BATH, Maine >> The Navy's newest destroyer, bearing the name of the late Rhode Island Sen. John Chafee, was christened with champagne and fireworks yesterday as his wife and four of their children observed the Veterans Day ceremony. Navy christens destroyer
bound for Pearl Harbor
By David Sharp
Associated PressThe USS Chafee will be commissioned in October in Newport, R.I., and home-ported at Pearl Harbor.
The Chafee is 510 feet long and will weigh more than 8,000 tons when fully loaded and delivered to the Navy.
The $1 billion Arleigh Burke-class destroyer is built to withstand chemical attacks, while advanced radar enables it to simultaneously wage battle with enemy airplanes, warships and submarines.
"In loving memory we christen thee USS Chafee. May God bless all who serve on her," said Virginia Chafee before she and Diane Blair, wife of retired Adm. Dennis Blair, each smashed a bottle of champagne against the ship's hull.
Then fireworks filled the evening sky as Bath Iron Works made history with the first warship to be built at a $240 million land-level transfer facility designed to make the shipbuilder more efficient.
Because of the modernization, the Chafee was the first Bath-built ship that did not go into the Kennebec River with a splash. Instead, it was transferred into a dry dock and floated a week before the ceremony.
Chafee's oldest son, Zechariah Chafee, said his father, a veteran of World War II and the Korean War and a former Navy secretary, would have appreciated the honor of having a warship bearing his name. He said his father believed in President Theodore Roosevelt's precept of "speak softly and carry a big stick."
When Chafee died in 1999, he was known as a moderate Republican and champion of the environment after a quarter-century in the Senate.
But long before he began his political career, he was a Marine who saw combat on Guadalcanal and Okinawa in World War II.
