Over 100 reunion members, veterans, family and guests gathered in Resurrection Cemetery May 20 to unveil a stone in memory of the lost 74 who went down with the bow of the USS Frank E. Evans (DD-754).

Frank E. Evans collided with the Australian carrier Melbourne around 3 a.m., June 3, 1969.

Aboard the ship that night was Seaman Fredrick Conrad "Dick" Messier, the only Sailor to die that morning from the Ocean State.

"It would have been just after 4 p.m., June 2, 1967 here in Rhode Island when this struggle for life was taking place 14 hours away on the other side of the world," said former Frank E. Evans crew member John Coffey.

Coffey, one of the event organizers, came up from Georgia for the reunion and memorial stone unveiling. He told those assembled what serving on the Evans was like.

"Movement and noise -- if anything else in the Navy is constant it is that when you are [aboard] a ship at sea," said Coffey. "Men stand watch, men are down in the boiler room working in 110-degree heat, men are up on the bridge -- port and starboard with the signalman behind them. Everybody's doing their job. There is always some kind of danger [aboard] a Navy ship."

Coffey went on to explain the circumstances that led to the accident that night.

At around 3 a.m. between Vietnam and Spratly Island, Frank E. Evans was operating with the Royal Australian Navy in company with Melbourne, which was in the process of going to flying stations and all ships in the formation were running without lights.

Melbourne radioed Frank E. Evans, then to the carrier's port side, to take up the rescue destroyer position. The logical movement would be to turn to port and make a circle taking up station on the carrier's port quarter. However, since the conning officer on Frank E. Evans misunderstood the formation's base course and believed they were starboard of Melbourne, they turned to starboard and cut across the carrier's bow twice in the process.

Frank E. Evans was struck at a point around 92 feet from her bow on her port side and was cut in two. Her bow drifted off to the port side of Melbourne and sank in less than five minutes, taking 73 of the crew with it. One body was recovered from the water, making a total of 74 dead. The stern scraped along the starboard side of Melbourne and lines were able to be attached by the crew of Melbourne -- around 60 to 100 men were also rescued from the water.

Frank E. Evans, an Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer, served in late World War II and the Korean War before heading for Vietnam. She had a complement of 336 officers and crew.

Gathered at the event were two crew members who were aboard the ship that night -- Bill Thibeault, currently living in Connecticut; and Terry Vejr, currently living in Oregon.

Thibeault told this story:

"Dick was 19, I was 18; the war was on and we were going to Vietnam," he said. "We boarded the ship in dry dock in April 1968. At the time of the collision, we were in the back half of the ship (referring to Vejr and himself) and we're just lucky to be here today."

"We need to get the names of those 74 added to the Vietnam Wall. We will always remember and lest we forget," he said with tears in his eyes.

He has not forgotten it. He said he thinks about that night every day of his life.

Former crew members of the ship have been appealing to their respective law makers for decades in an effort to have the crew members names who lost their lives that night added to the Vietnam Wall in Washington.

They have also been going around the nation and placing memorial stones in cemeteries where the crew members were from. Following the ceremony, members of the group headed off to New Hampshire to honor a crew member from the White Mountain State.

For more information on Frank E. Evans go to http://www.ussfranke evansassociation754.org/.

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