USS Uhlmann (DD-687) - 1953-1958

1953-1958

Following exercises off the west coast, Uhlmann was again deployed to the western Pacific. She proceeded via the Hawaiian Islands, and she arrived at Yokosuka on 20 November 1953. During this seven-month tour, the destroyer plied waters off Japan and Korea and engaged in training and operations out of Yokosuka and Sasebo with TF 77. In February 1954, Uhlmann joined with elements of the French and British Far Eastern Fleets for Exercise "Sonata" which included extensive antisubmarine warfare training and visits to Philippine and Indochina ports. During March, she embarked personnel of the Nationalist Chinese Navy for training.

While patrolling Taiwan Strait in the first week of March, she assisted the grounded Chinese Nationalist merchant ship Kiang Shan which was stranded on an island in the Pescadores. In the course of a daring rescue of crewmen from the Chinese steamer, Uhlmann lost her whaleboat and bent her propellers, shafts, and rudder on reefs in the shallow water. After the successful completion of her mission, she put in at Kaohsiung on the 5th. To prevent vibration damage to her reduction gears, she was towed from that port on the llth and, on 14 March, arrived at Subic Bay for repairs. On her return to San Diego, she resumed the stateside routine of upkeep and training.

Over the net 15 years, Uhlmann made 11 more deployments to the western Pacific (WestPac). On deployment to the Far East in 1954 with Destroyer Division 152, she took part in the evacuation of the Tachen Islands—located off Hangchou Wan—in the American attempt to defuse the explosive situation which had developed between Nationalist China and the People's Republic of China. In 1958, during a period of heightened tension over the Chinese offshore islands, the destroyer again supported American interests in the Far East. Between deployments, Uhlmann operated out of San Diego, participating in fleet exercises, receiving upkeep, and performing goodwill assignments.