The Knox class design was derived from the Brooke-class frigate modified to extend range and without a long-range missile system.

The ships were equipped with a torpedo-carrying DASH drone helicopter; its telescoping hangar and landing pad were positioned amidships aft of the mack.

[3] Hepburn was outfitted in 1969 and proceeded for a "shakedown" cruise to San Francisco, Bremerton, WA, Nanaimo and Vancouver, BC and Pearl Harbor, HI.

Hepburn left for her first WESTPAC in January 1971 participating in NGFS operations on the coast of Vietnam and plane guarding carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin.

She visited Midway, Guam, Subic Bay in the Philippines, Hong Kong and Sasebo and Yokosuka Japan.

The task group made port calls at Singapore, Karachi, Mombasa, Réunion and Diego Garcia.

While transiting from Karachi to the southern Indian Ocean, the group passed through the anchorage area of the Soviet task forces anchored off the island of Socotra.