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USS Truett (FF 1095)

USS TRUETT was the 44^th KNOX-class frigate and one of the eight ships of her class transfered to the Naval Reserve Force serving as Reserve Training Frigates (FFT). Each of the eight Reserve Training Frigates had its own reserve crew, and was also assigned four "nucleus crews" which would man the 32 decommissioned KNOX-class frigates in the case of a reactivation of these ships.

Decommissioned on July 30, 1994, the TRUETT was subsequently leased to Thailand where she was recommissioned as HTMS PHUTTHAYOTFA CHULALOK. Stricken from the Navy list on January 11, 1995, the TRUETT was eventually purchased by Thailand on December 9, 1999. She remained in Thai service for more than two decades. HTMS PHUTTHAYOTFA CHULALOK was decommissioned by the Royal Thai Navy on September 30, 2017. After decommissioning, the ship was preserved rather than scrapped. On September 22, 2020, HTMS PHUTTHAYOTFA CHULALOK was opened as a floating museum at Sattahip Naval Base.

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Crew List:

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

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• Click here to see which USS TRUETT memorabilia are currently for sale on ebay.

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USS TRUETT Cruise Books:

• Mediterranean Cruise Book 1982

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About the Ship's Namesake:

Quincy Hightower Truett was a United States Navy Chief Boatswain's Mate and Navy Cross recipient of the Vietnam War. He was born on April 3, 1932, in Quitman, Georgia, and enlisted in the Navy on September 14, 1951, at Jacksonville, Florida.

During the Vietnam War, Truett served with River Division 551, River Patrol Flotilla Five, Task Force 116, part of the U.S. Navy's riverine forces in South Vietnam. On the night of January 20, 1969, while operating on the Kinh Dong Tien Canal, his patrol group came under heavy enemy fire. When the boat ahead of him was hit and began to burn, throwing its crew into the water, Truett directed his own patrol boat into the danger area and helped rescue the men while exposed to enemy fire. He was mortally wounded after the last man had been recovered.

For his actions, Chief Boatswain's Mate Truett was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross, the Navy's second-highest decoration for valor. His name is listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Panel 34W, Line 046.

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USS TRUETT History:

USS TRUETT (DE 1095), later USS TRUETT (FF 1095) and finally USS TRUETT (FFT 1095), was a KNOX-class ocean escort and frigate built for the U.S. Navy's Cold War anti-submarine, convoy-protection, and task-group escort mission. The ship was ordered on August 25, 1966, as part of the broad KNOX-class construction program. Her keel was laid down at Avondale Shipyards, Westwego, Louisiana, on April 27, 1972, and she was launched on February 3, 1973. Geraldine Truett Walter, the widow of the ship's namesake, served as sponsor. After completion and trials, the Navy acquired the ship at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Portsmouth, Virginia, on May 24, 1974. USS TRUETT was commissioned there on June 1, 1974. Although the ship began her career as an ocean escort, the Navy-wide ship reclassification in 1975 changed her designation to frigate, and from July 1, 1975, she served as USS TRUETT (FF 1095).

The first months of USS TRUETT's commissioned life were spent bringing the new ship and her crew to operational readiness. After commissioning at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, she remained in the Hampton Roads area through the summer of 1974 for fitting out, inspections, administrative organization, and preparation for shakedown. Her first major movement began on August 20, 1974, when she departed Hampton Roads for the Caribbean. She reached Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on September 3 and began six weeks of shakedown training. Guantanamo Bay was then the standard Atlantic Fleet training base for newly commissioned ships, and USS TRUETT used the period to work through engineering drills, damage control, seamanship, gunnery, communications, anti-submarine warfare procedures, and shiphandling. The shakedown period ended on October 8, 1974. Before returning home, she made a brief stop at St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, then arrived back at Norfolk on October 18.

Late 1974 and the opening months of 1975 were devoted to local operations, repairs, and the transition from shakedown to Atlantic Fleet service. During April 1975, USS TRUETT conducted tests and training and embarked 40 officers from the Surface Warfare School, giving them practical experience aboard a new escort. The following month brought early work with the LAMPS helicopter system and an associated aviation detachment, an important part of the KNOX-class concept because the ship's helicopter extended her anti-submarine reach beyond the range of shipboard sensors and weapons. On May 24, 1975, she cleared Norfolk for Exercise Solid Shield. Conducted off the southeastern coast of the United States and in the amphibious operating areas around North Carolina, Solid Shield was a large joint and naval training event. For USS TRUETT, the exercise provided early experience in coordinated fleet operations, amphibious support, screening, communications, and the practical integration of a new escort into larger naval formations. After nine days, she returned to Norfolk.

USS TRUETT's first extended overseas operating period began shortly after her reclassification from ocean escort to frigate. About twenty days after the July 1, 1975 change in designation, she departed Norfolk for Unitas XVI. The annual Unitas series was one of the U.S. Navy's long-running multinational exercise programs with Latin American navies, designed to improve interoperability, strengthen maritime relationships, and provide repeated anti-submarine, surface-warfare, communications, and seamanship training around South America. USS TRUETT steamed south from Norfolk, transited the Panama Canal, and exercised with the Colombian Navy before making another canal transit on August 8, 1975. From there, she proceeded into the Pacific phases of Unitas XVI with the navies of Peru and Chile, then rounded Cape Horn into the South Atlantic. The passage around the southern end of the continent was operationally significant for a relatively new Atlantic Fleet frigate because it tested long-distance engineering reliability, navigation, and coordination across very different oceanic operating areas. After the Cape Horn transit, she continued the exercise sequence with the navies of Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, and Venezuela. TRUETT made a brief stop at Trinidad before returning to Norfolk on December 8, 1975.

The first two months of 1976 were spent in normal operations from Norfolk after the return from South America. A more demanding Atlantic exercise followed in March. From March 3 to March 21, 1976, USS TRUETT participated in Safepass 76, an anti-submarine and convoy exercise with the Standing Naval Force Atlantic. The exercise reflected the central Cold War maritime problem for NATO: whether allied navies could protect reinforcement convoys and sea lines of communication across the North Atlantic against Soviet submarines in a crisis or war. For USS TRUETT, the exercise placed her within the NATO escort environment for which the KNOX-class had been designed, combining submarine detection, convoy screening, tactical communications, and multinational command-and-control procedures.

A larger NATO-oriented deployment began on June 14, 1976, when USS TRUETT departed Norfolk for six months of North Atlantic operations. During this deployment, she operated with NATO forces, participated in two major fleet exercises, and visited twenty ports between Norway and Portugal. The deployment occurred at a time when the Soviet Navy was expanding blue-water operations, and one of USS TRUETT's most notable tasks was the surveillance of the Soviet aircraft carrier KIEV as that ship moved from the Black Sea toward Murmansk. USS TRUETT shadowed KIEV off the west coast of Scotland, a mission that reflected the close monitoring of Soviet naval movements by NATO surface forces during the Cold War. KIEV's transit was of particular interest because the ship represented a new Soviet naval capability, combining aviation facilities, missile armament, and a role that Western observers watched closely. USS TRUETT returned to Norfolk on December 17, 1976, then entered a period of leave and tender availability.

The ship's 1977 schedule was shaped by post-deployment upkeep, inspections, qualifications, and preparations for another overseas assignment. During the year, she conducted two major Atlantic Fleet exercises and completed six inspections or qualification events. These activities were less visible than an overseas deployment but were essential to sustaining readiness, especially for a frigate whose mission depended on engineering reliability, sonar performance, weapons proficiency, and the ability to operate for extended periods in task groups. The next Mediterranean deployment began on September 27, 1977, when USS TRUETT departed Norfolk. Her movement placed her back into the Sixth Fleet operating cycle at a time when the Mediterranean remained one of the most active Cold War naval theaters. Soviet naval units operated from the Black Sea into the eastern Mediterranean, NATO maintained a constant maritime presence on its southern flank, and U.S. carrier, amphibious, and escort forces were used for both deterrence and crisis response.

By early 1978, USS TRUETT had moved beyond the Mediterranean into the Red Sea and western Indian Ocean approaches. She transited the Suez Canal on February 2, 1978, and operated with the Middle East Force in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden during the Ethiopian-Somalian crisis. That crisis, tied to the Ogaden War between Ethiopia and Somalia, drew international attention because it intersected with Cold War competition in the Horn of Africa, shifting Soviet and Cuban involvement, U.S. regional interests, and the strategic importance of the Red Sea approaches. USS TRUETT spent 56 uninterrupted days at sea during this period. Her presence in those waters reflected the role of U.S. naval forces as mobile instruments of presence and surveillance in a region where basing access was limited and maritime routes were strategically important. In April 1978 she returned to the Mediterranean, and on April 25 she arrived back at Norfolk.

The summer of 1978 brought operations along the U.S. East Coast, followed by a major maintenance period. On September 27, 1978, USS TRUETT began a regular overhaul at the Braswell Shipyard in Boston, Massachusetts. The overhaul carried her into 1979. For a KNOX-class frigate after several demanding years of Caribbean training, South American exercises, NATO North Atlantic deployment, Mediterranean operations, and Middle East Force service, such a yard period was a substantial event.

After the Boston overhaul, USS TRUETT remained in active Atlantic Fleet service. This period also coincided with a changing strategic environment. The Iranian Revolution in 1979, the seizure of American hostages in Tehran, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and continued tension in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean increased the importance of deployable U.S. naval escorts.

USS TRUETT got underway from Norfolk on June 8, 1982, for a Mediterranean deployment. Her cruise book record places the ship within a Sixth Fleet environment that included carrier, command, cruiser, destroyer, frigate, amphibious, and support units. The deployment coincided with the 1982 Lebanon War, which began with Israel's invasion of Lebanon in June and soon created a major U.S. and allied naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean. Sixth Fleet ships supported evacuation planning, presence operations, surveillance, and the wider American response to instability ashore. For USS TRUETT, the cruise book material identifies a sequence of port calls and operating periods that placed her repeatedly in the central and eastern Mediterranean during this crisis.

The first recorded Mediterranean port period of the 1982 deployment brought USS TRUETT to Naples, Italy, from June 29 into early July. She then visited Villefranche, France, from July 7 to July 19, a traditional Sixth Fleet liberty and upkeep port on the French Riviera. Barcelona, Spain, followed from August 2 to August 6, and a second Naples period lasted from August 9 to August 16. After that, the ship's schedule shifted toward the eastern Mediterranean and the Lebanon crisis area. The cruise book record identifies Beirut-area operations from August 20 to September 10. A port period at Taormina, Sicily, followed from September 13 to September 19, after which USS TRUETT again operated off Beirut from September 24 to October 9. Gaeta, Italy, served as a port and upkeep stop from October 12 to October 24. The final recorded Beirut-area period of the deployment ran from November 15 to December 7. These repeated operations off Lebanon show that USS TRUETT was part of the sustained Sixth Fleet naval presence during one of the most serious Mediterranean crises of the early 1980s.

During this same broad eastern Mediterranean operating period, USS TRUETT was also credited with a rescue at sea. In a case reported in Navy material in 1983, she assisted two British citizens whose 27-foot sloop had been driven off its Turkey-to-Limassol route by a storm. More than 80 nautical miles from land, USS TRUETT located and aided the vessel, then took it in tow toward Cyprus until a local salvage craft could assume the tow.

From August 15 to October 16, 1986, USS NIMITZ (CVN 68) deployed to the North Atlantic for Northern Engagement and Northern Wedding 86. USS TRUETT was listed among the ships operating in company with that force. Northern Wedding 86 tested NATO's ability to defend northern Europe and maintain reinforcement routes in the event of a Warsaw Pact attack. For USS TRUETT, participation placed her once more in the classic late-Cold War maritime mission: operating with carriers, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and auxiliaries in the North Atlantic and Norwegian Sea approaches, where NATO expected that a major conflict would involve both air and submarine threats to transatlantic reinforcement.

In 1987, USS TRUETT appeared in another documented large fleet operating environment. On June 17, 1987, she was photographed in a Mediterranean turnover formation with a large group of U.S. Navy ships. The formation placed USS TRUETT in company with two aircraft carriers, several guided-missile and escort ships, and a replenishment ship during a period when the Mediterranean remained a central theater of U.S. naval presence and carrier battle group operations. A later photograph from June 26, 1987, also shows USS TRUETT underway, further documenting her activity during this period.

The following year brought another clearly documented carrier-group movement. On August 12, 1988, USS TRUETT was photographed underway with the USS JOHN F. KENNEDY (CV 67) battle group as part of Task Group 24.4, an 18-ship formation transiting the North Atlantic en route to the Mediterranean. This movement occurred during the final years of the Cold War, when carrier battle groups remained the principal visible expression of U.S. naval power in the Mediterranean and adjacent waters. USS TRUETT's place in such a formation reflected the continuing value of KNOX-class frigates as escorts, anti-submarine platforms, and task-group ships even as newer OLIVER HAZARD PERRY-class frigates and TICONDEROGA-class cruisers entered service in greater numbers.

By 1990, the ship was still active in Atlantic Fleet training. A command-history reference from USS KLAKRING (FFG 42) records a rendezvous in 1990 with USS TRUETT and USS SAN JUAN (SSN 751) east of the Bahamas. In 1991, a USS ELROD (FFG 55) command-history reference places USS TRUETT in exercise and operations activity with ships including USS DAHLGREN (DDG 43), USS MAHAN (DDG 42), USS TICONDEROGA (CG 47), USS BAINBRIDGE (CGN 25), USS DOYLE (FFG 39), and USS ELROD. This again shows her role in Atlantic Fleet training during the transition period between the Cold War and the post-Cold War force reductions that soon affected many KNOX-class frigates. Her awards and service record suggest Southwest Asia and Kuwait-related credit in the Desert Shield and Desert Storm era.

The end of the Cold War brought a major change in USS TRUETT's status. On December 31, 1991, she was reclassified as a training frigate, becoming USS TRUETT (FFT 1095), and was assigned to the Naval Reserve Force, Atlantic, at Norfolk, Virginia. She was one of eight KNOX-class ships transferred to the Naval Reserve Force as Reserve Training Frigates. In that role, she remained a commissioned Navy warship, but her primary function shifted toward training Selected Reserve crews and maintaining a mobilization-ready surface-combatant capability. The reserve training frigates operated under a different manning and readiness model from fully active fleet frigates, using reserve crew arrangements and a smaller active nucleus crew structure. For USS TRUETT, the shift from FF to FFT symbolized the broader post-Cold War drawdown. The Soviet Union had dissolved, the Navy was reducing older Cold War hulls, and the KNOX-class was being removed from active front-line service or reassigned to training and foreign-transfer roles.

USS TRUETT remained in the Naval Reserve Force until 1994. Her U.S. Navy career ended on July 30, 1994, when she was decommissioned. On the same day, she was leased to Thailand and recommissioned in the Royal Thai Navy as HTMS PHUTTHAYOTFA CHULALOK (FFG 461). The transfer gave the former USS TRUETT a second career in Southeast Asia, where Thailand used former U.S. KNOX-class frigates to strengthen its surface fleet and anti-submarine capability. She was stricken from the U.S. Naval Vessel Register on January 11, 1995. On December 9, 1999, the ship was permanently transferred to Thailand.

The former USS TRUETT remained in Thai service for more than two decades. HTMS PHUTTHAYOTFA CHULALOK was decommissioned by the Royal Thai Navy on September 30, 2017, ending an operational career that had begun with U.S. commissioning on June 1, 1974, and continued through American active service, reserve training, transfer, and long foreign service. After decommissioning, the ship was preserved rather than scrapped. On September 22, 2020, HTMS PHUTTHAYOTFA CHULALOK was opened as a floating museum at Sattahip Naval Base.

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USS TRUETT Patch Gallery:

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USS TRUETT Image Gallery:

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