USS O'Bannon (DD-987)

For other ships with the same name, see USS O'Bannon.
History
United States
Namesake: Presley O'Bannon
Ordered: 15 January 1975
Builder: Ingalls Shipbuilding
Laid down: 21 February 1977
Launched: 25 September 1978
Commissioned: 15 December 1979
Decommissioned: 19 August 2005
Struck: 19 August 2005
Motto: Discipline, Pride, Performance
Fate: Sunk as a training target on 6 October 2008
General characteristics
Class and type: Spruance class destroyer
Displacement: 8,040 (long) tons full load
Length: 529 ft (161 m) waterline; 563 ft (172 m) overall
Beam: 55 ft (16.8 m)
Draft: 29 ft (8.8 m)
Propulsion: 4 × General Electric LM2500 gas turbines, 2 shafts, 80,000 shp (60 MW)
Speed: 32.5 knots (60 km/h)
Range:
  • 6,000 nautical miles (11,000 km; 6,900 mi) at 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)
  • 3,300 nautical miles (6,100 km; 3,800 mi) at 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph)
Complement: 19 officers, 315 enlisted
Sensors and
processing systems:
Electronic warfare
& decoys:
Armament:
Aircraft carried: 2 x Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk LAMPS III helicopters.

USS O'Bannon (DD-987), a Spruance-class destroyer, was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named for Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon (1776–1850), an early hero of the US Marine Corps.

O'Bannon was laid down on 21 February 1977 by the Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Miss.; launched on 25 September 1978; and commissioned on 15 December 1979, Commander Marshall R. Willenbucher in command.

Homeport

Originally assigned to Naval Base Charleston, South Carolina; when it was closed by the Congressional BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) committee in 1994 transferred to Naval Station Mayport, Florida.

Deployments and Ports of Call

UNITAS XXXII: Cartagena, Columbia; Rodmin, Panama; Manta, Ecuador; Lima, Peru; Valparaíso, Chile; Talcahuano, Chile; Argentina; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Puerta la Cruz, Venezuela

Baltops '92: Edinburgh, Scotland; Kiel, Germany (with bus rides to Berlin);[1] Karlskrona, Sweden; Denmark; Norway; Severnmorsk, Russia (with bus rides to Murmansk, Russia)[2]

MEF 3-97 (started 15 July 1997) Lajes, Azores (24JUL97), Palma, Spain (28-30JUL97), Rota, Spain, Kos, Greece (3-5AUG97), Dubai United Arab Emirates (5-7SEP97), ASU Bahrain (18-23SEP, 10-14OCT, 21-22OCT97), Muscat,Oman 30OCT-01NOV97), Dubai, UAE 3-8NOV97), Media, Portugal.

In 1995 the ship was assigned to Destroyer Squadron 14.

UNITAS XL-99: Cartagena Columbia; Rodmin, Panama; Manta, Ecuador; Lima, Peru; Valparaíso, Chile; Viña del Mar, Chile; Coquimbo, Chile; ?Bahia Blanca?,Argentina; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Puerta la Cruz, Venezuela.

Fate

Originally scheduled to remain in service through 2010, decommissioning of the Spruance-class destroyers was accelerated as a cost-saving measure, and by June 2005 O'Bannon was the last Spruance destroyer in service in the Atlantic Fleet.

O'Bannon was decommissioned on 19 August 2005 and struck from the Naval Vessel Register the same day. In 2004 O'Bannon was to be sold to Chile, but in 2005 she was scheduled to be transferred via FMS to the Turkish Navy.[3] In the end she was sunk off the coast of Virginia at 3:23pm on 6 October 2008 in a training exercise by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier group, using missiles, guns and finally a Mk 82 bomb.[4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Personal Account
  2. ↑ Personal Account
  3. ↑ "Ship Transfers / Transfer of Naval Vessels". Globalsecurity.org. Retrieved 18 January 2009.
  4. ↑ "Eisenhower Strike Group Conducts Sink Exercise". US Navy. 2008-10-06.

1&2 I was there and recall both bus rides and have pictures from the trips. Of note: I recall the Murmansk bus ride as being mandatory liberty.

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