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USS Chafee (DDG 90)

USS CHAFEE is the 12^th Flight IIA ARLEIGH BURKE - class guided missile destroyer and the first ship in the Navy to bear the name.

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS CHAFEE. 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 CHAFEE memorabilia are currently for sale on ebay.

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USS CHAFEE Cruise Books:

• WestPac and UNITAS Cruise Book 2015

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About the Ship's Name:

John Lester Hubbard Chafee was born Oct. 22, 1922, in Providence, Rhode Island, to a politically active family. His great-grandfather, Henry Lippitt, was a Rhode Island governor and among his great-uncles were a Rhode Island governor, Charles Lippitt, and United States senator, Henry F. Lippitt.

In 1940, he graduated from Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts. He received degrees from Yale University in 1947 and Harvard University law school in 1950. Chafee served in the Marines during World War II, spending his 20th birthday on Guadalcanal. In 1951, he was recalled to active service to be a Marine rifle company commander during the Korean War.

Mr. Chafee became active in behind-the-scenes Rhode Island politics by helping elect a mayor of Providence in the early 1950s. He successfully ran for a seat on the Rhode Island House of Representatives in 1956 and later became the minority leader. He was reelected in 1958 and 1960, the latter a year when many Republicans were swept from office in his state.

Mr. Chafee was elected governor in 1962, helping create the state's public transportation administration as well as what was known as the Green Acres program, a conservation effort. Mr. Chafee was head of the Republican Governors' Association in the late 1960s.

He was appointment as Secretary of the Navy in 1969. His tenure as Secretary was marked by a willingness to make bold decisions and stand by them. Emblematic of this was his decision to elevate Adm. Elmo Zumwalt as Chief of Naval Operations over 33 more senior officers, and his judicious handling of the USS PUEBLO situation. He served as Secretary of the Navy until 1972.

Mr. Chafee, elected to the Senate in 1976, served as chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. He first joined the committee in 1977 and made environmental matters a chief concern, often breaking with his party to the delight of conservation groups.

"His fingerprints are over all the major environmental legislation passed in the last 20 years," said Darrell West, a professor of political science at Brown University who studied Rhode Island politics and interviewed Mr. Chafee last year.

Among the bills Mr. Chafee fostered while in the minority was the Clean Water Act of 1986, the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act. He also was an architect of the Superfund program in 1980 to clean up hazardous waste sites as well as the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.

Frequently following a moderate path, Mr. Chafee was pro-choice on abortion and supported the North American Free Trade Agreement.

"John Chafee proved that politics can be an honorable profession," President Bill Clinton said in a statement to the Associated Press. "He embodied the decent center which has carried America from triumph to triumph for over 200 years."

Mr. Chafee sat on the Select Committee on Intelligence and was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee's Subcommittee on Health Care, but his biggest imprint was on environmental concerns.

"He was a pillar of strength defending environmental protections against the erosion being called for by the leaders in his own party, for example, protecting wetlands, defending the Clean Water Act," said Brent Blackwelder, the president of Friends of the Earth, an environmental advocacy group.

"Whenever you needed a defender and you looked to the Republican Party in the Senate, he was the No. 1 Republican leader," Blackwelder added. "This prevented a world of damage from being done, so the American public owes him debt of gratitude."

Blackwelder also was a squash partner of Mr. Chafee's until the senator stopped playing about seven years ago. "He was a vigorous man," Blackwelder said.

His last major act was authoring and sponsoring the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, which authorizes funding for transportation programs for the next six years.

Survivors include his wife, Virginia Coates Chafee, of McLean and Warwick, R.I.; a daughter, Georgia Nassikas of McLean; four sons, John Jr., of Los Angeles, Lincoln, of Warwick; Quentin of North Kingstown, R.I.; Zechariah of Providence; three sisters; and 12 grandchildren.

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USS CHAFEE History:

USS CHAFEE was laid down at Bath Iron Works on April 12, 2001, launched on November 2, 2002, and commissioned on October 18, 2003, at Newport, Rhode Island. Through 2004, she executed the full post-commissioning workup cycle - trials, inspections, certifications, and integrated training - building the watch teams and warfare areas to deployable standards.

CHAFEE sailed on her maiden Western Pacific and Middle East deployment in spring 2005, with the NIMITZ (CVN 68) Carrier Strike Group. After pre-deployment workups in March, the group departed San Diego/Pearl Harbor in May and moved across Seventh Fleet to Fifth Fleet, supporting maritime security and air operations linked to ongoing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Along the way CHAFEE made liberty port calls at Hong Kong (June 3-7), Guam (June 17), Port Klang, Malaysia (June 30-July 4), Bahrain (August 6-9), and Dubai (September 1-6). On the homeward track in the Indian Ocean she participated in exercise MALABAR 05 with the Indian Navy and others, with a final visit to Fremantle, Australia (October 7-12), before returning to Pearl Harbor on September 22 and the West Coast in November. The deployment emphasized sea control, air defense of the carrier, maritime interdiction, and coalition presence operations in congested sea lanes of the Arabian Gulf and North Arabian Sea.

After a short reset and local operations through 2006, CHAFEE joined another NIMITZ group deployment in 2007. Departing Pearl Harbor on April 9, she transited to Fifth Fleet and, on June 1, provided naval gunfire off Bargal, Puntland, Somalia, in support of a small U.S. special operations element and local forces engaging militants linked to the August 7, 1998, East Africa embassy bombings. The ship's 5-inch battery suppressed targets in rugged coastal terrain as part of a broader counterterrorism effort tied to Operation Enduring Freedom - Horn of Africa. CHAFEE completed additional maritime security and theater engagement tasks in Fifth Fleet, then exercised with regional partners in the Bay of Bengal during the large, multilateral MALABAR 07 series before returning to Pearl Harbor on September 22.

In 2008-2009, CHAFEE again operated across the Western Pacific. She departed Pearl Harbor on February 25, 2009, for a six- to seven-month cruise focused on combined exercises and partner capacity building: FOAL EAGLE with South Korea, MALABAR 2009 with India, and the CARAT 2009 series in Southeast Asia. The ship returned to Pearl Harbor on August 24 after months of formation maneuvering, air defense, undersea warfare training with allied submarines and aircraft, and boarding drills designed to standardize procedures with partner navies.

In 2010, CHAFEE took part in RIMPAC - then the world's largest maritime exercise - operating in complex, multi-threat scenarios around Hawaii that tested air defense against massed raids, anti-submarine prosecution, maritime interdiction, and live-fire events. Later that year, Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard completed a 14-week Selected Restricted Availability on December 3, returning the destroyer to full readiness under budget.

The ship's 2011 operating year mixed public outreach and readiness with fleet tasking: she hosted thousands of visitors at Los Angeles Navy Days and Seattle Seafair while sustaining certifications and readiness for independent operations. On June 7, 2012, CHAFEE returned to Pearl Harbor from a six-month independent Western Pacific deployment that had emphasized forward presence, multilateral training, and maritime security with partners from Northeast to Southeast Asia. In the same summer she participated in RIMPAC 2012 events around Hawaii, including logistics and energy-innovation demonstrations as part of the "Great Green Fleet" effort.

After local training and maintenance, CHAFEE executed another independent deployment in 2015, spanning U.S. Third, Fourth, and Seventh Fleets. While forward, she supported the Oceania Maritime Security Initiative (OMSI) - embarking U.S. Coast Guard law enforcement detachments to help Pacific Island nations enforce fisheries and maritime laws in their exclusive economic zones - and concluded the year with theater security cooperation and presence operations before returning to Pearl Harbor in mid-December. OMSI missions underscored the ship's utility in day-to-day competition below armed conflict, blending constabulary support with naval deterrence and alliance assurance.

On June 13, 2017, CHAFEE departed Pearl Harbor for another independent deployment that initially took her to U.S. Fourth Fleet. In mid-July she joined UNITAS LVIII hosted by Peru, conducting layered air defense drills and firing an SM-2 to destroy a drone target launched by Peruvian frigate BAP MARIATUGUI off the Pacific coast. On August 2, while patrolling in the Eastern Pacific counter-drug transit zone, her embarked MH-60R and ship's boarding team interdicted a go-fast and seized approximately 827 kilograms of cocaine - an example of coordinated Navy-Coast Guard operations that remove illicit cargoes long before they reach Central America. Later that fall, CHAFEE shifted back to Seventh Fleet, where from November 3-6 she executed a trilateral passing exercise (PASSEX) in the Sea of Japan with INS SATPURA and INS KADMATT of the Indian Navy and JMSDF destroyer JS INAZUMA, practicing cross-deck communications, maneuvering, air defense handoffs, and replenishment approaches. During a December logistics pause she completed a voyage repair availability in Singapore (December 16) before returning home on January 12, 2018.

CHAFEE's 2020 operating year was highlighted by first-of-class weapons testing: on December 1 she launched the Navy's first Tomahawk Block V missiles during operational flight tests on the Point Mugu sea range, validating upgraded navigation and communications for the recapped long-range strike weapon. The tests marked the fleet's transition toward Block V capability and informed future Maritime Strike Tomahawk integration.

Deploying again on June 28, 2021, CHAFEE joined the broader web of combined tasking across Seventh Fleet, at times operating with carrier strike groups built around USS CARL VINSON (CVN 70) and USS RONALD REAGAN (CVN 76) and with the ESSEX (LHD 2) Amphibious Ready Group. The deployment included routine Taiwan Strait and Philippine Sea presence operations and multiple events with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. On October 15, in the Sea of Japan's Peter the Great Bay, a Russian Pacific Fleet destroyer closed to close quarters as Moscow claimed an exercise exclusion zone. The U.S. Navy publicly rejected the Russian account and stated that CHAFEE was conducting normal operations in international waters with due regard for navigational safety. She returned to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam on February 19, 2022, after eight months in Seventh and Third Fleets, having completed high-tempo air defense, anti-submarine, and theater security cooperation missions amid intensified U.S.-ally coordination in the Western Pacific.

Post-deployment, CHAFEE participated in RIMPAC 2022 events off Hawaii in July before entering a deep maintenance and modernization period awarded in October 2022, to Continental Maritime of San Diego. The Depot Modernization Period (DMP) combined overhaul, systems refresh, and hull/mechanical/electrical repairs to extend service life and align the destroyer with evolving fleet requirements. Navy contracting notices projected work in San Diego through mid-2025.

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Homeports of USS CHAFEE:

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USS CHAFEE Image Gallery:

The photo below was taken by me on July 27, 2006, and shows the CHAFEE berthed at Pearl Harbor, HI., after her participation in RIMPAC 2006.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the CHAFEE undergoing a Selected Restricted Availability (SRA) at Naval Base Pearl Harbor, HI., on June 8, 2019.

The photo below was taken by Sebastian Thoma and shows the CHAFEE at Naval Base Pearl Harbor, HI., on March 18, 2022.

The photos below were taken by me and show USS CHAFEE at the Continental Maritime of San Diego Shipyard on July 26, 2024.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show USS CHAFEE at Naval Base San Diego, Calif., on October 15, 2024.

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