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Photo # NH 74024:  USS Trippe underway off New Orleans, September 1970

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

USS Trippe (DE-1075, later FF-1075), 1970-1992

USS Trippe, a 3011-ton (standard displacement) Knox class escort ship built at Westwego, Louisiana, was commissioned in mid-September 1970. In July 1971, following shakedown training in the Caribbean area and a surveillance mission off Haiti, she entered the Boston Naval Shipyard for overhaul and installation of the Basic Point Defense Missile System, which featured short-range "Sea Sparrow" guided missiles in an eight-round launcher on her afterdeck. Trippe was the Navy's first destroyer-type ship to receive this later-widespread contribution to shipboard protection against air and missile attack. The first months of 1972 were spent testing her new weapons and participating in exercises. In June the ship passed through the Panama Canal en route to Southeast Asian waters, where she provided Vietnam War aircraft carrier escort and naval gunfire support services during July and August. Trippe then went to the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf areas, visiting many ports in a region that would see increasing U.S. Navy activity in the coming decades. She returned to the U.S. East Coast in December 1972, after a deployment that had taken her completely around the World.

During an overhaul in 1973, Trippe was refitted to allow her to operate the larger helicopters of the Light Airborne Multi-purpose System (LAMPS). From August of that year into January 1974 she made her first tour with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. A second cruise to the Indian Ocean and Middle East followed in January-May 1975. Reclassified in mid-year as a frigate, with the new designation FF-1075, she spent the last three months of 1975 and the first five of 1976 in shipyard hands. Trippe returned to the Middle East Force in March-July 1977 and went back to the Mediterranean for her second Sixth Fleet deployment in April-October 1978. The next year she cruised around South American as part of exercise "Unitas XX" and operated off West Africa.

The busy frigate made four more Mediterranean deployments during the following decade, in 1982, 1983, 1985 and 1987. Some of her 1983 tour also involved visiting ports in West Africa, the southern Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean. In the mid-'80s she was also modernized, receiving a seakeeping-enhancing bulwark on her bow and the Close-In Weapons System. The latter's fast shooting radar-controlled 20mm gun mount was installed on her afterdeck to improve her defenses against cruise missiles. She spent most of the late 1980s and the early 1990s operating in the Caribbean Sea area, with counter-narcotics service taking much of her effort. At the end of July 1992 USS Trippe was decommissioned and leased to Greece. The Greek Navy placed her in commission in April 1993 as Thraki, and she was formally sold to that nation in 2001.

USS Trippe was named in honor of Lieutenant John Trippe (1785-1810), a hero of the Tripolitan War.

This page features, and provides links to, all the views we have concerning USS Trippe (DE-1075, later FF-1075).

For more images related to this ship, see:

  • USS Trippe (DE-1075, later FF-1075) -- Part II.


    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 74025

    USS Trippe
    (DE-1075)

    Underway off New Orleans, Louisiana, 9 September 1970.

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

    Online Image: 73KB; 590 x 765 pixels

     
    Photo #: USN 1146287

    USS Trippe
    (DE-1075)

    Underway off New Orleans Louisiana, September 1970.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph.

    Online Image: 82KB; 740 x 615 pixels

    Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system as Photo # 428-N-1146287.

     
    Photo #: NH 74022

    USS Trippe
    (DE-1075)

    Underway off New Orleans, Louisiana, 9 September 1970.
    Note the Jeep and automobile parked on her helicopter deck.

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

    Online Image: 87KB; 740 x 615 pixels

     
    Photo #: NH 74023

    USS Trippe
    (DE-1075)

    Underway off New Orleans, Louisiana, 9 September 1970.

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

    Online Image: 98KB; 740 x 615 pixels

     
    Photo #: NH 74024

    USS Trippe
    (DE-1075)

    Underway off New Orleans, Louisiana, 9 September 1970.

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

    Online Image: 88KB; 740 x 605 pixels

     
    Photo #: K-92061

    USS Trippe
    (DE-1075)

    Underway off Newport, Rhode Island, 22 December 1971.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph.

    Online Image: 64KB; 765 x 510 pixels

    Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system as Photo # 428-K-92061.
    Though reproductions of this photo from the Naval Historical Center's collections are available in black & white only, those from the National Archives should be available in color.

     
    Photo #: USN 1154157

    USS Trippe
    (DE-1075)

    Steaming off Newport, Rhode Island, on 22 December 1971.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph.

    Online Image: 90KB; 740 x 635 pixels

    Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system as Photo # 428-N-1154157.

     
    Photo #: K-92059

    USS Trippe
    (DE-1075)

    Underway off Newport, Rhode Island, 22 December 1971.
    Note the Basic Point Defense Missile System (BPDMS) launcher on her after deck, and the related fire control director atop her helicopter hangar. She was the first destroyer-type ship to be fitted with this system.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph.

    Online Image: 110KB; 505 x 765 pixels

    Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system as Photo # 428-K-92059.
    Though reproductions of this photo from the Naval Historical Center's collections are available in black & white only, those from the National Archives should be available in color.

     
    Photo #: K-92060

    USS Trippe
    (DE-1075)

    Underway off Newport, Rhode Island, 22 December 1971.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph.

    Online Image: 89KB; 765 x 535 pixels

    Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system as Photo # 428-K-92060.
    Though reproductions of this photo from the Naval Historical Center's collections are available in black & white only, those from the National Archives should be available in color.

     
    Photo #: K-93346

    USS Trippe
    (DE-1075)

    Underway in the Atlantic Ocean, 4 February 1972.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph.

    Online Image: 83KB; 765 x 530 pixels

    Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system as Photo # 428-K-93346.
    Though reproductions of this photo from the Naval Historical Center's collections are available in black & white only, those from the National Archives should be available in color.

     

    For more images related to this ship, see:

  • USS Trippe (DE-1075, later FF-1075) -- Part II.


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


    Return to Naval Historical Center home page.

    Page made 30 October 2004
    Minor text corrections made 6 November 2004