USS Lawrence (DDG-4)

USS Lawrence (DDG-4)
History
United States
Name:	Lawrence (DDG-4)
Namesake:	James Lawrence
Ordered:	28 March 1957
Builder:	New York Shipbuilding Corporation
Laid down:	27 October 1958
Launched:	27 February 1960
Acquired:	20 December 1961
Commissioned:	6 January 1962
Decommissioned:	30 March 1990
Struck:	16 May 1990
Motto:	"Don't give up the ship"
Fate:	sold for scrap
General characteristics
Class and type:	Charles F. Adams-class destroyer
Displacement:	3,277 tons standard, 4,526 full load
Length:	437 ft (133 m)
Beam:	47 ft (14 m)
Draft:	15 ft (4.6 m)
Propulsion:	2 × Westinghouse steam turbines providing 70,000 shp (52 MW); 2 shafts 4 × Foster-Wheeler 1,275 psi (8,790 kPa) boilers
Speed:	33 knots (61 km/h)
Range:	4,500 nautical miles (8,300 km) at 20 knots (37 km/h)
Complement:	354 (24 officers, 330 enlisted)
Sensors and processing systems:	AN/SPS-39 3D air search radar AN/SPS-10 surface search radar AN/SPG-51 missile fire control radar AN/SPG-53 gunfire control radar AN/SQS-23 Sonar and the hull mounted SQQ-23 Pair Sonar for DDG-2 through 19 AN/SPS-40 Air Search Radar
Armament:	1 Mk 11 missile launcher (DDG2-14) or Mk 13 single arm missile launcher (DDG-15-24) for RIM-24 Tartar SAM system, or later the RIM-66 Standard (SM-1) and Harpoon antiship missile 2 × 5"/54 caliber Mark 42 (127 mm) gun 1 × RUR-5 ASROC Launcher 6 × 12.8 in (324 mm) ASW Torpedo Tubes (2 x Mark 32 Surface Vessel Torpedo Tubes)

USS Lawrence (DDG-4), the fifth ship named for Captain James Lawrence USN (1781–1813), was a Charles F. Adams class guided missile armed destroyer in the United States Navy.

Lawrence was laid down by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation at Camden in New Jersey on 27 October 1958, launched on 27 February 1960 by Mrs. Fernie C. Hubbard, great-great-granddaughter of Captain James Lawrence and commissioned on 6 January 1962, Comdr. Thomas W. Walsh in command. Lawrence served on blockade duty during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962.

After a shakedown cruise on the Great Lakes, Lawrence proceeded to Naval Station Norfolk for duty in the Atlantic Fleet. Following the rapid development of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, the warship deployed with Task Group 136.1, a surface quarantine group of cruisers USS Canberra (CAG-2), USS Newport News (CA-148), three guided-missile destroyers including Lawrence and twelve escorts. The group took up a blocking position north of Cuba on 24 October, two days into the crisis. On Friday the 26, Lawrence and MacDonough (DLG-8) began shadowing Grozny, a tanker proceeding towards Cuba. The next day, the Soviet Union agreed to defuse the crisis and military forces on both sides began standing down.

After returning to Norfolk on 6 December 1962, Lawrence began the first of many Mediterranean cruises on 6 February 1963, steaming across the Atlantic to join the Sixth Fleet for operations in European waters, where she remained until 1 July. Following a second Mediterranean deployment between April and August 1964, the warship received an extensive overhaul in Norfolk over the ensuing winter. Before the end of the decade she conducted four more cruises; a Sixth Fleet deployment in 1965 (24 August to 17 December), a NATO exercise in the North Atlantic in 1966 (3 August to 5 September), another Mediterranean tour in 1966-67 (27 September to 1 February) and a third Sixth Fleet cruise in 1968 (10 January to 4 May). During her fourth Mediterranean deployment, Lawrence helped rescue crewmen from the sinking merchant vessel New Meadow, in distress off the coast of Crete.

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Wikipedia