USS Mason (DDG-87)

For other ships with the same name, see USS Mason.

USS Mason. USS Mason
History
United States
Name:	USS Mason
Namesake:	Mason (DE-529)
Ordered:	13 December 1996
Builder:	Bath Iron Works
Laid down:	19 January 2000
Launched:	23 June 2001
Commissioned:	12 April 2003
Motto:	Proudly We Serve
Status:	in active service, as of 2024
Badge:	120px
General characteristics
Class & type:	Arleigh Burke-class destroyer
Displacement:	9,200 tons
Length:	509 ft 6 in (155.30 m)
Beam:	66 ft (20 m)
Draft:	31 ft (9.4 m)
Propulsion:	4 × General Electric LM2500-30 gas turbines, 2 shafts, 100,000 shp (75,000 kW)
Speed:	exceeds 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph)
Complement:	380 officers and enlisted
Armament:	1 × 32 cell, 1 x 64 cell Mk 41 vertical launch systems, 96 x RIM-66 SM-2, BGM-109 Tomahawk or RUM-139 VL-Asroc, missiles 1 × 5/62 in (127/62 mm), 2 x 25 mm, 4 x 12.7 mm guns 2 × Mk 46 triple torpedo tubes 1 × 20 mm Phalanx CIWS
Aircraft carried:	2 x SH-60 Sea Hawk helicopters

USS Mason (DDG-87) is an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer in the United States Navy.

Homeported in Norfolk, Virginia, USS Mason is the 37th Arleigh Burke-class destroyer and the ninth of the Flight IIA variant. She was commissioned in Cape Canaveral, Florida, in April 2003. Her first captain was Commander David Gale.

This is the third ship with the name USS Mason. The first Mason (DD-191), in service from 1920 to 1941, was named for John Young Mason, well known for his service as the Secretary of the Navy for two American Presidents. The second Mason (DE-529) was named for Ensign Newton Henry Mason, a Naval Aviator who was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. This ship is named for the crew of the second Mason (DE-529) as this was the first ship in the US Navy with this distinction of a predominantly black crew.

Ship history

USS Mason conducted her maiden deployment with the USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in late 2004. Mason returned home after six months on 18 April 2005.

On 3 October 2006, Mason departed Naval Station Norfolk for a seven-month deployment to the Persian Gulf in support of the Global War on Terrorism. She participated in Exercise Neon Falcon. Mason returned home in May 2007.

Mason deployed with the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt on 12 September 2008 for a scheduled deployment.

On 12 March 2011, she sailed through the Suez Canal en route to the Mediterranean, to support possible humanitarian or military action in response to the 2011 Libyan civil war. In April 2011, a boarding team from the ship successfully liberated five Yemeni hostages from eleven Somali pirates who had taken over the Yemeni-flagged ship F/V Nasri. The pirates had seriously injured two other fishermen in their attack, left the wounded ashore, and then taken Nasri to sea as a pirate mothership. Assault weapons, ammunition, rocket propelled grenades and launchers were destroyed by the boarding team.

Gallery

• USS Mason DDG87.jpg

  Mason in the Persian Gulf, January 2005

• USS Mason (DDG 87) VBSS team receive a fish from a Yemeni fisherman.jpg

  The visit, board, search and seizure (VBSS) team receive a fish from a Yemeni fisherman

• USS Mason (DDG 87) VBSS team greet the crew of a Yemeni fishing dhow.jpg

  The same team greeting the crew of the fishing dhow

• US Navy 110228-N-5838W-004 An MK-38 25mm gun system is fired during a live-fire exercise aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Mason (DDG 87).jpg

  An MK-38 25mm gun system is fired during a live-fire exercise

External links

This article includes information collected from the Naval Vessel Register, which, as a U.S. government publication, is in the public domain. The entry can be found here.