Compton (DD 705) - Naval Cruise Book

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t s AWN . A destroyer is a lovely ship, probably the nicest fighting ship of all. Battle-ships are a little like steel cities or great factories of destruction. Aircraft carriers are floating flying fields. Even Crl1iSG1'S are big pieces of machinery, but a destroyer is all boat. III the beautiful Clean lines of her, in her speed and roughness, in her curious gallantry, she is completely a ship, in the old sense. -John Steinbeck, Once There Was u War

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With her proud flags flying, the COMPTON cast off her lines to the destroyer piers in Newport, Rh0dC IS1ar1Cl Ofl 4 Al1gl1Sf 1960 and set course for the Straits of Gibralter and the United States Sixth Fleet. Transiting the Atlantic in company with Destroyer Squadron Twelve, the carrier INTREPID and the fleet oiler WACCAMAW, she joined the Sixth Fleet in Golfe de Palmas on August 1960. As part of the destroyer element of the Carrier Striking Group of Task Force 60, she sailed for the eastern Mediterranean for fleet exercises during the first three months. When a third carrier was assigned to the Sixth Fleet, COMPTON and PURDY were detached to meet the SARATOGA in Rota, Spain and escort her safely to the Mediterranean operation areas. Between extensive operations at sea, the COMPTON showed the flag in Fuimicino, Italy for the Olympic Games, in Athens, Greece, in Istabul, Turkey, and Beriut, Lebanon. In November, Task Force 60 moved to the western Mediterranean and COMPTON continued her varied missions with the Fleet in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Naples, La Spezia and Genoa were the ports selected for COMPTON'S liberty visits and Christmas was spent at the Andria Doria Pier in Genoa. Underway on the 26th of December, she sailed to Naples where she welcomed in 1961 while undergoing her second maintainance period alongside the destroyer tender CASCADE. After New Year's, the deteriorating world situation sent COMPTON to sea before her availability was complete. COMPTON joined her sister units in the Tyrrhenian Sea for fleet exercises. Liberty again in Naples, and then in Golfe juan on the French Riviera gave her crew a respite from the rapid pace of fleet operations. Turning over her store of knowledge and experience to units of Destroyer Squadron Thirty-Two, COMPTON was detached from the Sixth Fleet on 13 February 1961 and, stopping off for fuel in Rota, Spain, she headed out into the Atlantic and set course for Newport. Six IHOHUIIS with Che Sixth Fleet Was hard work. The COMPTON participated in many and varied exercises with the Fleet and the entire structure of the NATO defense forces in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean. Serving frequently as rescue destroyer for the attack carrier INTREPID, she became a part of the high morale of that Outstanding carrier flying group. Through her cordial and hospitable relations with the people of the ports she visited, she spread the easy and sincere good will of the U.S. Navy and the United States. As a unit of the Sixth Fleet, COMPTON served well and was a solid support for the continuing defense of the free world. With the Rock of Gibralter fading from view in the boiling waters astern, COMPTON closed another successful chapter in her h0r10rable history as a fighting destroyer.