USS Frank Knox (DD-742)
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| Career | 
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|---|---|
| Ordered: | |
| Laid down: | 8 May 1944 |
| Launched: | 17 September 1944 |
| Commissioned: | 11 December 1944 |
| Redesignated: | DDR-742, 18 March 1949 |
| Redesignated: | DD-742, 1 January 1969 |
| Decommissioned: | Jan 1971 |
| Fate: | Sold to Greek Navy (1971), Sunk as target (2001) |
| Struck: | 30 January 1971 |
| General Characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 2,425 tons full load |
| Length: | 390,6 ft |
| Beam: | 41,2 ft |
| Draught: | 15,8 ft |
| Propulsion: | |
| Speed: | 34 knots |
| Range: | |
| Complement: | 336 |
| Armament: | 6 5", 10 21" tt. 6 dcp., 2 dct |
USS Frank Knox (DD-742) was a Gearing-class destroyer in the United States Navy during World War II. She was named for Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox.
Frank Knox was built at Bath, Maine. Commissioned in December 1944, she arrived in the western Pacific war zone in mid-June 1945, in time to participate in the final carrier air raids on the Japanese home islands as part of Task Force 38. She was present in Tokyo Bay when Japan formally surrendered on 2 September 1945 and remained in the Far East until early February 1946. The ship made additional deployments to the region during the later 1940s and was reclassified as a radar picket destroyer (DDR) in March 1949.
Frank Knox again steamed across the Pacific to take part in hostilities in early July 1950, shortly after the outbreak of the Korean War. During this combat tour, which lasted into 1951, her missions included support of the Inchon invasion, shelling enemy targets ashore and patrolling the Taiwan Straits. Two more Korean War cruises followed in 1952 and 1953, and for the rest of the decade Frank Knox deployed regularly to WestPac for Seventh Fleet service.
In 1960–1961 Frank Knox was modernized under the FRAM II program, which gave her updated radars and other new equipment. She was based in the Far East from late 1961 until mid-1964, then returned home via Australia and the south Pacific. Again deployed in June 1965, she briefly served off Vietnam conducting naval gunfire support and coastal patrol operations. While underway in the South China Sea on 18 July, Frank Knox ran aground on Pratas Reef, and was only freed after a very difficult salvage effort. Though she was badly damaged, and relatively elderly, her command and control capabilities justified an extensive repair job, which was carried out at Yokosuka, Japan, over the next year.
Frank Knox rejoined the active forces in November 1966 and resumed her pattern of nearly annual Seventh Fleet cruises, frequently taking part in Vietnam combat missions. Redesignated DD-742 at the beginning of 1969, she completed her final deployment in November 1970 and was decommissioned at the end of January 1971. USS Frank Knox was transferred to the Greek Navy a few days later. Renamed Themistoklis, she served for another two decades before being placed out of commission in the early 1990s. The old ship was sunk as a torpedo target by the Greek submarine Kyklon on 12 September 2001.
See USS Knox for ships of a similar name, although these were not named for Secretary Knox.
This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.