USS Decatur (DD-936)

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USS Decatur (DD-936)
USS Decatur (DD-936)
Overview
Type destroyer
Keel laying September 13, 1954
Launch December 15, 1955
1. Period of service flag
period of service

December 7, 1956 -
June 30, 1983

Whereabouts Sunk as a target ship
Technical specifications
displacement

4,619 tons

length

127.50 meters

width

13.80 meters

Draft

6.7 meters

crew

364

drive

Two steam turbines, 70,000 hp, two screws

The USS Decatur (DD-936) (later DDG-31 ) was a destroyer of the Forrest Sherman-class destroyer of the United States Navy . It was named after Commodore Stephen Decatur . Intensive conversion work in the mid- 1960s made her the type ship of the Decatur class .

history

Construction and commissioning

As the sixth ship of the class, the Decatur was laid down on September 13, 1954 at Bethlehem Steel in Quincy , Massachusetts . The launch took place on December 15, 1955, the ship was christened by Mrs. WA Pierce and Mrs. DJ Armsden, descendants of the Commodore Decatur. It entered service with the Navy on December 7, 1956.

period of service

The first years the Decatur spent in the Atlantic and the Caribbean , from 1958 she operated with the 6th fleet in the Mediterranean . In 1961 she operated as a salvage ship during the unmanned space flight of Mercury-Atlas 4 in the Atlantic and took part in the sea blockade of Cuba in the fall of 1962 . On May 6, 1964, the Decatur collided with the aircraft carrier USS Lake Champlain as a result of a tax damage and the superstructure was badly damaged. The damage was not repaired, as the ship was slated for extensive modernization that began in June 1965.

Decatur after the renovation

The conversions took place in the Boston Naval Shipyard , Massachusetts . The destroyer received an anti-aircraft missile launcher and an ASROC launcher instead of the two rear guns. As the guided missile destroyer DDG-31, she was returned to active service in 1967 and assigned to the Pacific Fleet. In the following years she operated several times in the Western Pacific with the 7th Fleet and also took part in operations off the Vietnamese coast during the Vietnam War. At the end of the 1970s it was deployed in the Indian Ocean when the situation in the Middle East worsened. In 1983 the ship was decommissioned and assigned to the Pacific reserve fleet.

Whereabouts

The Decatur was struck off the register of ships in 1988, but still made a career in the Navy. She served as a test ship for self-defense systems until 2004, when she was replaced by the USS Paul F. Foster . The destroyer was sunk on July 22, 2004 in the Pacific during an exercise as a target ship.

Web links

Commons : USS Decatur (DD-936)  - Album containing pictures, videos and audio files