USS O'Brien (DD 975)

- decommissioned -
- sunk as a target -

USS O’BRIEN was the 13^th SPRUANCE - class destroyer and the fifth ship in the Navy to be named in honor of Jeremiah O'Brien. The USS O'BRIEN was last homeported in Yokosuka, Japan. Both decommissioned and stricken from the Navy list on September 24, 2004, the O'BRIEN spent the following months berthed at the Inactive Ships On-site Maintenance Office, Pearl Harbor, HI., until she was finally sunk as a target off Hawaii on February 9, 2006.

General Characteristics:	Awarded: January 26, 1972
	Keel laid: May 9, 1975
	Launched: July 8, 1976
	Commissioned: December 3, 1977
	Decommissioned: September 24, 2004
	Builder: Ingalls Shipbuilding, West Bank, Pascagoula, Miss.
	Propulsion system: four General Electric LM 2500 gas turbine engines
	Propellers: two
	Blades on each Propeller: five
	Length: 564,3 feet (172 meters)
	Beam: 55,1 feet (16.8 meters)
	Draft: 28,9 feet (8.8 meters)
	Displacement: approx. 9,200 tons full load
	Speed: 30+ knots
	Aircraft: one SH-60B Seahawk (LAMPS 3)
	Armament: two Mk 45 5-inch/54 caliber lightweight guns, one Mk 41 VLS for Tomahawk, ASROC and Standard missiles, Mk 46 torpedoes (two triple tube mounts), Harpoon missile launchers, one Sea Sparrow launcher, one Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) System, two 20mm Phalanx CIWS
	Crew: approx. 340

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS O'BRIEN. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.

Click here to view the list.

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Click here to see which USS O'BRIEN memorabilia are currently for sale on ebay.

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USS O'BRIEN Cruise Books:

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About the Ship's Coat of Arms:

USS O'BRIEN's official crest, symbolizes the rich tradition of courage and determination initiated by the ship's namesake, Captain Jeremiah O'Brien, and continued by those ships that proudly bore his name.

The golden pile and its associated elements are resplendent in symbolism. The pile, in conjunction with the wavy bars, represents a ship at sea, symbolic of the grand tradition of the US Navy. Taken by itself, the pile also represents the Roman numeral "V" equaling the total number of ships, including DD 975, to be honored with the name of "O'Brien". The shamrock centered at the top of the pile alludes to Jeremiah O'Brien's Irish ancestry and the arms of the previous O'BRIEN (DD 725). The crossed nautical tridents overlapped by a single cannon dedicates the first naval battle of the American Revolution in which Jeremiah O'Brien and his men defeated the British warship, MARGARETTA. O'Brien and his men, armed with only limited muskets, axes, and pitchforks (represented on the crest by the crossed tridents) boarded the MARGARETTA and defeated an enemy armed with muskets, grenades, and cannons.

The battle took place at Machias, ME. The state of Maine is symbolized by the pine trees on either side of the cannon. Reflected in the ship's motto "Loyalty, Unity, Freedom" are the qualitatively describe Captain O'Brien's contribution to the American Revolution.

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About the Ship's Name, about Jeremiah O'Brien:

In commemoration of the nation's bicentennial, the U.S. Navy has named the O'BRIEN in honor of Jeremiah O'Brien (c. 1744-1818), an American-Irishman from Machias, Maine, who led the first naval battle of the American Revolution on June 12, 1775. When news of the Battles of Lexington and Concord reached Machias, its citizens, raised a liberty pole to signal their support. This symbol of defiance against the Crown prompted the captain of the British warship MARGARETTA to order the pole removed. Greatly angered by this mandate, plus the presence of the warship in their harbor, the townspeople became hostile. Failing in their first plan to capture the ship's officers attending church services, a group of forty colonists, including Jeremiah and his five brothers, armed themselves with pitchforks, axes and fowling pieces and commandeered the coastal sloop UNITY. Electing Jeremiah their captain, the motley crew set out in pursuit of the now fleeing MARGARETTA. In a naval engagement recognized today as the "Lexington of the Sea," Captain O'Brien and his rebel crew in UNITY out-maneuvered and captured the heavier armed MARGARETTA following an hour-long bloody skirmish and returned it to Machias as their prize. This historical naval battle led to the creation of the U.S. Navy by the Continental Congress.

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History of USS O'BRIEN:

USS O'BRIEN was laid down at Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Mississippi, on 9 May 1975, launched on 8 July 1976, christened on 17 July 1976, and commissioned on 3 December 1977. USS O'BRIEN began 1978 completing post-commissioning trials and shakedown training in the Southern California operating areas from her Pacific Fleet homeport at San Diego. Through the first half of the year the destroyer cycled between at-sea workups - engineering and combat systems qualifications, live-fire exercises for the 5-inch battery and NATO Sea Sparrow, and helicopter flight-deck certifications - and short pier periods to correct discrepancies typical of a first year in service. The ship also embarked and qualified a LAMPS detachment and ran extensive antisubmarine warfare (ASW) drills to prove out her SQS-53/SQR-19-family sensors and lightweight torpedo employment. In the latter half of 1978, O'BRIEN's schedule settled into the standard West Coast rhythm of local fleet exercises and inspections (including command assessments and material inspections) interspersed with brief maintenance availabilities to prepare her for a first Western Pacific (WestPac) deployment.

Throughout 1979, the destroyer remained largely on the San Diego-based workup track. She joined multi-ship type and fleet exercises off Southern California that emphasized carrier escort procedures, plane-guard stationing, underway replenishment streams, screen maneuvering, and coordinated ASW tactics with other surface combatants and maritime patrol aircraft. The strategic backdrop was shifting quickly: the Iranian Revolution (1979) and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (December 1979) drove a steady increase in U.S. Indian Ocean/Arabian Sea presence. Against that context, O'BRIEN's training blocks in 1979 culminated in a pre-deployment cycle geared to long-duration operations far from U.S. bases and to working with carrier battle groups and logistics ships.

O'BRIEN's maiden overseas deployment followed in 1980 and ran roughly from late spring into early winter. After sailing from San Diego in May 1980, she headed west across the Pacific, staging through Pearl Harbor for fuel and final checks before continuing toward the Indian Ocean. On 23 June 1980, the ship crossed the Equator - an onboard milestone marked by the crew's Shellback ceremony - en route to extended operations on station in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea. The destroyer's at-sea periods that summer were built around radar picket, plane-guard, and screen duties for major U.S. units operating in the region, with frequent replenishments from Military Sealift Command oilers to sustain tempo. O'BRIEN's port calls on this first cruise reflected her track and logistics needs: Diego Garcia in the Chagos Archipelago, Colombo (Sri Lanka), Singapore, and Subic Bay in the Philippines, along with liberty and logistics stops in Hawaii during the Pacific transits. The deployment's operational context remained the same - deterrence and presence in the wake of the hostage crisis in Iran and war breaking out between Iran and Iraq - so the ship's tactics emphasized long on-station endurance, air and surface surveillance, and ASW proficiency. By late 1980, she returned to San Diego and began a post-deployment stand-down and maintenance/reset.

After leave and upkeep, O'BRIEN spent early and mid-1981 rebuilding readiness in Southern California waters for a second WestPac/Indian Ocean cruise, this time tied to a carrier battle group deployment. In October 1981, she sailed west with other Pacific Fleet surface combatants and logistics ships to stage in the Western Pacific. The formation arrived at Subic Bay on 17 October 1981 and then moved onward to the operating areas supporting the deployment. Through late 1981 and into 1982, O'BRIEN's core tasks again centered on screening, plane-guarding, radar picket, and ASW operations in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean during a period when U.S. naval presence aimed to stabilize sea lines of communication amid the Iran-Iraq War. The cruise included Western Pacific liberty and logistics ports on the way out and back - Subic and other regional ports - and concluded with the group's return to Southern California in late May 1982 (the carrier completed the deployment on 23 May 1982, with escorts returning in the same window). O'BRIEN then entered a stateside maintenance period to recover the hull and plant and to incorporate incremental combat systems improvements that had been planned for after two heavy operational years.

From late 1982 into 1983, the destroyer underwent an extended shipyard availability on the U.S. West Coast. The work package focused on hull, mechanical, and electrical repairs; preservation; and updates to sensors, weapons, and communications - typical of a first deep availability after back-to-back deployments. As yard work finished and sections of the ship came back together, O'BRIEN shifted into sea trials and a deliberate post-availability return-to-service plan: light-off assessments and dock trials; builder's and acceptance trials at sea; then a progressive series of special evolutions to recertify engineering, damage control, and combat systems teams. By spring and summer 1983, she was again operating at sea from San Diego, rebuilding full-spectrum proficiency with local exercises, missile and gunnery shoots, and helicopter operations. Through the remainder of 1983, she stayed on that readiness path, cycling through training phases and short upkeep periods to position the ship for another multi-month WestPac/Indian Ocean deployment that would begin in January 1984.

Her third major deployment ran from 13 January 1984 to 1 August 1984 and carried her across the Western Pacific into the Indian Ocean during the late phase of the Iran-Iraq War. At sea for extended stretches between brief logistics windows, O'BRIEN executed two well-documented rescues of refugees at sea that earned the crew the Humanitarian Service Medal - on 29 April 1984 in the Gulf of Thailand and on 23 May 1984 in the South China Sea - while maintaining task-group readiness in Seventh Fleet operating areas and along sea lines that had grown strategically sensitive in the mid-1980s. She closed the cruise in early August and returned to San Diego for stand-down, inspections, and short maintenance.

O'BRIEN's fourth WESTPAC, from January to June 1986, ran a northern arc that emphasized combined operations with the Republic of Korea Navy at the height of the annual TEAM SPIRIT exercise cycle and associated serials. She participated in TEAM SPIRIT 86 and TAE KWAN DO 86-1 while ranging between the Philippines, Japan, Korea, and Hong Kong. Port calls included Subic Bay and Manila; Okinawa, Sasebo, and Yokosuka; Pohang and Pusan; and Hong Kong. Within that deployment, the ship's movements in Korea are precisely recorded: Pusan from 15-17 June 1986 and further evolutions the same week in coordination with U.S. and ROK forces at Pusan and Pohang, nested within the broader Seventh Fleet schedule that summer. She returned to San Diego in late June, entering the expected post-deployment maintenance and readiness reset.

Through 1987, O'BRIEN received and trialed an advanced towed-array sonar suite and conducted experimental acoustic evaluation operations in the Northern Pacific and into the Bering Sea, aligning her capabilities with the fleet's late-Cold War emphasis on long-range passive detection against increasingly quiet submarines. Those improvements set the stage for her fifth major deployment, which took her to Fifth Fleet waters during OPERATION EARNEST WILL, the 1987-1988 convoy-protection mission for reflagged Kuwaiti tankers in the Persian Gulf. On 18 April 1988, she operated as part of Surface Action Group "Delta", in company with JOSEPH STRAUSS (DDG 16) and JACK WILLIAMS (FFG 24), near the Strait of Hormuz during OPERATION PRAYING MANTIS, the U.S. retaliatory strikes four days after the mining of SAMUEL B. ROBERTS (FFG 58). SAG Delta's actions, coordinated with aircraft from ENTERPRISE (CVN 65), contributed to the engagement that destroyed the Iranian frigate SAHAND and neutralized other naval targets and oil-platform strongpoints, effectively ending Iran's ability to contest the convoys at sea. After concluding the deployment, O'BRIEN entered a substantial 1988 modernization that added the Mk 41 Vertical Launch System for TOMAHAWK, integrated her towed array within the SQQ-89 combat system, and upgraded her aviation facilities for LAMPS Mk III - converting her from an early-configuration SPRUANCE to a fully multirole destroyer with long-range land-attack and enhanced ASW reach.

When the Gulf crisis erupted, O'BRIEN returned to the region for OPERATION DESERT SHIELD. Assigned to Middle East Force from September to December 1990, she conducted Persian Gulf patrols and maritime interception operations enforcing United Nations sanctions against Iraq, investigating hundreds of vessels in the constrained sea lanes between the Strait of Hormuz and the northern Gulf. The official chronology records her logging the coalition's 1,000th intercept in September 1990 and, on 21 October 1990, firing warning shots across the bow of the Iraqi merchant vessel AL BAHAR AL ARABI after it failed to comply with orders - episodes that illustrate the intensity and risk of the embargo mission. She rotated home after the new year for upkeep and training.

With the major combat phase over, O'BRIEN shifted briefly to Western Hemisphere law-enforcement support, conducting counter-narcotics patrols off Central and South America in December 1991 and again from February to April 1992. In August 1992, she departed San Diego and, after follow-on testing of vertically-launched ASROC and SQQ-89 improvements on the Pacific Missile Range off Kauai, arrived at her new forward-deployed home port of Yokosuka, Japan, in October 1992. Forward deployment placed the ship within Seventh Fleet's constant rotation to the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf and deepened her regular combined training with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force.

From June 1993, O'BRIEN began a sequence of Middle East Force rotations out of Japan that paired Persian Gulf patrols under OPERATION SOUTHERN WATCH with surveillance in the Gulf of Oman and maritime interception operations enforcing the continuing sanctions regime. She returned to Yokosuka between deployments for targeted maintenance and high-tempo bilateral exercises in the Western Pacific - serials with Singapore, Brunei, and the Republic of Korea - before departing again on 17 February 1995 for another MEF deployment focused on embargo enforcement and air-defense screen duties for transiting carrier and amphibious groups.

Her operational tempo peaked in 1996. O'BRIEN completed a fifth Middle East Force deployment, participated in RIMPAC '96, and stood contingency presence during renewed Taiwan Strait tension. During PACMEF operations she helped seize more than 1.5 million gallons of contraband oil under the U.N. sanctions regime, reflecting sustained small-boat and helicopter boarding tempo. By year's end she had been away from home port 233 days and received the Battle "E", a Meritorious Unit Commendation, and the Humanitarian Service Medal - formal recognition of sustained readiness and afloat execution in a year that demanded both coalition operations in the Gulf and major fleet exercises in the Pacific.

From Yokosuka she continued at a high pace into the late 1990s, with combined exercises alongside the Philippine Navy and participation in CROCEX '99 with the Royal Australian Navy, followed in 2000 by 188 days underway that included Counter-Special Operations Forces Exercise in Korea, COBRA GOLD 2000 in Thailand, East Timor - related operations, and an accelerated tactical training cycle that compressed certifications into a record nineteen days. In 2001, during PACMEF '01, she conducted intensive maritime interdiction in the Gulf - boarding more than thirty merchant vessels - and on 11 September 2001 emergency-sortied from Bahrain to the Arabian Sea. She participated in the opening TOMAHAWK strikes into Afghanistan in support of OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM before resuming theater tasking and returning to Yokosuka for upkeep.

In early February 2002, the forward-deployed O'BRIEN operated with other Seventh Fleet units in an anti-ship missile defense evolution tied to the annual Multi-Sail work-up off Japan. On 7-8 February 2002, during MISSILEX 02-1 under Commander, Task Force 75, O'BRIEN's deck teams prepared and launched BQM-74 target drones to exercise fleet layered defenses while the group executed coordinated engagements. The event involved nine U.S. Navy ships from the Yokosuka/Sasebo Forward Deployed Naval Forces and was described at the time as an anti-ship missile defense training evolution nested within Multi-Sail interoperability drills.

After that winter training pulse, O'BRIEN cycled through local operations and upkeep at Yokosuka - photographed pierside there on 14 October 2002 - and then took part in the year's major U.S.-Japan bilateral, ANNUALEX 14G, conducted around Japan on 11-22 November 2002. U.S. Navy releases at the time explicitly listed O'BRIEN among the participating Battle Force Seventh Fleet units alongside KITTY HAWK (CV 63) elements and destroyers JOHN S. MCCAIN (DDG 56) and CURTIS WILBUR (DDG 54), emphasizing combined air, undersea, and surface warfare training with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force.

Tensions in Southwest Asia refocused the Yokosuka force over the winter. By 21 February 2003, Stars and Stripes reported most Yokosuka ships were already "at sea", many with orders toward U.S. Central Command in anticipation of combat operations against Iraq. On 20 March 2003, when Operation Iraqi Freedom commenced, O'BRIEN is listed on the contemporaneous U.S. Navy order of battle as a screened unit in the KITTY HAWK carrier battle group alongside CHANCELLORSVILLE (CG 62), COWPENS (CG 63), JOHN S. MCCAIN, CUSHING (DD 985), GARY (FFG 51), VANDEGRIFT (FFG 48), and BREMERTON (SSN 698). A chronology places the group's arrival in the Arabian Gulf on 22 February 2003, its departure on 16 April 2003, and the group's return to Yokosuka on 6 May 2003, framing O'BRIEN's combat-support period and the post-hostilities redeployment back to Japan. Through this phase O'BRIEN's role was the classic multi-mission screen and escort for the carrier and logistics tracks, with area air-defense and ASW coordination alongside the strike group's Aegis cruisers and destroyers.

With KITTY HAWK headed for maintenance soon after the Gulf return, Seventh Fleet redistributed tasks among her escorts. On 22 May 2003, Navy officials noted that CURTIS WILBUR, CUSHING, and O'BRIEN would carry deterrent duties while the carrier entered dry dock, an operational rhythm typical of the Forward Deployed Naval Forces in Japan. Through the latter half of 2003, O'BRIEN remained in WESTPAC under Destroyer Squadron 15 tasking, alternating underway training, patrols, and upkeep from Yokosuka.

In the new year, O'BRIEN again featured in Multi-Sail: a Navy release dated 19 Februar 2004 recorded the exercise's wrap-up "off the coast of Japan" on 6 Februar 2004, listing participating DESRON-15 ships as VINCENNES (CG 49), JOHN S. MCCAIN, CURTIS WILBUR, O'BRIEN, and CUSHING, with ESSEX (LHD 2), USNS YUKON (T-AO 202), and CITY OF CORPUS CHRISTI (SSN 705) in support. The evolution included a torpedo exercise, naval surface fire support, and extensive anti-submarine events, culminating in a MISSILEX that validated the force's point- and area-defense procedures.

Shortly afterward, O'BRIEN entered the personnel and platform transition that would end her active career. On 1 May 2004, Stars and Stripes announced a planned "Super Swap" with FITZGERALD (DDG 62): O'BRIEN would sail to San Diego during May, more than 130 of her sailors would transfer to FITZGERALD, and roughly 100 FITZGERALD sailors would cross-deck to help form O'BRIEN's decommissioning unit. As the exchange unfolded, official summaries later recorded that 140 O'BRIEN sailors moved to FITZGERALD and 95 FITZGERALD sailors joined O'BRIEN's decommissioning crew The ship's service concluded at Naval Base San Diego's Pier 7: O'BRIEN decommissioned on 24 September 2004, struck from the Naval Vessel Register the same day. This closed a 27-year operational life. In early 2006, ex-O'BRIEN was expended as a target during a combined fleet training exercise off the Pacific Missile Range Facility near Kauai, Hawaii.