USS Eversole (DD-789)

40°45′36″N 29°55′00″E / 40.7600877°N 29.9167693°E / 40.7600877; 29.9167693

USS Eversole underway on 6 July 1951
History
United States
Name	Eversole
Namesake	John T. Eversole
Builder	Todd Pacific Shipyards
Laid down	28 February 1945
Launched	8 January 1946
Sponsored by	Mrs. S. R. Eversole
Commissioned	10 May 1946
Decommissioned	11 July 1973
Stricken	21 September 1973
Identification	Callsign: NTMM Hull number: DD-789
Motto	One Step Ahead
Honors and awards	7 battle stars (Korea)
Fate	Transferred to Turkey, 11 July 1973
Badge
Turkey
Name	Gayret
Namesake	Gayret
Acquired	11 July 1973
Stricken	1995
Identification	Hull number: D-352
Motto	Bir Adım İleri[1] (Take a Step Further)
Status	Museum ship at İzmit
General characteristics
Class and type	Gearing-class destroyer
Displacement	3,460 long tons (3,516 t) full
Length	390 ft 6 in (119.02 m)
Beam	40 ft 10 in (12.45 m)
Draft	14 ft 4 in (4.37 m)
Propulsion	Geared turbines, 2 shafts, 60,000 shp (45 MW)
Speed	35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph)
Range	4,500 nmi (8,300 km) at 20 kn (37 km/h; 23 mph)
Complement	336
Armament	6 × 5"/38 caliber guns 12 × 40 mm AA guns 11 × 20 mm AA guns 10 × 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes 6 × depth charge projectors 2 × depth charge tracks

USS Eversole (DD-789) was a Gearing-class destroyer of the United States Navy, the second Navy ship named for Lieutenant (junior grade) John T. Eversole (1915–1942), a naval aviator who was killed in the Battle of Midway. She later served in the Turkish navy from 1973 to 1995 as TCG Gayret (D-352) and is now a ship museum.

Eversole was launched on 8 January 1946 at the Tacoma Washington shipyard of Todd-Pacific Shipyards, Inc., Seattle, Washington; sponsored by Mrs. S. R. Eversole, mother of Lt. (j.g.) Eversole; and commissioned on 10 May 1946. The Eversole was one of the final three ships built in Tacoma by Todd-Pacific before closure of the Tacoma yard.

Eversole arrived at San Diego, Calif., her home port, on 6 October 1946, and in the years prior to the Korean War, twice sailed to the Far East for duty with the 7th Fleet, patrolling off China and Japan. She sailed from San Diego on 1 May 1950 for another such tour, and thus was in the Orient upon the opening of the war. Until 8 February 1951, when she returned to San Diego, she screened the fast carrier task forces as they launched air strikes against North Korean targets.

During her second tour of duty in the Korean War, from 27 August 1951 to 10 April 1952, Eversole bombarded Hŭngnam, Wonsan, and other points along the east coast of Korea, and served in the Blockading and Escort Force, with ships of the navies of Great Britain, Canada, Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and the Republic of Korea. From 17 November 1952 to 29 June 1953, she served a similar tour of duty. Eversole received seven battle stars for her Korean War service.

From 1954 through 1961, Eversole made an annual deployment to the Far East, serving on the Taiwan Patrol, exercising off Japan, Okinawa, and in the Philippines, and visiting a wide variety of western Pacific ports. In both 1957 and 1958, she made her outward bound passage by way of Australia, and in all of these tours, made an important contribution to the power for peace of the 7th Fleet. She then entered the Bremerton Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington to undergo a FRAM I upgrade, a modernization program under which Eversole and forty-three other Gearing-class ships received updated radars, sonars and electronic suites and the ASROC and DASH anti-submarine weapons systems. Eversole emerged from the shipyard in February 1963 to be homeported at the Long Beach Naval Station in Long Beach, California.

During her periods of training and preparation for deployment on the west coast, Eversole often visited ports of the Pacific Northwest, and on occasion voyaged to the Hawaiian Islands.

On 8 October 1969 Eversole deployed from Long Beach Naval Station, California, to the western Pacific stopping in Oahu, Hawaii, and Midway Island in transit to Yokosuka, Japan before frequent deployments to the Tonkin Gulf for plane guard assignments with the carrier forces of the 7th fleet and naval gunfire support duties for ground troops. Between combat deployments Subic Bay Naval Station was used as the overseas homeport. Other R&R and maintenance visits were made to Sasebo, Japan and Hong Kong. Eversole returned to Long Beach Naval Station, California, on 8 April 1970.

On 11 July 1973, Eversole was transferred to Turkey. She served in the Turkish Navy as TCG Gayret (D-352). Gayret was stricken in 1995. She is preserved as a museum ship at the Kocaeli Museum Ships Command.^[2]

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

Wikimedia Commons has media related to USS Eversole (DD-789).

• Photo gallery of USS Eversole at NavSource Naval History