USS McKean ( DD - 784 ) USS " McKean " ( DD - 784 ) was a of the United States Navy built by the Todd Pacific Ship Building Company in Seattle , Washington State . Ship History . 1940s . The USS " McKean " was launched on 31 March 1945 and commissioned on 9 June 1945 , named after Commodore William Wister McKean , a squadron commander on the Union side during the American Civil War . DD - 784 is the second ship in the United States Navy to be so named for Commodore McKean . In total , the " McKean " was one of the 98 " Gearing " class destroyers built . Her first duty assignment was in the Autumn of 1945 in a three - month tour as part of the overall occupation forces following the surrender of Japan . This included clearing Allied floating mines from Japanese waters . 1950s . Following the outbreak of war in Korea in June 1950 , " McKean " joined the 7th Fleet in August . Her Commanding Officer was Cdr . H . L Reiter , Jr . , USN . She was assigned to Task Force 77 initially as part of DesDiv 112 . She participated in the Inchon invasion which spearheaded the ground offensive operations against the North Korean Communists . Later , while steaming independently off the Chinnampo River , she discovered the first minefield reported during the Korean War . Commander John Weatherwax took command of " McKean " in November 1950 . From October 1950 to December 1950 , she joined patrolling destroyers with Task Force 72 in the Taiwan Strait with the light cruiser , and the destroyers , , and . They had to battle the typhoon Clara which broke apart into two typhoons . The night of 25 November 1950 , hundreds of thousands of Chinese Communist troops had crossed the Yalu River into North Korea to attack advancing U . N . forces . Hordes of Chinese cut off and surrounded the 5th and 7th Marine Regiments with a human wall at Chosin Reservoir on 27 November . The breaching of this wall and releasing of UN troops depended upon air cover and firepower from planes of carriers stationed off the eastern coast . " McKean " , " Hollister " and " Frank Knox " were released from patrolling the Formosa Straits sometime after 8 December . Under a protective canopy of naval air cover , the leathernecks broke through 10 December at Chinhung - ni and moved to Hŭngnam for evacuation . The United States Navy completed the Hŭngnam withdrawal of 24 December after embarking 105 , 000 troops , 91 , 000 refugees and vast quantities of military cargo . Needing upkeep , " McKean " first ported at Yokosuka , then to Sasebo until 23 December 1950 . She was to rejoin TF 77 on 24 December 1950 , Christmas Eve . At that time TF 77 was the largest assembled fleet since World War II , with four carriers , the battleship " Missouri " , two cruisers and over 30 destroyers . According to the book " " by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew ; " U . S . intelligence officials have long believed that a U . S . surface ship sank a Soviet sub that came close to an aircraft carrier attack force in 1950 , early in the Korean War , according to two former intelligence officers . " The United States was so concerned that the Soviet Navy would try to help the North Koreans that surface ships were under orders to protect U . S . warships by depth charging any possible hostile submarines , and in this case , one force depth charged a suspected Soviet sub and then saw no signs that it had survived . " This is the story of " Rancher " and two Russian submarines . " Rancher " is the call sign for the destroyer " McKean " ( DD - 784 ) , otherwise known as " Mighty Mac " . The Russian submarines were part of numerous USSR combat missions during the Korean war , Russians against Americans . The incident started December 1950 . " Rancher " and its crew had left Long Beach on August 1950 , and now five long months later her crew was battle hardened . She had previously dropped five depth charges on a submarine on 23 September 1950 . Under the command of Cdr . J . C . Weatherwax since November 1950 , what the Russians did not know was Capt . Weatherwax had been in submarines during World War II and knew how and why they moved . On 18 December 1950 , " Rancher " had just left the harbor at Sasebo to rejoin Task Force 77 . Task Force 77 included the battleship , the aircraft carrier s , , and , the escort carrier s and , the heavy cruiser , the light cruiser , and dozens of destroyers to screen the capital ships . " Rancher " was steaming with the . About an hour after clearing the sub nets , but with the Japanese shoreline still in sight , she received a hard contact from sonar . " Bridge , Sonar , we have a solid contact . " Sonar had picked up two contacts . Duty Quartermaster on the bridge of " Rancher " was John D . Price QM3 , as Cdr . Weatherwax had gone to his stateroom . The OOD ordered Quartermaster Price to get the Captain . Cdr . Weatherwax ran to the bridge as fast he could go . He didn ' t waste any time ordering Quartermaster Price to call general quarters . After general quarters sounded Cdr . Weatherwax ordered depth charge runs . Quartermaster Price was logging into the ships log that " Rancher " was making depth charge runs on a submarine , when the Captain checked the log and ordered Price to strike the word submarine from the log . He said that this could lead to an international incident . The Captain had the sonar sounds piped to the bridge , so they were able to follow the approach to the contact . It was almost a typical training exercise , with the pinging and the course changes leading us in . " Rancher " immediately sent out the international identification code , dot dash or letter A . Three times this was sent with no response , but evasive action was being taken by the subs . " Rancher " started a depth charge run , rolling from the rear racks and firing from the side charges . The tracker aircraft overhead reported a silhouette in the center of the pattern at the time of the explosions , after which silhouette disappeared and was not sighted again . The aircraft then reported sighting air bubbles near the location of the first attack and an oil slick , which grew larger as time passed . This oil slick was also sighted by the " McKean " and the " Frank Knox " , which joined about 20 minutes after the first attack . She completed her initial run , at times she lost contact but then she picked it up again and made an additional run . " Rancher " dropped 11 depth charges per pattern . " Rancher " would drop a pattern and the " Frank Knox " would cross her wake and drop a pattern . Torpedo man Hudnall was on depth charge central which was on the starboard side of the ship one deck below the bridge . Torpedo man Hudnall fired the K - guns electronically and the crews on the K - guns fired manually . The pattern of depth charges were eleven to a pattern , three on each side of the ship and two stern racks . The submarine was in 250 feet of water or above because any deeper the depth charges would not go off . " McKean " fired 54 depth charges the day of 18 December 1950 . " Rancher " had dropped about 84 depth charges in a 24 hour period . The morning of 19 December , one of the three anti - sub airplanes overhead reported a torpedo wake passing astern of the " McKean " . It just missed " Rancher " , and she didn ' t even see it . The other Russian submarine was lashing back . A salvage ship , the submarine rescue ship , arrived out of Sasebo on 20 December , to join the five destroyers and three anti - submarine airplanes at the site of the sinking . A hard hat diver was lowered to the scene . In a very short time he returned to the surface with a pair of new binoculars . In addition the Russian submarines had deployed during the depth charge a decoy that made all the sounds of a submarine . This Black Box was so top secret the " Greenlet " immediately returned to Pearl Harbor with it . Rumor has it the " Greenlet " was not allowed to return to the war area because it had retrieved so many Russian secrets . Perhaps it got their code books ? Rumor also has it that 43 days later all the B girls knew everything that happened , but the crew couldn ' t say anything because they had signed the letters of secrecy . The story the crew was told was that it was a " sunken Jap freighter the " Iona Maru " . Supposedly the " Iona Maru " capsized on 10 December 1950 . The Navy brass had already formatted their cover story with the skipper of the USS " Greenlet " ASR - 10 . " If those binoculars were from WWII , why wasn ' t there debris or barnacles , on the item " . Recently a former shipmate commented , " We sunk a hulk ship that was doing five knots ! " . After January 1951 " McKean " joined Task Force 95 for shore bombardment duty and blockade work around Wonsan , Songjin and Chinjŏn . Early in 1952 she was converted to a DDR radar picket ship . Special surface scanning radar was added and in addition , the 40mm , 20mm guns and torpedo tubes were removed and replaced with three twin mount 3in guns 3 " 50 ' s . In 1955 she took part in an underwater A - Bomb test Operation Wigwam . In early 1956 she crossed the equator for the first time to visit Singapore and again later in 1956 to visit Melbourne , Australia , during the time of the Olympic Games being held there . The task group consisting of one cruiser and four destroyers were the first U . S . ships to visit Melbourne since the end of World War II . 1960s . In February 1964 the " McKean " was refitted at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard in California . This was the Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization Program MK 1 ( commonly known as FRAM ) conversion which , all told , modernized 80 of the original 98 " Gearing " class ships . In July 1965 the " McKean " joined the Seventh Fleet in the $ 3 . She did four months of operations beginning in August with the aircraft carrier as part of the South China Sea Attack Carrier Strike Group . After this tour she returned to Long Beach and attended two fleet exercises , " Eager Angler " and Baseline II . " For her work in these two exercises the " McKean " won " Best Gunnery Ship " while competing against other destroyers and cruisers . In November 1966 the " McKean " returned to the Western Pacific for Search and Rescue operations at the Gulf of Tonkin off the north coast of Vietnam . During this operation the " McKean " set a record with 100 inflight helicopter refuelings over a single 30 - day period . Until April , 1967 , on this tour of duty the " McKean " worked on gun line deployments , firing over 4 , 000 rounds during ground support work in South Vietnam . The " McKean " then traveled again to Australia and then on to New Zealand as part of ceremonies commemorating the Battle of the Coral Sea . She then returned to her home port of Long Beach , arriving on 8 June 1967 . In the latter half of the year the " McKean " was overhauled at Mare Island in California . In March 1968 the " McKean " returned to Long Beach and returned to the Western Pacific via stops in Pearl Harbor , Hawaii ; Yokosuka , Japan ; and Sasebo , the southernmost island of mainland Japan . From Sasebo the " McKean " was sent to the coast of Korea to join United States naval pressure on the North Korean government to win the release the crew of the , which had been seized 23 January 1968 . After this the " McKean " conducted patrols in the Sea of Japan , the South China Sea and Tonkin Gulf . During this time she also visited Hong Kong and Kaohsiung , Taiwan . At the end of 1968 the " McKean " returned to Long Beach , only returning to the Western Pacific in 1970 after training cruises along the American West Coast . Back on tour , the ship visited Japan again , Bangkok , Guam , Hong Kong , and the Philippines . During this time she also returned to gunnery duty along Vietnam . In June 1970 she went back to Long Beach to take on more crew and to continue training and to take part in numerous U . S . Navy exercises . 1970s . In November 1971 the " McKean " accompanied the British carrier to the Indian Ocean , and then joined the U . S . Seventh Fleet . In December , 1971 the " McKean " was sent to the Bay of Bengal as part of Task Force 74 to safeguard United States interests there while the Indo - Pakistani War was waged . After rejoining the fleet , the " McKean " saw port calls at Singapore , Hong Kong , New Guinea and again Australia and New Zealand . She returned to Long Beach in April 1972 via stops in American Samoa and Pearl Harbor , Hawaii . In May 1972 the " McKean " joined the reserve naval forces operating between California and Hawaii . In the late 1970s her home port was in Seattle , Washington . The " McKean " was struck from the navy list on 30 September 1980 . 1980s . The " McKean " was decommissioned in October 1981 . In 1982 the ship was given to the country of Turkey to be cannibalized for spare parts . She was sunk by Harpoon missile in July 1987 and now lies at the bottom of Antalya Bay off the Mediterranean coast .