USS John R. Perry

John R. Perry was laid down on 1 October 1957 by Avondale Marine Ways in Avondale, Louisiana. The destroyer escort was launched on 29 July 1958, sponsored by Mrs. John R. Perry, widow of Rear Admiral Perry. The vessel was commissioned on 5 May 1959.

John R. Perry made a shakedown cruise to Northern Europe and Scandinavian countries, thence sailed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. She then became a school ship for the Fleet Sonar School, basing at Key West, Florida, for anti-submarine warfare operations that took her to principal Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico ports, sailing as far east as the Azores, and up the eastern seaboard to Norfolk, Virginia. She was one of the Atlantic Fleet's warships responding to the President John F. Kennedy's call for a quarantine of Cuba (24 October – 20 November 1962) during the Cuban Missile Crisis. She patrolled off the island to enforce the blockade.

John R. Perry resumed sonar schoolship duties out of Key West which continued through 1965. This principal service was interrupted by overhauls in the Charleston Navy Yard, special anti-submarine warfare tactics in the Caribbean and along the eastern seaboard with Task Force Alpha, and joint operations with units of the Venezuelan Navy (2–8 February 1964). During these years John R. Perry helped train the men of the Navy in the latest ASW techniques.

John R. Perry was transferred to the Pacific Fleet on 1 May 1966. She departed Key West on the 16th, transited the Panama Canal three days later, and arrived Pearl Harbor on 4 June to operate in the Hawaiian area through mid-1967.

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here. This article includes information collected from the Naval Vessel Register, which, as a U.S. government publication, is in the public domain.

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