USS Spruance

Two ships of the United States Navy have been named USS Spruance, in honor of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance (1886–1969):

See also

USS Spruance (DDG-111)

USS Spruance (DDG-111) is an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer guided missile destroyer currently in service with the United States Navy. She is the 61st ship in her class.

Design

Spruance is outfitted with the latest technology. She was the first of the U.S. Navy's destroyers to be fitted with the Gigabit Ethernet Data Multiplex System (GEDMS), manufactured by the Boeing Company. GEDMS provides an Internet Protocol (IP) based backbone for video and data services on the ship. The bridge features touch screen controls and color readouts instead of gauges.

Construction and career

Spruance is the second United States Navy ship (the first being Spruance (DD-963) to be named for Admiral Raymond A. Spruance (1886–1969), who commanded American naval forces at the Battles of Midway and the Philippine Sea. He was later Ambassador to the Philippines.

Spruance's keel was laid down on 14 May 2009. She was christened by the admiral's granddaughter, Ellen Spruance Holscher, on 5 June 2010 in Bath, Maine at Bath Iron Works, where the ship was built at a cost of $1 billion. The completed ship left Bath on 1 September 2011 for her commissioning in Key West, Florida before traveling to her home port of San Diego.

USS Spruance (DD-963)

USS Spruance (DD-963) was the lead ship of the United States Navy's Spruance-class of destroyers and was named after Raymond A. Spruance, a U.S. Navy admiral.

Spruance was built by the Ingalls Shipbuilding Division of Litton Industries at Pascagoula, Mississippi, and launched by Mrs. Raymond A. Spruance, Commander Raymond J. Harbrecht in command.

Spruance served in the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, assigned to Destroyer Squadron 24 and operating out of Naval Station Mayport, Florida.

Spruance was decommissioned on 23 March 2005 and then was sunk as a target on 8 December 2006.

History

1970s

Spruance was the first of a highly-successful class of anti-submarine warfare and anti-ship destroyers, and was the first destroyer powered by gas turbines in the U.S. Navy. At first she was armed with two 5-inch naval guns, an ASROC missile launcher, and an eight-cell NATO Sea Sparrow missile launcher. Spruance received one Mark 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS) during the late 1980s. This replaced the original Mark 16 ASROC launcher. Also added to Spruance after several years of service was an eight-cell launcher for Harpoon antiship missiles.