Truxtun Class Cruiser - 1960s

1960s

The Truxtun exited Camden on 3 June 1967 and headed for the West Coast. En route, she visited Yorktown, Virginia and Norfolk, Virginia; Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Mar del Plata, Argentina. Truxtun rounded Cape Horn on 10 July and entered the Pacific Ocean. After port calls at Valparaíso, Chile, and Mazatlán, Mexico, the Truxtun reached Long Beach, California, her home port, on 29 July. After conducting trials there in late summer and early fall, she commenced shakedown training in November. She interrupted shakedown twice: on 10 and 11 November for Operation "Bell Anchor" and again from 27 November to 3 December for Exercise "Blue Lotus."

The nuclear-powered warship completed her shakedown training and, on 2 January 1968, got underway for the Western Pacific. She made an overnight stop at Pearl Harbor on the 7th and 8th and arrived in Sasebo, Japan, on the 19th. Five days later, the Truxtun and the Enterprise departed Sasebo and headed for the Sea of Japan in response to North Korea's seizure of the American ship Pueblo. She operated in the Sea of Japan until 16 February when she headed south for her first line period off the coast of Vietnam. After an overnight stop at Subic Bay on the 19th and 20th, the Truxtun set a course for "Yankee Station" in the Gulf of Tonkin. The Truxtun spent the majority of the remainder of her deployment in the Far East operating off the coast of Vietnam. While in the combat zone, she conducted search and rescue (SAR) missions, stood guard against North Vietnamese air attacks as a positive identification radar zone (PIRAZ) picket ship, and served as plane-guard ship for carriers Enterprise, Bon Homme Richard, and Ticonderoga. Truxtun punctuated her line periods with calls at Singapore, Hong Kong, Danang, and Subic Bay. She departed Subic Bay on 6 July, steamed east toward the United States, and reentered Long Beach on the 19th.

For the next four months, the warship operated along the U.S. West Coast. She acted as plane guard for the Ranger, Kitty Hawk, Enterprise and Yorktown while those carriers conducted landing qualifications for pilots. In mid-November, Truxtun became an antisubmarine warfare (ASW) school ship, and she hosted training student sailors in the techniques of hunting submarines. Early in December, the Truxtun returned to Long Beach to prepare for overhaul. In January 1969, she shifted to Bremerton, Washington, where she entered the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard for refurbishing which lasted until April. The cruiser then resumed operations along the West Coast which continued until 23 September when she got underway for her second deployment with the 7th Fleet.

After a stop at Pearl Harbor, the Truxtun arrived at Subic Bay on 20 October 1969. Again, she spent much of her deployment cruising along the coast of embattled Vietnam, taking time periodically to make port calls at Hong Kong, Singapore, and Subic Bay. However, in addition to acting as plane guard for carriers and standing duty as PIRAZ and a search and rescue ship, she also served as a peacetime aerial reconnaissance protective (PAPRO) picket in the Sea of Japan and participated in the Taiwan Strait patrol. Just before departing from the Far East, she conducted exercises in the vicinity of Okinawa and then made her final port visit at Sasebo, Japan, from 6 to 11 March 1970.

During the Vietnam War, the Truxtun is credited as firing the last missile by the US at a North Vietnamese target.