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DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
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WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060

Photo # NH 98831:  USS Epperson when first completed, 18 March 1949

Online Library of Selected Images:
-- U.S. NAVY SHIPS --

USS Epperson (DDE-719, later DD-719), 1949-1977

USS Epperson, a 2425-ton Gearing class destroyer built at Kearny, New Jersey, was launched in December 1945 but was laid up incomplete. In January 1948 she was reclassified as an Escort Destroyer (DDE-719). After conversion work at Bath, Maine, she was placed in commission in March 1949 and began more than a year of training and antisubmarine exercises in East Coast waters. Epperson was transferred to the Pacific in August 1950, to be based at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, her home port for the next twenty-three years. In 1951 and 1952-1953 she made two Korean War combat deployments, during which she carried out shore bombardment, patrol and antisubmarine missions.

During the rest of the 1950s and the early 1960s Epperson regularly steamed across the Pacific for tours of duty with the Seventh Fleet, sometimes visiting Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific on her return voyages. In 1954 she participated in Operation "Castle", a series of nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands, and in 1961-1963 she helped recover manned and unmanned spacecraft that had orbited the Globe as parts of the Mercury and Discoverer programs. Her designation reverted to DD-719 in June 1962.

Epperson was extensively modernized at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard in 1964 under the Fleet Modernization and Rehabilitation ("FRAM"). Emerging in FRAM I configuration, she was now fitted with an antisubmarine rocket launcher (ASROC) and a small hangar and flight deck for drone helicopters, as well as a largely new superstructure. The destroyer soon resumed her pattern of nearly annual deployments to the Western Pacific. In seven cruises from September 1965 to April 1973 Epperson was frequently engaged in combat operations off Vietnam, involving naval gunfire support work, plus search and rescue duties and service screening the aircraft carriers and cruisers that were constantly on station in the Gulf of Tonkin.

Shortly after the end of her 1972-1973 Far Eastern cruise, Epperson's home port was changed to Seattle, Washington, where she served as a Naval Reserve Training ship until decommissioned at the beginning of December 1975. Epperson was sold to Pakistan in April 1977 and renamed Taimur. Following two decades of service as a unit of Pakistan's Navy, the nearly fifty-year old destroyer was stricken in 1998.

This page features, and provides links to, all the views we have related to USS Epperson (DDE-719, later DD-719).

For more images concerning this ship, see:

  • USS Epperson (DD-719) -- 1964 and Later Views.


    If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."

    Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.

    Photo #: NH 98831

    USS Epperson (DDE-719)


    Photographed when first completed, probably during her delivery voyage from Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine, on 18 March 1949.
    Her Weapon "Able" anti-submarine rocket launcher has not yet been installed.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

    Online Image: 74KB; 740 x 600 pixels

     
    Photo #: NH 98867

    USS Epperson (DDE-719)


    Delivery photograph, taken by the Bath Iron Works Corporation, Bath, Maine, 18 March 1949.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

    Online Image: 54KB; 740 x 580 pixels

     
    Photo #: NH 98871

    USS Epperson (DDE-719)


    Undergoes an inclining experiment at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, Hawaii, 8 July 1957.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

    Online Image: 147KB; 600 x 765 pixels

     
    Photo #: NH 98869

    USS Epperson (DDE-719)


    Underway at sea, 23 March 1958.
    Photographed by Pierce.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

    Online Image: 155KB; 740 x 600 pixels

     
    Photo #: NH 91904

    USS Epperson (DDE-719)


    At Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in May 1958.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

    Online Image: 95KB; 740 x 605 pixels

     
    Photo #: NH 98870

    USS Epperson (DDE-719)


    Underway in the Pearl Harbor Channel, Oahu, Hawaii, 22 January 1962.
    Photographed by PHCS Robert A. Carlisle.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

    Online Image: 99KB; 740 x 615 pixels

     
    Photo #: 80-G-415506

    USS Epperson (DDE-719)
    , in the foreground
    and
    USS Sarsfield (DD-837)

    Taking part in anti-submarine warfare exercises, 15 June 1950.
    Sarsfield has fired a dual Hedgehoge pattern, whose depth bombs have just impacted the water.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

    Online Image: 114KB; 740 x 615 pixels

    Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

     
    Photo #: NH 98868

    USS Epperson (DDE-719)
    , in the foreground
    and
    USS Sarsfield (DD-837)

    Taking part in anti-submarine warfare exercises, 15 June 1950.
    Sarsfield has fired a dual Hedgehoge pattern, and is over-running the impact area. Note that she carries only one twin 5"/38 gun mount forward.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

    Online Image: 114KB; 740 x 610 pixels

     
    Photo #: 80-G-415520

    USS Epperson (DDE-719)
    , center
    and
    USS Sarsfield (DD-837), at right

    Dropping depth charges during anti-submarine warfare exercises, 15 June 1950.
    Sarsfield has also fired her "K-Gun" depth charge projectors, making vertical smoke trails (aft of the ship) and impact splashes to port and starboard.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

    Online Image: 92KB; 740 x 615 pixels

    Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

     
    Photo #: NH 67257-KN (color)

    USS Epperson (DDE-719)

    Jacket patch of the ship's insignia, as used prior to 1962.

    Courtesy of Captain G.F. Swainson, USN, 1969.

    U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

    Online Image: 135KB; 590 x 675 pixels

     


    In addition to the images presented above, the National Archives appears to hold other pre-1964 views of USS Epperson (DDE-719, later DD-719). The following list features some of these images:

    The images listed below are NOT in the Naval Historical Center's collections.
    DO NOT try to obtain them using the procedures described in our page "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions".


  • Photo #: 80-G-706983
    USS Epperson (DDE-719) tied up to a wharf, 22 March 1949, probably during trials. She has not yet been fitted with a Weapon ABLE rocket launcher.
    Starboard bow view, rather tight on the bow, with the ship's stem cropped out of the view and some of her hull obscured by the wharf structure and mooring lines.


  • Photo #: 80-G-1028347
    USS Epperson (DDE-719) underway near apparent aircraft wreckage, during a rescue operation, November 1957.
    Starboard quarter high aerial view, rather more broadside than astern, with a ragged wake trailing astern of the ship and the apparent wreckage off her port side about 50 yards away.


  • Photo #: USN 1077700
    USS Epperson (DD-719) underway off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii, 1 April 1963.
    Port bow aerial view.

  • Photo #: USN 1077701
    As USN 1077700, but starboard broadside aerial view.


    Reproductions of these images should be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system for pictures not held by the Naval Historical Center.

    The images listed in this box are NOT in the Naval Historical Center's collections. DO NOT try to obtain them using the procedures described in our page "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions".

  • For more images concerning this ship, see:

  • USS Epperson (DD-719) -- 1964 and Later Views.


    If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."


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    Page made 3 October 2003