page_title: USS Bowers (DE-637)
section_title: Philippine service
hierarchical_section_title: USS Bowers (DE-637) / Service history / Philippine service
caption_attribution_description: Philippine Navy destroyer escort RPS Rajah Soliman (D-66)
context_page_description: USS Bowers, a Buckley class destroyer escort of the United States Navy, was named in honor of Ensign Robert K. Bowers, who was killed in action aboard the battleship USS California during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.
  Bowers was laid down on 28 May 1943 at San Francisco, California, by the Bethlehem Steel Company; launched on 31 October, sponsored by Mrs. Eunice Bowers, the mother of Ens. Bowers; and commissioned on 27 January 1944, with Lieutenant Commander Frederic W. Hawes in command.
context_section_description: The high-speed transport was decommissioned again on 18 December 1958 and berthed with the reserve fleet at Orange, Texas. Bowers was transferred to the Republic of the Philippines on 21 April 1961 under terms of the Mutual Security Act of 1954 and commissioned in the Philippine Navy as Rajah Soliman.  Her name was struck from the Navy list on 1 May 1961.
  In 1964, while she was moored in the Bataan National Shipyard, a typhoon battered Rajah Soliman, capsizing her alongside the pier.  The Navy helped the Philippines to raise the warship and tow her to Subic Bay's Ship Repair Facility for final disposition. However, the warship was deemed unsalvageable, and her hulk was sold to Mitsubishi International Corporation on 31 January 1966 for scrapping.
caption: as RPS Rajah Soliman (D-66) of the Philippine Navy.
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