USS STEWART

About this property

USS Stewart (DE–238) is an Edsall-class destroyer escort, the third United States Navy ship so named. This ship was named for Rear Admiral Charles Stewart (28 July 1778 – 6 November 1869), who commanded USS Constitution during the War of 1812. Stewart is one of only two preserved destroyer escorts in the U.S. and is the only Edsall-class vessel to be preserved. She is on display in Galveston, Texas as a museum ship and is open to the public. The third Stewart (DE-238) was laid down at Houston, Texas, by Brown Shipbuilding on 15 July 1942; launched on 22 November; sponsored by Mrs. William A. Porteos, Jr.; and commissioned on 31 May 1943. Stewart remained at Houston until 10 June, when she shifted to Galveston. She entered the drydock there on the 14th and exited on the 16th. The following day, she got underway for New Orleans, Louisiana, where she reported for duty to the Commandant of the 8th Naval District and to the Commander, Operational Training Command, Atlantic Fleet (COTCLANT). The destroyer escort departed New Orleans on 22 June to conduct shakedown training in the vicinity of Bermuda; completed it a month later; and sailed for Philadelphia. After six days at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Stewart headed south to Miami, Florida, from whence she operated, conducting patrols and exercises, until 29 October. She put to sea; headed north; and, on the 31st, arrived at Norfolk, Virginia. After a cruise up the Potomac River, during which she visited Quantico, Virginia and the Washington Navy Yard, Stewart commenced a tour of duty training prospective destroyer-escort crews out of Norfolk. That assignment continued for the next three and one-half months, broken only by two temporary assignments escorting convoys from Tompkinsville, New York, to the Virginia Capes area. On 17 March 1944, she sailed from Norfolk for Tompkinsville; arrived there the next day; and put to sea, on the 19th, in the screen of a convoy bound—via NS Argentia, Newfoundland—for Reykjavík, Iceland. She returned to Tompkinsville on 10 April and sailed for Norfolk on the 12th. She arrived there on the 13th, drydocked from the 14th to the 16th, and joined the screen of convoy Task Unit (TU) 29.6.1 on 25 April. Stewart sailed with her convoy via Aruba in the Netherlands West Indies and made Cristobal in the Panama Canal Zone on 3 May. The following day, she put to sea with the convoy and escorted it as far as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. There, she parted company with the other ships and steamed independently to Bermuda. The destroyer escort arrived at Port Royal on 10 May and, for the next week, made experimental attacks on a captured Italian submarine. From the 18th to the 23rd, Stewart participated in a search off Bermuda for an unidentified radio direction finder contact. She made one depth charge attack on the 18th, but the results were inconclusive. On the 23rd, she put back into Port Royal and remained there four days.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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