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 Crew List Memorabilia Cruise Books About the Ship's Coat of Arms In the News USS Crommelin History SinkEx Patch Gallery Image Gallery to end of page

USS Crommelin (FFG 37)

Assigned to the US Pacific Fleet, the USS CROMMELIN was one of the "long hull" - versions in the PERRY - class of guided missile frigates. The ship was named after three brothers, all US Naval Academy graduates, who served during World War II. Decommissioned at Pearl Harbor, Hi., on October 26, 2012, the CROMMELIN was finally stricken from the Navy list 5 days later. The decommissioned CROMMELIN was sunk as a target during exercise RIMPAC 2016 off the Hawaiian Islands on July 19, 2016.

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Crew List:

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

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USS CROMMELIN Cruise Books:

• WestPac Cruise Book 1985

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About the Ship's Coat of Arms:

(Click on the Coat of Arms for a larger version)

The Shield:

The colors blue and gold are traditionally associated with the U. S. Navy. The three interlaced chevronels represent the Crommelin brothers after whom the ship is named. The two winged chevronels refer to the air exploits of Lieutenant Commander Richard and Commander Charles Crommelin who served and died as Naval aviators. The central chevronel over which an anchor is placed alludes to the surface ship career of Vice Admiral Henry Crommelin, the oldest and first to serve of the brothers.

The linked chevronels suggest the strength and determination of U. S. naval forces in their efforts to regain enemy held territories of the Pacific Ocean throughout World War II. It was in this effort that the Crommelin brothers so distinguished themselves.

The Crest:

The rampant sea lion is a symbolic creature associated with valor at sea; its head and mane are scarlet for courage and its body is gold for zeal and achievement. The scarlet sword recalls the fierce conflict of the Pacific war. The wings and silver collar with blue cross signify some of the decorations the brothers received, such as the Navy Cross, the Silver Star and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

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USS CROMMELIN in the News:

• April 15, 2003 - USS Crommelin Keeps Nearly Two Tons of Cocaine Off the Market

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History of USS CROMMELIN:

USS CROMMELIN's keel was laid on 30 May 1980 at Todd Pacific Shipyard, Seattle Division. The frigate was christened and launched on 2 July 1981. Commissioned on 18 June 1983, CROMMELIN was assigned to Destroyer Squadron 9 and reached its homeport of Long Beach, California in August 1983.

In 1985, CROMMELIN was assigned to the USS CONSTELLATION battle group and deployed to the western Pacific and Indian Oceans. During this deployment, CROMMELIN became the first FFG to successfully engage a high-speed, maneuvering target with missiles. It was also the first ship to complete an operational deployment with the LAMPS MK III weapon system. In June 1986, CROMMELIN received the first CNO LAMPS MK III Safety Award.

In the summer of 1986, CROMMELIN was awarded every departmental and divisional excellence award and won its first Navy "E" award. In 1987, CROMMELIN was assigned to Destroyer Squadron 13 and began an accelerated deployment with the CONSTELLATION battle group. CROMMELIN was the first FFG to deploy with two LAMPS MK III helicopters embarked. CROMMELIN was assigned to Commander, Middle East Force from 1 July to 25 August 1987, earning a Meritorious Unit Commendation for the convoy escort of the first five reflagged Kuwaiti tankers.

On 1 January 1988, CROMMELIN was reassigned to Destroyer Squadron 9, and on 6 March 1988, the ship received a second consecutive Navy "E" award. Upon completion of its second availability period at Todd Pacific Shipyard, CROMMELIN was deployed in support of tanker escort operations in the Persian Gulf. During this deployment, CROMMELIN was used as a test ship for the Mast Mounted Sighted System (MMS) while in the Persian Gulf. CROMMELIN returned to Long Beach, CA in September 1989 until she was again deployed in support of Joint Service, Counternarcotics Operations in the Central, South American, and Caribbean theater 1990-1991. CROMMELIN was awarded the Joint Services Meritorious Unit Award for its performance during this deployment. In 1991, CROMMELIN received the Navy "E" as well as its fifth consecutive warfare excellence awards for anti-air and anti-surface warfare, navigation and seamanship, damage control, engineering, and communications. On 1 September 1991, CROMMELIN shifted homeports to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and joined Destroyer Squadron 31.

CROMMELIN completed a second four-month counternarcotics deployment in the Central, South American and Caribbean theater from November 1992 to March 1993. Upon return to its homeport of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, CROMMELIN was assigned to Commander Naval Surface Group, Middle Pacific.

In 1994, the CROMMELIN was again operating in Far East and Middle East waters. Assigned to the KITTY HAWK (CV 63) Battle Group, the CROMMELIN conducted several port visits including Hong Kong and South Korea. The ship returned home to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in December 1994.

In Feb. 2001 the CROMMELIN returned from a WESTPAC deployment with the ABRAHAM LINCOLN Battle Group.

In Dec. 2001, FFG 37 had the opportunity to serve as a testing bed for the employment of U.S. Army helicopter OH-58s from her flight deck. Three OH-58s and their crews from the U.S. Army 3rd Squadron 4th Aviation Cavalry Regiment/25th ID (L) were embarked onboard for the trials. The CROMMELIN, working together with Joint Shipboard Helicopter Integration Process (JSHIP) personnel, successfully increased the operational maneuvering envelopes, on deck safety procedures and improved operational tactics necessary for future joint operations.

USS CROMMELIN worked together with USS REUBEN JAMES (FFG 57) to resolve many of the issues associated with the Army OH-58s operating on the decks of Navy frigates. Hours were spent in the rolling seas off the coast of Hawaii documenting safe flight envelopes and recording safe deck handling procedures for the OH-58s.

USS CROMMELIN returned to Pearl Harbor on 22 April 2003 following a six-month deployment to the SOUTHCOM AOR where she took part in drug interdiction operations. CROMMELIN also was involved in three rescues at sea, rescuing 174 Ecuadorian citizens from a leaky vessel at sea, and lending assistance to two fishing vessels. Later that year, on 20 October 2003, Cmdr. Donald D. Hodge assumed command of the ship.

The first months of 2004 were spent in preparation for another extended eastern Pacific and Caribbean deployment. On 10 March 2004, while under Hodge's command, CROMMELIN received the Battle Efficiency Award in Pearl Harbor, recognition of superior readiness and overall performance. From 2 April to 5 April 2004 she hosted a family and community cruise to Maui for relatives, Navy League members, and teachers from Holomua Elementary School, using the event to show civilian visitors daily life and shipboard demonstrations. On 12 May 2004 she departed Pearl Harbor for a scheduled six-month deployment to the Southern Command area. That 2004 deployment quickly produced both humanitarian and law-enforcement work. South of Costa Rica, CROMMELIN found the disabled fishing vessel DON LUIS II after it had drifted for more than two weeks following a battery explosion. On 12 June 2004 the vessel's master asked to come aboard, and three fishermen were taken on board the frigate, fed, clothed, and medically examined. Around midnight on 13 June 2004 CROMMELIN rendezvoused with a Costa Rican patrol boat inside Costa Rican territorial waters and transferred the survivors for return home.

In June 2004, while working in the U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command area, the frigate also made her first major narcotics recovery of that cruise in conjunction with USS TICONDEROGA (CG 47), recovering 72 cocaine bales weighing more than fifty pounds each and arresting five smugglers. Contemporary estimates placed the haul's street value at roughly $36 million.

In July 2004, she joined the Pacific phase of Unitas 45-04, part of the long-running multinational naval cooperation series in Latin America, and made port calls at Salaverry and Callao in Peru as a 22-ship multinational task force completed more than one hundred training events during the opening week of at-sea operations. On 10 August 2004 she departed Colon, Panama, for the maritime portion of Panamax 2004, the annual exercise designed to rehearse multinational defense of the Panama Canal, operating alongside forces from Argentina, Colombia, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Panama, Peru, and the United States.

The high point of the 2004 deployment came in September. Working with U.S. Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment 105 and her embarked HSL-37 detachment, CROMMELIN intercepted the fishing vessel SAN JOSE several hundred miles west of the Galapagos Islands after maritime patrol aircraft and shipboard aviation had helped locate and monitor the suspect contact. On 24 September 2004, after the frigate closed to interception range and supported the boarding with both helicopter and rigid-hull inflatable boat, the boarding team recovered 525 bales of cocaine, roughly 25,000 pounds in total, and detained eight suspects. Contemporary reporting described the seizure as the third-largest drug interdiction on record at that time. The deployment remained active even after that success. On 16 October 2004, off the coast of Mexico, CROMMELIN and her embarked Coast Guard detachment intercepted another smuggling vessel: by 20 October she had escorted a fishing vessel and its crew toward Mexico and handed them over to Mexican authorities, who later confirmed the vessel had carried 5.8 metric tons of cocaine. When CROMMELIN returned to Pearl Harbor on 12 November 2004, the results of the cruise were striking even by the standards of an experienced counter-drug frigate: 20.5 metric tons of cocaine recovered, 29 smugglers detained, and 96 people rescued at sea during the deployment.

In the opening weeks of 2005, CROMMELIN remained in Pearl Harbor and was among the first locally based ships to receive the Man Overboard Identification system, fitted on 25 January 2005 together with USS REUBEN JAMES (FFG 57). The installation reflected the Navy's wider effort to improve rapid notification and recovery in man-overboard emergencies. On 6 July 2005, Cmdr. Mark S. Manfredi relieved Cmdr. Donald D. Hodge as commanding officer. A month later, on 3 August 2005, more than 200 distinguished visitors from the Seattle area embarked for the Parade of Ships associated with Seattle Seafair, linking the frigate back to the city in which she had been built. By 12 August 2005 she had reached Homer, Alaska, before taking part in Alaska Shield/Northern Edge 2005, a U.S. Northern Command exercise focused on homeland security and interagency coordination in and around Alaska.

Another major deployment began on 5 May 2006, when CROMMELIN departed Pearl Harbor for a four-month western Pacific cruise tied to the Carat 2006 exercise series. The first phase of that cruise was Seacat, the Southeast Asia Cooperation Against Terrorism exercise, which had been developed in the post-11 September security environment to improve regional maritime surveillance, information sharing, and interdiction skills against terrorist or criminal threats at sea. On 20 May 2006 a U.S. task group consisting of USS TORTUGA (LSD 46), USS HOPPER (DDG 70), USS CROMMELIN, USCGC SHERMAN, USS SALVOR (ARS 52), and the Military Sealift Command ship MV SGT WILLIAM R. BUTTON (T-AK 3012) departed Okinawa to begin Seacat. The exercise ended when the group arrived in Singapore on 29 May 2006. After that, CROMMELIN continued into Carat proper. She departed Changi Naval Base, Singapore, on 14 June 2006 after the Singapore phase, arrived at Sattahip, Thailand, on 18 June 2006 and departed on 27 June, reached Kemaman, Malaysia, on 24 July 2006 and departed on 3 August, arrived in Muara, Brunei Darussalam, on 6 August 2006 for the Brunei phase, and by 15 August 2006 was in Subic Bay for the Philippines phase, where the participating Philippine ships included BRP APOLINARIO MABINI, BRP HERACLEO ALANO, BRP TEOTIMO FIGURACION, and BRP BACOLOD CITY. CROMMELIN returned to Pearl Harbor on 15 September 2006 after roughly four and a half months away.

The period after the 2006 deployment was marked by maintenance and command transition. Commander Patrick N. Huete assumed command on 1 December 2006. Almost simultaneously, Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard placed CROMMELIN in dry dock on 6 December 2006, and within days her rudder was removed and shipped away to support the emergency repair of USS BOONE (FFG 28) in Rota, Spain, after the ship had lost her own rudder while operating in the western Mediterranean.

By 13 April 2007 CROMMELIN had returned to homeport after another underway period in the Pacific Ocean, indicating that the ship had resumed operations after that maintenance-heavy interval. The broader strategic environment by then was one in which Pacific Fleet frigates were expected to remain deployable despite advancing age, because they were still in demand for theater security cooperation in Asia and maritime-security missions farther east.

On 27 November 2007, CROMMELIN departed Pearl Harbor for a six-month deployment to the Southern Command area of responsibility, transiting the Panama Canal en route to the Caribbean and eastern Pacific for counter-narcotics work. The mission reflected the continuing U.S. effort to suppress maritime cocaine flows that financed organized crime and, in contemporary official language, were also linked rhetorically to broader counterterrorism concerns. During the deployment, the frigate made a logistics stop at Mayport, Florida, before delivering supplies to Cartagena, Colombia, as reported on 8 February 2008. She also visited several Latin American ports during the cruise, including Puerto Vallarta in Mexico, Panama City in Panama, Cartagena in Colombia, and Trujillo in Peru. When she returned to Pearl Harbor on 8 June 2008, the ship had confiscated narcotics valued in contemporary reporting at approximately $71 million. The next day, 9 June 2008, Cmdr. Kevin J. Parker relieved Cmdr. Patrick N. Huete in command during a pierside ceremony held immediately after the deployment homecoming.

A new deployment followed on 15 June 2009, when CROMMELIN departed Pearl Harbor under the Mid-Pacific Surface Combatant Operational Employment program and for participation in Carat 2009. In the first phase of that cruise, Coast Guard law-enforcement officers from the Fourteenth District embarked to support fisheries enforcement in Oceania in what became known as the "Fight for Fish" mission. Contemporary Coast Guard sources described this as the first time a U.S. Navy warship had been used in the western Pacific in direct partnership with embarked Coast Guard personnel for that kind of fisheries-enforcement transit. On 24 June 2009, the frigate anchored off Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia for a goodwill port visit, and on the same visit her crew carried out a community service project ashore. By 8 July 2009, as part of Task Group 73.5 with USS HARPERS FERRY (LSD 49), USS CHAFEE (DDG 90), and USNS SAFEGUARD (T-ARS 50), CROMMELIN had arrived in Sattahip, Thailand, for the fourth phase of Carat. The series then took her to Muara, Brunei, by 3 August 2009, and concluded with a closing ceremony aboard CROMMELIN at Jakarta on 28 August 2009. Later that deployment, she reached Hong Kong on 29 October 2009, took part in exercise Annualex 21G by 12 November 2009, made a routine port visit to Apra Harbor, Guam, by 4 December 2009, and returned to Pearl Harbor on 15 December 2009.

The year 2010 combined local operations, precautionary sorties, and another western Pacific deployment. On 27 February 2010, after the great Chile earthquake triggered a tsunami warning for Hawaii, CROMMELIN was one of the Pearl Harbor-based ships ordered to sortie as a precaution. In April she visited Hilo: on 8 April 2010, under the command of Cmdr. Joseph M. Keenan Jr., she arrived for a three-day port call tied to the Merrie Monarch Festival, an event centered on the preservation and public celebration of Hawaiian culture through hula. Later that year, on 3 August 2010, CROMMELIN departed Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam for another western Pacific deployment in support of Carat. She departed Saipan after a two-day visit on 19 August 2010, participated in Valiant Shield off Guam by 19 September 2010, left Subic Bay on 17 October 2010 after a five-day port call connected with Carat activity in the Philippines, and arrived at Sihanoukville on 25 October 2010 for Carat Cambodia 2010, where she hosted exchanges with the Royal Cambodian Navy before dedicated underway training. She returned to Pearl Harbor on 14 December 2010 after a five-month underway period in the Seventh Fleet area, and contemporary reporting also notes additional port calls in Japan, Singapore, and Malaysia during that cruise. In 2010 she was again credited with winning the Battle Efficiency Award for Destroyer Squadron 31.

By 2011 and 2012, CROMMELIN was in the last stretch of her U.S. Navy career. On 18 November 2011 she returned to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam after taking part in Koa Kai 12-1 off Hawaii from 10 November to 17 November, operating alongside other Pearl Harbor-based surface combatants and submarines in integrated training. In the first quarter of fiscal year 2012, the ship received the first Commander, Naval Surface Group Middle Pacific Quarterly Energy Conservation Award for using less energy than the class average while also helping troubleshoot pier-side energy issues. On 30 March 2012 she was again at sea in Koa Kai 12-2, and on 12 April 2012 she arrived in Hilo for another three-day visit during the forty-ninth Merrie Monarch Festival. The final underway period of the ship's commissioned service came in August 2012. On 18 August 2012 she pulled into Nawiliwili Harbor at Lihue, Kauai, in what contemporary Navy imagery described as the last port call for her sailors before decommissioning, and she returned to Pearl Harbor on 27 August 2012 after that final at-sea period.

USS CROMMELIN held her decommissioning ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam on 26 October 2012 and was formally decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 31 October 2012. After decommissioning she remained laid up until 19 July 2016, when the ex-USS CROMMELIN was sunk during a sinking exercise northwest of Kauai as part of Rim of the Pacific 2016.

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USS CROMMELIN SINKEX:

The video below is an official US Navy video and shows the burning ex-USS CROMMELIN during RIMPAC 2016 on July 19, 2016. Participants in the SINKEX included HMCS CALGARY (FFH 335), HMNZS TE KAHA (F 77) and the USS CORONADO (LCS 4). The latter tested the new Block III version of the Harpoon anti-ship missile, however, the CORONADO was unable to score a hit on the CROMMELIN with the missile. Also involved were two AH-64D Apache helicopters based at the Schofield Barracks, Oahu, Hawaii. They fired a total of eight AGM-114L Hellfire missiles at the CROMMELIN. CROMMELIN's final resting place is about 55 nautical miles north of the island of Kauai, Hawaii.

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USS CROMMELIN Patch Gallery:

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USS CROMMELIN Image Gallery:

The photos below were taken by Sherman Pitzer, former crewmember of the USS CROMMELIN, between 1992 and 1996.

The photos below were taken by Brad Manzenberger, former crewmember of the USS CROMMELIN.

The photos below were contributed by Rex Miller, former crewmember of the USS CROMMELIN.

The photo below was taken by me and shows the CROMMELIN at Naval Station Pearl Harbor, Hi., on March 8, 2012.

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