BELKNAP USS

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BELKNAP USS

Post by shipstamps » Sun Sep 14, 2008 4:44 pm


Built as a guided missile frigate under yard no 342 by Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine for the U.S.A. Navy.
05 February 1962 keel laid down.
20 July 1963 launched under the name USS BELKNAP (DLG26) christened by Mrs. Leonard B. Cresswell the granddaughter and daughter of the RADMs Belknap, she was named after RADM George Eugene Belknap, USN 1832 - 1903 and his son Reginald Rowan Belknap USN 1871 – 1959.
Displacement 6.570 ton standard, 8.200 tons full load. Dim. 166.7 x 16.7 x 8.8m. (draught)
Powered by two geared General Electric turbines, 85.000 shp, twin shafts speed 32.5 knots (maximum).
Armament 1 twin Mark 10 launcher Terrier/Standard. 2 quadruple launch canisters for Harpoon surface-to-surface missiles. 1 – 5inch Mark gun, 2 - 21 inch Mark 32 ASW torpedo tubes.
Carried one helicopter.
Crew 47 officers and 464 enlisted as flagship.
07 November 1964 commissioned at the Boston Naval Shipyard, Boston, Mass. Under command of Captain John T. Law.

After commissioned spend more as one year conducting special trials, tests and a short repair period.
Then she was used from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for a pre-deployment shakedown training, before she was joining the U.S. Second Fleet in July 1966.
July 1966 Capt. Ernest C. Hipp Jr relieved Captain Law.
August 1966 she joined the U.S., U.K., Norwegian and other NATO fleet units in an operation off the coast of Norway. In this operation she sailed north of the Arctic Circle and became a member of the select Blue Nose Society.
September 1966 returned at Norfolk, and after three weeks she sailed for her first deployment in the U.S. Sixth Fleet and Task Force 77 in the Far East.
During her deployment she had the task of PIRAZ (Positive Identification Radar Advisory Zone) Station, she had to keep track of all aircraft over the entire Tonkin Gulf, and was used as a refueling and rest station for the Search and Rescue (SAR) helicopters and crew, and during that time the crew of the helicopters saved many downed pilots and aircrew.
08 December 1967 Capt. Hipp was relieved by Capt J.H. Aldrich.
During her deployment in the Seventh Fleet she visited Hawaii, Japan, Hong Kong and the Philippines.
April 1968 she returned in Norfolk via Perth and Melbourne, Australia and Tahiti.
The rest of 1968 till April 1969 she got an overhaul.
Then a training period at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before she set sail again from Norfolk on 23 October 1969 for her next tour of duty in the Seventh Fleet off Vietnam, used for the same task as in her first tour.
May 1970 returned at Norfolk via Sydney, Australia, Wellington, New Zealand and Pago Pago, American Samoa.

After four months in Norfolk she sailed for the Mediterranean to join the U.S. Sixth Fleet.
December 1971 she embarked the first operational SH-2D/LAMPS helicopter.

30 June 1975 reclassified as CG 26.

In the night of 22 November 1975 she came in collision with the aircraft carrier USS JOHN F KENNEDY in bad weather in the Ionian Sea. In the collision 6 crewmembers were killed on board the USS BELKNAP and 47 wounded.
After the collision the BELKNAP got on fire when the overhanging flight deck of the carrier cut trough her superstructure. The fires were not under control for 2½ hours, her aluminum superstructure was melted, and burned to deck level.
She was towed back to the United States for repair at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.
During her lengthy repair, from 30 January 1976 till 10 May 1980 her armament and communication system was upgraded.

From May 1985 till February 1986 the Norfolk Navy Yard convert her to a flagship, thereafter stationed at Gaeta, Italy for Sixth Fleet Commander.

2/3 December 1989 she served as US Flagship at the Malta Summit between the USA President George Bush and President Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union.
The USA President had his sleeping quarters aboard the BELKNAP.
15 February 1995 decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Registry.

24 September 1998 was she during a practice air-attack used as a target by the planes of the Bounty Hunters from Base NAS Oceana, Virginia Beach, Virginia. When a plane managed to drop her bombs down the funnel in the bowels of the ship, she headed quickly for the sea bottom and sank.

The BELKNAP is the ship in the foreground of the stamp.

Source: Warships of the US Navy by Morison and Rowe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Belknap_(DLG-26) http://www.ussbelknap.com/code/hisindex.html
http://navysite.de/cvn/cv67.htm

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