USS Bigelow (DD-942)

November 8, 1957 - November 5, 1982

4,619 tons

127,50 meters

13.80 meters

6.7 meters

324

Two steam turbines, 70,000 hp, two screws

The USS Bigelow (DD -942 ) was a destroyer in the United States Navy and was part of the Forrest Sherman class. The ship served from 1957 to 1982 in the U.S. Navy. It was named after the Marines Elmer Charles Bigelow, who had fallen on the USS Fletcher.

History

The destroyer was laid on 6 July 1955 at Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine on Kiel, the launching ceremony was held on February 2nd place in 1957, commissioned into the Navy on November 8, 1957. Use voyages saw the ship off the coast of Vietnam, in March 1965 was one of the Bigelow for the salvage fleet for the Gemini 3 - landing capsule. During another use off the Vietnamese coast in one of the turrets a blast, in which six sailors were wounded occurred. The ship had to stay in dry dock for overhaul long time. 1977, the prototype of the Phalanx CIWS was tested on the destroyer.

On 5 November 1982, the Bigelow was decommissioned and assigned to the reserve fleet, the ship was then removed permanently from the ship registers on 1 June 1990. 1993 sold the former Navy destroyer to be scrapped, but bought it back in 1996. On 2 April 2003, the ship was finally sunk as a target ship.