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General Characteristics Crew List Memorabilia Cruise Books About the Ship's Name History Image Gallery to end of page |  |
USS RAMSEY was the second BROOKE - class guided missile frigate and the first ship in the Navy to be named after Admiral Ramsey. Decommissioned on September 1, 1988, and stricken from the Navy list on January 25, 1992, RAMSEY was later sunk as a target during RIMPAC 2000 on June 15, 2000. The exact location of the SINKEX was 023° 53' 06.0" North, 159° 35' 05.0" West.
| General Characteristics: | Awarded: January 4, 1962 |
| Keel Laid: February 4, 1963 | |
| Launched: October 15, 1963 | |
| Commissioned: June 3, 1967 | |
| Decommissioned: September 1, 1988 | |
| Builder: Lockheed Shipbuilding & Construction Co., Seattle, Wash. | |
| Propulsion system: 2 Foster Wheeler 1,200 psi boilers, 1 GE steam turbine, 1 shaft, 35,000 total horsepower | |
| Propellers: one | |
| Length: 414,4 feet (126.3 meters) | |
| Beam: 45 feet (13.5 meters) | |
| Draft: 26 feet (7.9 meters) | |
| Displacement: 3,425 tons | |
| Speed: 27 knots | |
| Aircraft: one | |
| Armament: one Mk 22 Mod. 0 guided missile launcher for 16 Standard SM-1 MR, one Mk 30 5-inch/12.7cm gun, MK 32 ASW torpedo tubes (two triple mounts), one Mk 16 ASROC missile launcher | |
| Crew: 17 Officers, 219 Enlisted |
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This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS RAMSEY. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.
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back to top go to the end of the pageAbout the Ship's Name:
DeWitt Clinton Ramsey was born on 2 October 1888 at Whipple Barracks, Ariz. Graduated from the Naval Academy, he was commissioned Ensign in June 1912. In 1917 he qualified as a naval aviator. During World War I, he was Inspection Officer for United States Naval Air Stations in France, and a member of the Inter-Allied Armistice Commission.
During the interwar period, Ramsey served as a naval aviator on various naval staffs and ships. Reporting on board SARATOGA (CV 3) in 1938, he was her executive officer into 1939. Later that year, he headed the Plans Division of the Bureau of Aeronautics in the Navy Department. In 1941 he became Assistant Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics.
During World War II, he commanded SARATOGA (CV 3) in the Battle of the Coral Sea on 7 and 8 May 1942, in the Battle of Midway 4 to 6 June, and during the landings against Guadalcanal, Solomons, in August. For his skillful use of airpower against Japanese naval forces in the Solomons, he won the Navy Cross. In SARATOGA, he next commanded a task force that included a British carrier, VICTORIOUS.
Ramsey received the Distinguished Service Medal as Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics from 6 August 1943 to 1 June 1945, and a Gold Star as Vice Chief of Naval Operations from 15 January 1946 to 3 January 1948. After commanding the Pacific Fleet, he served as Commissioner of U.S. Trust Territory in the Pacific, until retiring 1 May 1949. Admiral Ramsey died 7 September 1961 in Philadelphia.
back to top go to the end of the pageUSS RAMSEY History:
USS RAMSEY, the second ship of the BROOKE class and the first U.S. Navy ship named for Admiral DeWitt Clinton Ramsey, was built by Lockheed Shipbuilding and Construction Company at Seattle, Washington. She was laid down on February 4, 1963, launched on October 15, 1963, and commissioned on June 3, 1967, as USS RAMSEY (DEG 2). She entered service in the Pacific Fleet and remained a Pacific-oriented ship throughout her active career. At commissioning, she was classified as a guided missile destroyer escort; she was redesignated USS RAMSEY (FFG 2) on June 30, 1975, during the Navy-wide reclassification of former DEG ships as frigates.
After shakedown and early Pacific training, RAMSEY quickly entered the deployment cycle shaped by the Vietnam War. She became flagship of Destroyer Squadron 29 at Long Beach on March 22, 1968, and departed Long Beach on May 1, 1968, for her first Western Pacific deployment. During that cruise, she served off Vietnam and returned to Long Beach on November 9, 1968. She deployed again from Long Beach on October 8, 1969, for another Western Pacific and Vietnam tour, and returned on April 18, 1970. These early cruises placed her in the final high-intensity phase of U.S. naval combat operations connected with the war in Southeast Asia, when Pacific Fleet escorts rotated through carrier screening, anti-air warfare support, anti-submarine work, and related Seventh Fleet duties.
RAMSEY again deployed to the western Pacific in 1969-1970. She was at Da Nang Harbor on November 24 and November 30, 1969, and at White Beach, Okinawa, in March 1970, showing her moving through the familiar logistics and upkeep network that supported Seventh Fleet operations. The official ship history further states that between January 1970 and January 1974, RAMSEY alternated two additional WestPac deployments with operations off the U.S. West Coast. One firmly documented point inside that period is her presence at Da Nang Harbor again on January 6, 1973, placing her in Vietnamese waters during the final weeks before the Paris Peace Accords took effect. Her repeated service in the combat zone was later recognized with five campaign stars for the Vietnam Service Medal.
By January 1974, RAMSEY was back in port at Long Beach, California. In the spring of 1975, during the collapse of U.S.-backed positions in mainland Southeast Asia, a Navy historical material on the end of the Vietnam War states that on May 8, 1975, sailors from RAMSEY boarded a Cambodian patrol boat and two other vessels carrying refugees, re-flagged them, and escorted them onward. That places the ship directly in the refugee-control and maritime-security operations that followed the fall of Phnom Penh and coincided with the broader crisis atmosphere in the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea during the closing chapter of the Indochina wars. On June 30, 1975, RAMSEY was redesignated FFG 2.
RAMSEY then continued the normal Pacific deployment cycle. Cruise books confirm further WestPac deployments in 1976-1977, 1979, 1980-81, 1983 and 1987. She was photographed off Hawaii in October 1980, and further public imagery shows her at Naval Station San Diego on July 1, 1982, still carrying the combat-systems fit characteristic of the BROOKE class.
RAMSEY's U.S. Navy career ended on September 1, 1988, when she was decommissioned after more than twenty-one years in service. She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on January 25, 1992. More than a decade after leaving service, ex-RAMSEY was expended as a target during RIMPAC 2000 on June 15, 2000, north of Hawaii.
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