Price DE-332

Price

(DE-332: dp. 1,590 (f.); 1. 306'0", b. 36'7", dr. 12'3"; s. 21 k.

cpl. 216; a. 3 3", 8 40mm, 2 dct., 8 dcp., 1 dcp. (hh.) 3 21" tt.; cl. EdsaU)

Price (DE-332) was laid down by the Consolidated Steel Corp., Orange, Tex., 24 August 1943, Iaunched 30 October 1943; spon~sored by Mrs. Ray P. Reynolds, and commissioned 12 January 1944, Lt. Comdr. J. W. Eliggins, Jr., USNR, in command.

After shakedown off Bermuda, Price departed Norfolk on convoy escort duty 23 March. On the night of 11 April German planes attacked in force, leaving Holder (DE-401) dead in the water from a torpedo hit. Price shot down one plane then escorted Holder, towed by rescue tug HMS Mind.fui, into Algiers, before continuing on to Bizerte, Tunisia. She then escorted a return convoy to the United States, subsequently escorting two more convoys to Bizerte.

On 28 September, she was detached from TF 65, and with the rest of Eseort Division 58, was assigned to TG 21.7 and duty escorting vital convoys across the stormy North Atlantic. By 29 May 1945 she had escorted five convoys across the Atlantic and back.

With the end of European hostilities she was transferred to the Pacific and arrived Pearl Harbor 27 July. On 31 August she got underway for Eniwetok as plane guard and escort for Kula Gulf (CVE-108). She subsequently put into Ulithi Guam, and Okinawa. On 6 December she departed Guam for Iwo Jima and Chiehi Jima where she established the military occupation of the Bonin and Voleano Islands.

She departed Chichi Jima 9 January 1946 on a "Magic Carpet" run to the United States. Embarking veterans at Iwo Jima, Guam, and Pearl Harbor, she carried them to San Pedro, then sailed for the East Coast. She reached Boston 21 February, and in late March headed south to Green Cove Springs, Fla. Decommissioned 16 May 1947, she remained there, a unit of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet until reactivated in 1955. ~

Converted to a radar picket escort on her reactivation, she was redesignated DER 332, 21 October 1955. Price recommissioned at New York 1 August 1956 and reported for duty with CortRon 18 at Newport, R.I., 11 September. For the next three and a half years she patrolled the Atlantic Barrier from north of Newfoundland, and south from the English Channel to the Azores. This duty was interrupted by a schedule of training cruises to waters off Cuba, Bermuda, and, the Virginia Capes and in December 1959 by SAR duty for President Eisenhower's flight home from Paris. She was placed in commission in reserve at Orange, Tex. 1 April 1960 and decommissioned there 30 June 1960. She remains in the Atlantic Reserve Fleet into 1970.

Price received one battle star for World War II service.