Moore (DE-240)
(DE‑240: dp. 1,200; l. 306'; b. 36'7"; dr. 9'7" (mean); s. 21 k.; cpl. 186; a. 3 3", 2 40mm., 8 20mm., 2 dct., 8 dcp., 1 dcp. (hh.); cl. Edsall)
Fred Kenneth Moore, born 17 December 1921, at Campbell, Tex., enlisted in the U.S. Navy 31 July 1940. Onboard Arizona at Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941, Seaman Moore remained at his station on antiaircraft gun No. 1 in spite of orders to take cover when the Japanese strafing became severe. With two other members of the guncrew, he assisted in keeping the gun in operation until he was killed by an explosion. Seaman 1st Class Moore was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross "for distinguished service, extraordinary courage and devotion to duty, and disregard for his own safety."
Moore (DE‑240) was laid down 20 July 1942 at the Brown Shipbuilding Co., Houston, Tex.; launched 20 December 1942; sponsored by Mrs. Fred Moore, mother of Seaman Fred K. Moore; and commissioned 1 July 1943, Lt. Comdr. H. P. Michiels in command.
Following shakedown off Bermuda, Moore steamed to Norfolk where she reported for duty with TF 63, then escorted merchant convoys, beginning 10 September 1943. Before the end of the year she had transited the Atlantic to north Africa twice. On 13 January 1944, she relieved Decker (DE‑47) for a month of operations off the New England coast under ComFleet Air Wing, Quonset, R.I. In March, she sailed to Casco Bay, Maine, for abbreviated training exercises and then headed south to Norfolk where she joined TG 24.14 and sailed, on the 15th, in the screen of Tripoli (CVE‑64) for antisubmarine patrol duty west of the Cape Verde Islands. A unit of the 4th Fleet for under 2 months, she returned to Norfolk, 27 April, and, in May, continued her patrols with Tripoli in the North Atlantic, from Bermuda to Argentia in TG 22.4.
Detached for the month of July, she conducted coastal operations and escort work, and completed one escort run to Bermuda before resuming operations with TG‑22.4, assigned this time to Core (CVE‑13). For the remainder of the war in Europe she operated with Core, cruising along the east coast and in the western Atlantic from Cuba to Newfoundland.
On 11 May 1945, she put into Tompkinsville, shifting later to Brooklyn and then to Boston, for overhaul preparatory to her reassignment to the Pacific Fleet. She got underway for the Pacific, with others of her division, CortDiv 7, for which she served as flagship, 24 June. On 4 August she arrived at Pearl Harbor, where, 10 days later, she received word of the Japanese agreement to Allied surrender terms. On the 20th, she resumed her westward voyage and arrived, on the 29th, at Saipan. There she reported to TF 94 for post war duty under ComMarianas area. Assigned to the Bonin‑Volcano area she anchored off western Iwo Jima, 3 September, and a few days later commenced air‑sea rescue operations with Fleet Air Wing 18.
Moore returned to the United States in late 1946 with orders to report to the Atlantic Reserve Fleet for inactivation. That work, begun in January 1947, was completed 30 June, when Moore decommissioned and joined the 16th Fleet. Berthed originally at Green Cove Springs, Fla., she was later transferred to the Norfolk Reserve Group, where she remains into 1969.
