Post War
After the war's end, Gleaves proceeded westward to Saipan and Nagasaki, Japan, with the occupation forces. She distinguished herself for outstanding rescue and salvage work during the powerful typhoon which swept through the Philippine Sea during September and October.
While repairing her machinery at Adak, Alaska, 23 November, Gleaves received word that steamer Adabelle Lyke, in the Pacific was suffering from a smallpox epidemic. The veteran "can do" destroyer put to sea at top speed from Adak on 25 November with the vital vaccine. She met the stricken steamer next day and transferred the life-saving supplies.
Her duty in the North Pacific terminated, Gleaves transported 300 veterans from the Aleutian Islands to Seattle, Washington, on "Magic-Carpet" duty, arriving 10 December 1946. She then moved to San Francisco and on 2 January 1946 departed for Charleston, South Carolina At Charleston, where she arrived 18 January 1946, Gleaves decommissioned 8 May 1946, and was placed in reserve at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania She was later moved to the Reserve Fleet at Orange, Texas, where she remained through 1967. Gleaves was stricken from the naval register on 1 November 1969 and sold 29 June 1972 and broken up for scrap.
Gleaves received five battle stars for World War II service.
Read more about this topic: USS Gleaves (DD-423)
Famous quotes containing the words post and/or war:
“I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage, with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post which any human power can give.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“War is bestowed like electroshock on the depressive nation; thousands of volts jolting the system, an artificial galvanizing, one effect of which is loss of memory. War comes at the end of the twentieth century as absolute failure of imagination, scientific and political. That a war can be represented as helping a people to “feel good” about themselves, their country, is a measure of that failure.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)