USS Ticonderoga (CG-47) - History of The Ship

History of The Ship

The United States Navy built the first Aegis cruisers using the hull and machinery designs of Spruance-class destroyers. Ticonderoga was ordered as a guided missile destroyer, but redesignated as a cruiser before she was laid down.

The contract to build DDG-47 Ticonderoga was awarded to Ingalls Shipbuilding on 22 September 1978. On 1 January 1980, she was redesignated as a guided missile cruiser, CG-47. Her keel was laid down on 21 January 1980, the 35th anniversary of the devastating kamikaze attack on the Essex-class carrier Ticonderoga (CV-14). CG-47 was launched on 25 April 1981 and was delivered on 13 December 1982. She was commissioned on 22 January 1983 with First Lady Nancy Reagan, the ship's main sponsor, having the honor of christening the ship on 16 May 1981.

For a time in the late 1990s she was based at Pascagoula, Mississippi, as part of Commander, Naval Surface Forces Atlantic's Westerns Hemisphere Group.

She served in the Persian Gulf as part of Operation Earnest Will while under the command of Captain James M. Arrison III, USN.

She completed her final deployment on 3 August 2004, and was decommissioned on 30 September of that year. After her decommissioning, she was towed to the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility in Philadelphia. Recently, however, she was put up for museum donation by the Navy and there is a strong effort to bring Ticonderoga to Pascagoula, Mississippi, where she was built, to serve as a museum ship.