USS Bagley (FF-1069)

USS "Bagley" (FF-1069) was a "Knox"-class frigate of the United States Navy. She was the 18th ship of the "Knox" class, built as a destroyer escort (DE) and redesignated as a frigate (FF) in the 1975 USN ship reclassification. "Bagley" was the fourth ship of the USN named for Ensign Worth Bagley, the only US Navy officer killed in action during the Spanish-American War.

"Bagley" was laid down on October 5, 1970 at Seattle, Washington, by the Lockheed Shipbuilding and Construction Company; launched on April 17, 1971; sponsored by Mrs. Marie Louise H. Bagley, widow of Admiral David Worth Bagley and posthumous sister-in-law of Ensign Worth Bagley; and commissioned on May 6, 1972 at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Commander William J. Bredbeck in command.

1972–1979

The escort ship conducted acceptance trials along the coasts of Washington and British Columbia and then headed south for her new home port at San Diego, California, where she arrived on July 25, 1972. The warship began a restricted availability from July 31 to September 9. She departed San Diego on September 16, bound for Pearl Harbor and her shakedown cruise. "Bagley" arrived in Pearl Harbor on September 22 and operated in Hawaiian waters into October. On the 3d of that month, she stood out of Pearl Harbor and headed for San Diego. The warship reached that port on October 9. Over the next month, she conducted exercises out of San Diego. On November 15, "Bagley" entered the Long Beach Naval Shipyard and began an extended post-shakedown availability during which her main propulsion plant was converted to use Navy distillate fuel.

The warship completed repairs and modifications on May 4, 1973 and returned to San Diego that same day. She began training operations along the California coast three days later and continued those evolutions through most of the summer. She stood out of San Diego on September 11 and headed for the western Pacific. She conducted training operations in the Hawaiian Islands September 17–26 and then resumed her westward voyage. She arrived in Yokosuka, Japan, on October 5. A week later, the escort ship shaped a course for the Philippines. "Bagley" arrived in Subic Bay on October 17 for two days of upkeep and liberty. On the 19th, she weighed anchor and headed for a patrol station in the Gulf of Tonkin.

Ten days later, she received orders to accompany USS "Hancock" (CVA-19) to the Indian Ocean. That contingency force went to the western portion of the Indian Ocean in response to hostilities that had broken out between Israel and her neighbors, Egypt and Syria (the Yom Kippur War). "Bagley" spent the next seven weeks on patrol in the Indian Ocean as an indication of American resolve to end the fighting in the Middle East and as a deterrent to keep Soviet forces from intervening in the conflict.

On December 17, 1973, "Bagley" reentered Subic Bay for an extended leave and upkeep period. For the remainder of the deployment, the warship participated in the usual 7th Fleet exercises punctuated by port visits to Hong Kong; Keelung, Taiwan; Buckner Bay, Okinawa; Pusan, Korea; and Yokosuka, Japan. On February 20, 1974, she departed Yokosuka and began the voyage home. The warship stopped at Midway Island and Pearl Harbor before arriving in San Diego on March 8.

For the rest of 1974 and the first six months of 1975, she operated out of San Diego conducting a series of exercises, inspections, and qualifications. On June 30, 1975, "Bagley" was redesignated a frigate, FF-1069. The warship spent the month of July 1975 preparing for her second deployment to the Far East. She stood out of San Diego on August 1. Following stops at Pearl Harbor and Guam, the frigate arrived in Subic Bay on September 13. For the next five months, Bagley conducted normal operations—training evolutions and port visits—with ships of the 7th Fleet. She departed Subic Bay on February 12, 1976 to return to the United States. She stopped at Pearl Harbor from February 26 to March 3 before continuing on to San Diego where she arrived on April 1. She resumed normal operations out of San Diego, and continued that duty into 1977.

On February 17, 1977, she shaped a course for Hawaiian waters where she joined ships of the American, Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand navies in Exercise RIMPAC 77. The frigate returned to San Diego on March 12 and, two days later, was drydocked in the Long Beach Naval Shipyard for hull repairs. She came out of drydock on April 2 and returned to San Diego on the 6th.

"Bagley" weighed anchor again the April 12, 1977 and set course for the Orient. She made the usual stopover at Pearl Harbor and arrived in Subic Bay on May 6. During this six months in the Far East, the frigate visited most of the usual liberty ports and participated in a number of training exercises with other ships of the 7th Fleet. On November 6, she departed Yokosuka for an uninterrupted voyage to San Diego. The warship reentered her home port on November 21 and remained there through the end of the year.

The frigate conducted normal operations out of San Diego during the first six weeks of 1978. On February 14, 1978, she entered the Long Beach Naval Shipyard for an overhaul that occupied the rest of 1978. She completed post-overhaul trials and tests in January 1979 and resumed operations out of San Diego early in February. Exercises, qualifications, and tests in the southern California operating area occupied her throughout 1979 and for most of the first two months of 1980. The warship departed San Diego on February 25, bound ultimately for the Far East. En route to the western Pacific, however, she participated in the multinational Exercise RIMPAC 80 conducted in the Hawaiian Islands. She resumed her voyage west on March 19 and entered Subic Bay on April 8.

1980–1989

After conducting training operations—notably gunfire support drills and ASROC firings—in the Subic Bay operating area, "Bagley" departed the Philippines late in April in company with a task force built around USS "Constellation" (CV-64). The task force constituted a part of the increased American military presence in the western Indian Ocean deemed necessary after radical Iranian students occupied the American embassy in Tehran and took the American diplomatic staff hostage. The continuing hostage crisis and hostilities between Iran and Iraq kept a large number of Navy ships on patrol in nearby waters. "Bagley"’s task force remained in the vicinity until July 29 when it headed back to the Pacific. En route to the Philippines, she stopped at Singapore and at Pattaya, Thailand. She reentered Subic Bay on August 20 with 36 Vietnamese refugees whom she had rescued on the passage from Thailand. "Bagley" voyaged to Pusan, Korea, for a goodwill port call in mid-September and returned to Subic Bay on September 23. On October 1, the frigate got underway to return to the United States. After the customary pause at Pearl Harbor, "Bagley" arrived back in San Diego on October 15. Except for a brief period underway on November 20, the frigate remained in port at San Diego for the remainder of 1980.

She continued the inport period through the first seven weeks of 1981. On February 18, "Bagley" resumed normal operations in the southern California operating area. Fleet exercises and single ship drills occupied her until October 20, 1981 when she again headed for the Far East. She stopped at Pearl Harbor October 31–November 2 and then resumed her voyage west. "Bagley" arrived in Subic Bay on November 22. She operated out of Subic Bay until early when she headed for the Indian Ocean. En route to Indian Ocean contingency operations, the warship encountered Vietnamese refugees adrift in a boat in the South China Sea. She took the boat’s 37 occupants on board, sank the boat as a potential hazard to navigation, and proceeded to Singapore where she disembarked the refugees. The frigate resumed her voyage to the Indian Ocean on December 12 and arrived at Al Masirah, Oman, on the last day of 1981.

The year 1982, opened with "Bagley" operating in the western Indian Ocean and in the Arabian Sea. That deployment lasted until late January when she made a port visit to Mombasa, Kenya, before heading back to the Far East. On that journey, she took a very circuitous route, visiting the Australian port of Geraldton, Diego Garcia Island, and Penang in Malaysia, before returning to Subic Bay in mid-April. Late in April and early in May, "Bagley" took part in readiness exercises carried out near Guam in company with "Constellation", USS "Midway" (CV-41) and USS "Ranger" (CV-61. At the conclusion of those evolutions on May 8, the frigate set a course, via Hawaii, to the west coast and reentered San Diego on May 23. After the customary month of post-deployment leave and upkeep, "Bagley" resumed normal training duty in California waters and remained so occupied for the rest of the year.

Local operations out of San Diego kept the frigate busy well into 1983. She did not set out for another overseas assignment until June 9 when she put to sea, once again bound for the western Pacific. Along the way, "Bagley" and her travelling companions USS "New Jersey" (BB-62), USS "Callaghan" (DDG-994), USS "John A. Moore" (FFG-19), and USS "Meyerkord" (FF-1058) spent a week in the Hawaiian Islands in mid-June before resuming the voyage west on the 17th. The warships “INCHOPped” (changed operational control) to the Commander, 7th Fleet, on June 27 and reached the Philippines at Manila on Independence Day 1983. Over the next five months, the frigate took part in a number of exercises at sea, most often with a task group built around "Midway", and visited a series of Far Eastern ports. Late in July, she visited Singapore and Thailand before heading for a set of exercises in Korean waters carried out at the end of July and during the first part of August. After a call at Guam in late August and early September, "Bagley" steamed to Sasebo, Japan, whence she operated until the first week in November when she returned to the Philippines at Subic Bay. The warship made one more stop at a Japanese port, Yokosuka, and then headed back to the United States on December 1. She called briefly at Pearl Harbor before arriving back in San Diego on December 13, 1983.

Post-deployment leave and upkeep kept "Bagley" immobile at San Diego for the rest of the year and during the first half of January 1984. In fact, despite a short two-day period underway between 17 and 19 January, she did not resume normal west coast operations until the second week in February when she put to sea for READIEX 84-2 and a cruise to the Pacific coast of Central America. "Bagley" returned to San Diego from those missions on March 9 and remained there until the March 22nd. At that time, the warship headed north to Esquimalt, British Columbia, where she took part in CNO Project 371, tests on new submarine torpedo designs. She completed her part in the tests on March 30 and, after visits to Vancouver, British Columbia, and to San Francisco, returned to San Diego on April 11. Just over a month after her return, "Bagley" began an eight-month regular overhaul at the naval station.

"Bagley" completed the overhaul on 19 January 1985 and embarked upon more than four months of post-overhaul checks, qualifications, and certifications. These she carried out in a long series of short underway periods in nearby waters. Late in May, the frigate participated in Exercise EASTPAC 85-5 conducted in late May and early June. At the conclusion of the evolution, "Bagley" called at Portland, Oregon, for that city’s Rose Festival and then moved on to Concord, California, to load ammunition. She then visited San Francisco before returning to San Diego on June 22. Except for another visit each to Esquimalt and San Francisco in September, "Bagley" operated locally out of San Diego for the remaining months of the year.

Her west coast employment came to an end early in 1986. On January 15, the warship set out on her first overseas deployment in two years as part of a task group built around "Enterprise" (CVN-65). After reaching Pearl Harbor on the January 21, she spent the rest of January in Hawaii taking part in a series of exercises and then resumed her voyage to the Far East on February 2. "Bagley" arrived in Subic Bay on February 17 and operated locally in the Philippines for the rest of the month. Early in March, the frigate’s task group visited Singapore on the way to duty in the eastern Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea. She stopped off at Karachi, Pakistan, between March 15 and 17 before dropping anchor at Al Masirah Island, Oman, on the 18th. On April 9, "Bagley" set out for Diego Garcia Island at which place she called briefly on the 12th before shaping a course for the Suez Canal.

The "Enterprise" task group transited the canal on April 28 and 29, 1986 and arrived in the Mediterranean to reinforce American forces there which were already engaged in a series of retaliatory actions against the provocations and terrorist activities of Libya’s Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi. "Bagley" and her task group spent the next two months cruising the Mediterranean in support of American foreign policy. On June 28, she left Catania, Italy, steamed through the Suez Canal, crossed the Indian Ocean, and arrived in Subic Bay on July 17. She returned to sea with the task group on the 22nd bound for home. After the customary call at Oahu, the warship reentered San Diego on August 11 and began an extended post-deployment standdown period. In fact, the frigate left port only briefly on four occasions in October; the rest of the year she spent in San Diego.

Another series of four brief underway periods in January 1987 punctuated a month otherwise spent largely in upkeep. In February, she traveled to Concord where she unloaded ammunition before beginning a restricted availability at San Diego on the 16th. The repair period lasted until early summer and included a seven-week drydocking in USS "Steadfast" (AFDM-14) that occupied most of April and all of May. Late in June 1987, "Bagley" resumed normal operations out of San Diego; and, except for operations in the Bering Sea that took up most of November, she remained active in the immediate vicinity of San Diego for the rest of the year.

As 1987 waned and 1988 began, however, "Bagley" anticipated imminent departure for overseas duty. She stood out of San Diego on January 4, 1988 in company once more with the "Enterprise" task group. The warships made an unusual nonstop, but leisurely, Pacific crossing during which they carried out a five-day readiness exercise in the Hawaiian operating area. The frigate and her colleagues reached Subic Bay in the Philippines on February 1 and remained in that port until the 6th. On that day she and the other warships in the group got underway for a tour of duty in the Arabian Sea, returning once more to a region of chronic political convulsions spawned by a decade of Iranian provocations. En route to the Arabian Sea, "Bagley" participated in a series of exercises with units of the Indonesian Navy. She and her units reached their destination at mid-month and relieved the "Midway" task group as contingency force on station. For about two months, "Bagley" patrolled the waters of the northern Arabian Sea with her task group with the only untoward event being the loss of her helicopter which ditched because of a material casualty.

During Operation Earnest Will, USS "Samuel" B. Roberts (FFG-58) struck an Iranian mine and suffered severe damage on April 14, 1988. "Bagley" was one of the warships selected to retaliate on the Iranians in Operation Praying Mantis. Accordingly, she joined USS "Wainwright" (CG-28) and USS "Simpson" (FFG-56) on April 18, and the three warships steered for the Sirri Island oil platform which they then put out of operation with gunfire. Soon after destroying the oil platform, the trio engaged the Iranian patrol boat "Joshan" with surface-to-surface missiles and finished her off with gunfire. When a Marine Corps AH-1 Cobra helicopter operating from "Wainwright" failed to return after the actions of the 18th, "Bagley" spent the next two days engaged in a futile search for the missing aircraft and its crew. It became apparent that the helicopter went down during the operation when the bodies of the crew, Marine Corps Captains Stephen C. Leslie and Kenneth W. Hill were recovered almost a month later about 15 miles (24 km) southeast of Abu Musa Island.

Late in April 1988, "Bagley" and USS "Lynde McCormick" (DDG-8)) escorted USS "San Jose" (AFS-7) and MV "Matthiasen" through the Strait of Hormuz into the Arabian Sea. The warship then resumed operations in the northern reaches of that sea. That employment lasted until May 15 when "Bagley" parted company with the task unit and joined USS "Reasoner" (FF-1063) in setting a generally easterly course. After exercises with units of the Indonesian and Malaysian navies and a series of port calls in the Philippines and along the coast of the Asian continent, the warship set out from Pusan, Korea, on June 17 to return to the United States. She stopped off at Seattle to embark a group of male relatives and friends of her crewmen for the last leg of the voyage home and completed this “Tiger” portion of the journey at San Diego on July 2.

After more than a month of post-deployment standdown at San Diego, "Bagley" resumed normal duty training in waters along the west coast. Exercises, drills, and inspections—the normal fare of west coast operations—occupied the warship for the remainder of 1988 and the first two months of 1989. She entered drydock in "Steadfast" (AFDM-14) at San Diego at the end of February 1989 and remained docked for the entire month of March. Exiting the drydock on April 4, she continued repairs and the installation of new equipment until mid-May. At that time she resumed her schedule of west-coast training missions and continued so engaged through the summer.

On September 18, 1989, "Bagley" embarked once again on the long voyage to the Far East and another several months of service there and in the Arabian Sea. This particular passage to the Orient, however, played out differently than most because the frigate and her task group remained at sea for more than a month before entering port in the Far East. "Bagley"’s unit rendezvoused with two other units—one built around USS "Carl Vinson" (CVN-70) and the other around "Constellation"—and sailed north to conduct the exercise Operation PACEX 89 in the vicinity of the Aleutian Islands during the period between September 20 and 30. In October, the warship took part in Operation ANNUALEX 89 with the "Carl Vinson" group augmented by the battleships USS "Missouri" (BB-63) and USS "New Jersey" (BB-62). That exercise ranged westward across the northern Pacific and then north into the Sea of Japan. At one point in the massive operation, elements of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force joined American warships and planes in carrying out bilateral training in the waters surrounding Okinawa. The crossing, prolonged by the exercise, ended with Operation Valiant Blitz carried out with units of the South Korean Navy in the Sea of Japan.

On October 31, 1989, "Bagley" and her colleagues made their first port of call since leaving North America in mid-September when they arrived in Hong Kong. After nearly a week of liberty, the warship returned to sea with the task group on November 6 for the voyage to the Philippines and arrived in Subic Bay on the 11th. She spent the next four weeks either in port at Subic Bay or operating in nearby waters. On December 10, she set out for a tour of duty with the contingency forces operating in the Arabian Sea. Along the way, she made a liberty call at Pattaya Beach, Thailand, another at Singapore, and a resupply stop a Diego Garcia Island before arriving on station in the Arabian Sea in mid-January 1990. Her stay in the troubled region proved a brief one, however, for she called only once at a local port, Muscat in Oman between the 20th and the 22d, and cleared the region entirely early in February 1990. After visits to Penang, Malaysia, and Subic Bay, "Bagley" set out on the voyage home on 23 February. She stopped along the way at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and reentered San Diego on March 16, 1990.

Decommissioning

Following the customary post-deployment standdown, the frigate put to sea on April 27 to take up normal west coast training missions once again. For almost 10 months, she carried out the usual schedule of drills, exercises, and inspections punctuated with visits to variety of ports in the United States and Canada. She continued so occupied through 1990 and into the early months of 1991. In February 1991, however, "Bagley" embarked upon a brief, but novel, phase of her career when she left San Diego on the 15th bound for the coast of Central America for two months of drug interdiction duty. During that period, she cruised the Pacific coasts of Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama and Costa Rica stopping and inspecting fishing boats and other small craft and carrying out air tracking operations. The warship concluded the assignment on April 3 and headed back to San Diego where she arrived on the 9th. Over the last five months of her active service, the warship spent a lot of time in port at San Diego. She did put to sea occasionally both to prepare for her final material inspection or to visit ports farther up the coast. She returned to San Diego from her last underway period on July 8, 1991 and secured fires for the last time. After almost 12 weeks of final preparations, "Bagley" was decommissioned at San Diego on September 26, 1991. Her name was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on January 11, 1995 and later sold for scrapping. "Bagley" was cut up and recycled by the end of September 2000.

References

*DANFS|http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/b1/bagley-iv.htm

External links

* [http://www.nvr.navy.mil/nvrships/details/FF1069.htm Navy Vessel Register FF1069]
* [http://navysite.de/ff/ff1069.htm Navysite.de Photos]
* [http://www.navsource.org/archives/06/06021069.htm NavSource images]