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USS Fieberling (DE-640)
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Career US flag 48 stars
Name: USS Fieberling
Namesake: Langdon K. Fieberling
Builder: Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, San Francisco
Laid down: 19 March 1944
Launched: 2 April 1944
Commissioned: 11 April 1944
Decommissioned: 13 March 1948
Struck: 1 March 1972
Honors and
awards:
1 battle star (World War II)
Fate: Sold for scrap, 20 November 1972
General characteristics
Class & type: Buckley-class destroyer escort
Displacement: 1,400 long tons (1,422 t) standard
1,740 long tons (1,768 t) full load
Length: 306 ft (93 m)
Beam: 36 ft 9 in (11.20 m)
Draft: 13 ft 6 in (4.11 m)
Propulsion: General Electric turbo-electric drive
12,000 shp (8.9 MW)
2 × propellers
Speed: 24 knots (44 km/h; 28 mph)
Range: 4,940 nmi (9,150 km) at 12 kn (22 km/h; 14 mph)
Complement: 15 officers, 198 men
Armament: • 3 × 3 in (76 mm) DP guns
• 3 × 21 in (53 cm) torpedo tubes
• 1 × quad 1.1 in (28 mm) AA gun
• 8 × 20 mm cannon
• 1 × hedgehog anti-submarine mortar
• 2 × depth charge tracks
• 8 × K-gun depth charge projectors

USS Fieberling (DE-640) was a Buckley-class destroyer escort of the United States Navy, named in honor of Lieutenant Langdon K. Fieberling (1910–1942), a naval aviator in squadron VT-8, who was killed in action in the Battle of Midway.

Fieberling was launched on 2 April 1944 by Bethlehem Steel Co., San Francisco, California; sponsored by Mrs. C. A. Fieberling, mother of Lieutenant Fieberling; and commissioned on 11 April 1944, Lieutenant Commander E. E. Lull, USNR, in command.

Service history[]

Fieberling arrived at Pearl Harbor on 27 June 1944 for escort duty to Eniwetok, making three such voyages to the staging ground for the operation until 3 September. Five days later she sailed for Manus Island and Purvis Bay, arriving 27 September. Until 15 December, she sailed out of Port Purvis on escort and air-sea rescue duty, then served as station ship at Funafuti until 17 February 1945.

After amphibious landing rehearsals at Guadalcanal, Fieberling arrived at Ulithi on 21 March 1945 to load stores and ammunition for the assault on Okinawa. She arrived off the island on 31 March, covered the landings the next day, and then served on anti-submarine patrol off the island, receiving damage from a near miss in the massive kamikaze raids of 6 April. After escorting a convoy of unloaded assault ships to Saipan between 9 and 29 April, Fieberling returned to Okinawa for patrol, escort, and radar picket duty until 28 June.

Fieberling operated on escort duty between Okinawa and Guam and Saipan until 22 October 1945, when she sailed to escort a transport from Saipan to Japan. She returned to Portland, Oregon, on 22 November, and after overhaul, sailed from San Diego, California on 15 March 1946 for occupation duty off the Chinese coast. Back in San Diego on 13 August, she operated along the west coast and in the Hawaiian Islands, testing experimental equipment, until decommissioned on 13 March 1948 and placed in reserve at San Diego.

Stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 March 1972, Fieberling was sold on 20 November of that same year.

Awards[]

Fieberling received one battle star for World War II service.

References[]

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entries can be found here and here.

External links[]


All or a portion of this article consists of text from Wikipedia, and is therefore Creative Commons Licensed under GFDL.
The original article can be found at USS Fieberling (DE-640) and the edit history here.
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