USS George (DE-697)

History


Name:	USS George
Namesake:	Eugene F. George
Ordered:	1942
Builder:	Defoe Shipbuilding Company, Bay City, Michigan
Laid down:	22 May 1943
Launched:	14 August 1943
Commissioned:	20 November 1943
Decommissioned:	8 October 1958
Struck:	1 November 1969
Honors and awards:	2 battle stars (World War II)
Fate:	Sold for scrapping, 12 October 1970
General characteristics
Class and type:	Buckley-class destroyer escort
Displacement:	1,400 long tons (1,422 t) light 1,673 long tons (1,700 t) standard
Length:	306 ft (93 m)
Beam:	37 ft (11 m)
Draft:	13 ft 6 in (4.11 m)
Propulsion:	2 × boilers General Electric turbo-electric drive 12,000 shp (8.9 MW) 2 × solid manganese-bronze 3,600 lb (1,600 kg) 3-bladed propellers, 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m) diameter, 7 ft 7 in (2.31 m) pitch 2 × rudders
Speed:	24 knots (44 km/h; 28 mph)
Complement:	186
Armament:	3 × 3"/50 caliber guns 1 × quad 1.1"/75 caliber gun 8 × single 20 mm guns 1 × triple 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes 1 × Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar (144 rounds) 8 × K-gun depth charge projectors 2 × depth charge tracks

USS George (DE-697) was a Buckley-class destroyer escort. She was the second ship of the United States Navy named after Seaman Second Class Eugene F. George (1925–1942), who was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for his heroism on USS San Francisco at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal.

George was laid down on 22 May 1943 at the Defoe Shipbuilding Company, Bay City, Michigan. The ship was launched on 14 August 1943; sponsored by Mrs. Harlow F. George, the mother of Seaman George; and commissioned at New Orleans, Louisiana, on 20 November 1943, with Lieutenant Commander John E. Page in command.

After shakedown off Bermuda, George sailed from Boston, Massachusetts on 11 January 1944 to escort a merchantman from Norfolk, Virginia to Nouméa, New Caledonia, where she arrived on 19 February. Until the spring of 1944, George escorted transports to the Admiralties, the New Hebrides, and the Solomons during consolidation operations in the Solomons. On 16 May, she sailed from Florida Island, in the Solomons, in a hunter-killer group with England (DE-635) and Raby (DE-698) on what was to become one of the most successful anti-submarine actions in the Pacific war.