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General Characteristics Crew List Memorabilia Cruise Books In the News USS Milius History Homeports of USS Milius About the Name "Milius" Patch Gallery Image Gallery to end of page |  |
USS MILIUS is the 19th ship in the ARLEIGH BURKE - class of Guided Missile Destroyers. The ship is named for the late Captain Paul Milius, an OP-2E reconnaissance pilot who was shot down during the Vietnam War.
USS MILIUS is taking part in an Optimal Manning Project that reduces the numer of billets authorized from 289 to 231. Aboard MILIUS, the installation of a new self-service mess line has allowed the ship to reduce the number of food service attendants (FSA) on the ship. Greater use of video cameras for remote monitoring will reduce the need aboard MILIUS for 24-hour manning of certain watches and distance support software will give sailors an increased capability to access technicians ashore.
Aboard MILIUS, some procedural changes have also helped the ship to reduce billets. The boatswain's mate of the watch, quartermaster of the watch and signalman of the watch have been consolidated into a new position called the bridge specialist. Electronics technicians and information systems technicians are learning each other's jobs and the ship is adopting a more flexible, rapid-response approach to damage control, using one robust repair locker instead of three to fight a main-space fire.
| General Characteristics: | Awarded: April 8, 1992 |
| Keel laid: August 8, 1994 | |
| Launched: August 1, 1995 | |
| Commissioned: November 23, 1996 | |
| Builder: Ingalls Shipbuilding, West Bank, Pascagoula, Miss. | |
| Propulsion system: four General Electric LM 2500 gas turbine engines | |
| Propellers: two | |
| Blades on each Propeller: five | |
| Length: 505,25 feet (154 meters) | |
| Beam: 67 feet (20.4 meters) | |
| Draft: 30,5 feet (9.3 meters) | |
| Displacement: approx. 8.300 tons full load | |
| Speed: 30+ knots | |
| Aircraft: None. But LAMPS 3 electronics installed on landing deck for coordinated DDG/helicopter ASW operations. | |
| Armament: two | |
| Homeport: Yokosuka, Japan | |
| Crew: 23 Officers, 24 Chief Petty Officers and 291 Enlisted |
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This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS MILIUS. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.
back to top go to the end of the pageback to top go to the end of the pageUSS MILIUS Cruise Books:
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back to top go to the end of the pageUSS MILIUS History:
USS MILIUS entered service on November 23, 1996, at Pascagoula, Mississippi, and soon settled into her San Diego homeport routine of trials and work-ups before the first Western Pacific deployment. She sailed on May 26, 1998, paused briefly at Pearl Harbor on June 1 and at Guam on June 10, crossed into the 5th Fleet theater for operations in the Arabian Gulf, and then worked her way home with an Australian swing - Darwin from October 22 27 and Mackay from October 31-November 5 - before another short Pearl Harbor stop on November 14-17 and a return to San Diego on November 23.
Her second long deployment began in late June 2000 and ran through December 2000, across the Western Pacific, Indian Ocean, and Arabian Gulf during a period dominated by Iraq containment and regional maritime security operations. After the 9/11 era reset, she deployed again with the USS CONSTELLATION (CV 64) battle group on November 2, 2002, for Operation Southern Watch and the opening phases of Operation Enduring Freedom. When Operation Iraqi Freedom began, MILIUS joined the Tomahawk strike campaign: on March 22, 2003, she launched TLAMs from the 5th Fleet theater and, by March 26, had fired twenty-eight missiles before briefly mooring at Mina Salman, Bahrain, on March 31 to onload additional weapons. She returned to San Diego on June 2, 2003, after a seven-month combat cruise.
A heavy training year in 2004 - Group Sail with DESRON 7, the joint Alaska exercise Northern Edge, and a JTFEX - led straight into another deployment. Weighing anchor on December 6, 2004, with the BONHOMME RICHARD (LHD 6) expeditionary strike group, MILIUS split time between tsunami relief and the Persian Gulf. In January-February 2005, she supported Operation Unified Assistance after the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, then shifted back to the Arabian Gulf for presence and maritime security under the umbrella of Operation Iraqi Freedom. She completed the six-month cruise on June 6, 2005.
Back on the U.S. West Coast, the destroyer took part on December 6, 2006, in a developmental test off California, launching a Block IV Tomahawk to China Lake as part of the Navy's evolving long-range strike construct. She spent early 2007 integrating with BONHOMME RICHARD's force, deploying again on April 10, 2007, for another Western Pacific-Indian Ocean-Arabian Gulf tour that included maritime interdiction operations in the Gulf before returning October 8, 2007.
After work-ups in 2008, MILIUS began a December 2008-July 2009 cruise that ranged across 7th and 5th Fleets. In February 2009, she joined Combined Task Force 152's exercise Stake Net in the central Gulf, paused for liberty at Manama on May 11, and returned to San Diego on July 2.
She was underway again on May 18, 2010, for a seven-month independent deployment with a primary focus on ballistic-missile defense in the 5th Fleet region, returning on December 16. The following year included stateside events such as San Francisco Fleet Week in October 2011, followed by an eight-month WestPac-Indian Ocean-Arabian Gulf deployment from January 11, 2012 to September 11, 2012, during which MILIUS alternated between ballistic-missile defense tasking and maritime security operations in the Arabian Gulf before arriving home on the symbolic September date.
Beginning in late 2012 and into 2013, the ship entered a major depot period in San Diego - an Extended Docking Selected Restricted Availability at BAE Systems - tied to the Flight I mid-life modernization path. Dry-docking started March 19, 2013, and undocking followed in August as the ship moved through the hardware phase toward an Aegis Baseline 9 combat-system upgrade. Those upgrades culminated in at-sea operational testing events in 2017. MILIUS conducted Baseline 9.C1 testing in May 2017, proving out the integrated air and missile defense architecture that would define her forward-deployed years.
She was back on the road by October 20, 2014, for a 250-day independent deployment that crisscrossed the U.S. 7th and 5th Fleet theaters at a time marked by the anti-ISIS campaign and heightened maritime security demands. The ship returned to San Diego on June 25, 2015, after steaming nearly 71,000 nautical miles. In 2015 and into 2016, she cycled through training and final modernization workups, setting conditions for forward deployment.
On April 20, 2018, MILIUS left San Diego to join the Forward Deployed Naval Forces-Japan, pausing at Pearl Harbor on May 4 before arriving in Yokosuka later that month. From her new 7th Fleet base she settled into a steady rhythm of exercises with allies and routine presence operations around Japan and the East China Sea. In 2019, she featured in events such as the allied Resilient Shield 2019 synthetic exercise and broader theater operations, part of the region's air and missile defense network.
Even amid the pandemic year of 2020, MILIUS's anti-submarine warfare proficiency drew notice. In June 2020, she was recognized with the Pacific Fleet's Bloodhound Award for her 2019 ASW performance, underscoring the ship's proficiency within DESRON 15's forward-deployed screen. In 2021, she carried out a routine Taiwan Strait transit on November 23, a visible assertion of high-seas freedoms that had become a regular feature of 7th Fleet operations.
The tempo remained high through 2022. After operations around Japan and the Philippine Sea, MILIUS made a port visit to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, on October 27, reflecting steady maritime engagement with Southeast Asian partners, and returned to Yokosuka on December 21 after a three-month deployment in the Philippine and South China Seas.
In 2023, she executed back-to-back freedom of navigation operations challenging excessive maritime claims: near the Paracel Islands on March 24 and near the Spratly Islands on April 10, part of a period of sharp rhetoric and competing narratives about access to the South China Sea's international waters and airspace. MILIUS continued routine operations throughout the year in concert with other forward-deployed units.
A long maintenance stretch followed. From mid-2023 into May 2024, Ship Repair Facility and Japan Regional Maintenance Center Yokosuka completed a 327-day, $56-million availability in Dry Dock 6 that included a full drive-shaft replacement, complete hull and freeboard preservation, topside non-skid renewal, and stack work. The ship delivered back to her squadron on May 14, 2024.
Back at sea in 2025, MILIUS ranged across 7th Fleet and into the Indian Ocean, with publicly released imagery showing gunnery and routine evolutions as part of a carrier strike group's operations. By early August she was filmed returning to Yokosuka from a surge out-of-area deployment, closing out another cycle of forward-deployed tasking in a year dominated by large combined-exercise frameworks and persistent presence missions from the East China Sea to the broader Indo-Pacific.
back to top go to the end of the pageHomeports of USS MILIUS:
| Period | Homeport |
|---|---|
| commissioned at Pascagoula, Miss. | |
| 1996 - 2018 | San Diego, Calif. |
| 2018 - present | Yokosuka, Japan |
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USS MILIUS Patch Gallery:
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USS MILIUS Image Gallery:
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The photo below was taken by me and shows the MILIUS at Naval Base San Diego, Calif., on March 10, 2008.
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The photo below was taken by me and shows the MILIUS at Naval Base San Diego, Calif., on March 23, 2010.
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The photos below were taken by me and show the MILIUS at Naval Base San Diego, Calif., shortly after returning from a short underway period off the US west coast. The photos were taken on September 29, 2011.
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The photos below were taken by me on October 8, 2011, and show the MILIUS arriving at San Francisco, Calif., during the parade of ships as part of Fleet Week 2011.
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The photos below were taken by me on October 10, 2011, and show the MILIUS berthed in San Francisco, Calif., during Fleet Week 2011.
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The photos below were taken by me on October 3, 2012, and show the MILIUS berthed at Naval Base San Diego, Calif.
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The photo below was taken by Henry Schnutz on August 27, 2013, and shows the MILIUS at BAE Systems San Diego Ship Repair during an Extended Drydocking Selected Restricted Availability (E-DSRA) as part of the DDG Modernization (DDG MOD) upgrade. MILIUS entered the shipyard on December 17, 2012. Dry-docking started on March 19, 2013, and undocking took place on August 19.
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The photo below was taken by Michael Jenning and shows the MILIUS at Naval Base San Diego, Calif., on October 2, 2015.
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The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the MILIUS undergoing an Extended Selected Restricted Availability (E-SRA) at BAE Systems San Diego Ship Repair on April 18, 2016.
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The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the MILIUS at Naval Base San Diego, Calif., on October 6, 2016. The photos show some upgrades the MILIUS received during her recent Extended Selected Restricted Availability (E-SRA) at BAE Systems San Diego Ship Repair. Her SLQ-32 Electronic Warfare System has been upgraded with the Navy’s Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP) Block 2 (visible below the bridgewing). New sensors have also been installed outside on the bridgewing. At her aft stack two new platforms can be spotted that will house two torpedo tubes each (the mountings for the tubes are in place but the tubes are still missing). These tubes are part of the Surface Ship Torpedo Defence (SSTD) system.
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The photo below was taken by Sebastian Thoma and shows the MILIUS at Naval Base San Diego, Calif., on December 20, 2016.
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The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the MILIUS at Naval Base San Diego, Calif., on October 11, 2017.
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The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the MILIUS at Yokosuka, Japan, on August 3, 2019.
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