USS Lovelace (DE-198)
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| History | |
|---|---|
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| Name: | USS Lovelace |
| Namesake: | Lovelace |
| Builder: | Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia |
| Laid down: | 22 May 1943 |
| Launched: | 4 July 1943 |
| Commissioned: | 7 November 1943 |
| Decommissioned: | 22 May 1946 |
| Struck: | 1 July 1967 |
| Honors and awards: |
3 battle stars (World War II) |
| Fate: | Sunk as target off California, 25 April 1968 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Buckley-class destroyer escort |
| Displacement: | 1,400 long tons (1,422 t) |
| Length: | 306 ft (93 m) |
| Beam: | 26 ft 9 in (8.15 m) |
| Draft: | 13 ft 6 in (4.11 m) |
| Speed: | 24 knots (44 km/h; 28 mph) |
| Range: | 4,940 nmi (9,150 km) |
| Complement: | 213 officers and enlisted |
| Armament: |
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USS Lovelace (DE-198) was a Buckley-class destroyer escort in the United States Navy. She was named for naval aviator Donald Alexander Lovelace (1906–1942).
Lovelace was laid down on 22 May 1943; launched on 4 July 1943 by Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia; sponsored by Mrs. Donald A. Lovelace, widow; and commissioned on 7 November 1943, with Lt. Comdr. R. D. de Kay, Jr., in command.
After shakedown, Lovelace departed Norfolk on 2 January 1944 never to return to the east coast of the United States. This flagship of Destroyer Escort Division 37 picked up convoys at Guantanamo, the Panama Canal Zone, and the Society Islands as she steamed across the southern Pacific to Noumea, New Caledonia, arriving on 8 February.
Escort and screening duties in the Solomon Islands preceded her departure on 19 April for the New Guinea battle zone. Arriving off Hollandia (now Jayapura, Indonesia) without incident on 24 April, she screened the debarking of the second wave of relief troops. Later Lovelace interrupted her New Guinea coastal patrol and escort missions on 8 July to bombard beach targets at Toem and on 22 July entered a floating drydock at Milne Bay. A more important cessation from an almost continuous sailing schedule occurred a month later at New Caledonia, where new 20 mm guns were installed.
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