ELDRIDGE DE 173

Ship Name and Designation History

This section lists the names and designations that the ship had during its lifetime. The list is in chronological order.

Cannon Class Type DET Destroyer Escort Keel Laid February 22 1943 - Launched July 25 1943 USS ELDRIDGE DE-173 Commissioned August 27 1943 - Decommissioned June 17 1946 Struck from Naval Register March 26 1951 HNS LEON D-54 (Greek Naval Service) Transferred to Greece January 15 1951 and renamed Stricken by Greece 1991 Laid up in Souda Bay, Crete in Terminal Reserve

Naval Covers

This section lists active links to the pages displaying covers associated with the ship. There should be a separate set of pages for each name of the ship (for example, Bushnell AG-32 / Sumner AGS-5 are different names for the same ship so there should be one set of pages for Bushnell and one set for Sumner). Covers should be presented in chronological order (or as best as can be determined).

Since a ship may have many covers, they may be split among many pages so it doesn't take forever for the pages to load. Each page link should be accompanied by a date range for covers on that page.

1. Covers Page 1     (1944)

 

Postmarks

This section lists examples of the postmarks used by the ship. There should be a separate set of postmarks for each name and/or commissioning period. Within each set, the postmarks should be listed in order of their classification type. If more than one postmark has the same classification, then they should be further sorted by date of earliest known usage.

A postmark should not be included unless accompanied by a close-up image and/or an image of a cover showing that postmark. Date ranges MUST be based ONLY ON COVERS IN THE MUSEUM and are expected to change as more covers are added.
 
>>> If you have a better example for any of the postmarks, please feel free to replace the existing example.

 

Postmark Type --- Killer Bar Text	Date From to Date To	Thumbnail Link To Postmark Image	Thumbnail Link To Cover Image

 

Newark NJ Machine

1943-07-23

Twin launching with USS COONER DE-172
Neumann Cachet

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Locy Type 2z

1944-11-24

Note:

 

Other Information

Awards, Citations and Campaign Ribbons...
American Campaign Medal - Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal - European-Africa-Middle East Campaign Medal w/ 1 star - World War II Victory Medal

ELDRIDGE was the subject of the much publicized book and movie "The Philadelphia Experiment"

NAMESAKE - John Eldridge, Jr USN (October 10 1903 - November 2 1942)
Eldridge graduated from the Naval Academy in 1927. After flight training at Pensacola, Fla., he served at various stations on aviation duty. From September 11 1941 he was Commander, Scouting Squadron 71, attached to USS WASP CV-7. Lieutenant Commander Eldridge was killed in action in the Solomons November 2 1942. For his extraordinary heroism in leading the air attack on Japanese positions in the initial invasion of the Solomons, August 7 and 8 1942, he was posthumously awarded The Navy Cross

 

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If you have images or information to add to this page, then either contact the Curator or edit this page yourself and add it. See Editing Ship Pages for detailed information on editing this page.

 

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