1960s
Following commissioning, Tattnall conducted sea trials out of Charleston and tested her Tartar and ASROC missile systems in the Charleston, Jacksonville, FL, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, operating areas. Late in August, she returned to Charleston before departing again for shakedown training in the West Indies. The guided-missile destroyer returned to Charleston once again on 20 October for post-shakedown availability. Training, exercises, and local operations followed from early February until late April 1964. After a visit to New York City late in April, she resumed operations out of Charleston.
On 8 September, she got underway for her first overseas cruise during which she participated in NATO Exercise "Teamwork," an operation conducted in the Norwegian Sea and in the Bay of Biscay. The exercise ended early in October, and the warship put into Portsmouth, England, on the 3rd. Tattnall moved from there to Edinburgh, Scotland, for a one-day visit on 12 October, before heading back to the United States. On the 22nd, she reentered Charleston and resumed normal operations.
Following missile firings and gunnery practice in the San Juan operating area, Tattnall departed the western Atlantic on 7 December for her first deployment to the Mediterranean Sea. On 14 December, she reached the Straits of Gibraltar and became a unit of the 6th Fleet. While in the Mediterranean, she visited Tunis, Genoa, and Naples in Italy; Marseilles and Theoule in France; and Barcelona in Spain. She also participated in several exercises with other units of the 6th Fleet and with ships of foreign navies. On 4 March 1965, she retransited the Straits of Gibraltar and headed back toward the United States.
The guided-missile destroyer made Charleston on 14 March and began an availability period in preparation for her participation in projects for the Chief of Naval Operations. She completed the availability on 19 April and put to sea to conduct Fleet Research Project Number 69. She finished her work on the research project on 7 May and returned to Charleston. Tattnall resumed normal operations until 30 August when she put to sea to conduct the first of two additional tasks for the Chief of Naval Operations. This project, designated D/S 336, sought to insure her combat readiness prior to the second project, 0/S 102. During project D/S 336, Tattnall’s crew averaged 10 to 12 hours a day at general quarters as they tracked single and multiple-plane air raids and simulated missile firings. Weather conditions hampered the gathering of data so that project D/S 336 was not concluded until 2 October. She put to sea again on 4 October for project O/S 102, a multi-phase test of the combat effectiveness of the Charles F. Adams-class guided-missile destroyer. She completed the project early in December and returned to Charleston for availability, holiday leave, and preparation for another Mediterranean deployment.
On 15 February 1966, Tattnall departed Charleston once more to join the 6th Fleet. From 27 February to 3 March, she participated in Exercise "Fairgame IV," a Franco-American exercise conducted in the western Mediterranean. On 17 May, she conducted an intelligence surveillance of Russian warships. In June, she joined in another western Mediterranean exercise, "Deep Six." On this cruise, she added Rhodes, Majorca, Thessalonica and Volas, Greece, and Istanbul, Turkey, to her list of ports visited. On 1 July, the warship put to sea from Palma de Majorca and headed back toward Charleston, where she arrived on 22 August.
Upon arrival, Tattnall immediately began her first major overhaul since commissioning. She remained in Charleston Naval Shipyard from 22 August 1966 until 7 March 1967. After exiting the shipyard, she resumed local operations along the southern Atlantic coast of the United States and in the West Indies until early July. Following a week-long visit to New York City from 12 to 19 July, the guided-missile destroyer returned to Charleston to prepare for her third Mediterranean cruise. That deployment lasted through January 1968; and, by early February, Tattnall was back in Charleston. She resumed normal operations along the southeastern coast of the United States and in the West Indies until June, when she returned to Europe. After a stop in the Azores and a visit to Germany for the "Kiel Week" celebration, Tattnall reentered the Mediterranean for another tour of duty with the 6th Fleet. The warship remained in the Mediterranean until mid-November and then returned to the east coast and local operations.
Tattnall continued to operate from Charleston until late July 1969, when she shifted home ports to Mayport, Fla. She arrived in Mayport on 29 July and conducted normal operations until September. From 2 to 24 September, the guided-missile destroyer participated in NATO Operation "Peacekeeper." On the 24th, she entered Amsterdam in the Netherlands for a week, then put to sea for hunter-killer operations and visits to the European ports of Hamburg, Bergen, Edinburgh, and Le Havre. She reentered Mayport on 10 December 1969.
Read more about this topic: USS Tattnall (DDG-19)