USS Wadleigh, a 2050-ton Fletcher class destroyer built at Bath, Maine, was commissioned in October 1943. Later in that year she helped escort President Franklin D. Roosevelt across the Atlantic as he returned from the Cairo conference. Wadleigh went to the Pacific in early 1944 and entered combat in March when she covered landings in the Marshall Islands. In June 1944 the destroyer supported the invasion of Saipan with her guns and took part in sinking the Japanese submarine RO-114. While participating in minesweeping operations in the Palaus on 16 September, Wadleigh hit a mine that left three crewmen dead and the ship very badly damaged.
Repaired on the West Coast, Wadleigh returned to the Pacific war zone in May 1945 and spent the next three months on radar picket duty and escorting larger ships during raids against enemy targets. She was present in Tokyo Bay when Japan formally surrendered on 2 September 1945. Wadleigh continued to operate in the western and central Pacific until October, then steamed eastward across the ocean to California. More than a year was consumed in inactivation preparations, leading to decommissioning at San Diego in January 1947.
The Korean War and intensified Cold War brought Wadleigh back into the active fleet in October 1951. Transferred to the Atlantic Fleet in January 1952, she took part in exercises and training for several months and was then modernized, losing one five-inch gun and receiving three-inch anti-aircraft guns and other new equipment. In May-November 1954 Wadleigh made a long-distance deployment to the Far East, where she patrolled off Korea and Formosa. During the remainder of the decade, and into the 1960s, she had five tours of duty in the Mediterranean Sea, plus participating in exercises in the Atlantic, the Caribbean and the Middle East. Wadleigh was decommissioned in late June 1962, following the end of a final trans-Atlantic cruise that took her to the British Isles. Soon transferred to Chile, the veteran destroyer operated for nearly two more decades with that Nation's navy under the name Blanco Encalada. She was taken out of service in 1982 and later sold for scrapping.
USS Wadleigh was named in honor of Rear Admiral George H. Wadleigh (1842-1927), who served from the Civil War into the 20th Century.
This page features all the views we have related to USS Wadleigh (DD-689).
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 98902 USS Wadleigh (DD-689) Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 11 April 1945. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Online Image: 89KB; 740 x 615 pixels |
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Photo #: NH 98903 USS Wadleigh (DD-689) Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 11 April 1945. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Online Image: 81KB; 740 x 615 pixels |
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Photo #: NH 98904 USS Wadleigh (DD-689) Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 11 April 1945. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Online Image: 80KB; 740 x 620 pixels |
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Photo #: NH 98905 USS Wadleigh (DD-689) At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 10 April 1945. Note the men working on her foredeck, some of whom are watching the photographer. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Online Image: 137KB; 600 x 765 pixels |
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Photo #: NH 98906 USS Wadleigh (DD-689) At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 10 April 1945. Circles mark recent alterations to the ship. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Online Image: 154KB; 605 x 765 pixels |
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Photo #: NH 98907 USS Wadleigh (DD-689) Underway, circa 1951, soon after she was recommissioned during the Korean War. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Online Image: 120KB; 740 x 610 pixels |
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Photo #: NH 98908 USS Wadleigh (DD-689) Underway, circa 1951, soon after she was recommissioned. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Online Image: 124KB; 740 x 610 pixels |
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Photo #: 80-G-K-3104 (Color) Ensign Dorothy Swallen, and Ensign Dora Eggleston At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, circa late 1944. Both were Navy Nurses stationed at the Mare Island Naval Hospital. USS Wadleigh (DD-689) is in the background. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Online Image: 76KB; 495 x 765 pixels Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system. |
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Photo #: NH 68208 USS Wadleigh (DD-689) Launching, at the Bath Iron Works shipyard, Bath, Maine, 7 August 1943. Photographed by Douglas. Courtesy of Quentin Ludgin, 1969. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Online Image: 69KB; 475 x 765 pixels |
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Photo #: NH 69623-KN (color) USS Wadleigh (DD-689) Jacket patch of the ship's insignia used in 1960. Courtesy of Captain G.F. Swainson, USN, 1970. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Online Image: 131KB; 660 x 675 pixels |
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The following photograph of another ship shows USS Wadleigh (DD-689) in the distance:
In addition to the images presented above, the National Archives appears to hold other views of USS Wadleigh (DD-689). 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".
USS Wadleigh (DD-689) approaching USS Briareus (AR-12) for underway refueling, 15 January 1944. Starboard bow surface view.
USS Wadleigh (DD-689) at anchor, with crewmen hanging over the side painting her hull. Taken at Newport, Rhode Island, by J.W. Burwell, 22 March 1952. Starboard bow surface view. The ship still has her World War II era radars.
USS Wadleigh (DD-689) underway at low speed while in harbor, May 1954. Starboard bow surface view, rather toward the broadside. The ship has been refitted in "four-gun Fletcher" class configuration, and now carries a tripod foremast with newer radar antennas.
USS Wadleigh (DD-689) underway in the Mediterranean Sea, 7 September 1958. Photographed by Hein, of USS Saratoga (CVA-60). Port bow aerial view. As USN 1038283, but port bow aerial view much tighter on the bow.
USS Wadleigh (DD-689) underway at sea, making fairly high speed, 16 July 1960. Starboard broadside aerial view. USS Wadleigh (DD-689) steaming in column with another destroyer, 9 December 1960. Port bow low aerial view. USS Wadleigh (DD-689) underway at high speed, 2 November 1961. Starboard bow surface 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". |
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Page made 29 October 2003