Newman K Perry (DDR 883) - Naval Cruise Book

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Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea during every year through 1960 except 1951 and 1953. In July 1959 she had her home port changed to Charleston, South Carolina, from where she now operates. The NEWMAN K. PERRY is a GEARING Class, 2250 ton long hull Radar Picket Destroyer with an actual full load displacement of 3500 tons. She is 300 feet 6 inches long, has an ex- treme beam of 40 feet 10 inches and a mean draft of 14 feet 8 inches. Her propulsion system consists of 4 boilers and 2 geared turbines with a maximum output of.60,000 shaft horsepower. Her primary function as a DDR is to serve as a long range warning picket and fighter control ship against enemy aircraft while operating with Fast Carrier Task Forces, a job for which she is well equipped. The wartime complement is 18 Officers and 296 Enlisted Men, however, the ship presently operates with 15 Officers and 248 Enlisted Men. She is commanded by Owen A. Roberts, CDR, USN.

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The USS N EWMAN K. PERRY was named in memory of Ensign Newman K. Perry, gradu- ate of the U.S. Naval Academy, class of 1901, who was killed in a boiler explosion aboard the gunboat USS BENNINGTON, in San Diego Harbor in 1905. Built by the Consolidated Steel Corpora- tion of Orange, Texas, she was launched on March 7, 1945, and commissioned on July 26, 1945, under the sponsorship of Mrs Laura Perry Gunter of Columbia, South Carolina, Ensign Perryls sister. Her shakedown cruise and early opefafloni were conducted in the Atlantic, but O11 Nolgfilt ber 7, 1945, she departed for the PQC1f1F Atoll and in 1946 participated in the B1k1n1 met operation CROSSROAD Where the atiqlilou h its first test as a weapon of the sea.. tie she generally operated out 'Of 5-an D1?gO'1947 ship cruised the Chinese mainland dl111SI1EN K' and 1948. In April 1949 the NEW .dhad PERRY once again joined DESLANfh2l1f1hOme Newport, Rhode Island, ass1gnCd 3? I-fleet she port. After returning to the. At1ant1C he Sixth participated in Fleet Operations with t

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QQMMANDING oPP1cER CDR OVVEN A. ROBERTS, USN Commander Owen A. Roberts, U. S. Navy, assumed command of the USS NEVV MAN K. PERRY QDDR-8835 on 29 April 1960. Previous to this assignment, Commander Roberts had been Head of the Section for Guided Missile Training in the Bureau of Naval Personnel, Washington, D. C-. He was Executive Officer of the USS y VOGELGESANG- QDD-8-625 Wh1Ch operated with the fast carrier forces of the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean and European waters prior to his assignment to the Bureau of Naval Personnel. During World War II, Commander Roberts served aboard the destroyers DECATUR and TAUSSIG in the Atlantic and Pacific, and early in the Korean conflict he was Executive Officer of an LST which took part in landings on the coasts of Korea. Commander Roberts is in his seventeenth year of naval service and in his fourth assign- ment to destroyers. He has also served aboard two LST's, the guided missile developmental ship USS NORTON SOUND QAVM-lj, and as Assistant Operations Officer of Task GTQU-P 7.1 LOS ALAMOS SCIENTIFIC LABORATORY during certain nuclear tests at the P2lC1f1C Proving Grounds and at the Nevada Test Site for which the Presidential Citation W2lS d d h awar e t e Laboratory and Commander Joint Task Force Seven personal commendation t0 Commander Roberts. He is a graduate of Loyola U niversity, New Orleans, Louisiana, the U.S. Naval .Post grad- uate School in Monterey, California, the U.S. Army Guided Missiles School, Fort Bliss, Texas, and the Armed Forces Staff College, Norfolk,Virginia. I . While in the Washington Area, Commander Roberts was active in local groups and CIYIC affairs. He is an active member of the McLean Estates Civic Association, the MCLCHH Little League the Boy Scouts of America and S h I - 1 ,- t. Jo n's .Catholic Church Men's Council. He 1S married to the former Mary Medling of jackson, Tennessee and the father of two sons and two daughters. P