base of operations. She provided a platform upon which naval reservists could reacquaint themselves with the intricacies of and skills necessary to constructive Navy service. During her more than three years of reserve training cruises, she ranged the length of the western coast of the United States from San Diego, Calif. in the south to the Canada–US border. She also cruised farther north to make goodwill calls at Canadian ports such as Victoria, British Columbia. During the summer of 1959, she became the first Naval Reserve training ship to participate in a regular Fleet exercise with her reserve crew embarked. In December 1961, the destroyer was undergoing a yard period when the Berlin crisis developed in Europe. Her reserve crew was called to active duty; and, upon completing the overhaul on 8 January 1962, she departed Puget Sound to return to Long Beach. She completed refresher training out of San Diego on 1 March and departed the west coast for a tour of duty with the 7th Fleet in the Orient. During that cruise, she participated in at least one training operation, a combined antiaircraft-antisubmarine exercise, and visited Midway, Guam, Hong Kong, and Kobe, Sasebo, and Yokosuka, Japan. The easing of tensions in Europe late that spring allowed her to head home at the end of June. The destroyer arrived back in Long Beach on 9 July and, on 16 July, she resumed Naval Reserve training duty at Tacoma.Watts completed another 30 months training reservists out of the Seattle-Tacoma area. In mid-1963, one of her training cruises took her to Hawaii; but, for the most part, she operated just off the west coast. In December 1964, Watts was decommissioned and placed in reserve at Bremerton. She remained there for almost a decade. On 1 February 1974, her name was struck from the Navy list, and she was sold on 5 September 1974 to General Metals Co., of Tacoma, Wash., for scrapping.Watts'' earned three battle stars for her World War II service. References External links navsource.org: USS Watts hazegray.org: USS Watts World War II destroyers of the United States Cold War destroyers of the United States Ships built in Seattle 1943 ships Fletcher-class destroyers of the United States Navy