USS Slater

Saturday, 13 June 2026. A really busy tour day that followed an overnight. John still found time to get some deck painting done with Sydney and Cassidy. .

Announcing the First Tin Can Sailors Photo Contest.

Enter in Tin Can Sailors' first Photo Contest, honoring the service, history, and legacy of U.S. destroyers, and the people who sail and preserve them.

Winning images will be showcased in The Tin Can Sailor magazine, on destroyers.org, and on association and museum ship channels, with cash prizes and membership awards in each track.

Full Contest Rules are available on our website using the link below!
Enter Here 👉 https://www.destroyers.org/photo-contest/

Join us next Saturday 20 June for Destroyer Es**rt Day! Our ceremony will begin at 10 AM and tours will start immediately after.

Destroyer Es**rt Day pays homage to the DE/APD/DER sailors killed in WW II, Korea, and Vietnam and to the ships lost in action. As the name of each of the fifteen ships lost is read, the ship’s bell is tolled and a carnation is dropped into the waters of the Hudson River from the main deck of USS SLATER DE-766.

The first Destroyer Es**rt Day was held at the Intrepid Sea, Air, & Space Museum in New York City on June 16, 1990. The third Saturday in June is now recognized and celebrated by the Destroyer Es**rt Historical Museum. Governor George E. Pataki’s Proclamation naming the third Saturday of June was issued on Saturday June 20, 1998.

The event is free to attend and welcome to all!

Thursday, 11 June. Hotter than yesterday, but we ran tours all day. Thanks to Ashley Morrison for the photos.

Temperatures are north of 90°F at SLATER. Though we can't go swimming in the Hudson, the crew of USS HOWARD F. CLARK (DE-533) beat the heat with an ocean swim and a warm Navy beer on 22 August 1945 just off Feitabul Island on the eastern fringe of Ulithi Atoll.

Photograph from the DEHM collection.

Tuesday, 9 June 2026. Twelve maintenance volunteers and four tour guides reported aboard today, to continue our maintenance efforts.

The crew changed the old sewage hose to the new hose. The old hose was flushed, drained, and discarded. Ashore, Bill and Chuck worked on the security fence extension, on the north end of the seawall. Danny continued fabrication of the replacement hydraulic press cross head. Doug, Warren, and John walked down the starting air system.

John continued work, greasing all the 20mm guns, and found many frozen and missing grease fittings. He also found an elevation trunnion spring broken on the aft 20 mm gun 29. Tom continued work on the aft head sink faucet.

Ron was in from Massachusetts, and continued scaling and priming on the 01 level portside. The tours had to work around him. Steve was aboard, and continued working on a cable issue with the TBL transmitter.

Monday, 8 June 2026. Twelve maintenance volunteers reported aboard in the morning and Chris, Jim, and Bob reported aboard for tour duty in the afternoon.

In the morning, the crew installed connecters and attached carrier line to new sewage hose. It passed a 15 minute 25 pound pressure test. They worked on an extension for our roadside security fence, and installed the train locks on 20mm guns 25 and 26.

They also worked on fabricating the cross head for shop press, test ran the 340 compressor, walked down the HP Compressor piping, and worked on the aft head sink.

Not a bad days' work. Photos by Thomas Scian

Eighty years ago on, 7 June, USS HILL (DE-141) decommissioned at Green Cove Springs. This destroyer es**rt honored Edwin J. Hill, who was 47 on 7 December 1941, and Chief Boatswain of USS NEVADA (BB 36). He was born in Philadelphia on 4 October 1894. He enlisted in the Navy in 1912. NEVADA took hard hits in the first wave of attacks, but was still seaworthy. Her commanding officer opted to get the battleship underway. Hill took the order to untie the ship from the quay personally, leading the line-handling crews and then jumping overboard to untie the stern line.

As NEVADA eased away, he swam back to the ship, climbed aboard, and resumed taking charge. Caught by the second wave of bombers, NEVADA took more hits and threatened to block the channel. The order came down to beach the ship at Hospital Point. Hill and his men were doing their jobs when a direct bomb hit killed Hill and 46 other men. Hill was one of the first men to earn the Congressional Medal of Honor on the Day of Infamy.

He was remembered when the Edsall Class, USS HILL (DE-141), was laid down on 21 December 1942, by the Consolidated Steel Corp. in Orange, Texas. The ship was launched on 28 February 1943, and was sponsored by Mrs. Edward Hill, the widow of Chief Boatswain Hill. USS HILL was commissioned there on 16 August 1943, with Lcdr. Gordon R. Keating in command.

After shakedown out of Bermuda, HILL tested new torpedo explosives and engaged in training along the New England coast. Departing Hampton Roads on 5 December, HILL es**rted a convoy to Casablanca via Ponta del Gada, Azores, and returned to the States on 18 January 1944. During the next year, the destroyer es**rt made four more transatlantic voyages to the North African coast, as Allied forces pushed up the Italian peninsula and began their assault on southern France.

During the summer of 1944, HILL operated as part of Hunter Killer Task Group 22.5, formed around the es**rt carrier, USS WAKE ISLAND (CVE-65), and supported convoy UGS-46. On her fourth voyage, HILL performed an antisubmarine patrol in Bahia, Brazil, and Cape Town, South Africa.

Following operations in the Caribbean during February and March 1945, HILL proceeded to Argentia, Newfoundland, on 3 April, to serve as a convoy screen and plane guard for es**rt carrier, MISSION BAY (CVE-59). After repairs and upgrades in New York, she participated in training exercises until sailing for the Caribbean on 2 July 1945. Two weeks later, HILL sailed for the Pacific via the Canal Zone. En route to Hawaii, HILL received word of Japanese capitulation and, after putting in at Pearl Harbor, sailed for home again.

HILL reached Green Cove Springs, Florida, via San Pedro, the Panama Canal, and Charleston on 27 October 1945. She decommissioned and was placed in reserve there on 7 June 1946. She remained in reserve until 1 October 1972, when she was struck from the Naval Vessel Register. On 13 December 1973, she was sold for scrapping to the Southern Scrap Materials Co. of New Orleans, Louisiana.

The photograph shows HILL off New York on 22 March 1945. She carries huff/duff antenna aft, and is unusual that she still has her torpedo tubes. Most DesLant es**rts had replaced them with additional anti-aircraft guns by this date.

Saturday, 6 June 2026. Today we remember Operation Neptune and the over 150,000 Allied troops that landed on the beaches of Normandy, 82-years ago.

Among the over 1,200 warships that took part in the invasion, 6 destroyer es**rts provided anti-submarine, anti-aircraft, and shore bombardment support. They were USS AMESBURY (DE-66), USS BATES (DE-68), USS BLESSMAN (DE-69), USS RICH (DE-695), USS BORUM (DE-790), and USS MALOY (DE-791).

In 2026, a steady stream of visitors walked SLATER's decks and learned how these tin cans contributed in all theaters of the war. One of these guests was George Sermier and his son.

George had visited a month prior to see the ship his father, Eustace Sermier, served aboard in the 1950s while in the Greek Navy. Eustace was a medical officer aboard SLATER after she had been renamed HS AETOS (D01). He brought his son with him to recreate photographs of his father.

Today was also the start of the Museumships Radio Weekend. Museumships from across the globe use this weekend as an opportunity to use their shipboard radio gear to contact ships and other HAM operators. Atmospheric conditions weren't great so the radio gang didn't get as many contacts as they had hoped. Fingers crossed for tomorrow!