page_title: USS Carpenter (DD-825)
section_title: 1953–1959
hierarchical_section_title: USS Carpenter (DD-825) / Service history / 1953–1959
caption_attribution_description: The U.S. Navy Gearing-class destroyer USS Carpenter (DDE-825) in 1957. Carpenter was commissioned in 1949 as a specialised ASW-destroyer, armed with only 7.6 cm/L50 guns and RUR-4 "Weapon Alpha" anti-submarine rockets. Also, the bridge was built much higher compared to the standard Gearing-class design. Later, as shown in this photo, Carpenter received 7,6 cm/L70 turrets.
context_page_description: USS Carpenter was a Gearing-class destroyer of the United States Navy, named for Lieutenant Commander Donald M. Carpenter.
context_section_description: Resuming local operations in Hawaii, she remained there until May 1953, when Carpenter steamed to the Far East for operations with TF 77. After rendezvous with light cruiser Manchester in early June, the destroyer proceeded to North Korea for a shore bombardment mission against gun positions in Hŭngnam harbor on 12 June. Although 12 rounds of 75 mm fire from shore batteries fell near Carpenter, she suffered neither hits nor casualties.
  Following a tender availability in Sasebo, Japan, the destroyer spent the next month screening the fast carriers. After returning to Yokosuka for a short refit on 29 July, Carpenter departed 11 August for a Formosa patrol. This evolution included screen operations with the carrier Boxer and battleship New Jersey and radar tracking of numerous Chinese communist aircraft contacts. Returning to Kobe, Japan, on 6 September, the destroyer spent the next two months conducting ASW and screening operations in Korean waters.
  Departing Yokosuka on 30 October, Carpenter sailed to Pearl Harbor for an extensive refit. Minor repairs, tactical drills, and crew training occupied the ship until the summer of 1954, when she returned to the Western Pacific. In September, during the Quemoy and Matsu crisis between Communist China and the Nationalists on Formosa, Carpenter patrolled the Taiwan Straits for 13 tense days before the crisis passed. The destroyer remained in the region for the next three months, screening Boxer, conducting various hunter-killer ASW exercises, and patrolling the Formosa Straits. In January 1955, in line with the mutual defense treaty between Taiwan and the United States, Carpenter helped convoy Nationalist forces as they evacuated the Tachen Islands.
  After returning to Hawaii that spring, Carpenter resumed her regular routine of local operations and ASW exercises out of Pearl Harbor. Her fourth cruise began on 4 January 1956, when the destroyer set sail for the Western Pacific. Operating out of Yokosuka, the destroyer conducted extensive ASW training with ships of the 7th Fleet, visited ports in the Philippines and Hong Kong, and operated with units of the Royal Australian Navy.
  Returning to Pearl Harbor on 9 June, the destroyer underwent an extensive overhaul, followed by the now familiar pattern of local operations, crew training, and constant ASW exercises. In a change of pace the following spring, Carpenter departed Hawaii on 15 March 1957 for a series of goodwill port visits throughout the South Pacific. The destroyer stopped at American Samoa, Manus in the Admiralty Islands, and Sydney, Australia, before returning to Hawaii on 28 August. Later that fall, Carpenter underwent an overhaul and received two of the new 3-inch/70 "quick-firing" antiaircraft gun mounts for testing and evaluation.
  The destroyer continued this pattern of deployments for the next three years: local operations out of Pearl Harbor followed by a deployment and operations with a hunter-killer ASW group out of Japan, and then return for repairs. Her sixth Far East deployment lasted from April to September 1958, followed by training and an overhaul until March 1959. Six weeks underway training followed before another deployment in July, during which Carpenter operated in a hunter-killer ASW with the carriers Hornet and Kearsarge, before returning home in December.
caption: USS Carpenter in 1957
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