The 2025 Tin Can Sailors National Reunion will be held in Norfolk, VA, September 21-25.
Long-time Reunion Group member, Norb Bender, passed away on January 1, 2024.
Obituary Link
The Links page has been slimmed down and requests to post new links will be honored only if they are directly related to USS Fletcher or the U.S. Navy.
Obituaries are posted on our Facebook page where visitors may comment and post obituaries of any of our Fletcher family.
Our long time Secretary, Buck Locke, has published to PDF our last newsletter which is available online here. There aren’t enough ways to thank him for his perseverance in keeping the newsletter running over the years, and to his wife, Judy, for supporting him during that time. We love ya’, Buck and Judy!
Many of our newsletters are in PDF format online.
If you are filing for VA disability based on Agent Orange exposure, the following dates show the 15 times that Fletcher was deployed to Vietnamese waters. Keep in mind that to qualify, the ship had to be within 12 miles of the coast and on some of these sorties, we were in Yankee Station with aircraft carriers beyond that limit. The dates in parenthesis are dates that qualify for Blue Water Navy Agent Orange claims when we were well within the 12-mile limit and on the coast. There may be other dates when we were in closer, If you know of one that isn’t listed, let me know.
Nov 18 - 25, 1965 (gunline Nov 22-24)
Jan 16 - Feb 2, 1966
Dec 22, 1966 - Jan 10, 1967 (gunline Dec 25-31)
Feb 25 - Mar 8, 1967
Mar 30 - Apr 14, 1967
Mar 19 - Apr 6, 1968
May 1 - 12, 1968 (gunline May 1-6)
Jun 1 - 14, 1968
Jun 26 - Jul 12, 1968
Jul 24 - Aug 11, 1968
Dec 12, 1968 - Jan 10, 1969 (gunline & Market Time, Dec 24-Jan 10)
Jan 30 - Feb 8, 1969
Feb 18 - 27, 1969 (gunline Feb 19-24)
Mar 16 - 19, 1969
Apr 2 - 14, 1969
On our Links page, you can find links to the deck logs and more details and proof that Fletcher was there. At the top of each day’s entry are morning, noon and evening positions which can be entered into Google Maps for location details for that day.
Photos from the USS Fletcher DD-992, 2000-2001 WestPac are now available for viewing.
All of the nine DD/DDE-445 cruise books that we have are being converted to high quality PDF format for your viewing pleasure. You can find them at this link. The older files will remain in place until all have been updated. Due to their much larger size, it is recommended that you download the files for offline viewing rather than trying to view them online. The 1957 and 1958 cruise books are for Destroyer Division 251 which includes USS Fletcher, USS Radford, USS O’Bannon and USS Carpenter.
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