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USS MacDonough (DDG 39)

USS MacDONOUGH was the third ship in the FARRAGUT - class of guided missile destroyers. Commissioned as a guided missile frigate (DLG), the USS MacDONOUGH was reclassified as guided missile destroyer (DDG) on June 30, 1975, changing its hullnumber from DLG 8 to DDG 39. The ship was decommissioned on October 23, 1992, and stricken from the Navy list on November 20, 1992. On December 16, 1994, the MacDONOUGH was finally sold for scrapping.

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Crew List:

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

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About the Ship's Namesake:

Thomas Macdonough was born 23 December 1783 in The Trap (now Macdonough), Delaware. He was appointed midshipman 5 February 1800 and participated with distinction in operations against Tripoli, 1803‑04, serving on PHILADELPHIA before her capture and volunteering for the dash into Tripoli Harbor with Decatur to burn the captured vessel. During the War of 1812, he commanded the United States Squadron on Lake Champlain. His energy in preparation and vigor in combat won a skillfully executed victory over the British in Plattsburg Bay, 11 September 1814 that had far‑reaching effects. In denying control of the lake to the British, Macdonough's victory forced the invading army to retire to Canada, and left no grounds for British territorial claims in the area at the Ghent peace conference.

Honored by Congress with promotion to captain, he served as Commandant of the Portsmouth Navy Yard 1815‑18, before assuming command of GUERRIERE and taking up station in the Mediterranean. He sailed to the Mediterranean again in 1824 as commanding officer of CONSTITUTION, but because of poor health was relieved 14 October 1825 at his own request. He departed for home in Edwin, but died at sea 10 November 1825 and was buried in Middletown, Conn.

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USS MacDONOUGH History:

USS MacDONOUGH was laid down at the Fore River Shipyard, Quincy, Massachusetts, on April 16, 1958; launched on July 9, 1959, sponsored by Agnes Macdonough Wilson; and commissioned on November 4, 1961. She entered service as a FARRAGUT/COONTZ-class guided-missile frigate (DLG) armed with Terrier surface-to-air missiles, ASROC, and a 5-inch/54 gun, and would be reclassified a guided-missile destroyer (DDG 39) on June 30, 1975.

After extended trials and training, MacDONOUGH reported to Charleston, South Carolina, on September 23, 1962, as flagship for Commander Cruiser-Destroyer Flotilla 6. The Cuban Missile Crisis broke a month later. Assigned to Task Group 136.1 under Rear Adm. John Ailes, MacDONOUGH enforced the naval quarantine through late October and into November. On October 26-27, 1962, she and the destroyer LAWRENCE (DDG 4) shadowed the Soviet tanker GROZNY as part of the crisis response before the stand-down on November 22, 1962 (Thanksgiving Day).

The first quarter of 1963 was spent in missile workups on the Florida ranges under the Operational Test and Evaluation Force, followed by her first Sixth Fleet deployment beginning June 4, 1963. She conducted exercises and port visits across the Mediterranean, then returned to the U.S. East Coast on October 26, 1963, to resume operations from Charleston. Early in 1964, the ship shifted to Caribbean training out of Puerto Rico, including live anti-air warfare missile exercises against drones, brief upkeep in Charleston in February, then further carrier group exercises and helicopter evaluations in the Atlantic.

MacDONOUGH's second Mediterranean cruise ran from July 10 to December 22, 1964. A six-month overhaul at Charleston Naval Shipyard followed. In mid-September 1965, she proceeded to the Atlantic Fleet Missile Range and then to Guantanamo Bay for refresher training, returned to Charleston in early November, and at the end of the month sailed again for the Mediterranean. During this third Med deployment she served as flagship for the U.S. recovery effort after the January 17, 1966, Palomares nuclear accident off Spain, coordinating with Sixth Fleet units and specialized salvage assets during the high-profile search and recovery of a lost B-28 bomb. She returned to South Carolina on April 8, 1966.

That summer, 1966, MacDONOUGH embarked midshipmen for training cruises to East Coast ports and the Caribbean. She then took part in the large Atlantic Fleet AAW/ASW/amphibious exercise LANTFLEX 66 and completed the year back in Charleston on December 16, 1966. On May 2, 1967, she departed for her fourth Sixth Fleet tour, combining summer midshipman training with multinational exercises and port visits before returning to Charleston on October 28, 1967.

She operated with the U.S. Second Fleet into 1968, then deployed once more to the Mediterranean in May 1968, returning in September and remaining on the Western Atlantic seaboard into 1969 as the high-tempo Cold War Mediterranean cycle briefly eased.

Following intensive work in the early 1970s (the class underwent major combat systems and NTDS upgrades during this era), MacDONOUGH was briefly placed out of commission for overhaul on April 6, 1973, and recommissioned on May 4, 1974 - administrative milestones that bracketed her transition to updated weapons and sensors for the coming decade of Atlantic and Middle East work.

On August 26, 1975, now designated DDG 39, MacDONOUGH called at Keflavik, Iceland, to refuel at the NATO fuel farm at Whale Bay - an image that captures her GIUK-Gap operating pattern as the Atlantic alliance focused on North Atlantic sea control amid Cold War tensions that summer and fall.

In 1976, she joined the multinational circumnavigation of South America during UNITAS XVII. A Navy photo dated August 16, 1976, shows MacDONOUGH underway in the Atlantic during the exercise, which paired U.S. ships with partner navies around the hemisphere for combined ASW, AAW, and coastal warfare drills interleaved with numerous port visits.

From June 1977 into January 1978, MacDONOUGH deployed with the Middle East Force - operating in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf during a period of regional volatility that included the last Shah-era years in Iran and simmering Arab-Israeli tensions. In the same general period she also executed a North Atlantic phase (September-November 1977), reflecting the alternating NATO and CENTCOM priorities of the late-1970s Atlantic Fleet.

A major maintenance period in 1980-1981 set the stage for extended long-range work. From June to November 1981 she deployed across the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean, and Persian Gulf as U.S. carrier battle groups shuttled between the Sixth Fleet and the Arabian Sea in the wake of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iran hostage crisis. She repeated the Med-Indian Ocean-Gulf circuit from June to December 1982, part of the sustained U.S. naval presence that underwrote convoying and freedom of navigation at the mouth of the Gulf during the Iran-Iraq War's early "Tanker War" phase.

In 1984, MacDONOUGH shifted to the Western Hemisphere for the silver-anniversary UNITAS XXV series, embarking in the North Atlantic and Caribbean in the first half of the year and then operating off South America from June into the late months. A U.S. Navy image shows her at Naval Station Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico, on June 14, 1984, the opening day of the exercise. Additional photographs document her alongside or near partner forces through the canal and on Brazil's coast - including entering Rio de Janeiro's Guanabara Bay on July 3, 1984, and an underway replenishment with battleship IOWA (BB 61) on June 30, 1984, as the newly reactivated U.S. battlewagon joined portions of the itinerary. These sequences reflect the combined anti-submarine, surface action, and maritime security profiles that UNITAS emphasized with Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela that year.

On August 12, 1988, MacDONOUGH crossed the North Atlantic in an 18-ship JOHN F. KENNEDY (CV 67) Battle Group formation as Task Group 24.4 transited to the Mediterranean. That deployment occurred during rising U.S.-Libya friction and ongoing NATO posture adjustments. The battle group later figured in the well-known Libya MiG-23 incident that December (air events handled by the carrier's air wing).

Back stateside, MacDONOUGH took part in Fleet Week New York, entering the Hudson for the Parade of Ships on April 29, 1989, seen passing the Statue of Liberty with TICONDEROGA (CG 47) and the training barque USCGC EAGLE also in company - a peacetime public-engagement moment between deployments.

The next crisis arrived swiftly. After Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, MacDONOUGH deployed for Operation Desert Shield in the fall of 1990, joining maritime interception operations and air-defense escort duties in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf as U.N. sanctions took effect. The campaign transitioned to Operation Desert Storm on January 17, 1991. MacDONOUGH continued patrols and escorts in the central Gulf during the air war and ground offensive, then redeployed with early-return units once cease-fire conditions solidified. Photographic and caption records show her crew preparing for arrival at Naval Station Charleston on March 22, 1991, and her pier-side welcome that day - one of the first Atlantic Fleet surface combatants to return home from Desert Storm, alongside NICHOLAS (FFG 47).

MacDONOUGH spent the final stretch of her career in routine post-war operations, maintenance, and drawdown activities as the Navy restructured its Cold War force. She was decommissioned at Charleston on October 23, 1992, stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on November 20, 1992, and sold for scrapping on December 16, 1994, closing a 31-year record that had ranged from the Cuban quarantine and Mediterranean crisis management to multinational exercises in two hemispheres and combat-support duties in the 1991 Gulf War.

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USS MacDONOUGH Image Gallery:

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