USS Arthur W. Radford (DD-968) was a in the United States Navy. She was named for Admiral Arthur W. Radford USN (1896–1973), the first naval officer to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. She was decommissioned on 18 March 2003 after serving for 26 years, and on 10 August 2011 her hull was scuttled off the coast of Delaware to form part of an artificial reef.
Construction and commissioning Arthur W. Radford was laid down 31 January 1974 by the Ingalls Shipbuilding Division of Litton Industries at Pascagoula, Mississippi, and launched on 1 March 1975, sponsored by Mrs. Arthur Radford, the admiral's widow. Arthur W. Radford was commissioned on 16 April 1977,
Early operations Underway for the United States East Coast the day she was commissioned, Arthur W. Radford was forced to return to her builder's yard for repairs soon thereafter, but got underway again on 30 April. Touching at Charleston, South Carolina, on 3 and 4 May, the ship proceeded to her home port Norfolk, Virginia, which she reached on 6 May.
Three days later, she steamed for Newport, Rhode Island, to provide support for the Naval Surface Warfare Officer Training Command. While the ship proceeded north, a LAMPS helicopter practice-landed on her helo deck to prepare for the embarkation of a LAMPS III detachment. The helicopter returned to Norfolk later that day 11 May. Mooring at Newport on 13 May, the destroyer remained there until 17 May, when she headed home. Soon after returning to Norfolk, she conducted gunnery exercises and helicopter operations off the Virginia Capes.
The ship headed down the coast on 24 May and reached Port Canaveral, Florida, the following day. After embarking Capt. R. K. Albright, Commander, Destroyer Squadron 22 (DesRon 22) the destroyer got underway on 27 May and, for the next few days, conducted air, surface, and sub-surface surveillance of the surrounding waters while President Jimmy Carter, observed operations on board the attack submarine . The destroyer rendezvoused with the submarine prior to her initial dive and then again when the submarine surfaced. Throughout the operation, she provided support services for local and national press covering the Chief Executive's voyage.
Underway for Norfolk on 31 May, Arthur W. Radford reached her home port on 2 June for local operations. While returning from waters off the Virginia Capes on 6 June, the ship ran into low-visibility conditions and winds in excess of 90 knots (170 km/h) which disabled a radar antenna and drove the ship outside the main shipping channel. At one point her fathometer read only 30 centimeters of water under the keel.
Fighting her way back to the channel in the teeth of the gale Arthur W. Radford sighted a capsized motor vessel, Dixie Lee II, south of Thimble A Shoals Channel buoy 21. Unable to assist due to the shallow water and high winds, the destroyer notified the United States Coast Guard of bodies seen floating in the water. The destroyer then anchored in Hampton Roads until the wind had dropped and shipping, adrift in the vicinity, had moved off.
Arthur W. Radford then proceeded to the West Indies for training operations including gunfire support. En route to Frederickstad, Saint Croix, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, in late June she conducted further weapons tests. Firing a gunnery exercise at Vieques, Puerto Rico, the destroyer returned to the eastern seaboard with a port visit to Fort Lauderdale, Florida on Independence Day 1977. During this firing exercise, a dummy shell hit which was towing a target sled. Further work in the Bahamas, and at Guantanamo Bay, preceded her return to Charleston, South Carolina, on the last day of July. She then headed home where she arrived on 3 August.
The ship returned to Pascagoula on 11 September for post-shakedown availability and remained in her builder's hands until she returned to Norfolk in mid-October. Entering the Norfolk Naval Shipyard on 25 October for restricted availability, she remained there into the spring of 1978 before resuming local operations out of her home port. She principally engaged in ship qualification trials and underway training before steaming south to Guantanamo Bay and Vieques for refresher training and gunfire support practice, respectively. Following these evolutions, the ship returned to Norfolk on 30 July 1978.
On 23 August, Arthur W. Radford got underway from the Naval Weapons Station Yorktown Virginia, and headed for NATO exercises in the North Atlantic. En route, she participated in Exercise "Common Effort", carrying out escort duties in an "opposed Atlantic transit", and briefly embarked Vice Admiral Wesley L. McDonald, Commander, U.S. 2nd Fleet. Next came Operation "Northern Wedding" a joint NATO exercise which began on 4 September and involved several carrier groups in an amphibious landing and many other facets of simulated naval warfare. During that operation, Arthur W. Radford operated alongside Royal Navy, Royal Danish Navy, Royal Norwegian Navy, Swedish Navy, West German Navy, and Canadian Forces Maritime naval units. During this exercise, the ship encountered huge seas from Hurricane Flossie.
Following the conclusion of "Northern Wedding", the destroyer visited Copenhagen, Denmark; Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and Portsmouth, England. She again embarked VADM McDonald at Portsmouth on 16 October and wore his flag during the return voyage to Norfolk. The admiral disembarked upon her arrival at Norfolk on 25 October. The destroyer then operated locally through the winter, varying periods between in port for upkeep and getting underway for training.
First deployment and interim Arthur W. Radford cleared Norfolk on 13 March 1979, bound for the Mediterranean and a tour with the U.S. 6th Fleet. Over the next six months, she participated in a variety of exercises and visited the ports of Catania, Sicily; Split, Yugoslavia; Trieste, Italy; Alexandria, Egypt; Cannes, France, Palma, Spain; Barcelona, Spain; Toulon, France, Théoule, France, Rota, Spain and Valencia, Spain. During the deployment, the vessel fired her first Harpoon missile in the Mediterranean on 28 July. Her target was the hulk of a destroyer, ex- (later the Turkish TCG Gaziantep (D-344)). Arthur W. Radford also participated in Exercise "Multiplex 1-79" in the Ionian Sea, Exercise "Dawn Patrol" in the Tyrrhenian Sea and Ionian Seas, Exercise "Tridente" out of Alexandria, and Exercise "National Week" XXVII, Phases 1 and 2. While en route from Toulon to Theoule, France, she rescued the French ketch, Laurca, adrift from the French resort of St. Tropez.
Clearing Rota on 12 September, Arthur W. Radford reached Norfolk on 22 September. Underway for Miami, Florida on 23 October, she served as the platform for deck landing qualifications for helicopter pilots en route, and, after touching at Mayport, Florida to unload a crippled H 3 helicopter from HSL-30, reached Miami on 27 October for a two-day port visit.
After returning briefly to Norfolk from 31 October to 5 November, the destroyer proceeded to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and participated in a training exercise with American and Canadian warships. During the course of Exercise "Canus-Marcot" she logged her 1,000th helicopter landing of 1979. Returning to Norfolk on 21 November, she remained in port for the remainder of the year 1979.
For the first half of 1980, the warship principally operated off the eastern seaboard of the United States, and ranged as far north as Halifax and as far south as the Caribbean, working briefly out of Vieques and Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, as well as out of Jacksonville, Florida. During this time, she also visited Annapolis, Maryland, where United States Naval Academy midshipmen toured the ship's engineering plant on an orientation visit. Admiral James L. Holloway III, the former Chief of Naval Operations, visited the ship as well.
Second deployment and interim
Following a brief period at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Arthur W. Radford prepared for another extended deployment. She departed Norfolk on 21 June 1980, embarking HSL-34, Detachment 2 and proceeded to Roosevelt Roads, where she embarked Rear Admiral Peter K. Cullins, Commander, South Atlantic Force and his staff to become Cullins' flagship for UNITAS XXI. Visits to Saint Kitts and to Bridgetown, Barbados, followed before the destroyer sailed for Venezuelan waters.
Over the next four months, Arthur W. Radford operated with elements of the Venezuelan, Ecuadorian, Peruvian, Colombian, Trinidad and Tobagonian, Argentine, Uruguayan, and Brazilian navies. Her ports of call included Puerto La Cruz and La Guaira, Venezuela, Rodman, Panama, Manta, Ecuador, Paito and Callao, Peru, Cartagena, Colombia; Trinidad and Tobago, Puerto Belgrano, and Bahía Blanca, Argentina, Montevideo, Uruguay, and the Brazilian ports of Santos, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and Recife. She also transited the Panama Canal twice during UNITAS XXI, the first time on 21 July 1980 and the second on 24 August.
Completing UNITAS XXI on 4 November, Arthur W. Radford sailed for Gabon, as a unit of the West Africa Training Cruise (WATC), reaching Libreville, the capital of Gabon, on 12 November. Over the next few weeks, she visited Tema, Ghana Freetown, Sierra Leone, and Dakar, Senegal. Clearing Dakar on 1 December, the destroyer stopped at Guadeloupe and at Roosevelt Roads on the return voyage and arrived at Norfolk on 15 December.
The ship spent the next two years engaged in operations along the East Coast and in the West Indies mostly in underway training out of Norfolk, Roosevelt Roads, and Vieques and in refresher training at Guantanamo Bay. During the summer of 1981, she operated out of Annapolis, training midshipmen. She underwent upkeep at Norfolk and Boston, Massachusetts, and received an overhaul at her builder's yard. En route to Puerto Rico, the ship had a Coast Guard detachment embarked from 20 to 23 September 1982, and cooperated with the Coast Guard on drug interdiction duties.
Third deployment and interim For the first few months of 1983, Arthur W. Radford operated primarily in the Virginia Capes area, but ranged into the Atlantic as far as the Bahamas. After embarking Commander, Destroyer Squadron 26, at Norfolk on 7 March to begin a nine-month period on board, Arthur W. Radford hosted Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman, Jr., on 29 March. A little less than one month later the destroyer cleared Norfolk on 27 April for a six-month deployment in the Mediterranean.
Touching at Gibraltar on 10 May, Arthur W. Radford proceeded to Augusta Bay, Sicily, and thence moved to waters off the coast of Lebanon. After supporting the multinational peacekeeping force in Beirut from 20 to 28 May, the destroyer visited Taranto, Italy, before returning to Lebanese waters for another brief period. During a port call at the Romanian port of Constanţa along with guided-missile frigate , the destroyer served as flagship for Vice Admiral William H. Rowden, Commander, 6th Fleet.
Visiting Catania, Sicily, Monte Carlo, Monaco, and Livorno, Italy, Arthur W. Radford exercised with U.S. 6th Fleet battle groups later that summer, later visiting Gaeta and Naples, Italy. While visiting Istanbul, Turkey, she hosted the retired Army leader and former presidential advisor General Alexander M. Haig.
Arthur W. Radford returned to the waters off Beirut on 18 September 1983 to assume duty as ready gunfire support ship. She conducted gunfire support missions against forces threatening the peacekeeping force on 21 and 22 September until relieved on station by the battleship on 8 October. Visits to La Maddalena, Sardinia, and to Tangier, Morocco rounded out the destroyer's time in the U.S. 6th Fleet. Operating briefly with Spanish Navy units en route to the turnover port of Rota, Arthur W. Radford cleared Rota on 10 November with the battle group formed around the carrier . She arrived at Norfolk 11 days later, remaining there for the rest of 198
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