USS Lewis (DE-535) - Post-Korean War

Post-Korean War

Following an overhaul at Long Beach in early 1953, Lewis carried out refresher training and local operations out of San Diego through mid-June. The destroyer escort then made a short trip to Mazatlan, Mexico, 25–28 June, before preparing for another overseas deployment. Departing San Diego on 14 July, the warship arrived at Guam via Pearl Harbor on the 31st. With the Korean armistice signed just four days previously, Lewis did not conduct combat operations, instead patrolling the Marianas Islands, the Ryukus and kept watch for communist violations of the truce in the Yellow Sea through the summer and into the fall. After a brief visit to Japan in late October, she turned for home before Christmas, returning to San Diego via Midway and Pearl Harbor on 18 December.

After another four-month overhaul at Long Beach, the destroyer escort carried out refresher training before deploying again on 10 August 1954. With duties similar to her last deployment, Lewis cruised off Okinawa and the east coast of Korea before returning home on 19 December. An almost identical deployment followed on 4 May 1955, with the destroyer escort conducting exercises in Japanese waters and patrolling off Korea before returning to San Diego on 19 November. A longer modernization overhaul followed, with Lewis remaining in San Francisco between 21 November and 14 March 1956.

For her fifth deployment, which began 20 August 1956, the destroyer escort sailed further south, stopping at Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands on the 30th, before proceeding across the equator to Auckland, New Zealand, arriving there for a three-day visit on 7 September. Skirting the northern coast of Australia, Lewis then stopped at Townsville 14–15 September and Darwin 19–21 September before heading on to Singapore, mooring there on the 28th. Following stops at Subic Bay and Hong Kong in October, the warship then received voyage repairs at Yokosuka 16–30 November before returning to the Philippines for a month of operations out of Subic Bay. She then sailed for home in late December, stopping at Guam and Kwajalein for exercises before arriving in San Diego on 18 February 1957.

On 30 September 1957 Lewis deployed again via the South Pacific, visiting Pago Pago on 14 October; Brisbane, Australia, on the 20th; and Manus Island on 30 October before arriving in Guam on 2 November. Three months of island patrol operations in the Marianas followed before Lewis turned for home, arriving in San Diego on 2 March 1958.

Following an overhaul at San Francisco 1 May – 26 July 1958, the warships’ home port was changed to Guam and Lewis sailed to her new station on 14 October, arriving in Apra harbor on 1 November. She conducted island patrol and search-and-rescue operations there for most of the next year, interspersed with port visits to Subic Bay and Hong Kong in mid-April 1959. During the summer and fall Lewis conducted survey work, helping map the deep waters of the region. Starting in November 1959 she took part in Operation Nekton, a series of deep dives in the Mariana Trench by Trieste, a deep-diving research bathyscaphe purchased by the Navy the previous year. On 23 January, Lewis helped track Trieste with her sonar gear as the bathyscaphe conducted the deepest manned dive ever undertaken, to the bottom of trench Challenger Deep 35, 798 feet below the surface.

Lewis departed Guam in February 1960 and sailed to Mare Island, Calif., for inactivation. She decommissioned there on 27 May 1960 and entered the reserve fleet shortly thereafter. Recommended for disposal on 22 December 1965, the old destroyer escort was struck from the Navy list on 1 January 1966.