Needed: your help in planning for tours.  Tentative - caravan to Great Lakes for the 8 October RTC graduation; luncheon cruise on Lake Michigan on 9 October; Cantigny Park and First Division museum on 10 October.  Please email the webmaster and give us your ideas or support of the current agenda.

The Ship

Read the latest compiled ship's history at Ship's History

From the Internet, NavSource.org, Richard Leonhardt
Entering Yokosuka, June 14, 1966
Through the bowchain of the med-moored USS Markab (AR23) to the Yokosuka quay wall


From Jack Stewart
Entering Syndey Harbor, August 1968

Official U.S. Navy Photograph
Off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii, 5 July 1972

Bruce Isaak
Underway from Pearl Harbor in 1975

Provided by Tom Bailey
In the Western Pacific, 1986
As good as she ever looked...a real ship!

Brian Donley
Distributed Enroute to Seattle 29 July 1992

A tired lady running for home...Pearl
And retirement 1992-1993

There are a series of photographs provide by Brian in the Ship's Photo section of this website.  There is even two pictures of the ship on the day she was decommissioned.

About the USS Reeves

There have been two U.S. Navy ships to carry the Reeves name. The first USS Reeves was a 1400-ton Buckley class escort ship built at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Virginia. She was named in honor of Chief Radioman Thomas James Reeves, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism during the 7 December 1941 Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor.

After a year of Atlantic convoy escort duty (1943-1944) as DE-156, the Reeves was converted to a high speed transport. The USS Reeves (APD-52) reported to the Pacific Fleet early in 1945 and took part in the Ryukyus campaign. At the end of the War, she moved up to Japan to support the repatriation of prisoners of war and other occupation activities. Returning to the United States in late 1945, she was decommissioned in July 1946 and was laid up at Green Cove Springs, Florida. USS Reeves remained in the Atlantic reserve fleet until June 1960 and was then transferred to Ecuador for use as a floating electric power plant.

Further information for the first USS Reeves can be found at the Naval Historical Center and Wikipedia.com.

The second USS Reeves was Leahy-class guided missile frigate officially classified as a destroyer leader (DLG) (later reclassified as a cruiser - CG) that was named for Vice Adm. Joseph Mason "Bull" Reeves. Admiral Reeves is also known as the "father of carrier warfare." USS Reeves was built by the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, WA. Her keel was laid down on 1 July 1960. She was launched on 12 May 1962 and commissioned on 15 May 1964. With the exception of a period at Bath Iron Works for her first AAW upgrade, the Reeves served entirely in the Pacific fleet and was alternately homeported at Pearl Harbor or Yokosuka, Japan.

Throughout her nearly 30 years of service, the Reeves spent four tours off the coast of Vietnam in the 60s and 70s. She maintained a U.S. presence in the Western Pacific as part of Battle Group Alfa, homeported in Yokosuka, for most of the 1980s. USS Reeves returned to Pearl Harbor where she spent the last three years until decommissioning 12 November 1993. The Reeves remained at Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility, Pearl Harbor until she was towed south on her final cruise to the Coral Sea. During Tandem Thrust 2001, a joint Naval exercise with the U.S. and Australian navies, Reeves was sunk on 31 May 2001 as a target ship for Australian Air Force precision training. She rests nearly three miles down at the bottom of the Coral Sea about 170 miles east of Fraser Island and the coast of Australian.

It is to the memory of the second USS Reeves and the 4,000+ shipmates that served in her that this site is dedicated.

Shipmates Remembered

Association member SM2 Stephen Kraus (68-69) is a survivor of the HMS Melbourne-USS Frank E Evans (DD-754) collision at sea in 1969. Two other Reeves sailors were onboard Frank Evans at the time of the collision - FN Thomas Eaton and RD3 Jon Thomas. Of these three Ironment, only RD3 Thomas perished at sea. You can visit the Frank Evans Association at http://www.vietnamproject.ttu.edu/evans/

Ship's Namesake

 Read the complete synopsis of this new book at the Namesake webpage.   Our thanks and great appreciation to Tom Wildenberg for speaking at our Crystal City reunion.

Ship's Shield

This an original ship's plaque that was given to then LT Woodie Stegall, the commissioning Navigator in 1964.  Back in the day, there was a Navigation Department and Woodie was the department head.  Puget Sound Shipyard made sure that every department head received one of these unique items.  Woodie has donated his plaque to us and it is now the property of the Association.  We have now gotten the story behind it's survival.  It took the 2009 Reunion in San Diego to finally get it straight.  Click on the image to the left to see a larger version.  See the Ship's Store about plans for producing a wall-mounted version of this plaque which can be seen on the photo image to the right.

____________________________________________________

What date was that?

This Navy Photo was published in the Navy Times in 1985, and found in Jack Stewart's garage in 2009, I think - Jack didn't exactly say.

In Top Form

Aircraft carrier USS Midway (CV-41) and her battle group steam in formation in the Makassar Straits between Borneo and Sulawesi Celebes.  Leading the group, directly in front of the USS Midway, is USS Reeves (CG-24), and clockwise are: USS San Jose (AFS-7), USNS Mispillion (T-AOE-105), USS Oldendorf (DD-972), USS Kansas City (AOR-3), USNS Kilauea (T-AE-26), USS England (CG-22), USS Towers (DDG-9), USS Kirk (FF-1087), USS Knox (FF-1052) and USS Cochrane (DDG-21).

However,

According to DefenseImagery.com, this photograph was taken on 9/28/1987.  It is an aerial port bow view of Battle Group Alfa underway. The ships are: (clockwise from center front) the USS REEVES (CG-24) , USS SAN JOSE (AFS-7), USNS MISPILLION (T-AO-105), USS OLDENDORF (DD-972), USS KANSAS CITY (AOR-3), USNS KILAUEA (T-AE-26), USS ENGLAND (CG-22), USS TOWERS (DDG-9), USS KIRK (FF-1087), USS KNOX (FF-1052), USS COCHRANE (DDG-21), and USS MIDWAY (CV-41) (center).

Think they're the same photo?  Me to.

Editor:  In the 17 years that USS Midway was forward deployed to Yokosuka, Reeves spent more than just couple of years with her.  The Yokosuka carrier group was designated Battle Group Alfa in the mid-1980's.  The top photo seems to correlate with photo information on the USS Kirk website that is dated 9/28/1985.  The same photo can be found at the USS Knox website. It is probable that the Kirk, Knox and Reeves didn't steam together for two years.  The lower 1987 photo from DefenseImagery.com is probably misdated.  Even the year published on GlobalSecurity.com, 1987 (1985?) is openly questioned.  Meantime, we continue to pursue the evidence.  There are always a couple more sites to check...

The Rest of the News...

We are also providing you with information about the Reeves crewmembers who are in contact with each other, wish to contact each other or just didn't know that such a thing was possible.  Check our crew roster or the deck logs to find your buddies.  Contact the webmaster for email or snail mail information.

Interested in joining our association? Are you a former crewmember, or a Leahy Class destroyer (cruiser) double-ender lover, or just like real Navy ships?  Then fill out the application and send it to Michael Robertson.  Two years ago, there wasn't any association.  We now have charter members that want an association with reunions and can be found on the member web page.  You need to check it out and join us...  Believe it or not, we are planning our third reunion.  Go the the Reunion page to find out all about it.

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