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USS Rentz (FFG 46)

- decommissioned -
- sunk as target -

USS RENTZ was the 40^th OLIVER HAZARD PERRY - class guided missile frigate and the first ship in the Navy named after Commander George Snavely Rentz. After almost 30 years of service, the ship held a decommissioning ceremony on May 9, 2014, at San Diego, Calif., and was officially decommissioned and stricken from the Navy list on May 23, 2014. On September 13, 2016, RENTZ was sunk as a target 220 nautical miles northeast of Guam during Exercise Valiant Shield 2016.

General Characteristics:	Keel Laid: September 18, 1982
	Launched: July 16, 1983
	Commissioned: June 30, 1984
	Decommissioned: May 23, 2014
	Builder: Todd Pacific Shipyards Co., Los Angeles Division, San Pedro, Ca.
	Propulsion system: two General Electric LM 2500 gas turbines, two 350 Horsepower Electric Drive Auxiliary Propulsion Units
	Propellers: one
	Blades on each Propeller: five
	Length: 453 feet (135.9 meters)
	Beam: 45 feet (13.5 meters)
	Draft: 24,6 feet (7.5 meters)
	Displacement: 4,100 tons
	Speed: 28+ knots
	Aircraft: two SH-60 Sea Hawk (LAMPS 3)
	Armament: one Mk 75 76mm/62 caliber rapid firing gun, MK 32 ASW torpedo tubes (two triple mounts), one Phalanx CIWS
	Crew: 17 Officers and 198 Enlisted

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS RENTZ. 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 RENTZ memorabilia are currently for sale on ebay.

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USS RENTZ Cruise Books:

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USS RENTZ in the News:

August 26, 2003 - Rentz, HSL-45 Thwart Drug Smuggling Outfits

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History of USS RENTZ:

USS RENTZ was built by Todd Pacific Shipyards at San Pedro, California. Her keel was laid on September 18, 1982, she was launched on July 16, 1983, she was sponsored by Mrs. Neal F. Lansing, daughter of William K. Rentz, she was delivered on June 8, 1984, and she was commissioned at Long Beach on June 30, 1984. During her early years she completed post-commissioning training and entered the normal Pacific Fleet cycle for a new OLIVER HAZARD PERRY-class frigate. In December 1985, she shifted from Long Beach to San Diego, and in this early period she was associated with the USS RANGER (CV 61) battle group.

On November 5, 1986, USS RENTZ took part in the historic visit to Qingdao, China, in company with USS REEVES (CG 24) and USS OLDENDORF, a visit remembered as the first official port call by a U.S. warship to the People's Republic of China since 1949. In July 1987, she deployed to the Arabian Gulf for Operation Earnest Will, the escort effort mounted during the Iran-Iraq War to protect reflagged Kuwaiti tankers and keep traffic moving through the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, and she spent more than three months on that duty.

Cruise book evidence places USS RENTZ in Arabian Gulf service in 1989 and again in 1991, and official summary material notes that in 1989 she rendered assistance to USS KINKAID (DD 965) after that destroyer collided with the merchant ship KOTA PETANI in the Strait of Malacca. On February 20, 1990, members of her crew freed an injured humpback whale found entangled in heavy fishing net and buoys off Baja California. Verified deployment summaries place the ship in western Pacific service in 1993-1994 and on a Middle East deployment in 1994. In the 1993 workup cycle she also operated with USS CHANDLER (DDG 996) in Middle East Force preparations before that destroyer's deployment. In 1995, USS RENTZ took part in the inaugural Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training cruise and was later credited as the only U.S. Navy unit to complete that first cruise in full. Verified summaries also place her in forward service again in 1997, operating in the western Pacific and Middle East.

By the end of the decade and into the early 2000s, USS RENTZ remained in the regular Pacific and eastern Pacific deployment cycle. Official summary material places her on a 1999 counter-narcotics deployment in the South Pacific and on a 2000 western Pacific deployment that included the exercises Neon Falcon and Eager Sentry. In 2002, while operating off Ecuador with an embarked Coast Guard law enforcement detachment, she interdicted and rescued 136 illegal migrants. 22 of them were identified as Iraqi nationals, and later official summaries noted that information from that case helped lead to the arrest of a Texas-based organizer connected to terrorist networks. In 2003, she carried out a particularly active counter-drug deployment in the eastern Pacific under U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command. During that patrol, her helicopter detachment and boarding teams conducted repeated interdictions, and one of the later major cases yielded 7,710 pounds of narcotics and seven detainees. On September 30, 2003, she put into Mayport to offload almost 14,000 pounds of cocaine seized during August and September and to begin an intermediate maintenance availability at the midpoint of the deployment. She then resumed patrols and returned to San Diego on December 16, 2003.

In June 2005, USS RENTZ appeared in Portland for Fleet Week during the Rose Festival. Later that month, while transiting toward El Salvador, she detected an overloaded 60-foot vessel in the eastern Pacific. The boat, described as nameless and stateless, had been at sea for eleven days, had very little food and water remaining, had a faulty electrical system, and was taking on water. USS RENTZ took all 90 reported Ecuadorian citizens aboard, provided food, water, and medical assistance, and by June 28, 2005, had transported them safely to Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala. In June 2006, she again visited Portland for the Rose Festival. Her next clearly documented major operational period ended on May 1, 2007, when she returned to San Diego after a six-month deployment to the western Pacific and the Philippine Sea in support of the global war on terrorism, Operation Enduring Freedom - Philippines, and Operation Ultimatum while assigned to Combined Joint Task Force 515. During the summer that followed, she made a Fourth of July port visit to San Pedro, departing on July 5, 2007, and on July 31 arrived in Seattle for Seafair Fleet Week.

On July 31, 2009, USS RENTZ departed San Diego for a scheduled deployment with the USS NIMITZ (CVN 68) carrier strike group. By September 18, the strike group had entered the U.S. 5th Fleet area in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, and during the deployment USS RENTZ made a three-day port visit to Alexandria before taking part in Exercise Bright Star 2009 off Egypt. On November 20, 2009, she responded to a distress call from the motor vessel ADNAN WAHD in the central Arabian Gulf. While the ship was in port at Jebel Ali later that month, Engineman 3rd Class David M. Mudge suffered a fatal electrical shock during repair work in an auxiliary machinery space on November 28. The deployment continued with a scheduled port call off Phuket, Thailand, on January 31, 2010, and a later visit to Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, on February 28, before the frigate returned to San Diego on March 26, 2010, after an eight-month deployment.

On December 8, 2010, she was again at sea off southern California as part of the opposition force for USS CARL VINSON (CVN 70)'s Composite Training Unit Exercise. On May 9, 2011, USS RENTZ departed San Diego for another counter-illicit-trafficking deployment in the U.S. Southern Command area. She visited Huatulco, Mexico, on June 1. On September 8 she reached Puntarenas, Costa Rica, to deliver five Costa Rican citizens and one Nicaraguan who had been transferred from USS BOONE (FFG 28) after the seizure of the fishing vessel MARIA CANELA on August 28 with 1.3 tons of cocaine roughly 200 nautical miles from the Galapagos Islands. USS RENTZ returned home on November 21, 2011, after a six-and-a-half-month deployment. Cmdr. Lance C. Lantier relieved Cmdr. Michael Davis on October 19, 2012.

The last major deployment of USS RENTZ began on July 25, 2013, when she left San Diego with Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron Light 49 Detachment 5 for counter-transnational organized crime operations. An earlier April departure had been canceled because of sequestration-related budget limits. On August 11, 2013, she and an embarked Coast Guard law enforcement detachment recovered more than 2,100 pounds of cocaine from the fishing vessel CAPITAN ERSON near the Galapagos Islands. After a port call to Cartagena beginning on September 7, she joined the Atlantic phase of Unitas 54 on September 9, returned to Cartagena again in mid-September, anchored off Cristobal on September 17, and transited the Panama Canal on September 18. In early October she put into Vasco Nunez de Balboa, and on October 9, in coordination with the Colombian Navy, she disrupted another cocaine shipment off Colombia. From October 20 to October 21 she assisted a disabled 46-foot fishing vessel 200 nautical miles off Ecuador that had been adrift for ten days. In late November she was again at Vasco Nunez de Balboa, and on November 30 seized about 1,000 pounds of cocaine from a fishing vessel south of Isla de Cohiba, Panama. In early December she stopped off Puerto Caldera, Costa Rica, to turn over three Costa Rican suspects, later returned to Balboa, and on December 18 recovered another 700 pounds of cocaine from a small go-fast boat northeast of the Galapagos. On February 4, 2014, she arrived at Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala, to refuel and to disembark Coast Guard law enforcement detachment 406. From February 8 to February 10 she carried out deck-landing qualifications with two U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawks from Joint Task Force-Bravo�s 1-228th Aviation Regiment off Honduras. She then visited Manzanillo, Mexico, on February 17 and returned to San Diego on February 28, 2014, after a seven-month deployment. Navy reporting later credited that final cruise with nearly 5,000 kilograms of narcotics interdicted or disrupted in nine trafficking cases.

A decommissioning ceremony took place at Naval Base San Diego on May 9, 2014, with Vice Adm. Martin Jules Mayer, the ship's first commanding officer, scheduled to deliver the principal address. USS RENTZ was formally decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on May 23, 2014. On September 13, 2016, the ex-RENTZ was sunk during a sinking exercise as part of Valiant Shield 2016 northeast of Guam.

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Accidents aboard USS RENTZ:

Date	Where	Events
November 28, 2009	Jebel Ali, U.A.E.	ENFN David Mudge dies after being eletrocuted while working in auxiliary machinery space 2. At the time of the accident, the RENTZ was in port Jebel Ali, U.A.E., while deployed as part of the NIMITZ (CVN 68) Carrier Strike Group.

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About the Frigate's Name, about Commander George Snavely Rentz:

Commander George Snavely Rentz was born on July 25, 1882 in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary, was ordained by Presbytery of Northumberland in 1909, and pastored churches in Pennsylvania and New Jersey for eight years.

Following the entry of the United States in World War I, he was appointed acting chaplain with the rank of Lieutenant Junior Grade and was assigned to the 11th Regiment of Marines in France until 1919. He attained the rank of Commander in 1924. Among his sea duty assignments, he served in USS FLORIDA (BB 30); USS WRIGHT (AV 1); USS WEST VIRGINIA (BB 48); and USS AUGUSTA (CA 31). In 1940, when the USS HOUSTON relieved AUGUSTA as flagship of the Asiatic Fleet, Commander Rentz transferred to the new arrival. It was aboard this cruiser he served so devotedly and enthusiastically, providing the ship's crew and officers with great hope and promise.

During an Allied attack on February 4, 1942, HOUSTON was under severe air attack. Commander Rentz spurned cover and circulated among the crew of the anti-aircraft battery, encouraging them. It was noted by an officer that crew at the guns "... saw this man of God walking fearlessly among them, they no longer felt alone." In the Flores Sea, during this attack, HOUSTON took a direct hit that disabled turret III and killed 48 men.

Less than a month later HOUSTON was in the Battle of Java Sea with the Australian light cruiser HMAS PERTH. Both ships were outnumbered by a Japanese troop convoy but they persisted in an ensuing melee of fire, causing such confusion as to have a Japanese destroyer fire a spread of torpedoes that passed the allied cruisers and caused four Japanese troopships close inshore to sink. All in all, the involvement was no match for the wounded PERTH and HOUSTON; the Japanese attack on these two cruisers caused them to sink; but they went down fighting to the last second. It was during the abandonment of HOUSTON that Commander Rentz entered the water and attained partial safety along with other crew members on a spare main float of one of HOUSTON's lost planes. Aware of the extreme overcrowding and dangerous overloading, he attempted to relinquish his space and his life jacket to wounded survivors nearby, declaring "You men are young, I have lived the major part and I am willing to go." No one would oblige the generous, fearless chaplain. After several attempts of leaving and being brought back by his shipmates, he uplifted them with prayers and song until, ultimately, he succeeded in placing his lifejacket near a wounded sailor who did not have one, and Commander Rentz courageously slipped away into the sea on the morning of March 1, 1942.

For his selfless bravery following the loss of HOUSTON in Sunda Strait that night, he was awarded posthumously, the Navy Cross - the only Navy Chaplain to so honored during World War II.

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USS RENTZ SinkEx:

RENTZ was sunk as a target 220 nautical miles northeast of Guam during Exercise Valiant Shield 2016 on September 13, 2016. Ships participating in the sinking included the aircraft carrier RONALD REAGAN (CVN 76) and guided missile destroyers JOHN S. McCAIN (DDG 56) and BENFOLD (DDG 65). During the exercise, RENTZ was hit by at least 22 missiles. It took a total of five hours to sink the ship. According to footage released by the US Navy, RENTZ was hit by Harpoon missiles (at least two), Hellfire missiles, a JSOW C-1 (that's an over 1000 pound guided gliding bomb), and several AGM-65F Maverick air-to-surface missiles.

The video below shows some of the missile hits and the eventual sinking of the RENTZ. Video by Staff Sgt. Mariko Frazee

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USS RENTZ Image Gallery:

The photo below was taken by William Chiu when USS RENTZ visited Hong Kong on August 4, 1991.

The photos below were taken by me and show the RENTZ at Naval Base San Diego, Calif, on March 10, 2008.

The photos below were taken by Shiu On Yee and show the RENTZ anchored in Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor. RENTZ and other units of the NIMITZ (CVN 68) Strike Group visited Hong Kong from February 17-20, 2010, during their WestPac Cruise.

The photos below were taken by me and show the RENTZ returning home to Naval Base San Diego, Calif, on March 26, 2010, after completing an extended 8-month deployment to the 5th and 7th Fleet areas of operation.

The photo below was taken by me and shows the RENTZ at Naval Base San Diego, Calif., on March 15, 2012.

The photos below were taken by me and show the RENTZ returning to Naval Base San Diego, Calif, on May 11, 2012, after local operations off the coast of southern California.