USS Vincennes (CG-49)
_Pearl.jpg) Vincennes 2005 off Hawaii |
|
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Order | August 28, 1981 |
| Keel laying | October 19, 1982 |
| Launch | January 14, 1984 |
| 1. Period of service |
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|
| Commissioning | 3rd June 1985 |
| Decommissioning | June 29, 2005 |
| Whereabouts | Scrapped |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
9750 tons |
| length |
173 meters |
| width |
16.80 meters |
| Draft |
10.2 meters |
| crew |
approx. 390 |
| drive |
Four gas turbines, two shafts with a total of 80,000 hp |
| speed |
30+ knots |
| Armament |
2 launchers for anti-ship missiles, 2 triple torpedo launchers, 2 guns 127 mm, 2 twin-arm launchers for missiles |
The USS Vincennes (CG-49) was a Ticonderoga-class cruiser of the United States Navy . An Iranian Airbus A300 ( Iran Air Flight 655 ) with 290 civilians was shot down from this cruiser on July 3, 1988 .
history
construction
The Vincennes was approved as the third unit in its class in 1981. In 1982 the keel was laid at Ingalls Shipbuilding , and in 1984 the cruiser was launched. Mrs. Marilyn Quayle, wife of Dan Quayle , then Senator from Indiana and later Vice President of the United States , named the ship after the Battle of Vincennes from the American Revolutionary War .
Rides
First trips
The Vincennes was the first Aegis cruiser in the Pacific . Her first deployment was participation in exercise RIMPAC , and in 1986 the ship also sailed in the Indian Ocean with USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) and USS New Jersey (BB 62) . Exercises were held with the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and the Royal Australian Navy .
After the USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) ran into a sea mine in April 1988 during Operation Earnest Will , the Vincennes had to abandon its participation in the ongoing Fleet Exercise 88-1 . Only a month later, the cruiser was in the Persian Gulf to protect the transport of the Roberts on the Mighty Servant 2 through the Strait of Hormuz .
The Airbus shot down
In order to ensure the safety of its oil deliveries, the United States had moved parts of its 5th fleet to the Persian Gulf as part of Operation Earnest Will in 1988 .
On July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes was in Iranian territorial waters and was involved in a defensive battle with Iranian gunboats at the time the aircraft was shot down . In this situation, Iran Air Flight 655 was mistakenly identified as an Iranian F-14 Tomcat by the Aegis combat system of the USS Vincennes . After the aircraft had then, allegedly after an Aegis system report, quickly descended and on an interception course, the leading officer William C. Rogers III decided to fire two surface-to-air missiles at the aircraft. These hit the passenger jet and completely destroyed it. All 275 passengers and 15 crew members on board perished.
According to the official investigation, William Rogers was awarded the Legion of Merit Order by George H. W. Bush in 1990 for “extraordinary fulfillment of duty in action”. The other officers involved in the process of deciding to shoot down the plane were all promoted one final time. The official stance of the Navy was that the crew of the USS Vincennes had reacted appropriately, given the situation; Unofficially, however, she was criticized by other ship crews who also took part in the battle with the Iranian boats for being too aggressive.
The Vincennes left the Gulf after the incident, her position was taken over by the older Leahy cruiser USS Halsey (CG-23) .
Decommissioning
The Vincennes was decommissioned in San Diego in 2005. The reason for the early decommissioning was the outdated weapon system. Unlike the newer Ticonderogas , the Vincennes does not have a vertical launching system , but two Mk 26 double-arm starters. Since the appropriate missiles were no longer to be kept available, the Vincennes was practically defenseless and therefore deactivated. In November 2010 she was towed from Bremerton ( Naval Inactive Ships Maintenance Facility, Naval Base Kitsap ) through the Panama Canal to Brownsville for scrapping. The scrapping of the Vincennes was completed on November 23, 2011 .
Web links
- Vincennes in the NVR (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Navy Inactive Ships Program. (PDF; 45 kB) (No longer available online.) The Navy's Agent for Ship Inactivation and Reutilization, archived from the original on October 1, 2012 ; accessed on September 1, 2013 (English).