Dyess (DDR 880) - Naval Cruise Book

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- ,.,. ..7....+- .- . - -.. I . -.- , hips ihisturg DD-880 is named in honor of Lt. Col, Aquilla J. DYESS, USMCR, who was posthumously iawarded our Nation's highest award, the Congressional Medal of Honor, for conspicuous gallantry above and beyond the call of duty during the invasion of Kwajolein Atoll during World WW DYESS was constructed by the Consolidated Steel Corporation in Orange, Texas as a typical World War ll destroyer and was commissioned DD-880 on 21 May 1946. Almost immediatelv. however - in July of that some year - she underwent the first of two conversions designed tO enable her to better meet her fleet commitments. She became, with the addition of special and additional anti-aircraft armament, a radar picket destroyer, her primary mission, long fi range detection and destruction of hostile aircraft. This she remained until 1964, when she derwent a ERAM 1 conversion in Boston Naval Shipyard. There, with the installation of high - powered sonar, the ASROC iAnti-Submarine Rocket Weapon Systemj and the mounting for DASH QDrone Anti-Submarine Helicopterl, her capabilities became primarily oriented toward anti-sub- marine warfare. The year following her fist conversion, DYESS served in the Western Pacific but was soon transferred back to the Atlantic Fleet, where she has served ever since. One momentous break occured in this pattern of activity however, when for seven months in 1966 DYESS served in the waters off Viet Nam in support of U. S. forces there. During this period she spent 8071 of her time underway while steaming some 48,000 miles, and fired almost 3,000 rounds of five inch ammunition in anger at targets from Danang to the Saigon River Delta, DYESS climaxed the cruise by returning around the world across the Equator and through the Suez Canal ln September of 1967 DYESS returned from afour and one half deployment to the Mediterranean and Middle East areas. Enroute to the Pied Sea DYESS was the last warship of any nation to transit the Suez Canal before its closure on 6 June 1967. After over two months on station in the Bed Sea and Persian Gulf during the 1967 Suez Crises DYESS returned home via the Equator and the Cape of Good Hope in escort of the USS FOEBESTAL QCVA-691 which had been severely damaged by fire while on her Viet Nam station. Most recently, in July 1968, Dyess sucessfully completed refresher training at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba following a six month overhaul in Boston Naval Shipyard. She was the first destroyer in two and one half months to pass the Anti-Submarine Warfare Operational Readiness lnspect- ion and she accomplished this feat after only seven hours of actual training with a submarine. DYESS is homeported in Newport, Rhode lsland andis assigned to Destroyer Squadron TWELVE. On September 6, 1968, The DYESS deployed on her 1968-69 MED Cruise and ....... . .

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'Ihr ciaptum This is our CAPTAIN he is DYESS Naval tradition. He is the man who at sea can trols the fates of all on board, and to him falls the joy and as well as the heartache' s of common our CAPTAIN is fit for the ULpTIlvfi,A' nEsPoNsiB1LirY' '. I y A Anative of Norwich, Connecticut, CDBWilliam C. SEIVIPLE III, USN, graduatedfromNorthwestern University with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1951 and was commissioned out of OCS in 1953. I-Iis initial assignment was as an elec- tronics maintenance officer in the GCAprogran1. This was followed by tours on board USS BARTON QDD-7225 as Operations Officer and Navigator and on board USS PROVIDENCE QCLG-61 with the precommissioning detail and subsequently as First Lieutenant. Following a tour in the Bureau of Naval Personnel in the Officer Promotions Division, CDB SEIVIPLE served as Operations Officer, COIVIDESBON 22 and as Executive Officer of the USS DUPONT CDD-9415. Postgraduate education was at the Defense Intelligence School in Washington D. C. Prior to being ordered to command DYESS, CDB SEIVIPLE served on the Joint Staff, United States Military Assistance Cornrnand, Vietnam, as the China- Spain - Thailand Plans Officer. CDB SEMPLE is married to the former Nancy Ann Armstrong of EL Paso, Texas and has two children, Norah age 9 and William age 7.