WAVY’s Navy Ship Salute is a feature on WAVY News 10 Today. Each month, in partnership with the U.S. Navy, WAVY-TV 10 will profile a different ship based at the world’s largest Navy base: Naval Station Norfolk. The series aims to better introduce our viewers to some of the largest floating taxpayer assets there are, as well as life aboard a U.S. Navy ship.
NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — USS Truxtun is a Arleigh Burke Class Destroyer that was first commissioned in 2009. Built at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi, it is the fifth ship named for American Naval hero, Capt. Thomas Truxtun.
“(Truxtun) is best known for commanding the USS Constellation, one the original six frigates after the re-establishment of the United States Navy following the American revolution,” Cmdr. Adam Miller, commanding officer, said. Truxtun was selected June 4, 1798.
“In battle he defeated two French warships and Congress recognized that victory by striking a gold medal for him. From that gold medal we have our motto: pursue, attack, vanquish,” Miller said.
USS Truxtun is 510 feet long and can take 380 sailors with her on deployment. Like many of her sister destroyers she can accommodate two LAMPS MK III MH-60 B/R helicopters with Penguin/Hellfire missiles and MK 46/MK 50 torpedoes.
She also has a range of other weapons which can be ordered fired from the Combat Information Center.
10 On Your Side was given rare access to the center where we underwent an air track drill.
Communication is vital among the team of sailors.
USS Truxtun recently returned from a nearly year long deployment, first as part of the USS George H.W. Bush carrier strike group sailing in the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas, then in they worked alone in the Arabian and Red seas.
However where most people likely have seen USS Truxtun is in the 2013 feature film Captain Phillips, Standing in for USS Bainbridge.