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General Characteristics

Crew List

Memorabilia

Cruise Books

About the Ship's Name

History

Homeports of USS Pinckney

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USS Pinckney (DDG 91)

USS PINCKNEY is the 13^th Flight IIA ARLEIGH BURKE - class guided missile destroyer and the first ship in the Navy named after Navy Cook Third Class William Pinckney, (1915-1975), recipient of the Navy Cross for his courageous rescue of a fellow crewmember onboard the USS ENTERPRISE (CV 6) during the Battle of Santa Cruz.

General Characteristics:	Awarded: March 6, 1998
	Keel laid: July 16, 2001
	Launched: June 26, 2002
	Commissioned: May 29, 2004
	Builder: Ingalls Shipbuilding, West Bank, Pascagoula, Miss.
	Propulsion system: four General Electric LM 2500 gas turbine engines
	Propellers: two
	Length: 508,5 feet (155 meters)
	Beam: 67 feet (20.4 meters)
	Draft: 30,5 feet (9.3 meters)
	Displacement: approx. 9,200 tons full load
	Speed: 32 knots
	Aircraft: two SH-60 (LAMPS 3) helicopters
	Armament: one Mk-45 5"/62 caliber lightweight gun, two Mk-41 VLS for Standard missiles and Tomahawk ASM/LAM, one 20mm Phalanx CIWS, two Mk-32 triple torpedo tubes for Mk-50 and Mk-46 torpedoes, two Mk 38 Mod 2 25mm machine gun systems
	Homeport: San Diego, Calif.
	Crew: approx. 320

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS PINCKNEY. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.

Click here to view the list.

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Click here to see which USS PINCKNEY memorabilia are currently for sale on ebay.

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USS PINCKNEY Cruise Books:

WestPac Cruise Book 2009-10

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About the Ship's Name:

USS PINCKNEY is named after Navy Cook Third Class William Pinckney, (1915-1975), recipient of the Navy Cross for his courageous rescue of a fellow crewmember onboard the USS ENTERPRISE (CV 6) during the Battle of Santa Cruz. When an explosion killed four of the six men at his battle station in an ammunition handling room, Pinckney and the other surviving sailor attempted to exit through a hatch to the hangar deck above. When the other man grasped the scorching hatch, he fell back unconscious. Despite the suffocating smoke, flames, and gasoline fumes surrounding him, Pinckney carried the sailor to safety. For his selfless heroism, Pinckney was awarded the Navy Cross.

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USS PINCKNEY History:

USS PINCKNEY was laid down at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula on July 16, 2001, launched on June 26, 2002, and commissioned on May 29, 2004, at Port Hueneme, California. Following the post-delivery shakedown and basic unit-level certifications through 2004-2005, the destroyer completed her maiden deployment beginning in September 2005 as part of the NIMITZ (CVN 68) carrier strike complex. That first cruise threaded the traditional Western Pacific liberty and logistics chain - Apra Harbor, Guam; Singapore; multiple Australian ports including Brisbane and Sydney; Fiji; and a final logistics stop at Pearl Harbor - before return to San Diego on February 24, 2006. During this period she also participated in at-sea portions of RIMPAC 2006, an early indication of her recurring role in large complex fleet problems that rehearsed integrated air defense, anti-submarine warfare, and maritime interdiction in the Hawaiian OPAREA.

On April 2, 2007, PINCKNEY deployed again with the NIMITZ Carrier Strike Group for a six-month Western Pacific and Middle East swing, highlighting the shift from counterterrorism ashore to maritime theater security and coalition interoperability. The group made a politically notable visit to Chennai, India, in early July - PINCKNEY anchored off the port alongside the carrier - amid Indian domestic debate about a nuclear-powered U.S. ship's port call. The cruise then folded into VALIANT SHIELD events off Guam in August and concluded with a homecoming on September 30. These stops framed a year in which India-U.S. naval engagement expanded and the Bay of Bengal hosted a broadened MALABAR series that included Japan, Australia, and Singapore, reflecting the region's evolving multilateral maritime architecture.

From mid-2009 through early 2010, PINCKNEY joined NIMITZ again for a deployment spanning Seventh and Fifth Fleets, with maritime security operations in the North Arabian Sea and Arabian Gulf tied to ongoing operations in Afghanistan and the broader counter-terrorism mission set. The ship's presence in Japan in early 2010, including a visit to Tokushima, underscored the routine Northeast Asia engagement that bookended long stretches of Arabian Sea picket and escort tasks for the carrier air wing. After returning stateside, the destroyer supported San Francisco Fleet Week in October 2010, conducting public outreach between maintenance and training phases that kept the combat systems and engineering plant certified.

In 2011-2012, the ship shifted to counter-piracy duty with Combined Task Force 151, operating in the Gulf of Aden, Somali Basin, and approaches to the Red Sea. On December 19, 2011, while patrolling near the Internationally Recommended Transit Corridor south of Yemen, PINCKNEY disrupted a pirate action group, emblematic of the mission's day-to-day deterrent and constabulary functions undertaken with European Union, NATO, and regional partners. Photographic and operational records from early 2012 place the destroyer repeatedly on station alongside Military Sealift Command logistics ships during these interdiction patrols, reflecting the tactical rhythm of maritime security operations in that era.

On January 7, 2014, PINCKNEY departed San Diego on an independent Western Pacific deployment that would become internationally visible two months later. Diverted from routine training on March 8, 2014, the destroyer sped to the southern coast of Vietnam to join the multinational search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, employing embarked MH-60R helicopters and sensors to prosecute surface contacts and datum reports before handing off to other assets as the search migrated south and west. She returned to San Diego on August 21, 2014, after seven months in the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean, then entered a dry-docking selected restricted availability in San Diego later that fall to reset hull, mechanical, electrical, and combat-system readiness for the next cycle.

The inter-deployment training cycle from 2015 through mid-2016 featured periodic maintenance, inspections, and fleet events culminating in RIMPAC 2016 from June 30 to August 4 in and around Hawaii and Southern California. Imagery and releases from July and early August 2016 place PINCKNEY in complex air-defense problem sets, live-fire events, and multi-national group sails - the core of RIMPAC's interoperability objectives.

In 2017, the destroyer surged again. Departing San Diego on June 5, she operated across the Arabian Sea and Gulf region, with imagery confirming sustained Fifth Fleet tasking in August and September and a port call at Colombo, Sri Lanka, in October. She wrapped the deployment with a Pearl Harbor logistics stop on December 4 and moored in San Diego on December 10, closing a six-month Indo-Asia-Pacific and Arabian Gulf cruise conducted with embarked HSM-75 helicopter detachments and frequent integration alongside carrier and amphibious groups.

Following an on-time maintenance availability delivered August 31, 2018, the ship resumed West Coast operations and community outreach. In early June 2019, PINCKNEY and the littoral combat ship INDEPENDENCE (LCS 2) called at Astoria and Portland, Oregon, to kick off Rose Festival Fleet Week, a traditional Pacific Northwest engagement that also served to test the ship's logistics and public affairs teams ahead of another high-tempo period at sea.

From January through October 2020, PINCKNEY executed a nine-month deployment spanning U.S. Fourth and Seventh Fleet areas amid the COVID-19 pandemic, splitting time between enhanced counter-narcotics operations in the Eastern Pacific and Indo-Pacific presence missions. With an embarked U.S. Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment, she interdicted a low-profile vessel on May 14, recovering roughly 1,400 kilograms of cocaine during a broader Southern Command surge intended to pressure trafficking networks, and in August conducted another interdiction of approximately 120 kilograms that included a medical evacuation for a detainee in distress. She returned to San Diego on October 5, 2020, capping a deployment that illustrated the flexibility of a Flight IIA destroyer to swing from great-power deterrence tasks in the Western Pacific to interagency, law-enforcement support in the Eastern Pacific.

Modernization defined the next chapter. In June 2021 the Navy awarded GD NASSCO a major package for PINCKNEY's FY22 Depot Modernization Period in San Diego, with associated contract notices and public supplier terms underscoring the breadth of hull, mechanical, electrical, and combat-system work typical of mid-life destroyer overhauls.

By late 2023, PINCKNEY had completed the roughly two-year Depot Modernization upgrade at General Dynamics NASSCO in San Diego. The work included installation of the Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP) Block III suite, among the first of the new DDG Mod 2.0 set of upgrades. On November 7, 2023, she was observed leaving the yard for sea trials with the new SEWIP Block III electronic warfare systems fitted to both sides of her superstructure.

In early 2024, the Navy's newly established PMS 451 office (Guided Missile Destroyer Modernization 2.0) used PINCKNEY as the "smart-start" or lead ship for integrating new subsystems under this program. These included SLQ-32(V)7 EW, SPY-6(V)4 radar, Aegis Baselines BL 10M / BMD 6M combat system improvements, and upgraded cooling (high-capacity chillers) to support the increased electrical and thermal load. By January 2024, PINCKNEY was nearing the end of her maintenance and upgrade availability and preparing for sea trials.

After these trials, late in 2024 and into 2025, PINCKNEY has been dedicating time to validating the upgraded systems in operationally realistic contexts. She was identified in January 2025 as the first destroyer to have completed the first phase of Mod 2.0 modernization, and is set to undergo further testing (for example SEWIP Block III testing and associated EW performance under fleet conditions).

One notable event in 2025: as of March, PINCKNEY took part in a "Flight Test Other-40 (FTX-40), codename Stellar Banshee", in which a virtual SM-6 Block IAU interceptor was tested against a live multistage medium-range ballistic missile type test target that employed a new kind of hypersonic warhead (HTV-1). Though PINCKNEY did not fire a physical interceptor in that test, she successfully detected and tracked the target, helping validate her upgraded sensors, the Aegis Weapon System, and missile tracking via satellite and radar assets.

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Homeports of USS PINCKNEY:

Period	Homeport
commissioned at Port Hueneme, Calif.
2004 - present	San Diego, Calif.

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USS PINCKNEY Image Gallery:

The photo below was taken by me and shows the PINCKNEY departing Naval Base San Diego, Calif., on March 10, 2008.

The photos below were taken by Thomas Heinrich and show the PINCKNEY at Naval Base San Diego, Calif., on March 21, 2009.

The photos below were taken by me. The first photo shows the PINCKNEY departing Pearl Harbor, Hi., on her way to the US West Coast on March 20, 2010. The last three photos show the PINCKNEY arriving at San Diego, Calif., on March 26, 2010, after an extended 8-month deployment to the 5th and 7th Fleet areas of operation.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the PINCKNEY at BAE Systems San Diego Ship Repair during her Drydocking Selected Restricted Availability (DSRA) scheduled to take until September 2015. The photos were taken on December 27, 2014.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the PINCKNEY still undergoing her Drydocking Selected Restricted Availability (DSRA) at San Diego, Calif. The photos were taken on October 2, 2015.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the PINCKNEY at Naval Base San Diego, Calif., on April 18, 2016.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the PINCKNEY at Naval Base San Diego, Calif., on September 28, 2018.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the PINCKNEY at Naval Base San Diego, Calif., on March 2, 2019.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning on June 7, 2019, during an open ship event aboard USS PINCKNEY (DDG 91) as part of the Rose Festival in Portland, Or.



			Click here for more Photos.

The photos below were taken by Sebastian Thoma and show the PINCKNEY at NASSCO San Diego, Calif., during her Depot Maintenance Period (DMP) on November 28 and November 29 (aerial photo), 2021. PINCKNEY entered the shipyard on November 17, 2021.

The photo below was taken by Michael Jenning and shows the PINCKNEY at NASSCO San Diego, Calif., during her Depot Maintenance Period (DMP) on December 28, 2021. PINCKNEY entered the shipyard on November 17, 2021.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the PINCKNEY at NASSCO San Diego, Calif., during her Depot Maintenance Period (DMP) on May 29, 2022.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the PINCKNEY at NASSCO San Diego, Calif., during her Depot Maintenance Period (DMP) on October 10, 2022. PINCKNEY will be equipped with the AN/SLQ-32(V)7 Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program Block 3, the AN/SPY-6 air and missile defense radar and the Baseline 10 version of the Aegis Combat System. The most striking feature of the upgrade are the new structures below the bridgewings. About 20 Flight IIA ARLEIGH BURKE-class destroyers are planned to receive the update with PINCKNEY being the first ship.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the PINCKNEY at NASSCO San Diego, Calif., during her Depot Maintenance Period (DMP) on May 28, 2023. PINCKNEY is being equipped with the AN/SLQ-32(V)7 Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program Block 3, the AN/SPY-6 air and missile defense radar and the Baseline 10 version of the Aegis Combat System. The most striking feature of the upgrade are the new structures below the bridgewings. About 20 Flight IIA ARLEIGH BURKE-class destroyers are planned to receive the update with PINCKNEY being the first ship.

USS PINCKNEY at Naval Base San Diego, Calif., showing off her redesigned forward superstructure. These modifications are part of the refit with the AN/SLQ-32(V)7 Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program Block 3, the AN/SPY-6 air and missile defense radar and the Baseline 10 version of the Aegis Combat System. About 20 Flight IIA ARLEIGH BURKE-class destroyers are planned to receive the update. The photos were taken by Michael Jenning on October 3, 2023.