Post-War Duties
For the next three and one-half months, Sea Dog operated out of Subic Bay and, on 12 January 1946, set a course for the West Coast, arriving at San Francisco, California, on 2 February. Overhaul at Mare Island followed; and, in June, she returned to Pearl Harbor to prepare for her second postwar deployment to the Far East. During July, while en route to the Philippines, she conducted a mock war patrol. In August and early September, she provided antisubmarine training services to Seventh Fleet units in the Tsingtao area; and, at the end of the latter month, she returned to Pearl Harbor.
Through 1947, Sea Dog remained in the eastern Pacific, conducting training operations in the Hawaiian Islands and off the coasts of Washington, British Columbia, and California. In mid-January 1948, she again deployed to the western Pacific Ocean, where, after a visit to Australia, she again joined TG 71.2, the 7th Fleet's antisubmarine warfare training group at Tsingtao. On 2 March, she suffered minor damage in a collision with Furse (DD-882); and, after repairs, she headed back to Hawaii.
Two months later, Sea Dog cleared Pearl Harbor and headed north to the Bering Sea to collect hydrographic and oceanographic information. On her return to Pearl Harbor, 15 June, she resumed a schedule of local training exercises alternated with periods of antisubmarine warfare training services to Fleet Air Wing 4 off the Washington coast.
In January 1950, Sea Dog was again deployed to the western Pacific. On her return, she received orders to join the Atlantic Fleet. Departing Pearl Harbor in mid-June, she arrived at Norfolk in early July and commenced training services necessitated by the outbreak of the Korean War. In July 1952, Sea Dog was reassigned to SubRon 12 at Key West, Florida, whence she continued to provide training services.
On 7 November 1952, while conducting exercises with Airship Squadron 2 off Jacksonville, Florida, she intercepted a distress signal from a damaged U.S. Navy blimp, K-119, commanded by then-Lieutenant G. Robert Keiser, USN, and proceeded at flank speed to the last reported position to pick up Keiser and 10 other survivors for further transfer to the rescue and salvage ship USS Escape (ARS-6). The blimp itself, however, proved too waterlogged to be towed back to port and was taken under fire by Sea Dog. The gas tanks were penetrated, and the burning blimp sank.
Sea Dog remained based at Key West into the fall of 1955 when she was ordered to New London, Connecticut, to begin inactivation. Arriving early in December, she proceeded to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine for overhaul in January 1956; and, in May, she returned to New London, where she was decommissioned on 27 June. She remained in the New London Reserve Group until partially activated in February 1960 for service as a Naval Reserve training ship in the 1st Naval District. She served in that capacity until struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 2 December 1968 She was docked in Salem, Massachusetts as a floating museum until 1973 when she was sold for scrap.
Sea Dog earned two battle stars during World War II.
As of 2005, no other ship in the United States Navy has carried this name.
Read more about this topic: USS Sea Dog (SS-401)
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