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USS Copeland (FFG 25)

USS COPELAND was the 17^th OLIVER HAZARD PERRY class guided missile frigate and was last homeported in San Diego, Calif. After decommissioning the frigate was transfered to the Egyptian Navy on September 18, 1996, and was renamed MUBARAK. In 2011 her name was again changed to ALEXANDRIA.

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Crew List:

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

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USS COPELAND Cruise Books:

• WestPac Cruise Book 1984

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About the Ship's Name:

Robert Witcher Copeland was born at Tacoma, Washington, on 9 September 1910. Enlisted in the Naval Reserve in 1929, he was commissioned as a Naval Reserve officer in 1935. Copeland practiced law from 1935 until 1940, when he was ordered to active duty during the Navy's pre-World War II expansion. During the War, he commanded USS PAWTUCKET (YT 7), USS BLACK DOUGLAS (PYC 45), USS WYMAN (DE 38) and USS SAMUEL B. ROBERTS (DE 413).

During the Battle off Samar, 25 October 1944, while commanding SAMUEL B. ROBERTS, Lieutenant Commander Copeland led his ship and crew in an attack on a greatly superior Japanese battleship and cruiser force. Though his ship was lost, this action helped defeat the Japanese counter-offensive against the Leyte invasion. For this, he was awarded the Navy Cross.

Following World War II, Copeland resumed his law career while remaining a member of the Naval Reserve, in which he rose to the rank of Rear Admiral. Robert W. Copeland died at Tacoma, Washington, on 25 August 1973.

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USS COPELAND History:

USS COPELAND was ordered on February 28, 1977, from Todd Pacific Shipyards at San Pedro, laid down on October 24, 1979, launched on July 26, 1980, and brought through final fitting-out and trials in the early 1980s, before she entered commission on August 7, 1982. Her early service followed the standard pattern for a new OLIVER HAZARD PERRY-class frigate: shakedown, certifications, and progressive integration into Pacific Fleet operations from San Diego.

By 1984 she had moved into regular deployment status, and official imagery places her in the joint Australia-New Zealand-United States Exercise Pitch Black '84 at Darwin on April 22, 1984, where she was photographed operating with Australian units and, in one description, providing radar support for land-based forces and E-3 airborne warning aircraft. That phase of her career shows the ship in the role for which the class had been designed: a relatively economical but capable escort combining local anti-air, anti-surface, and antisubmarine utility with helicopter support, and already being pushed into multinational and long-range Western Pacific work.

By 1986 USS COPELAND was firmly embedded in higher-profile fleet operations. Contemporary command-history material for one of her consorts places her in Battle Group Romeo, centered on USS NEW JERSEY (BB 62) and including USS LONG BEACH (CGN 9), USS MERRILL (DD 976), USS THACH (FFG 43), and USS WABASH (AOR 5), a formation that was noteworthy because it revived the idea of a modern battleship-led surface battle group rather than a carrier-led deployment. Available battle group reporting shows the group underway from the U.S. West Coast in May 1986, conducting replenishments and torpedo exercises near Hawaii, visiting Pearl Harbor from May 24 to May 27, operating with Australian units including HMAS HOBART, HMAS OTAMA, and HMAS STUART later in the deployment, making a liberty call at Pattaya Beach from July 29 to August 4, entering Yokosuka for maintenance from August 24 to September 2, visiting Pusan from September 5 to September 9, returning to Korean waters for further operations, and then calling at Inchon from October 18 to October 22 before continuing large-force exercises with other U.S. fleet units including the USS RANGER (CV 61) and USS CONSTELLATION (CV 64) battle groups.

COPELAND's next major phase came in the Middle East during the later Iran-Iraq War tanker-security period. By March 1988, USS COPELAND had reached the Gulf region: the documented history of USS CHANDLER (DDG 996) records that she proceeded to Fujairah, Oman, on March 3, 1988, and held turnover with COPELAND there on March 6 after completing Earnest Will convoy duty, which places COPELAND directly in the succession of escort and patrol forces protecting shipping around the Gulf of Oman and Persian Gulf approaches. A naval aviation allowance record for March 31, 1988, further shows HSL-35 Detachment 6 embarked aboard COPELAND with an SH-2F, confirming that the frigate was operating with her LAMPS helicopter capability during that deployment.

By 1989, COPELAND was again operating across the western Pacific, with USS GARY (FFG 51)'s command history extract noting GARY steaming from Subic Bay to Hong Kong in company with USS COPELAND and mooring at HMS Tamar during that port visit. On September 30, 1989, COPELAND was assigned to the Naval Reserve Force at San Diego, marking a significant administrative shift: she remained an operational frigate, but her role increasingly emphasized reserve integration and lower-intensity deployment demands rather than front-line full-time battle group assignment.

From March 8 to March 16, 1991, USS COPELAND participated in Team Spirit 91 off Korea in company with USS MAHLON S. TISDALE (FFG 27), USS RODNEY M. DAVIS (FFG 60), USS STERETT (CG 31), USS HEWITT (DD 966), USS ST. LOUIS (LKA 116), and various Republic of Korea Navy units, showing that even after her Naval Reserve Force assignment she continued to operate in substantial combined exercises tied to deterrence and readiness on the Korean peninsula.

By 1995 she had shifted into a southern hemisphere deployment cycle by participating in UNITAS 36-95. A contemporaneous command history extract states that personnel were concurrently assigned during UNITAS 36-95 from June 28 to December 9, 1995, to the U.S. South Atlantic command. Supporting records place COPELAND operating with the larger UNITAS framework that also included USS ASHLAND (LSD 48) and, in parts of the exercise, USS COMTE DE GRASSE (DD 974), USS TREPANG (SSN 674), and the Colombian frigate SALOM. During one documented phase, ASHLAND was underway toward Cartagena, Colombia, while leapfrogging with COPELAND and SALOM. Another period source records COPELAND's crew delivering project material to the church of Santo Domingo near Tanaguarena outside La Guaira, Venezuela, illustrating the civic-action side that often accompanied UNITAS port visits. A naval target-drone squadron history also records a BQM-74E detachment embarked aboard COPELAND in South America in support of UNITAS 36-95, which underscores that the frigate's last major deployment period included not only diplomacy and combined operations but also live training support.

USS COPELAND's U.S. Navy career ended on September 18, 1996, when she was decommissioned after a little more than fourteen years of commissioned service and transferred to Egypt the same day. This transfer was the start of her second career in the Egyptian Navy under the name MUBARAK (F 911), later changed to ALEXANDRIA.

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USS COPELAND Image Gallery:

After decommissioning, the COPELAND was recommissioned in the Egyptian Navy as MUBARAK and renamed ALEXANDRIA (F 911) in 2011. The photos below were taken by me and show the ALEXANDRIA arriving at Naval Base Toulon, France, after participating in exercise Cleopatra 2014 which is a joint exercise of the French and Egyptian Navies. The photos were taken on June 4, 2014.

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