USS Charles P. Cecil (DD-835) was a , the only ship of the United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 to be named after Rear Admiral

Rear Admiral

Rear admiral is a naval commissioned officer rank above that of a commodore and captain, and below that of a vice admiral. It is generally regarded as the lowest of the "admiral" ranks, which are also sometimes referred to as "flag officers" or "flag ranks"...

 Charles P. Cecil

Charles P. Cecil

Charles Purcell Cecil was a US Navy Admiral who was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions at the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands on 26 October 1942. In November 1942, Rear Admiral Cecil assumed command of the...

. She was launched on 22 April 1945 by Bath Iron Works

Bath Iron Works

Bath Iron Works is a major American shipyard located on the Kennebec River in Bath, Maine, United States. Since its founding in 1884 , BIW has built private, commercial and military vessels, most of which have been ordered by the United States Navy...

, Bath, Maine

Bath, Maine

Bath is a city in Sagadahoc County, Maine, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 9,266. It is the county seat of Sagadahoc County. Located on the Kennebec River, Bath is a port of entry with a good harbor. The city is popular with tourists, many drawn by its...

; sponsored by Mrs. C. P. Cecil; and commissioned on 29 June 1945 with Commander W. Outerson in command.

Service history

Charles P. Cecil arrived at San Diego, her home port, on 20 November 1945, and almost at once sailed on a tour of Pacific

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

 duty which found her operating as part of Joint Task Force One in the atomic bomb tests

Operation Crossroads

Operation Crossroads was a series of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. It was the first test of a nuclear weapon after the Trinity nuclear test in July 1945...

 at Bikini Atoll

Bikini Atoll

Bikini Atoll is an atoll, listed as a World Heritage Site, in the Micronesian Islands of the Pacific Ocean, part of Republic of the Marshall Islands....

, as well as supporting occupation forces with operations in Japanese waters. She returned to San Diego on 9 August 1946, and took part in exercises off the west coast until on 26 August 1947, when she cleared for her second deployment to the Far East. She touched at many Pacific islands as well as calling at ports in China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 and Okinawa before her return to San Diego on 5 May 1948.

Reclassified DDR-835 on 18 March 1949, Charles P. Cecil left San Diego astern on 4 April 1949, bound for Newport, Rhode Island

Newport, Rhode Island

Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...

, and assignment to the Atlantic Fleet

United States Fleet Forces Command

The United States Fleet Forces Command is an Atlantic Ocean theater-level component command of the United States Navy that provides naval resources that are under the operational control of the United States Northern Command...

. First from Newport, and from December 1950, from Norfolk, Virginia

Norfolk, Virginia

Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....

, Charles P. Cecil operated through 1960 with the Atlantic Fleet, taking part in midshipmen training cruises, periodic deployments to the Mediterranean

Mediterranean Sea

The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...

, and the overhauls and refresher training necessary to maintain her readiness. She participated in a long list of NATO operations, in waters ranging from those north of the Arctic Circle

Arctic Circle

The Arctic Circle is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. For Epoch 2011, it is the parallel of latitude that runs north of the Equator....

 to the Mediterranean. Her tours of duty with the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean included one which coincided with the Suez Crisis

Suez Crisis

The Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, Suez War was an offensive war fought by France, the United Kingdom, and Israel against Egypt beginning on 29 October 1956. Less than a day after Israel invaded Egypt, Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to Egypt and Israel,...

 of fall 1956, during which she took up watchful patrol in the eastern Mediterranean.

From January 1959, when she was fitted with highly complex electronic computational and tracking equipment, Charles P. Cecil concentrated on air defense

Anti-aircraft warfare

NATO defines air defence as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action." They include ground and air based weapon systems, associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements and passive measures. It may be to protect naval, ground and air forces...

 experiments and exercises, contributing to the development of advanced techniques. Her training, however, continued to include the areas such as anti-submarine warfare

Anti-submarine warfare

Anti-submarine warfare is a branch of naval warfare that uses surface warships, aircraft, or other submarines to find, track and deter, damage or destroy enemy submarines....

 and amphibious operations

Amphibious warfare

Amphibious warfare is the use of naval firepower, logistics and strategy to project military power ashore. In previous eras it stood as the primary method of delivering troops to non-contiguous enemy-held terrain...

 required of the versatile destroyer.

Charles P. Cecil participated in thirteen Mediterranean cruises, two Middle East cruises, and two Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

 cruises; She was one of the first ships on the Cuban Quarantine Line in the fall of 1962, there she was the principal unit that exhausted a Russian submarine

Foxtrot class submarine

The Foxtrot class was the NATO reporting name of a class of diesel-electric patrol submarines that were built in the Soviet Union. The Soviet designation of this class was Project 641....

 and forced her to surface.

In July 1973 Charles P. Cecil was assigned to naval reserve squadron COMDESRON TWO EIGHT and homeported in New London, Connecticut

New London, Connecticut

New London is a seaport city and a port of entry on the northeast coast of the United States.It is located at the mouth of the Thames River in New London County, southeastern Connecticut....

.

Charles P. Cecil was struck from the United States Navy's rolls of fighting ships on 1 October 1979 and subsequently sold to Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 and renamed Apostolis on 8 August 1980. She served with the Hellenic Navy

Hellenic Navy

The Hellenic Navy is the naval force of Greece, part of the Greek Armed Forces. The modern Greek navy has its roots in the naval forces of various Aegean Islands, which fought in the Greek War of Independence...

until she was decommissioned in 1993. She was scrapped in March 2003.