USS Chandler (DDG 996)

- formerly Iranian ANDUSHIRVAN -
- decommissioned -

USS CHANDLER was the fourth and last KIDD class guided missile destroyer. Originally built for Iran, the ship was first named ANDUSHIRVAN, but after the destroyer's takeover by the U.S. Navy the ship was renamed CHANDLER. In 2005, the CHANDLER was transferred to Taiwan where she was recommissioned as MA-KONG.

General Characteristics:	Keel Laid: May 7, 1979
	Christened: June 28, 1980
	Commissioned: March 13, 1982
	Decommissioned: September 23, 1999
	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: 31,5 feet (9.6 meters)
	Displacement: approx. 9,500 tons full load
	Speed: 30+ knots
	Aircraft: two SH-2 helicopters (LAMPS I) or one SH-3 helicopter
	Armament: two Mk 45 5-inch/54 caliber lightweight guns, two Mk 26 launchers for Standard missiles, Harpoon missile launchers, Mk 46 torpedoes (two triple tube mounts), two 20mm Phalanx CIWS, one Mk 112 launcher for ASROC
	Crew: 31 officers, 332 enlisted

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Crew List:

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

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USS CHANDLER Cruise Books:

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About the Ship's Coat of Arms:

The Shield:

Dark blue and gold are the colors traditionally associated with the Navy. The wavy Chevron, compass rose and pheons symbolize the northward sweep through the Philippines, in which Rear Admiral Theodore Edson Chandler participated. The convex cross represents the Navy Cross, which was awarded to the Admiral for extraordinary heroism at Lingayen Gulf. The pheons and compass rose also denote the guided missile striking capabilities of a KIDD - class guided missile destroyer.

The Crest:

The rampant demi-lion, a symbol of courage and fighting spirit represents Admiral Chandler's extraordinary heroism. The fountain signifies Lingayen Gulf. The wall and flames represent the fiery bridge of the flagship USS LOUISVILLE from which Admiral Chandler continued to command even after suffering a direct hit from a kamikaze bomber.

The Motto:

"AD MORTEM FIDELIS" is the CHANDLER family motto. The translation "FAITHFUL UNTIL DEATH" aptly describes Rear Admiral Chandler's heroism and devotion to duty in giving his life to save his ship.

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History of USS CHANDLER:

USS CHANDLER is the third ship of the fleet to bear this name and the fourth and final ship of the powerful KIDD-class (DDG 993) guided missile destroyers. CHANDLER and its sister ships of the class were originally placed on order by the government of Iran in the mid-1970's. The orders were later canceled and the four ships were acquired by the United States government in 1979. The ship was named "CHANDLER" in honor of Rear Admiral Theodore Chandler, USN, who died as a result of wounds received in combat aboard his flagship USS LOUISVILLE (CA 28) on 6 January 1945.

In January 1984, CHANDLER made its first western Pacific deployment as a member of Battle Group BRAVO, returning to San Diego in August. In January 1985, CHANDLER joined the "Rampant Lions" of Destroyer Squadron TWENTY-ONE. The destroyer's second western Pacific deployment commenced on 17 March 1986, during which CHANDLER spent two months in the Arabian gulf as a member of the U. S. Navy's Middle East Force. CHANDLER returned to San Diego on 9 September 1986. For the competitive cycle ending 30 June 1986, CHANDLER was the winner of the squadron's Battle Efficiency competition.

On 16 April 1988, CHANDLER completed its third deployment to the western Pacific, including three and one-half months assigned to the Middle East Force in the Arabian Gulf at the height of the Iran-Iraq war. During this time, CHANDLER served as the flagship for COMDESRON TWENTY-THREE and supported several U. S. flagged tanker convoys. CHANDLER and Sea Snake 23 of HSL THIRTY-THREE Detachment SIX received the Navy Humanitarian Service Medal for the dramatic December 1987 rescue of 41 crew members of the burning Cypriot supertanker PIVOT, a victim of an Iranian attack.

Following the installation of the New Threat Upgrade (NTU) at Todd Shipyard in Seattle and a year of intensive preparations, CHANDLER deployed in October 1991 to the Arabian Gulf in support of Operation DESERT STORM. While in theater, CHANDLER conducted a record 14 transits of the Strait of Hormuz while escorting U. S. and allied shipping. Additionally, CHANDLER coordinated and participated in the first bilateral exercise with the Kuwaiti Navy.

CHANDLER earned the Battle Efficiency award for the competitive cycle ending in December 1992 before her next deployment began in July of 1993. On July 9, 1993, she departed San Diego in company with ELLIOT (DD 967) and RENTZ (FFG 46) en route to Pearl Harbor, where the group staged for Seventh Fleet operations. Assigned as an outer air-defense and radar picket for ABRAHAM LINCOLN (CVN 72), CHANDLER then crossed the Pacific and moved through Seventh Fleet waters toward the Arabian Sea to support Operation Southern Watch, the coalition enforcement of the no-fly zone over southern Iraq established after the 1991 Gulf War. In this role the destroyer provided area air-defense coverage to the carrier and escorted units, and - when directed - controlled combat air patrol traffic in the Gulf's congested airspace while the air wing flew daily sorties. During the transit and early on-station period she crossed the equator on December 3, 1993, marking the traditional Shellback line-crossing at sea. The deployment also included maritime interception and surveillance tasks tied to U.N. sanctions. One contemporaneous report places CHANDLER on a coordinated surveillance evolution with INGRAHAM (FFG 61) and O'BRIEN (DD 975) that ended with the suspect freighter YING HE diverted to a coalition port for inspection.

In October 1993, after heavy fighting in Mogadishu drew additional U.S. naval presence to the Horn of Africa, ABRAHAM LINCOLN and her escort CHANDLER were ordered from the Gulf to the coast of Somalia. Within five days of receiving the tasking, the carrier group was on station conducting overwater support to U.N. operations, with CHANDLER maintaining screen and air-control duties off Mogadishu. The ship's Gulf routine also brought logistics pauses in regional ports that supported carrier battle groups of the era. Sailors' accounts and carrier records from the cruise note pier-side periods at places such as Jebel Ali, aligning with CHANDLER's protective screen tasks for the carrier through late 1993. She returned stateside in January 1994 to close a deployment that had spanned the Pacific, Arabian Sea, and Horn of Africa.

Back in Southern California through 1994, CHANDLER entered post-deployment maintenance, inspections, and refresher training while the Gulf and Balkans remained the two principal maritime focus areas for U.S. and allied naval forces. During this competitive cycle she earned the Battle Efficiency "E", recognizing sustained readiness across warfare areas. The year also featured routine local operations, ammunition handling and systems checks, and the gradual shift in Pacific Fleet training toward more joint and coalition interoperability demanded by ongoing no-fly and sanction-enforcement missions.

In 1995, the destroyer's tasking pivoted to Western Hemisphere security as U.S. naval forces expanded joint counter-narcotics patrols. Through the year, CHANDLER trained to embark law-enforcement teams and practiced compliant-boarding procedures, and DANFS notes that she conducted drug-enforcement boardings in the eastern Caribbean ahead of a dedicated counter-narcotics deployment. In the late summer she deployed for that mission set, operating under Joint Interagency Task Force control from August 1995 into February 1996. Her days alternated between radar picket stations, maritime patrols along known trafficking routes, and inspection/boarding evolutions of go-fasts and coastal freighters, with periodic logistics stops at regional hubs to replenish and turn over tasking. Crew recollections from the period reference transits tied to Panama approaches and live-fire evolutions on Caribbean range complexes - reflecting the mixture of presence, interdiction, and proficiency training that characterized these deployments.

Following return from the Caribbean in early 1996, CHANDLER resumed a Pacific Fleet training rhythm while the Navy finished building out Naval Station Everett in Washington as a new home for a carrier battle group and its escorts. The destroyer executed the move north late in the year, sailing into Everett on December 22, 1996, and joining the emerging surface squadron that would screen ABRAHAM LINCOLN after the carrier shifted homeport to Everett on January 8, 1997. The relocation folded CHANDLER into a new operating pattern centered on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Puget Sound, and the northeast Pacific, with regular carrier support periods, underway replenishments, and air-defense exercises designed to integrate the Everett-based battle group.

Throughout 1997, the ship worked up from her new base, cycling through inspections, combat-systems alignments, and group exercises while also supporting regional Navy-community events as Everett settled into routine operations. The competitive year closed with another Battle "E", reflecting consistent performance during the first full year out of the new homeport.

In the autumn of 1998 CHANDLER shifted south again, this time for "SouthPac 98-99", a counter-drug deployment in the eastern Pacific and approaches to Central and South America. The cruise included an equator crossing on October 1, 1998, and months of patrol sectors coordinated with U.S. Coast Guard cutters, maritime patrol aircraft, and partner-nation forces. Typical tasking placed the destroyer on barrier patrols along trafficking corridors, vectoring embarked helicopters and intercept teams toward suspect contacts, and conducting long-range radar surveillance to cue coalition assets. The deployment concluded in March 1999 with CHANDLER returning to the Pacific Northwest after multiple interdiction operations and presence patrols in support of hemispheric security.

After post-deployment maintenance and a final stretch of local operations from Everett, CHANDLER's U.S. Navy service drew to a close. She was decommissioned and stricken on September 23, 1999, at Naval Station Everett, part of the late-1990s retirement of the non-AEGIS air-defense destroyer force. The ship remained in reserve while transfer arrangements for the four KIDD-class ships advanced. On May 30, 2003, she was sold to Taiwan, then recommissioned in 2006 as ROCS MA KONG (DDG 1805), extending the class's operational career in the western Pacific.