Name USS Thornhill Laid down 7 October 1943 Decommissioned 17 June 1947 Construction started 7 October 1943 Length 93 m | Namesake Leonard W. Thornhill Commissioned 1 February 1944 Struck 26 March 1951 Launched 30 December 1943 | |
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Builders Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, Newark | ||
USS Thornhill (DE-195) was a Cannon-class destroyer escort built for the United States Navy during World War II. She served in the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean and provided escort service against submarine and air attack for Navy vessels and convoys. In 1951 the ship was transferred to the Marina Militare and renamed Aldebaran. The ship remained in service until 1976 when she was sold for scrap.
Contents
Construction and career
The ship was named after Leonard W. Thornhill, who participated in the Battle of Coral Sea and was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. Thornhill was laid down on 7 October 1943 at Newark, New Jersey, by the Federal Shipbuilding & Drydock Co.; launched on 30 December 1943; sponsored by Mrs. J. E. Thornhill, the mother of Lt. (jg.) Thornhill; and commissioned on 1 February 1944, Lt. John B. Shumway, USNR, in command.
The destroyer escort got underway on 18 February, held shakedown training out of Bermuda, and returned to New York exactly one month later. Thornhill served as a training ship at Norfolk, Virginia, during April. In May, she returned to New York to escort a part of Convoy UGS-42 to Norfolk. The 108-ship convoy sortied from Hampton Roads on 13 May, bound for North Africa. Thornhill arrived at Bizerte on 1 June and returned to New York on the 29th with a westbound convoy. Late in July, the destroyer escort screened another convoy to North Africa and returned to New York on 7 September 1944.
Pacific Theater
During the next eight months, Thornhill made four more escort voyages to England and France. On 9 June 1945, she and the other ships of Escort Division (CortDiv) 55 got underway for Guantánamo Bay and proceeded thence through the Panama Canal to the west coast of the United States. The division arrived at San Diego, California, on 9 July. CortDiv 55 stood out to sea five days later and arrived at Pearl Harbor on the 19th to join the Destroyer Force, Pacific Fleet.
Thornhill and her division departed with RMS Empress of Australia on 8 August, bound for the Marshalls, and reached Eniwetok the day after hostilities with Japan ceased. She remained in the Marshalls until 7 December when she and Wingfield headed back toward Hawaii. The two ships arrived at Pearl Harbor on 13 December 1945, and Thornhill served as a weather patrol ship there during January 1946. The destroyer escort sailed for home on 2 February and, after calling at San Diego, arrived at the Boston Navy Yard on 7 March.
Postwar
The next week she got underway for Green Cove Springs, Florida, to be inactivated. She was decommissioned on 17 June 1946 and assigned to the Atlantic Reserve Fleet.
Thornhill was transferred to Italy under the Military Assistance Program on 10 January 1951 and was struck from the Navy List on 26 March that same year. She served the Italian Navy as Aldebaran (F-590) until she was stricken and broken up in 1976.