1950s
John Willis reported to Newport, R.I., 7 April for duty with the Atlantic Fleet. Following two months of shakedown along the Atlantic coast and in the Caribbean, she departed Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 7 June for a five-week cruise to Northern Europe that carried her to Dutch, German, and Danish ports on the North and Baltic Seas. Upon her return to Newport 14 July, she commenced 10 months of ASW exercises along the Atlantic coast in preparation for deployment with the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean.
She steamed from Newport 12 May 1958, for the Mediterranean; and following her arrival at Gibraltar 21 May, she sailed with units of the 6th Fleet to participate in joint North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) antisubmarine exercises in the Eastern Mediterranean. The pro-Western government of Iraq fell to Arab nationalists 14 July, and on the 15th President Chamoun of Lebanon requested U.S. aid to thwart the possible overthrow of his government. In response President Dwight D. Eisenhower dispatched the 6th Fleet to Lebanon and ordered Marines to land at Beirut to protect "Lebanon's territorial integrity and independence." John Willis joined the Lebanon Patrol 18 July and for the next two months remained on intermittent patrol. As the Middle East crisis eased in September, John Willis departed the Eastern Mediterranean 14 September, and sailed for the United States, putting into Newport 7 October.
Read more about this topic: USS John Willis (DE-1027)