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USS Ozbourn (DD 846)

USS OZBOURN was one of the GEARING - class destroyers and the first ship in the Navy to bear the name. Both decommissioned and stricken from the Navy list on June 1, 1975, the ship was sold for scrapping on December 1, 1975.

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Crew List:

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

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

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USS OZBOURN Cruise Books:

• WestPac Cruise Book 1957-58

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Accidents aboard USS OZBOURN:

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USS OZBOURN History:

USS OZBOURN was laid down by Bath Iron Works 16 June 1945; launched 22 December 1945; sponsored by Mrs. Joseph W. Ozbourn; commissioned 5 March 1946, Comdr. Bernard A. Smith in command.

Following shakedown, OZBOURN reported for duty with the U.S. Pacific Fleet at San Diego in August 1946. She departed San Diego 6 January 1947 with DesDiv 171 for the Far East; returned to San Diego in October; began her next deployment 1 October 1948, shortened by a collision with THEODORE E. CHANDLER (DD 717). Although two crew members were killed, damage control parties saved the ship and she returned to Long Beach Naval Shipyard for repairs. During 1949 and early 1950, OZBOURN trained midshipmen, underwent overhaul and participated in various exercises, one of which was the first guided missile test at sea conducted with NORTON SOUND (AVM 1).

When hostilities began in Korea, OZBOURN joined TF 77. She participated in the Inchon landing and assisted with air operations off the Korean coast, twice receiving the Korean Presidential Citation for her efforts. In February 1951, despite having received two direct hits and several near misses from enemy shore batteries the same day, OZBOURN sent her motor whale boat to rescue a downed pilot floating in an enemy mine field. After returning to San Diego for repairs and overhaul and a brief assignment with TF 95 in the Wonsan area, OZBOURN returned to TF 77 in July 1952. In short order she rescued 18 men who had jumped from BOXER (CVA 21) to avoid a menacing fire and picked up 3 downed airmen from ESSEX (CVA 9). During the next two years OZBOURN made regular tours with the 7th Fleet followed by training operations in the San Diego area.

From 1956 to 1964 OZBOURN underwent major overhaul, engaged in intensive training exercises, participated in festivals and celebrations in several west-coast cities and in Australia, and operated periodically with the 7th Fleet. Having undergone FRAM Mark I conversion earlier, she joined TG 10 for a major Presidential Demonstration to display the power and versatility of AAW and ASW forces. From the flight deck of KITTY HAWK (CVA 63), President Kennedy watched OZBOURN's ASROC launching 6 June 1963.

OZBOURN sailed independently for Pearl Harbor 8 July 1964 to join DesDiv 233 and ASW Group 1 for a six-month Western Pacific deployment. From Yokosuka, Japan, ASW Group I sailed for the South China Sea after North Vietnamese PT boats had attacked American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. After providing ASW protection for TF 77 and after participating in a naval weapons demonstration held by CinCPac, OZBOURN returned to Long Beach. Several months of maintenance, repairs and intermittent local training operations followed. Then came another deployment to the Western Pacific 20 August 1965. Attached to TG 77.6, OZBOURN provided gunfire support in the III and IV Corps areas of South Vietnam delivering tons of high explosives in covering fire. Eight crewmen were recommended for decorations during these actions.

In July 1966, OZBOURN began a two-year tour of duty with the 7th Fleet as a member of DesRon 9. A great part of that time was spent on gunfire assignments supporting troops in South Vietnam and interdicting enemy supply and communications routes in North Vietnam. She received direct hits from the enemy on 25 March and 4 December 1967 but continued her mission each time. For outstanding actions against the enemy and for excellent combat readiness, she received both the Meritorious Unit Commendation and the Battle Efficiency "E". OZBOURN returned to Long Beach 6 September 1968 and remained there, with intermittent movements to Portland and San Diego, for the next year.

In September 1969, USS OZBOURN departed once more for the Western Pacific. Public summaries of this deployment are brief, recording that she again served with the U.S. 7th Fleet into 1970 during a phase of the Vietnam War marked by ongoing air operations, coastal surveillance and gunfire missions even as Washington began to speak of "Vietnamization" and troop withdrawals. After completing this WestPac tour, she returned to the U.S. West Coast. By late 1970, she was again in Long Beach preparing for what would become a particularly well-documented deployment.

On 13 November 1970, USS OZBOURN left Long Beach for another six-month Western Pacific cruise, once more bound for the Vietnam theater. Subic Bay in the Philippines served as her forward base during this period, as it did for many 7th Fleet destroyers. After transiting the Pacific and completing initial logistics stops, she entered the familiar pattern of rotating between carrier-screening duty in the South China Sea, naval gunfire support off Vietnam, and short repair and liberty visits to regional ports. On 1 January 1971, OZBOURN joined the task group built around the attack carrier USS HANCOCK (CVA 19) at Yankee Station, the long-established carrier operating area in the South China Sea from which U.S. aircraft flew strikes and reconnaissance missions over Vietnam. As a destroyer in the screen, she provided plane-guard services close to the carrier and anti-submarine and anti-air protection for the formation. Ten days later, on 11 January 1971, she shifted from the HANCOCK formation to the task group centered on USS RANGER (CVA 61), remaining in the same general operating area but under a different flagship. During these early weeks she also replenished at sea from a fleet oiler, maintaining the high tempo expected of a 7th Fleet destroyer on station.

In the third week of January 1971, the ship left operations long enough to visit Hong Kong, one of the principal rest and recreation ports for U.S. crews in the region. A short period of maintenance followed in the fourth week of January at Subic Bay, allowing the engineering and weapons departments to carry out repair work that could not be done underway. With that upkeep completed, OZBOURN moved north to the coast of Vietnam. From 1 to 21 February 1971, USS OZBOURN lay off the Demilitarized Zone, the former border between North and South Vietnam, serving on the naval gunfire support line. There, she used her 5-inch batteries to support South Vietnamese and remaining U.S. forces ashore, engaging pre-planned targets and responding to calls for fire along the northern coastline.

On 21 February she briefly moored to a pier in Da Nang Harbor, one of the principal logistics hubs for allied forces in I Corps, before returning to sea. The next two days were spent back with the USS RANGER task group at Yankee Station, resuming plane-guard and escort duties. Between 24 February and 2 March 1971, OZBOURN took up the Northern Search and Rescue (SAR) station, a position maintained to recover downed aviators operating over the Gulf of Tonkin and approaches to North Vietnam. On this sensitive station she operated together with USS HALSEY (DLG 23), standing ready to move quickly toward any reported ejection or crash in her sector.

On 3 March she left the SAR area for Subic Bay, where the ship conducted a concentrated forty-hour upkeep period alongside. Two days later, on 5 March 1971, the crew marked the 25th anniversary of the destroyer's commissioning with on-board ceremonies while still deployed far from home.

From 15 to 31 March 1971, USS OZBOURN again returned to Yankee Station, this time as part of the screen for the carrier USS KITTY HAWK (CVA 63). As before, she operated in close company with the carrier and other escorts, maintaining anti-submarine patrols, radar picket duties and plane-guard positions as aircraft launched and recovered around the clock. At the beginning of April her focus shifted once more to shore-fire support. On 1 April 1971, the destroyer again tied up briefly to a pier in Da Nang, taking on stores and personnel before heading south along the Vietnamese coast. Over the period 1-11 April she moved down to the II and III Corps areas, working along the gunline in the 2nd and 3rd Military Regions of South Vietnam, where her 5-inch guns were used to support operations against insurgent and North Vietnamese forces further down the coast.

On 11 April, she once more came alongside in Da Nang Harbor, a short logistics stop before returning to the northern sector. From 12 to 23 April 1971, USS OZBOURN was again stationed off the Demilitarized Zone, firing in support of ground forces and interdicting targets near the former border. On 23 April, she left the gunline for Subic Bay, concluding this intensive phase of combat operations. Two days later, she departed Subic and began her voyage back across the Pacific. She arrived at Long Beach Naval Station on 13 May 1971, ending a deployment that had combined carrier escort duties, SAR station work and prolonged naval gunfire along the Vietnamese coast. The close of this cruise brought an administrative change. On 15 June 1971, Destroyer Division 92, long associated with OZBOURN, was decommissioned, and the destroyer was reassigned to Destroyer Squadron 19.

Almost immediately she resumed sea duty in a different role, leaving Long Beach on 17 June 1971 for a midshipman training cruise that reflected the Navy's normal peacetime functions amid ongoing conflict in Southeast Asia. On this cruise she visited San Francisco and then headed north to Seattle and Tacoma, Washington, before turning west to Pearl Harbor. The ship returned to Long Beach on 4 August 1971, having given a new group of Naval Academy and NROTC midshipmen practical experience at sea. From 20 September 1971, USS OZBOURN entered a lengthy period in Long Beach Naval Shipyard. She left her berth at the mole and was placed in dry dock for a four-month overhaul that ran through 18 January 1972. This yard period addressed the accumulated wear from repetitive gunfire missions, high-speed operations and years of deployments, with work on hull, machinery and combat systems to keep the aging GEARING-class destroyer fully effective.

On 10 April 1972, the destroyer sailed again for the Western Pacific, in what would become her last recorded combat deployment to Vietnam. Within a month she was assigned to one of the most politically significant naval operations of the war. On 9 May 1972, USS OZBOURN took part in the U.S. effort to mine the approaches to Haiphong, North Vietnam's principal port, in order to cut off seaborne supplies. Alongside other 7th Fleet units, she supported the minelaying aircraft in Haiphong Harbor and its approaches. During this operation she came under fire from North Vietnamese coastal batteries. Despite being straddled and bracketed by shells, she suffered no direct hits. The action was later recognized by authorizing the award of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Combat Action Ribbon to sailors who had been on board during the bombardment.

After the Haiphong operation, OZBOURN continued her deployment in the region, again carrying out the mixture of carrier-screening, patrol and gunfire support typical of late-war destroyer service in 7th Fleet, as U.S. naval forces enforced blockades, supported South Vietnamese forces and responded to the intensification of fighting associated with the 1972 Easter Offensive. Through the summer and into the autumn she remained with the fleet in the Western Pacific until, with her tour complete, she turned back toward the United States. She returned to the West Coast on 10 November 1972, concluding her final deployment to Vietnam.

In the remaining years of her career, USS OZBOURN stayed in commission but no longer appears in public records as deploying back to Vietnamese waters. Instead, like many older destroyers in the immediate post-Vietnam drawdown, she spent her time in routine operations, training, and readiness activities in U.S. and nearby waters while the Navy shifted resources and restructured its force. The major official milestones of this period are administrative: she remained listed as an active destroyer until 1 June 1975, when she was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register, formally ending her status as a unit of the U.S. Fleet. Later that year, on 1 December 1975, she was sold for scrapping.

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About the Ship's Name:

Joseph William Ozbourn, born in Herrin, Illinois, 24 October 1919, enlisted in the Marine Corps 30 October 1943. After boot training, he became a Browning Automatic Rifleman with the 1st Battalion, 23rd Marines, 4th Marine Division. Pvt. Ozbourn was killed during the battle for Japanese-held Tinian Island, Marianas, 30 July 1944. As a member of a platoon assigned to clear the remaining Japanese troops from dugouts and pillboxes along a tree line, he was moving forward to throw an armed hand grenade into a dugout when a blast from the entrance severely wounded him and four other men flanking him. Unable to throw the grenade into the enemy position and with no place to hurl it without endangering the other men, Pvt. Ozbourn fell on it and sacrificed his own life to save his comrades by absorbing the full impact of the explosion with his own body. For "his great personal valor and unwavering loyalty" Pvt. Ozbourn was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

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USS OZBOURN Image Gallery:

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