Post Korean War and Fate
During her regularly scheduled yard period at Mare Island, 4 May to 7 September 1953, her 20 mm. and 40 mm. batteries were replaced with 3 inch/50 rapid-fire guns. Coastal refresher training was followed by a 5 January 1954 departure for WestPac. The normal exercises and port calls of a WestPac deployment ended with her departure from Yokosuka 29 May for the west coast.
In February 1955, Rochester served on her fifth WestPac deployment, completing that cruise 6 August and arriving at her homeport the 22d. An overhaul at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard commenced 19 November 1955 and was completed 7 March 1956. Thence came refresher training and preparations for yet another WestPac deployment. This sixth Pacific tour commenced 29 May when Rochester and her escorts stood out of Long Beach. It was 16 December when the ships returned to homeport.
The first week of June 1957 found Rochester in San Francisco, where she acted as flagship for Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz as he reviewed the 1st Fleet. Returning to Long Beach the 18th, she resumed local operations and exercises until her departure on 3 September for her seventh WestPac deployment. She returned to Long Beach 24 March 1958. Two more WestPac deployments followed, 6 January to 17 June 1959 and 5 April to 29 October 1960.
While planning was in place to convert her into an Albany-class guided missile cruiser, funds were not appropriated and Rochester was ordered to report to the Commander, Bremerton Group, Pacific Reserve Fleet on 15 April 1961 for inactivation. She departed Long Beach 12 April, reported to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, and she was placed out of commission, in reserve, 15 August 1961. She remained at Bremerton until struck from the Navy list on 1 October 1973 and sold to Zidell Explorations, Portland, Oregon on 31 July 1974 and scrapped.
Rochester received six battle stars for Korean War service.
Read more about this topic: USS Rochester (CA-124)
Famous quotes containing the words post, war and/or fate:
“I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage, with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post which any human power can give.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“I realized how for all of us who came of age in the late sixties and early seventies the war was a defining experience. You went or you didn’t, but the fact of it and the decisions it forced us to make marked us for the rest of our lives, just as the depression and World War II had marked my parents.”
—Linda Grant (b. 1949)
“I’d like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)