Navsource Online: Supplemental History Page

DE- 1026 USS Hooper


This History Is From The Ship's Welcome Aboard Pamphlet
And Was Provided By Ken Sargent (via Terry Gann)


The USS HOOPER (DE-1026) was built by Bethlehem Pacific Coast Steel Corporation at San Francisco, California. The keel was laid on 4 January 1957. On 18 March 1958 she was placed in commission in San Francisco by her first Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Commander John K. Leslie, USN.

After a shakedown cruise to Acapulco, Mexico, the ship underwent intensive shakedown training in the San Diego area, designed to mold the ship and her crew into an efficent fighting unit of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Following this came several months of normal training operations, practicing at the various skills necessary for complete combat readiness and to demonstrate her capability for extended operations in distant waters. HOOPER deployed to the Western Pacific and joined the Seventh Fleet in early November 1958. In the Far East, HOOPER operated as a unit of a Hunter-Killer Group for several weeks. For information, a Hunter-Killer Group is an assemblage of surface, air, and undersea naval forces designed for the wartime mission of seeking out and destroying enemy submarines.

During this overseas tour, HOOPER also operated more than two months as a unit of the Formosa Patrol Force.
Some of the many ports that HOOPER has visited since commissioning include Acapulco, Pearl Harbor, Midway Island, Ruckner Bay(Okinawa), Hong Kong, Kaoshsiung (Formosa), and the Japanese ports of Yokosuka and Kobe.

HOOPER was decommisioned in September 1968, stricken 6 June 1973,
sold on 20 February 1974 and broken-up.


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This page created 16 January 2005, and is maintained by Mike Smolinski
All pages copyright NavSource Naval History
by Paul R. Yarnall, All Rights Reserved