USS Norfolk Bell

The USS Norfolk, Destroyer Leader 1 was commissioned at the Philadelphia Naval Yard on March 4, 1953. The wife of former Norfolk Mayor Fred Duckworth served as the ship’s sponsor. Following the decommissioning of the USS Norfolk, the ship’s bell was on display at the foot of St. Paul’s Boulevard from 1975 until 1987. It is now located in Wisconsin Square, near Harbour Place Condos. The giant brass bell is one of the last remaining pieces of the destroyer Norfolk. Two of the USS Norfolk’s anti-aircraft gun mounts are on display at a high school in Boca Raton, Florida. The rest of the ship was sent to the scrap heap in 1974.