At around 3:00 a.m. on 3 June 1969, between Vietnam and Spratly Island, "Frank E. Evans" was operating with the Royal Navy, Royal Australian Navy and Royal New Zealand Navy in company with the aircraft carrier which was in the process of going to flying stations and all ships in the formation were running without lights. "Melbourne" radioed "Evans", then to port of the carrier, 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 "Evans" misunderstood the formation's base course and believed they were starboard of "Melbourne", they turned to starboard, cutting 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 her 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 60–100 men were also rescued from the water.