The guided-missile destroyer USS Chung-Hoon, named for World War II hero Rear Adm. Gordon Chung-Hoon, sat dockside yesterday at Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., after the ship was turned over from Northrop Grumman Ship Systems to the U.S. Navy during ceremonies. The destroyer will be commissioned on Sept. 18 and will be homeported at Pearl Harbor as a member of the Pacific Fleet.
New destroyer
headed to Pearl Harbor
PASCAGOULA, Miss. >> A guided-missile destroyer named for a World War II hero and bound for Pearl Harbor was turned over to the Navy yesterday.
The USS Chung-Hoon was christened in 2003 at Northrop Grumman's Ingalls Shipyard. It is the 20th Aegis destroyer to be launched and christened at Ingalls, on the west bank of the Pascagoula River.
The ship is named in honor of Navy Rear Adm. Gordon P. Chung-Hoon, who was born here on July 10, 1910, and graduated from the Naval Academy in 1934. During World War II, he won the Navy Cross and Silver Star while serving as the commanding officer of the destroyer USS Sigsbee (DD 502).
On April 14, 1945, while on radar picket station off Okinawa, a kamikaze crashed into the Sigsbee, knocking out the ship's port engine and steering control. Despite the damage, Chung-Hoon kept his anti-aircraft batteries delivering fire against the continuing enemy air attack while simultaneously directing the damage-control efforts that allowed his ship to make port under her own power. Chung-Hoon retired in October 1959 and died in July 1979.
Cmdr. Kenneth Williams will be the new ship's commissioning commanding officer.
The destroyer will be commissioned on Sept. 18 in Pearl Harbor and will be homeported there as part of the Pacific Fleet.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
