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General Characteristics

Crew List

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About the Ship's Name

History

Homeports of USS Nitze

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USS Nitze (DDG 94)

USS NITZE is the 16^th Flight IIA ARLEIGH BURKE - class guided missile destroyer and the fist ship in the Navy named after Paul H. Nitze.

General Characteristics:	Awarded: March 6, 1998
	Keel laid: September 20, 2002
	Launched: April 3, 2004
	Commissioned: March 5, 2005
	Builder: Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine
	Propulsion system: four General Electric LM 2500 gas turbine engines
	Propellers: two
	Length: 508,5 feet (155 meters)
	Beam: 67 feet (20.4 meters)
	Draft: 30,5 feet (9.3 meters)
	Displacement: approx. 9,200 tons full load
	Speed: 32 knots
	Aircraft: two SH-60 (LAMPS 3) helicopters
	Armament: one Mk-45 5"/62 caliber lightweight gun, two Mk-41 VLS for Standard missiles and Tomahawk ASM/LAM, one 20mm Phalanx CIWS, two Mk-32 triple torpedo tubes for Mk-50 and Mk-46 torpedoes, two Mk 38 Mod 2 25mm machine gun systems
	Homeport: Norfolk, Va.
	Crew: approx. 320

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Crew List:

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

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USS NITZE Cruise Books:

Mediterranean and Arabian Sea Cruise Book 2013-14

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About the Ship's Name:

Born in Amherst, Mass., on Jan. 16, 1907, Paul H. Nitze graduated "Cum Laude" from Harvard University in 1928. After working in investment banking where he was known as a Wall Street prodigy, he left in 1941 to enter government service. In 1942, he was chief of the Metals and Minerals Branch of the Board of Economic Warfare, until named director, Foreign Procurement and Development Branch of the Foreign Economic Administration in 1943. During the period 1944-1946, Nitze served as director and then as vice chairman of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey for which President Truman awarded him the Medal of Merit.

For the next several years, he served with the Department of State, beginning in the position of deputy director of the Office of International Trade Policy. In 1949, he was named deputy to the assistant secretary of State for Economic Affairs. In August of that year, he became deputy director of the State Department's policy planning staff, and was appointed director the following year. As director, Nitze was the principal author of a highly influential secret National Security Council document (NSC-68), which provided the strategic outline for increased U.S. expenditures to counter the perceived threat of Soviet armament.

From 1953 to 1961, Nitze served as president of the Foreign Service Educational Foundation while concurrently serving as associate of the Washington Center of Foreign Policy Reseach, the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. His publications during this period include "U.S. Foreign Policy: 1945-1955." In 1961 President Kennedy appointed Nitze assistant secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs and in 1963 he became the secretary of the Navy, serving until 1967.

Following his term as secretary of the Navy, he served as deputy secretary of Defense (1967-1969), as a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) (1969-1973), and assistant secretary of Defense for International Affairs (1973-1976). Later, fearing Soviet rearmament, he opposed the ratification of SALT II (1979). He was President Reagan's chief negotiator of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces treaty (1981-1984). In 1984, Nitze was named special advisor to the president and secretary of State on Arms Control. For more than forty years, Nitze was one of the chief architects of U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union. President Reagan awarded Nitze the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985 for his contributions to the freedom and security of the United States.

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USS NITZE History:

USS NITZE was ordered on March 6, 1998, for construction at Bath Iron Works in Maine, laid down on September 20, 2002, launched on April 3, 2004, and commissioned at Norfolk on March 5, 2005. These milestones placed the Flight IIA destroyer into the Atlantic Fleet during a period when the Navy was sustaining global counterterrorism operations while restoring high-end skills with allies.

After post-delivery trials and workups, USS NITZE joined Fleet Week in New York in May 2006, a traditional outreach stop for newly commissioned combatants, before commencing deployment preparations. She executed her maiden deployment in January 2007 with the BATAAN (LHD 5) Expeditionary Strike Group supporting maritime security tasks and regional engagement across the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and returned to Norfolk on July 3, 2007. The ship's early pattern combined presence missions and integrated operations with amphibious and carrier formations.

On September 12, 2008, USS NITZE departed Norfolk with CARRIER STRIKE GROUP TWO centered on USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT (CVN 71) for a seven-month cruise. By October 18, 2008, the strike group was launching sorties for Operation Enduring Freedom as Commander, Task Force 50, highlighting the carrier group's rotation through the Gulf of Oman and North Arabian Sea. NITZE returned on April 18, 2009, and later that year opened for public tours during Fleet Week events at downtown Norfolk's Nauticus complex, reflecting continued public engagement amid heavy operational tempo.

From July 1-5, 2011, the destroyer visited Eastport, Maine, for Independence Day observances, a long-running Navy tradition in that port. On March 12, 2012, NITZE deployed with the USS ENTERPRISE (CVN 65) Carrier Strike Group for the carrier's final cruise, conducting maritime security operations in Fifth and Sixth Fleet waters and returning November 4, 2012. A subsequent deployment began November 29, 2013, with the ship transiting via the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal to operate mainly off the Horn of Africa in counter-piracy and maritime security roles until returning July 15, 2014.

During a 2016 deployment with the DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (CVN 69) Carrier Strike Group, NITZE experienced multiple notable events. On August 24, 2016, while transiting near the Strait of Hormuz, she was approached at close range by four IRGCN fast craft in what U.S. officials termed an unsafe and unprofessional intercept, prompting course and warning measures. On October 13, 2016, following missile attacks in the Red Sea against USS MASON (DDG 87), NITZE launched Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles that destroyed three Houthi-controlled coastal radar sites along the Yemeni Red Sea coast, a limited self-defense action intended to degrade targeting support to further anti-ship attacks. After roughly 50 days at sea, she conducted a mid-deployment voyage repair in Manama, Bahrain, to sustain readiness before continuing operations and later making a December 2016 port call at Villefranche, France. She returned to Norfolk on December 30, 2016.

Following maintenance and training, including completing a seven-month Selected Restricted Availability with sea trials concluded on April 26, 2018, NITZE in early November 2018 got underway to participate in the Navy's first East Coast Carrier Strike Group CRUDES Surface Warfare Advanced Tactical Training, a new integrated gunnery, AAW, ASW, and SWO-tactics sharpening program executed alongside ABRAHAM LINCOLN (CVN 72) strike group units.

NITZE's next deployment ran from March 1, 2019, to October 4, 2019. She staged through Rota, Spain, in April, called at Souda Bay, Crete, April 15-18, and operated for extended periods in the Red Sea, Gulf of Oman, and the Arabian Gulf amid heightened regional tensions over tanker attacks and air-defense incidents. Imagery from late May and June shows the destroyer transiting the Red Sea and Gulf of Oman with CARRIER STRIKE GROUP 12, while a Navy file photo confirms a July 2019 port call at Safaga, Egypt, during theater engagement activities.

From May 8, 2020, to September 14, 2020, the ship shifted to the U.S. Southern Command area for counter-narcotics and freedom-of-navigation operations in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, supporting Joint Interagency Task Force South. Press releases document interdictions totaling more than 800 kilograms of cocaine and over 2,900 pounds of marijuana during July 2020 evolutions, and a July 20, 2020 at-sea assistance to mariners aboard a distressed Ecuadorian fishing vessel about 200 nautical miles off Ecuador. On June 23, 2020, while operating in the Caribbean Sea, NITZE also conducted a freedom-of-navigation operation challenging an excessive maritime claim asserted by Venezuela, underscoring the law-of-the-sea context for presence ops in the region.

After pre-deployment training with CARRIER STRIKE GROUP TEN centered on USS GEORGE H. W. BUSH (CVN 77), NITZE deployed on July 17, 2022, initially to Sixth Fleet waters and then into the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden as part of routine U.S. Fifth Fleet rotations. On September 1-2, 2022, NITZE and USS DELBERT D. BLACK (DDG 119) responded when an IRIN unit seized two Saildrone Explorer unmanned surface vehicles in the Red Sea, actions that led to the return of the USVs and highlighted emerging manned-unmanned maritime operations. On October 26, 2022, NITZE and the patrol coastal ship USS MONSOON (PC 4) rescued three mariners from a burning motorboat in the Gulf of Aden, reflecting the constant mariner assistance obligations along a corridor with persistent smuggling and safety risks. On November 22, 2022, operating for Combined Task Force 153, the ship interdicted a fishing vessel in the Gulf of Aden and seized about 2,200 kilograms of hashish and roughly 330 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine during maritime security operations aimed at disrupting illicit networks.

In early 2023, the destroyer's movements illustrated alliance signaling around the Black Sea restrictions in force since February 2022 under the Montreux Convention. NITZE visited Istanbul and then arrived at Gölcük Naval Base on February 3, 2023, operating in the Sea of Marmara without entering the Black Sea, and departed on February 6. U.S. and Turkish reporting noted that this positioning made her the closest U.S. warship to the Black Sea since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, underscoring careful adherence to Turkish rules while maintaining NATO presence. On March 11, 2023, the ship made a port visit to Valletta, Malta, before completing the final transits of the deployment. NITZE returned to Naval Station Norfolk on April 5, 2023, concluding roughly eight months of operations that spanned Sixth Fleet exercises and Fifth Fleet maritime security and interdiction missions.

Following return, the destroyer entered a Chief of Naval Operations scheduled depot modernization period in Norfolk under a contract awarded in February 2023, with work planned through October 2024. That availability focused on maintenance, modernization, and repair to ready the ship for subsequent tasking. With that yard period complete by late 2024, NITZE continued routine training and Atlantic-European tasking in line with fleet requirements while the Navy managed force distribution between the Red Sea, the Eastern Mediterranean, and NATO waters.

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Homeports of USS NITZE:

Period	Homeport
commissioned at Norfolk, Va.
2005 - present	Norfolk, Va.

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USS NITZE Image Gallery:

The photos below were taken by me and show the USS NITZE passing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel on her way to Naval Base Norfolk, Va, on October 28, 2010. The NITZE is returning home after participating in exercise Joint Warrior held off Great Britain earlier in October. The last photo shows the NITZE moored at Naval Base Norfolk on October 29.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the USS NITZE at BAE Systems Norfolk Ship Repair undergoing her Drydocking Selected Restricted Availability (DSRA). The photos were taken on October 23, 2014.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the USS NITZE departing Naval Weapons Station Yorktown, Va., during a rain shower on April 30, 2015.

The photo below was taken by Michael Jenning and shows the USS NITZE at Naval Base Norfolk, Va., on October 6, 2015.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the USS NITZE arriving at Naval Base Norfolk, Va., on April 13, 2016, after completing a Composite Training Unit Exercise (COMPTUEX) and Joint Task Force Exercise (JTFEX), as part of the USS DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (CVN 69) Strike Group.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the USS NITZE at the Marine Hydraulics Industries (MHI) Ship Repair & Services shipyard in Norfolk, Va., for a Selected Restricted Availability (SRA) on October 4, 2017.