USS Edward McDonnell DE-1043

Date: 1965 to 1965
Location: Avondale, Charleston, Newport, Norfolk
Surname/tag: McEwen

The keel for the USS Edward McDonnell was laid on April's Fool Day, 1963, at the Avondale Shipyard near Westwego, Louisiana. The Commissioning Crew was assembled at the Newport Naval Base where training in firefighting and battle damage control was conducted. She was launched in January 1965 and commissioned in Charleston, South Carolina in February, 1965. She was then fitted-out at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard after which she was sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for shakedown training. Port calls included Puerto Rico and Ocho Rios, Jamaica. She was chosen to represent the United States on Jamaica's Independence Day and spent a week in Kingston, Jamaica. She then entered the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard for additional work and then became operational as a member of the Atlantic Fleet Anti-Submarine Warfare Forces on 14 January 1966 stationed in Norfolk, Virginia.

She was assigned to an Anti-submarine Taskforce centered on the USS Randolph (CV-15). She began a North Atlantic Cruise which took her to Belfast, Northern Ireland, Dublin, Ireland, Kiel Germany, Norrköping, Sweden, Copenhagen, Denmark, and Trondheim, Norway.