USS Pope (DE-134)

History

United States
Namesake:	John Pope
Builder:	Consolidated Steel Corporation, Orange, Texas
Laid down:	14 July 1942
Launched:	12 January 1943
Commissioned:	25 June 1943
Decommissioned:	17 May 1946
Struck:	2 January 1971
Honours and awards:	3 Battle Stars plus the Presidential Unit Citation
Fate:	Sold 22 August 1973, scrapped
General characteristics
Class and type:	Edsall-class destroyer escort
Displacement:	1,253 tons standard 1,590 tons full load
Length:	306 feet (93.27 m)
Beam:	36.58 feet (11.15 m)
Draft:	10.42 full load feet (3.18 m)
Propulsion:	4 Fairbanks-Morse diesel engines, 4 diesel-generators, 6,000 shp (4.5 MW), 2 screws
Speed:	21 knots (39 km/h)
Range:	9,100 nmi. at 12 knots (17,000 km at 22 km/h)
Complement:	8 officers, 201 enlisted
Armament:	3 × 3 in (76 mm)/50 guns (3 × 1) 2 × 40 mm AA guns (1 × 2) 8 × 20 mm AA guns (8 × 1) 3 × 21 in (530 mm) torpedo tubes (1 × 3) 8 × depth charge projectors 1 × depth charge projector (hedgehog) 2 × depth charge tracks

USS Pope (DE-134) was an Edsall-class destroyer escort built for the U.S. Navy during World War II. She served in the Atlantic Ocean and provided destroyer escort protection against submarine and air attack for Navy vessels and convoys.

She was named after commodore John Pope, born 17 December 1798 in Sandwich, Massachusetts. This ship also commemorated the destroyer USS Pope (DD-225) that had been sunk in the Battle of the Java Sea in 1942. She was laid down by Consolidated Steel Co., Orange, Texas, 14 July 1942; launched 12 January 1943; sponsored by Mrs. Rae W. Fabens, and commissioned 25 June 1943, Comdr. Frederick Sherman Hall in command.

After a shakedown cruise off Bermuda, USS Pope escorted her first convoy eastwards to Casablanca, arriving on 23 September 1943. Subsequently, she escorted two more convoys into to the Mediterranean Sea. She then began work with Task Group TG 22.3, an antisubmarine task group centered on the aircraft carrier USS Guadalcanal. On 9 April 1944, Pope's task group sank the German submarine U-515 off French Morocco, and on 4 June, she participated in the capture of U-505 west of Cape Blanche. For her part in that action, USS Pope received the US Presidential Unit Citation. Pope continued operations with USS Guadalcanal in the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea until the end of the war in the Atlantic and Europe. She assisted in the sinking of the U-boat U-546 on 24 April 1945.

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