Bagley IV (DE‑1069)
1972-1985
(DE‑1069: displacement 3,,877 (full load); length 438'; beam 47'; draft 25'; speed 27+ knots; complement 245; armament 1 5-inch, 1 ASROC/Standard missile launcher, 1 Sea Sparrow launcher, LAMPS, 4 15.5-inch torpedo tubes; class Knox)
Worth Bagley, born in Raleigh, N.C., on 6 April 1874, entered the Naval Academy in 1891. He graduated on 7 June 1895 and, after two years at sea as a passed midshipman, was commissioned ensign on 1 July 1897. At the beginning of hostilities between the United States and Spain late in Apri1 1898, Bagley was serving in Winslow (Torpedo Boat No. 5), a ship that was soon on blockade station off the northern coast of Cuba.
On 11 May 1898, Winslow left her position for Cardenas to replenish her coal bunkers from one of the larger warships located there. When she reached Cardenas, the senior officer present, the commanding officer of Wilmington (Gunboat No. 8) ordered her to reconnoiter Cardenas Bay for mines in company with the revenue cutter Hudson. The negative report on the mines that the two small ships made at the completion of their mission prompted Wilmington's commanding officer to decide to take his ship into the bay to search for three Spanish gunboats reportedly lurking there. Bagleys ship and Hudson served as escorts. At about 3,000 yards from Cardenas, a lookout caught sight of a small, gray steamer moored alongside the wharf. Winslow moved in for a closer look. At about 1335 that afternoon, Bagleys torpedo boat reached a point about 1,500 yards from the wharf when a puff of smoke announced the beginning of an artillery duel that lasted an hour and 20 minutes. Winslows 1‑pounder responded, and then Spanish shore batteries opened on her. The little torpedo boat bore the brunt of Spanish fury and quickly suffered a number of hits.
The first shell to strike Winslow put both her steam and manual steering out of action. While members of her crew tried to rig some type of auxiliary steering gear, Ens. Bagley carried orders to the after engine room hatch in order to keep the warship maneuvering with her propellers. However, at one point the ship swung broadside to the enemy batteries, and a shell knocked out her port main engine. Wilmington and Hudson came to the rescue with their larger guns, and Winslow requested Hudson to tow her out of action. While the two ships attempted to make fast a towline, a shell burst near the after engine room hatch, slaying Bagley and four enlisted men. He was the only naval officer killed in action in the Spanish‑American War.
David Worth Bagley, the brother of Ens. Worth Bagley, was born in Raleigh, N.C., on 8 January 1883. He attended North Carolina State College in 1898 and 1899 before entering the Naval Academy in 1900. After graduating on 4 February 1904, he went to sea in Missouri (Battleship No. 3) attached to the North Atlantic Fleet. In December 1905, Passed Midshipman Bagley was reassigned to the Asiatic Fleet and served successively in Concord (Gunboat No. 3) and West Virginia (Armored Cruiser No. 5). While in Concord, he was commissioned ensign on 2 February 1906. He was detached from West Virginia in March of 1907 and, the following year, reported on board Rhode Island (Battleship No. 17) of the Atlantic Fleet and made the voyage around the world in her with the Great White Fleet. In April 1909, he left Rhode Island and went to the General Electric Co. in Schenectady, N.Y., for a year of instruction. He then became aide and flag lieutenant to the Commander, 2d Division, Atlantic Fleet, in April 1910.
After a similar tour of duty on the staff of the Commander in Chief, Asiatic Fleet, and a two‑month furlough, he reported for duty at the Naval Academy in September 1912. Two years later, Bagley returned to sea as first lieutenant 1n Michigan (Battleship No. 27) serving with the Atlantic Fleet. He got his first command in September 1915 when he took over Drayton (Destroyer No. 23). During the first month of 1917, Bagley moved from Drayton to Jacob Jones (Destroyer No. 61). By May 1917, he and his ship were conducting antisubmarine patrols and convoy escort missions in the western approaches to the British Isles. Later, his area of operations widened to include the Irish Sea and the English Channel.
On 6 December 1917, Bagley conned his ship out of Brest harbor. At about 1621 that afternoon, the watch spied a torpedo wake. The destroyer maneuvered to avoid the torpedo, but in vain. It struck her starboard side and pierced her fuel oil tank. Though Bagley and his crew worked frantically to save the ship, she went down within eight minutes carrying 64 crewmen with her. Bagley and 37 others made it into the icy water in boats and on rafts, and, thanks to the humanitarian gesture by Kapitänleutnant Hans Rose, the U‑boat commander who radioed their location to Queenstown, they were all picked up by the 8th. Bagley earned the Distinguished Service Medal for his part in handling the situation.
He returned to the United States after the sinking of Jacob Jones and became the prospective commanding officer of Lea (Destroyer No. 118) then under construction at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. He put her into commission on 2 October 1918, but commanded her only until January 1919 when he became the American port officer at Rotterdam in the Netherlands with additional duty as the assistant naval attaché in the American legation at The Hague. He later served as naval attaché before returning to the United States in December 1921 for a tour of duty ashore in the Office of Naval Intelligence. In March of 1922, Bagley returned to sea in command of Reno (DD‑303) and as Commander, Destroyer Division 32, Pacific Fleet. He transferred to command of Division 35, Destroyer Squadrons, Battle Fleet, in August 1923. Bagley went ashore again in May 1924 for another two‑year tour of duty at the Naval Academy. At the end of the academic year in 1926, he left the Academy to become chief of staff to the Commander, Naval Forces, Europe, embarked in Memphis (CL‑13). In April 1927, Bagley moved to the 9th Naval District as the assistant (later changed to chief of staff) to the commandant with temporary additional duty as acting commanding officer of the Naval Training Station, Great Lakes.
He returned to sea in December 1931 as the commanding officer of heavy cruiser Pensacola (CA‑24), then serving in the Atlantic with Cruiser Division (CruDiv) 4, Scouting Fleet. That assignment lasted until May 1933 when Bagley was called to Washington, D.C., for duty in the Bureau of Navigation. He later became assistant bureau chief. In May 1935, orders sent him to Newport, R.I., to attend the Naval War College. Upon completing the senior course, he remained there as a member of the staff. Next came a year of duty as Commander, Destroyer Squadron 20, Destroyers, Scouting Fleet. From July 1937 to May 1938, he served as Commander Minecraft, Battle Force. While in that position, he was promoted to flag rank to date from 1 April 1938. In May of that year, Rear Admiral Bagley began a 32‑month tour of duty as Commandant, Mare Island Navy Yard. At the beginning of 1941, he broke his flag in Tennessee (BB‑43) as Commander, Battleship Division 2. He was serving in that command billet when his flagship was slightly damaged on 7 December 1941 during the Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor.
On 4 April 1942, Bagley relieved Rear Admiral Claude C. Bloch as Commandant, 14th Naval District, and Commander, Hawaiian Sea Frontier, and he served in that capacity until January 1943. On 1 February 1943, he assumed command of the Western Sea Frontier and, on 30 March 1943, added the duties of Commandant, 11th Naval District. He held the latter office only until January of 1944, but continued to head the Western Sea Frontier until the following fall. Promoted to vice admiral to date from 1 February 1944, he was relieved of duty as Commander, Western Sea Frontier, on 17 November 1944. Eleven days later, Vice Admiral Bagley returned to Oahu and resumed duty as Commandant, 14th Naval District, and served in that position until ordered to Washington on 25 July 1945. On 20 August, Bagley reported for duty in the office of the Chief of Naval Operations and served on the International Defense Board, the United States‑Mexican Defense Commission, and the Permanent Joint Board on Defense. Vice Admiral Bagley was relieved of all active duty on 22 March 1946 and was placed on the retired list with the rank of admiral on 1 April 1947. Admiral Bagley died at the Naval Hospital, San Diego, Calif., on 24 May 1960.
The first three Bagleys; Torpedo Boat No. 24, Destroyer No. 185, and DD‑386 were named for Ens. Worth Bagley. The fourth, DE‑1069, honors both Worth Bagley and his brother, Admiral David W. Bagley.
IV
The fourth Bagley (DE‑1069) was laid down on 5 October 1970 at Seattle, Wash., by the Lockheed Shipbuilding & Construction Co.; launched on 17 April 1971; sponsored by Mrs. Marie Louise H. Bagley, widow of Admiral David Worth Bagley and posthumous sister‑in‑law of Ens. Worth Bagley; and commissioned on 6 May 1972 at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Comdr. William J. Bredbeck in command.
The escort ship conducted acceptance trials along the coasts of Washington and British Columbia and then headed south for her home port, San Diego, Calif., where she arrived on 25 July. The warship began a restricted availability on the 31st that lasted until 9 September. She departed San Diego on the 16th, bound for Pearl Harbor and her shakedown cruise. Bagley arrived in Pearl Harbor on 22 September and operated in Hawaiian waters into October. On the 3d of that month, she stood out of Pearl Harbor and headed for San Diego. The warship reached that port, her first home port, on 9 October. Over the next month, she conducted exercises out of San Diego. On 15 November, Bagley entered the Long Beach Naval Shipyard and began an extended post‑shakedown availability during which her main propulsion plant was converted to use Navy distillate fuel.
The warship completed repairs and modifications on 4 May 1973 and returned to San Diego that same day. She began training operations along the California coast three days later and continued those evolutions through most of the summer. She stood out of San Diego on 11 September and headed for the western Pacific. She conducted training operations in the Hawaitan Islands between 17 and 26 September and then resumed her westward voyage. She arrived in Yokosuka, Japan, on 5 October. A week later, the escort ship shaped a course for the Philippines. Bagley arrived in Subic Bay on the 17th for two days of upkeep and liberty. On the 19th, she weighed anchor and headed for a patrol station in the Gulf of Tonkin.
Ten days later, she received orders to accompany Hancock (CVA‑l9) to the Indian Ocean. That contingency force went to the western portion of the Indian Ocean in response to hostilities that had broken out between Israel and her neighbors, Egypt and Syria. Bagley spent the next seven weeks on patrol in the Indian Ocean as an indication of American resolve to end the fighting in the Middle East and as a deterrent to keep Soviet forces from intervening in the conflict.
On 17 December, Bagley reentered Subic Bay for an extended leave and upkeep period. For the remainder of the deployment, the warship participated in the usual 7th Fleet exercises punctuated by port visits to Hong Kong; Keelung, Taiwan; Buckner Bay, Okinawa; Pusan, Korea; and Yokosuka, Japan. On 20 February 1974, she departed the latter port and began the voyage home. The warship stopped at Midway Island and Pearl Harbor before arriving in San Diego on 8 March.
For the rest of 1974 and the first six months of 1975, she operated out of San Diego conducting a series of exercises, inspections, and qualifications. On 30 June 1975, Bagley was redesignated a frigate, FF‑1069. The warship spent the month of July 1975 preparing for her second deployment to the Far East. She stood out of San Diego on 1 August. Following stops at Pearl Harbor and Guam, the frigate arrived in Subic Bay on 13 September. For the next five months, Bagley conducted normal operations, training evolutions and port visits, with ships of the 7th Fleet. She departed Subic Bay on 12 February 1976 to return to the United States. She stopped at Pearl Harbor from 26 February to 3 March before continuing on to San Diego where she arrived on 1 April. She resumed normal operations out of San Diego, and continued that duty into 1977.
On 17 February of that year, she shaped a course for Hawaiian waters where she joined ships of the American, Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand navies in Exercise "RIMPAC 77." The frigate returned to San Diego on 12 March and, two days later, was drydocked in the Long Beach Naval Shipyard for hull repairs. She came out of drydock on 2 April and returned to San Diego on the 6th.
Bagley weighed anchor again the 12th and set course for the Orient. She made the usual stopover at Pearl Harbor and arrived in Subic Bay on 6 May. During this six months in the Far East, the frigate visited most of the usual liberty ports and participated in a number of training exercises with other ships of the 7th Fleet. On 6 November, she departed Yokosuka for an uninterrupted voyage to San Diego. The warship reentered her home port on 21 November and remained there through the end of the year.
The frigate conducted normal operations out of San Diego during the first six weeks of 1978. On 14 February 1978, she entered the Long Beach Naval Shipyard for an overhaul that occupied the rest of 1978. She completed post‑overhaul trials and tests in January 1979 and resumed operations out of San Diego early in February. Exercises, qualifications, and tests in the southern California operating area occupied her throughout 1979 and for most of the first two months of 1980. The warship departed San Diego on 25 February, bound ultimately for the Far East. En route to the western Pacific, however, she participated in the multinational Exercise "RIMPAC 80" conducted in the Hawaiian Islands. She resumed her voyage west on 19 March and entered Subic Bay on 8 April.
After conducting training operations, notably gunfire support drills and ASROC firings, in the Subic Bay operating area, Bagley departed the Philippines late in April in company with a task force built around Constellation (CV‑64). The task force constituted a part of the increased American military presence in the western Indian Ocean deemed necessary after radical Iranian students occupied the American embassy in Tehran and took the American diplomatic staff hostage. The continuing hostage crisis and hostilities between Iran and Iraq kept a large number of Navy ships on patrol in nearby waters. Bagley's task force remained in the vicinity until 29 July when it headed back to the Pacific. En route to the Philippines, she stopped at Singapore and at Pattaya, Thailand. She reentered Subic Bay on 20 August with 36 Vietnamese refugees whom she had rescued on the passage from Thailand. Bagley voyaged to Pusan, Korea, for a goodwill port call in mid‑September and returned to Subic Bay on the 23d. On 1 October, the frigate got underway to return to the United States. After the customary pause at Pearl Harbor, Bagley arrived back in San Diego on 15 October. Except for a brief period underway on 20 November, the frigate remained in port at San Diego for the remainder of 1980.
She continued the in‑port period through the first seven weeks of 1981. On 18 February, the warship resumed normal operations in the southern California operating area. Fleet exercises and single ship drills occupied her until 20 October 1981 when she again headed for the Far East. She stopped at Pearl Harbor from 31 October to 2 November and then resumed her voyage west. Bagley arrived in Subic Bay on 22 November. She operated out of Subic Bay until early when she headed for the Indian Ocean. En route to Indian Ocean contingency operations, the warship encountered Vietnamese refugees adrift in a boat in the South China Sea. She took the boat's 37 occupants on board, sank the boat as a potential hazard to navigation, and proceeded to Singapore where she disembarked the refugees. The frigate resumed her voyage to the Indian Ocean on 12 December and arrived at Al Masirah, Oman, on the last day of 1981.
The year, 1982, opened with Bagley operating in the western Indian Ocean and in the Arabian Sea. That employment lasted until late January when she made a port visit to Mombasa, Kenya, before heading back to the Far East. On that journey, she took a very circuitous route, visiting the Australian port of Geraldton, Diego Garcia Island, and Penang in Malaysia, before returning to Subic Bay in mid-April. Late in April and early in May, Bagley took part in readiness exercises carried out near Guam in company with Constellation, Midway (CV-41) and Ranger (CV-61). At the conclusion of those evolutions on 8 May, the frigate set a course, via Hawaii, to the west coast and reentered San Diego on 23 May. After the customary month of post-deployment leave and upkeep, Bagley resumed normal training duty in California waters and remained so occupied for the rest of the year.
Local operations out of San Diego kept the frigate busy well into 1983. She did not set out for another overseas assignment until 9 June when she put to sea bound for the western Pacific. Along the way, Bagley and her travelling companions; New Jersey (BB-62), Callaghan (DDG-994), John A. Moore (FFG-19), and Meyerkord (FF-1058 spent a week in the Hawaiian Islands in mid-June before resuming the voyage west on the 17th. The warships changed operational control to the Commander, 7th Fleet, on 27 June and reached the Philippines at Manila on Independence Day 1983. Over the next five months, the frigate took part in a number of exercises at sea, most often with a task group built around Midway, and visited a series of Far Eastern ports. Late in July, she visited Singapore and Thailand before heading for a set of exercises in Korean waters carried out at the end of July and during the first part of August. After a call at Guam in late August and early September, Bagley steamed to Sasebo, Japan, whence she operated until the first week in November when she returned to the Philippines at Subic Bay. The warship made one more stop at a Japanese port, Yokosuka, and then headed back to the United States on 1 December. She called briefly at Pearl Harbor before arriving back in San Diego on 13 December.
Post-deployment leave and upkeep kept Bagley immobile at San Diego for the rest of the year and during the first half of January 1984. In fact, despite a short two-day period underway between 17 and 19 January, she did not resume normal west coast operations until the second week in February when she put to sea for READIEX 84-2 and a cruise to the pacific coast of Central America. Bagley returned to San Diego from those missions on 9 March and remained there until the 22d. At that time, the warship headed north to Esquimalt, Canada, where she took part in CNO Project 371, tests on new submarine torpedo designs. She completed her part in the tests on 30 March and, after visits to Vancouver, British Columbia, and to San Francisco, returned to San Diego on 11 April. Just over a month after her return, Bagley began an eight-month regular overhaul at the naval station.
Bagley completed the overhaul on 19 January 1985 and embarked upon more than four months of post-overhaul checks, qualifications, and certifications. These, she carried out in a long series of short underway periods in nearby waters. Late in May, the frigate participated in Exercise EASTPAC 85-5 conducted in late May and early June. At the conclusion of the evolution, Bagley called at Portland, Oreg., for that city's Rose Festival and then moved on to Concord, Calif., to load ammunition. She then visited San Francisco before returning to San Diego on 22 June. Except for another visit each to Esquimalt and San Francisco in September, Bagley operated locally out of San Diego for the remaining months of the year.
Her west coast employment came to an end early in 1986. On 15 January, the warship set out on her first overseas deployment in two years as part of a task group built around Enterprise (CVN-65). After reaching Pearl Harbor on the 21st, she spent the rest of January in Hawaii taking part in a series of exercises and then resumed her voyage to the Far East on 2 February. Bagley arrived in Subic Bay on 17 February and operated locally in the Philippines for the rest of the month. Early in March, the frigate's task group visited Singapore on the way to duty in the eastern Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea. She stopped off at Karachi, Pakistan, between 15 and 17 March before dropping anchor at Al Masirah Island, Oman, on the 18th. On 9 April, Bagley set out for Diego Garcia Island at which place she called briefly on the 12th before shaping a course for the Suez Canal.
The Enterprise task group transited the canal on 28 and 29 April and arrived in the Mediterranean to reinforce American forces there which were already engaged in a series of retaliatory actions against the provocations and terrorist activities of Libya's Col. Muammar Qaddafi. Bagley and her task group spent the next two months cruising the Mediterranean in support of American foreign policy. On 28 June, she left Catania, Italy, steamed to and through the Suez Canal, crossed the Indian Ocean, and arrived in Subic Bay on 17 July. She returned to sea with the task group on the 22d bound for home. After the customary call at Oahu, the warship reentered San Diego on 11 August and began an extended post-deployment standdown period. In fact, the frigate only left port briefly on four occasions in October; the rest of the year she spent in San Diego.
Another series of four brief underway periods in January 1987 punctuated a month otherwise spent largely in upkeep. In February, she traveled to Concord where she unloaded ammunition before beginning a restricted availability at San Diego on the 16th. The repair period lasted until early summer and included a seven-week drydocking in Steadfast (AFDM-14) that occupied most of April and all of May. Late in June, Bagley resumed normal operations out of San Diego; and, except for operations in the Bering Sea that took up most of November, she remained active in the immediate vicinity of San Diego for the rest of the year.
As 1987 waned and 1988 began, however, Bagley anticipated imminent departure for overseas duty. She stood out of San Diego on 4 January 1988 in company once more with the Enterprise task group. The warships made an unusual nonstop, but leisurely, Pacific crossing during which they carried out a five-day readiness exercise in the Hawaiian operating area. The frigate and her colleagues reached Subic Bay in the Philippines on 1 February and remained in that port until the 6th. On that day she and the other warships in the group got underway for a tour of duty in the Arabian Sea, returning once more to a region of chronic political convulsions spawned by a decade of Iranian provocations. En route to the Arabian Sea, Bagley participated in a series of exercises with units of the Indonesian Navy. She and her unit reached their destination at mid-month and relieved the Midway task group as contingency force on station. For about two months, Bagley patrolled the waters of the northern Arabian Sea with her task group with the only untoward event being the loss of her helicopter which ditched because of a material casualty.
After Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) struck an Iranian mine and suffered severe damage on 14 April, Bagley enjoyed the good fortune of being selected as one of the warships chosen to retaliate on the Iranians. Accordingly, she joined Wainwright (CG-28) and Simpson (FFG-56) on 18 April, and the three warships steered for the Sirri oil platform which they then put out of operation with gunfire. Soon after destroying the oil platform, the trio engaged the Iranian patrol boat Joshan with surface-to-surface missiles and finished her off with gunfire. When a Marine Corps AH-1 "Cobra" helicopter operating from Wainwright failed to return after the actions of the 18th, Bagley spent the next two days engaged in a futile search for the missing aircraft and its crew. It became apparent that the helicopter went down during the operation when the bodies of the crew, Marine Corps Capts. Stephen C. Leslie and Kenneth W. Hill, were recovered almost a month later about 15 miles southeast of Abu Musa Island.
Late in April, Bagley and Lynde McCormick (DDG-8) escorted San Jose (AFS-7) and MV Matthiasen through the Strait of Hormuz into the Arabian Sea. The warship then resumed operations in the northern reaches of that sea. That employment lasted until 15 May when Bagley parted company with the task unit and joined Reasoner (FF-1063) in setting a generally easterly course. After exercises with units of the Indonesian and Malaysian navies and a series of port calls in the Philippines and along the coast of the Asian continent, the warship set out from Pusan, Korea, on 17 June to return to the United States. She stopped off at Seattle to embark a group of male relatives and friends of her crewmen for the last leg of the voyage home and completed this "Tiger" portion of the journey at San Diego on 2 July.
After more than a month of post-deployment standdown at San Diego, Bagley resumed normal duty training in waters along the west coast. Exercises, drills, and inspections--the normal fare of west coast operations--occupied the warship for the remainder of 1988 and the first two months of 1989. She entered drydock in Steadfast (AFDM-14) at San Diego at the end of February 1989 and remained docked for the entire month of March. Exiting the drydock on 4 April, she continued repairs and the installation of new equipment until mid-May. At that time she resumed her schedule of west coast training missions and continued so engaged through the summer.
On 18 September 1989, Bagley embarked once again on the long voyage to the Far East and another several months of service there and in the Arabian Sea. This particular passage to the Orient, however, played out differently than most because the frigate and her task group remained at sea for more than a month before entering port in the Far East. Bagley's unit rendezvoused with two other units, one built around Carl Vinson (CVN-70) and the other around Constellation, and sailed north to conduct the exercise Operation "PACEX 89" in the vicinity of the Aleutian Islands during the period between 20 and 30 September. In October, the warship took part in Operation "ANNUALEX 89" with the Carl Vinson group augmented by the battleships Missouri (BB-63) and New Jersey (BB-62). That exercise ranged westward across the northern Pacific and then north into the Sea of Japan. At one point in the massive operation, elements of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force joined American warships and planes in carrying out bilateral training in the waters surrounding Okinawa. The exercise-prolonged crossing ended with Operation "Valiant Blitz" carried out with units of the South Korean Navy in the Sea of Japan.
On 31 October, Bagley and her colleagues made their first port of call since leaving North America in mid-September when they arrived in Hong Kong. After nearly a week of liberty, the warship returned to sea with the task group on 6 November for the voyage to the Philippines and arrived in Subic Bay on the 11th. She spent the next four weeks either in port at Subic Bay or operating in nearby waters. On 10 December, she set out for a tour of duty with the contingency forces operating in the Arabian Sea. Along the way, she made a liberty call at Pattaya Beach, Thailand, another at Singapore, and a resupply stop a Diego Garcia Island before arriving on station in the Arabian Sea in mid-January 1990. Her stay in the troubled region proved a brief one, however, for she called only once at a local port, Muscat in Oman between the 20th and the 22d, and cleared the region entirely early in February. After visits to Penang, Malaysia, and Subic Bay, Bagley set out on the voyage home on 23 February. She stopped along the way at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and reentered San Diego on 16 March 1990.
Following the customary post-deployment standdown, the frigate put to sea on 27 April to take up normal west coast training missions once again. For almost 10 months, she carried out the usual schedule of drills exercises, and inspections punctuated with visits to variety of ports in the United States and Canada. She continued so occupied through 1990 and into the early months of 1991. In February 1991, however, Bagley embarked upon a brief, but novel, phase of her career when she left San Diego on the 15th bound for the coast of Central America for two months of drug interdiction duty. During that period, she cruised the Pacific coasts of Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama and Costa Rica stopping and inspecting fishing boats and other small craft and carrying out air tracking operations. The warship concluded the assignment on 3 April and headed back to San Diego where she arrived on the 9th. Over the last five months of her active service, the warship spent a lot of time in port at San Diego. Still, she did put to sea occasionally both to prepare for her final material inspection or to visit ports farther up the coast. She returned to San Diego from her last underway period on 8 July and secured fires once and for all. After almost 12 weeks of final preparations, Bagley was decommissioned at San Diego on 26 September 1991. Her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register in January 1995 and the ship was cut up and recycled by the end of September 2000.
Raymond A. Mann
23 September 2005
