:''See also'' ''USS'' Young ''for similarly named ships.'' USS ''John Young'' (DD-973), named for

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

John Young John Young may refer to: Academics * John Young (professor of Greek) (died 1820), Scottish professor of Greek at the University of Glasgow * John C. Young (college president) (1803–1857), American educator, pastor, and president of Centre Coll ...

, USN, was a of the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

. The ship was built by the

Ingalls Shipbuilding Ingalls Shipbuilding is a shipyard located in Pascagoula, Mississippi, United States, originally established in 1938, and now part of Huntington Ingalls Industries, HII. It is a leading producer of ships for the United States Navy, and at 12,500 ...

Division of

Litton Industries Litton Industries was a large defense contractor in the United States named after inventor Charles Litton Sr. During the 1960s, the company began acquiring many unrelated firms and became one of the largest conglomerates in the United States. ...

Pascagoula, Mississippi Pascagoula ( ) is a city in Jackson County, Mississippi, United States. It is the principal city of the Pascagoula Metropolitan Statistical Area, and is part of the Gulfport–Biloxi–Pascagoula Combined Statistical Area. The population was 22 ...

Service history

In 1987, ''John Young'' deployed off the coast of

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

in support of

Operation Earnest Will Operation Earnest Will (24 July 1987 – 26 September 1988) was the American military protection of Kuwaiti-owned tankers from Iranian attacks in 1987 and 1988, three years into the Tanker War phase of the Iran–Iraq War. It was the largest nav ...

and participated in

Operation Nimble Archer Operation Nimble Archer was the 19 October 1987 attack on two Iranian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf by United States Navy forces. The attack was a response to Iran's missile attack three days earlier on , a reflagged Kuwaiti oil tanker at an ...

. ''John Young'' deployed with Battle Group Echo, which included the

aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...

battleship A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ...

cruiser A cruiser is a type of warship. Modern cruisers are generally the largest ships in a fleet after aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships, and can usually perform several roles. The term "cruiser", which has been in use for several hu ...

s , , destroyers and ,

frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and ...

s , , , and

auxiliaries Auxiliaries are support personnel that assist the military or police but are organised differently from regular forces. Auxiliary may be military volunteers undertaking support functions or performing certain duties such as garrison troops, u ...

, , , . ''John Young'', following appropriate Congressional notification, became one of eight combat ships that began receiving women as crewmembers in 1994. As part of a reorganization by the Pacific Fleet's surface ships into six core battle groups and eight destroyer squadrons, with the reorganization scheduled to be completed by 1 October 1995, and homeport changes to be completed within the following, year, ''John Young'' was reassigned to Destroyer Squadron 23. ''John Young'' departed

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

on 9 February 1996 enroute to the Persian Gulf for a six-month deployment as part of the Middle East Force (MEF). This deployment was remarkable because a main engineering space was completely gutted and refitted following a major fuel oil leak just days before that trapped several crew members in thirty thousand gallons of fuel. The ship was having extensive last-minute pre-deployment repairs, requiring most of the installed firefighting systems to be disabled. Also, the fire-proof escape doors in all the engineering spaces were temporarily removed for repairs. Had the fuel ignited, it would have been catastrophic to not only John Young, but the many ships nearby in port. On 28 April 1998, Navy and

Coast Guard A coast guard or coastguard is a maritime security organization of a particular country. The term embraces wide range of responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with customs and security duties to ...

inspectors aboard ''John Young'' boarded a merchant ship thus marking the 10,000th such boarding in support of

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

sanctions against Iraq. As part of a multinational maritime interception force, operating in the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Persis, Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a Mediterranean sea (oceanography), me ...

, the team boarded an Indian flagged

dhow Dhow ( ar, داو, translit=dāwa; mr, script=Latn, dāw) is the generic name of a number of traditional sailing vessels with one or more masts with settee or sometimes lateen sails, used in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean region. Typically spor ...

in the Persian Gulf to make the milestone boarding. The vessel was empty and permitted to proceed. ''John Young'' departed

on 18 November 1997 en route to the Persian Gulf for a six-month deployment as part of the Middle East Force (MEF). ''John Young'' teamed up with a Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment (LEDET) in late March 2001 for a major drug bust at sea. She was last stationed at San Diego, California.

Fate

''John Young'' was decommissioned on 30 September 2002, and stricken 6 November 2002, laid up at

Bremerton, Washington Bremerton is a city in Kitsap County, Washington. The population was 37,729 at the 2010 census and an estimated 41,405 in 2019, making it the largest city on the Kitsap Peninsula. Bremerton is home to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and the Bremerto ...

NISMF. On 13 April 2004, ''John Young'' was sunk during exercise RIMPAC 04 by a

Mark 48 torpedo The Mark 48 and its improved Advanced Capability (ADCAP) variant are American heavyweight submarine-launched torpedoes. They were designed to sink deep-diving nuclear-powered submarines and high-performance surface ships. History The Mark 48 wa ...

fired by the

submarine A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...

, which broke her in half.

Gallery

File:Three Spruance-class destroyers at Pearl Harbor c1980.jpg, USS Hewitt,

USS Kinkaid USS ''Kinkaid'' (DD-965), named for Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid USN (1888–1972), was a built by the Ingalls Shipbuilding Division of Litton Industries at Pascagoula, Mississippi. Ship naming and launching, Launched in 1974, she was Ship d ...

and USS ''John Young'' at

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Re ...

in March 1980 File:330-CFD-DN-ST-84-00308 (21923476770).jpg, USS ''John Young'' on 1 May 1981 File:Tashkent&JohnYoung1984.jpg, USS ''John Young'' and

Tashkent Tashkent (, uz, Toshkent, Тошкент/, ) (from russian: Ташкент), or Toshkent (; ), also historically known as Chach is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of ...

in 1984 File:330-CFD-DN-SC-89-09436 (17358204065).jpg, USS ''John Young'' on 26 August 1987 File:330-CFD-DN-SC-88-03384 (17170669240).jpg, USS ''John Young'' on 19 October 1987 File:Defense.gov News Photo 980209-N-4142G-002.jpg, USS ''John Young'''s sailor loads a projectile into her 5-inch gun on 9 February 1998

References

External links

*
navsource.org: USS ''John Young''

Yahoo! Newsgroup for former ''John Young'' Crewmembers

Reunion website and info for former ''John Young'' Crewmembers
{{DEFAULTSORT:John Young (DD-973) Spruance-class destroyers Cold War destroyers of the United States 1976 ships Ships sunk as targets