nighttime operations in the Mediterranean on November 19, 1975. The collision and subsequent fire caused extensive destruction aboard BELKNAP and resulted in fatalities aboard both vessels. The accident produced an immediate requirement for technical assessment, repair planning and fleet support within the Sixth Fleet while PIEDMONT was serving as its principal forward destroyer tender at Naples.

PIEDMONT remained based at Naples into 1976. USS LITTLE ROCK (CG 4) spent February 2 through February 21 at Naples for a tender availability with PIEDMONT before resuming Sixth Fleet operations. By June, photographs show USS GRAHAM COUNTY (AGP 1176) and USS MAHAN (DDG 42) alongside PIEDMONT at Naples, illustrating the range of vessels that could make use of the tender's facilities.

In June 1976, PIEDMONT's home port shifted from Naples to Norfolk, Virginia, bringing her approximately eighteen-month period as a forward-based Mediterranean tender to an end. From Norfolk she became part of the Atlantic Fleet support organization. The transfer did not end overseas service but changed the operational pattern that had characterized most of her previous career. Instead of repeated western Pacific deployments from California or continuous forward basing in the Mediterranean, PIEDMONT now alternated Atlantic Fleet support duties with deployments from the East Coast.

Following maintenance and training periods, PIEDMONT undertook another Mediterranean deployment in 1978. The cruise returned her to the region in which she had recently spent an extended period as a forward-based tender. Her repair department remained the central element of the ship's mission, supporting deployed Sixth Fleet vessels during a period marked by continuing Cold War competition, instability around the Mediterranean and Middle East and frequent multinational naval exercises.

The late 1970s also brought an important change to the composition of the ship's crew. Changes in United States law and Navy policy opened a growing number of noncombatant ships to permanent assignment of women. On April 18, 1979, PIEDMONT was formally included among the destroyer tenders authorized for permanent assignment of women, and Navy personnel planning provided for women officers aboard the ship. PIEDMONT consequently became part of the early expansion of regular sea duty for women aboard United States Navy ships.

While at Norfolk on July 3, 1979, PIEDMONT became involved in an emergency aboard another ship. A major fire broke out in the medical overflow berthing area near the stern of USS IWO JIMA (LPH 2). The fire spread rapidly and caused serious damage to berthing spaces, portions of the medical department and the weather office. Personnel from PIEDMONT joined crews from USS CALIFORNIA (CGN 36), USS DAHLGREN (DDG 43), USS SYLVANIA (AFS 2), shore firefighters and harbor tugs in helping combat the blaze. After the fire was brought under control, IWO JIMA underwent repairs and continued preparations for her Mediterranean deployment.

PIEDMONT remained based at Norfolk through the beginning of the 1980s and continued providing repair services to Atlantic Fleet vessels. Although both the Navy's maintenance organization and the technology aboard the ships she supported had changed substantially since 1944, the tender's fundamental function remained recognizable: specialized workshops, technicians, tools, spare parts and supporting services were brought directly to operational ships rather than requiring every repair to be undertaken at a major shore facility.

In late May 1981, PIEDMONT participated in an experiment intended to evaluate evolving methods of supporting naval forces at sea. After completing an upkeep period, the ammunition ship USS BUTTE (AE 27) got underway on May 28 for Narragansett Bay, where she joined PIEDMONT and the Military Sealift Command vessel USNS NORTHERN LIGHT in tests connected with the ability of civilian-crewed logistics ships to assist in rearming combatants at sea. The tests were completed before BUTTE returned to Earle, New Jersey, on June 2.

Only two months later, PIEDMONT participated in one of the largest Atlantic naval exercises of the period. Ocean Venture 81 began on August 1, 1981, and continued through October 15. The exercise involved American and allied forces from 15 nations in an Atlantic-wide scenario emphasizing multinational command and control and maritime operations in a major war-at-sea environment. PIEDMONT was listed among the participating naval units from August 1 through August 18.

Even during the final year of her United States Navy service, PIEDMONT continued performing substantial maintenance work. USS SAIPAN (LHA 2), the amphibious assault ship based at Norfolk, underwent an intermediate maintenance availability with PIEDMONT from March 9 through March 31, 1982. The availability formed part of SAIPAN's extended in-port maintenance period and demonstrated that PIEDMONT remained employed as an operational fleet repair ship only months before her own retirement.

By 1982, PIEDMONT had been in continuous commission for more than 38 years. The Navy was introducing newer destroyer tenders and other support arrangements, while most of the destroyers for which PIEDMONT had originally been designed had disappeared from active service. Nevertheless, she completed her final months as an operational Atlantic Fleet tender.

USS PIEDMONT was decommissioned at Norfolk on September 30, 1982. Her career did not end with her United States Navy decommissioning. On October 18, 1982, PIEDMONT was leased to Turkey and entered Turkish naval service as TCG DERYA (A 576). She continued to perform fleet-support duties for the Turkish Navy. Turkey purchased the ship outright on August 6, 1987, and PIEDMONT was struck from the United States Naval Vessel Register. DERYA remained in Turkish service until 1994 and was subsequently scrapped in 1995.

go to the end of the page

USS PIEDMONT Image Gallery:

Back to Destroyer Tenders Site.

Back to ships list.

Back to selection page.

Back to 1^st page.