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USS Sirocco (PC 6)

USS SIROCCO was the sixth CYCLONE - class patrol coastal boat. Commissioned at the Washington Navy Yard, the SIROCCO became the first US Navy ship commissioned there in almost 120 years. From November 2001 on, the CYCLONE - class ships were temporarily operated under US Coast Guard control for homeland defense. On April 30, 2004, the SIROCCO left Little Creek on a 18-month deployment to the 5th Fleet Area of Operations. During the deployment, the ship's crew was swapped out every 6 months. This "crew swap" initiative increases the Navy's forward presence by providing an extra 90 days of on-station time per vessel. SIROCCO subsequently remained base in Bahrain. SIROCCO was decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on March 20, 2023. The following day, March 21, 2023, she was transferred to the Egyptian Naval Forces under a foreign military sale and commissioned into Egyptian service as ENS AMR BIN ELAAS (PC 721) during a ceremony in Alexandria, Egypt.

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Crew List:

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

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USS SIROCCO History:

USS SIROCCO was ordered on August 3, 1990, as part of the CYCLONE-class coastal patrol program intended to give the U.S. Navy a small, fast platform for special operations support and maritime security in confined waters. The ship was built by Bollinger Machine Shop & Shipyard at Lockport, Louisiana; her keel was laid on June 20, 1992, and she was launched on May 29, 1993, sponsored by Kathleen Smith, wife of Rear Adm. Raymond C. Smith, then commander of Naval Special Warfare Command.

After delivery to the Navy on March 11, 1994, the ship completed fitting-out and trials before commissioning as USS SIROCCO on June 11, 1994, at the Washington Navy Yard on the Anacostia River, the first U.S. Navy ship to be commissioned there in almost 120 years. Two days later, on June 13, 1994, photographs show the newly commissioned patrol craft leaving the Washington Navy Yard and passing the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge on the Anacostia River en route toward her operational homeport in the Norfolk/Little Creek area of Virginia, marking the start of her active service life.

In her early years, SIROCCO operated from the U.S. East Coast, working up with Atlantic Fleet units and participating in coastal exercises. On June 13, 1994, she was recorded again on the Anacostia River, reflecting post-commissioning local operations connected with her departure from Washington.

In 1995, she undertook her first extended overseas deployment. From roughly spring into late summer the ship operated in the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas under Commander Sixth Fleet. On August 22, 1995, she returned to her homeport after a four-month deployment that included multinational exercises and United Nations-sponsored maritime operations in those waters, reflecting the post-Cold War emphasis on coalition presence and sanctions-related patrols in Europe's maritime approaches. Later that year, on October 8, 1995, she visited Tampa Bay, Florida, a peacetime port call that also underlined the Navy's interest in showcasing the new class of patrol craft to domestic audiences.

Open-source operational records provide little additional detail for the remainder of the 1990s, but they indicate that SIROCCO remained an East Coast-based patrol asset, alternating training, maintenance, and shorter deployments as the CYCLONE-class matured within the fleet.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 changed the employment of the CYCLONE-class ships. From November 2001 onward, the class, including SIROCCO, was temporarily operated under U.S. Coast Guard control for homeland defense missions, using the ships' high speed and shallow draft for port security and coastal patrol duties around the United States. During this period, SIROCCO and her sisters helped close gaps in coastal surveillance while larger combatants were deployed overseas for operations in Afghanistan and later Iraq. A tragic event marked the end of this phase. On November 7, 2003, after a Coast Guard homeland-security inspection of a liquefied gas tanker off Cape Henry, Virginia, personnel from patrol coastal ship USS TYPHOON (PC 2) were returning in a rigid-hull inflatable boat. In heavy swells the boat came alongside the larger ship, and Engineman 2nd Class Douglas Bolles fell overboard; the RHIB then capsized while the coxswain tried to recover him. Guided-missile destroyers USS BARRY (DDG 52), USS DONALD COOK (DDG 75), and USS PORTER (DDG 78), patrol craft USS SHAMAL (PC 13), USS SIROCCO, USS TEMPEST, and USS THUNDERBOLT (PC 12), Coast Guard cutter ALBACORE (WPB 87309), and aircraft joined the search, but Bolles was not found, and his body was later recovered by fishermen on November 22 about 18 miles east of Back Bay in the Virginia Capes.

The long forward-deployed phase of SIROCCO's career began in 2004. On April 30, 2004, she departed Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, Virginia on an 18-month deployment to the U.S. Fifth Fleet area of operations in the Middle East. She reached the Gulf in June 2004 and began maritime security operations, enforcing a 2,000-meter exclusion zone around Iraq's two key offshore oil terminals, Al Basrah Oil Terminal (ABOT) and Khawr Al Amaya Oil Terminal (KAAOT). Protecting these facilities was central to safeguarding Iraq's post-2003 oil revenue and preventing attacks similar to suicide boat strikes that had previously targeted Gulf energy infrastructure.

By 2005, SIROCCO's pattern of service was firmly established. She was now stationed out of Manama, Bahrain, assigned to Commander Fifth Fleet through Destroyer Squadron 50, and dedicated to coastal patrol and interdiction surveillance in the Persian Gulf. As part of a "crew-swap" scheme, hulls such as SIROCCO remained forward deployed while crews rotated every six months from Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek, Virginia, where they trained on stateside CYCLONE-class hulls before flying out to take over ships in theater.

On April 13, 2005, a widely circulated photograph recorded SIROCCO speeding north in the Persian Gulf to support maritime security operations in the northern sector, part of a multinational effort to deny the maritime space to terrorists and smugglers. Her mission set at this time included boarding and inspecting dhows and other small craft, monitoring shipping near Iraqi waters, and providing a visible U.S. presence near strategic oil and shipping lanes.

On April 8, 2006, SIROCCO exercised with mine countermeasures ship USS DEXTROUS (MCM 13) near the Al Basrah oil terminal in the North Arabian Gulf, integrating patrol-craft speed and maneuverability with the minehunter's specialized capabilities in a region where legacy mines from earlier conflicts and the risk of new mining remained a concern. Also in April 2008, according to later analyses of small-ship operations, SIROCCO was among the CYCLONE-class units operating in the vicinity of Djibouti on the Horn of Africa, supporting maritime security and counter-piracy cooperation with regional partners at a time when piracy off Somalia was a rising international issue.

On October 29, 2008, while SIROCCO was in Manama, Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, Commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, highlighted the work of the ship and her crew as part of Combined Task Force 158 in the North Arabian Gulf. That task force was responsible for the security of the Iraqi offshore oil platforms at KAAOT and ABOT in support of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1790 and worked closely with Iraqi Navy sailors and marines and a Navy Transition Team based at Umm Qasr; more than three-quarters of Iraq's gross domestic product depended on the oil exported through those terminals, underlining the strategic weight of SIROCCO's otherwise routine patrol duties.

To sustain this tempo, the CYCLONE-class ships received mid-life upgrades. In 2009, SIROCCO completed the first phase of a modernization program intended to extend her service life. The work included new computer systems and satellite communications, improved air-conditioning suitable for the extreme Gulf climate, and the installation of a Rafael Typhoon Mk 38 Mod II remotely controlled 25-mm gun mounting in place of the older Mk 96 system, improving both lethality and crew protection.

From 2009 onward, patrol coastal ships based in Bahrain were described as focusing primarily on maritime security and anti-piracy operations throughout the Persian Gulf, reflecting both the ongoing Iraq mission and wider regional concerns about smuggling and non-state threats to shipping.

On September 1, 2010, SIROCCO was involved in a prominent medical-assistance case. The Maltese-flagged motor vessel LUCKY TRADER reported a crewman with a severed finger and deep lacerations to his hand and head after a line-handling accident in the northern Arabian Gulf. SIROCCO proceeded to the scene, launched a rigid-hull inflatable boat with a small team including Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Christopher Robinson, and brought medical care to the injured mariner. The corpsman applied and then carefully adjusted a tourniquet over several hours to preserve blood flow while preventing further loss, and the team monitored the patient until he could be transferred to a Kuwait Coast Guard vessel and then to a Kuwaiti hospital for further treatment. The incident showed how often SIROCCO's missions blended security patrol with humanitarian and safety-of-life-at-sea responsibilities.

Through the early 2010s, SIROCCO remained a regular presence in exercises and multinational cooperation. She took part in regional activities such as the Pakistani-hosted exercise AMAN 2013, where Destroyer Squadron 50 units including amphibious transport dock USS GREEN BAY (LPD 20), SIROCCO, USS CHINOOK (PC 9), and USS WHIRLWIND (PC 11) worked with a broad coalition of navies to practice maritime security and interoperability in the Arabian Sea.

On May 9, 2014, SIROCCO and sister patrol coastal ship USS FIREBOLT (PC 10) moored with mine countermeasures ship USS GLADIATOR (MCM 11) at Sultan Qaboos Port in Muscat, Oman, for a port visit that also provided diplomatic visibility for U.S. presence operations along the approaches to the Strait of Hormuz.

Later that year, she participated in the commercial shipping exercise Lucky Mariner 14-1 in the Gulf, where destroyer USS BULKELEY (DDG 84), afloat staging base USS PONCE (AFSB(I) 15), SIROCCO, and the Royal Navy frigate HMS MONTROSE practiced escorting merchant vessels and coordinating responses to asymmetric threats against commercial traffic.

In mid-January 2015, SIROCCO joined destroyer USS MITSCHER (DDG 57), patrol coastal ship USS SQUALL (PC 7), and other units for the exercise Spartan Kopis 15-01 in the Arabian Gulf, refining joint tactics for surface warfare, maritime security, and theater-wide command and control.

A major interdiction marked SIROCCO's operations in 2016. On March 28, 2016, she intercepted a stateless dhow in the Arabian Sea that had attracted suspicion during routine patrols. A boarding team from the ship inspected the vessel and discovered large quantities of weapons, including approximately 1,500 AK-47 assault rifles, 200 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and 21 .50-caliber machine guns. After SIROCCO reported the find, guided-missile destroyer USS GRAVELY (DDG 107) arrived to assist. The weapons were seized and transferred, and the dhow and her crew were later released. The seizure fit into a pattern of international interdictions aimed at disrupting illicit arms networks in the region. In December 2018, SIROCCO was documented patrolling the Gulf of Oman in support of Fifth Fleet operations intended to uphold maritime stability in the broader region connecting the Mediterranean and the Pacific through the western Indian Ocean and key choke points such as the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb.

Operational imagery from August 13-16, 2019 shows SIROCCO conducting visit, board, search and seizure (VBSS) operations in the Arabian Gulf, underscoring that intensive boarding and inspection work remained central to her mission. On April 14, 2020, she was photographed getting underway from Bahrain as sailors secured life lines during a sea-and-anchor detail; the accompanying description again emphasized her role in Fifth Fleet's wider effort to maintain regional maritime security across several strategic choke points. On March 9, 2020, a Mark VI patrol boat attached to Task Force 56 conducted a joint underway with SIROCCO in the Arabian Gulf, illustrating the integration of patrol coastal ships with the newer coastal riverine and expeditionary forces responsible for littoral security and port defense.

Tensions with Iran occasionally brought SIROCCO into close-quarters interactions. On April 15, 2020, a group of eleven fast attack craft from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy approached several U.S. ships - expeditionary sea base USS LEWIS B. PULLER (ESB 3), destroyer USS PAUL HAMILTON (DDG 60), patrol coastal ships USS FIREBOLT and USS SIROCCO, and Coast Guard cutters USCGC WRANGELL (WPB 1332) and USCGC MAUI (WPB 1304) - at very close range in the northern Gulf. The Iranian boats repeatedly crossed the bows and sterns of the U.S. vessels at distances reported as close as 10-50 yards despite warnings by radio, ship's horn, and acoustic devices, highlighting the persistent risk of miscalculation in crowded waters.

Another high-profile operation followed in December 2021. On December 15, while conducting a counter-narcotics patrol as part of Combined Task Force 150 in the Gulf of Oman, SIROCCO observed a fishing vessel on fire and its crew in distress. She rendered immediate assistance, rescuing five mariners who identified themselves as Iranian citizens after an explosion on their vessel, which was later assessed as being involved in smuggling illicit drugs. The injured mariners were transferred to expeditionary mobile base USS LEWIS B. PULLER and then moved onward to Oman for medical treatment and eventual repatriation. Before the vessel sank, SIROCCO's crew seized more than 1,745 kilograms of hashish, 500 kilograms of methamphetamine, and 30 kilograms of heroin - contraband with an estimated value of about $14.7 million - demonstrating the scale of narcotics traffic across the region's sea lanes.

On June 19, 2022, SIROCCO was again in the international spotlight following a confrontation with patrol craft of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy in the Strait of Hormuz. According to U.S. Navy accounts, IRGCN boats approached SIROCCO and expeditionary fast transport USNS CHOCTAW COUNTY (T-EPF 2) at what were described as unsafe and unprofessional speeds, closing to within about 50 yards of the U.S. ships. SIROCCO issued warnings over her loudspeaker system and fired a warning flare; after roughly an hour the Iranian craft departed without further incident. The episode occurred against the backdrop of continuing tensions over shipping, sanctions, and regional security in and around the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most critical oil transit chokepoints.

By 2022, the U.S. Navy had decided to phase out the aging CYCLONE-class as part of a broader reshaping of its surface fleet. A series of decommissionings in Bahrain that year left just five patrol coastal ships in Fifth Fleet service: USS HURRICANE (PC 3), USS MONSOON (PC 4), USS SIROCCO, USS CHINOOK, and USS THUNDERBOLT (PC 12). In early 2023, as those final units prepared for transfer to partner navies, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command reported that HURRICANE, SIROCCO, and THUNDERBOLT transited the Suez Canal after departing Bahrain, heading for the Mediterranean and ultimately Alexandria, Egypt.

SIROCCO was inactivated, decommissioned, and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on March 20, 2023, after nearly 29 years from keel-laying and just under 29 years in commission. The following day, March 21, 2023, she was transferred to the Egyptian Naval Forces under a foreign military sale and commissioned into Egyptian service as ENS AMR BIN ELAAS (PC 721) during a ceremony in Alexandria, alongside former USS HURRICANE and USS THUNDERBOLT.

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