USS Aubrey Fitch
![]() USS Aubrey Fitch (FFG-34), underway during post-shakedown yard period sea trials, 5 May 1983.
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History | |
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Name | Aubrey Fitch |
Namesake | Admiral Aubrey Fitch |
Ordered | 23 January 1978 |
Builder | Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine |
Laid down | 10 April 1981 |
Launched | 17 October 1981 |
Sponsored by | Mrs. Francesca Fitch Ferguson |
Acquired | 1 October 1982 |
Commissioned | 9 October 1982 |
Decommissioned | 12 December 1997 |
Stricken | 3 May 1999 |
Homeport | Mayport, Florida (former) |
Identification |
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Motto | "A Breed Apart" |
Fate | Sold for scrapping 11 March 2004 |
Notes | First Oliver Hazard Perry-class ship to be scrapped |
General characteristics [1] | |
Class and type | Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate |
Displacement | 4,100 long tons (4,200 t), full load |
Length | 445 feet (136 m), overall |
Beam | 45 feet (14 m) |
Draught | 22 feet (6.7 m) |
Propulsion |
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Speed | over 29 knots (54 km/h) |
Range | 5,000 nautical miles at 18 knots (9,300 km at 33 km/h) |
Complement | 15 officers and 190 enlisted, plus SH-60 LAMPS detachment of roughly six officer pilots and 15 enlisted maintainers |
Sensors and processing systems |
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Electronic warfare & decoys | AN/SLQ-32 |
Armament |
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Armor | none |
Aircraft carried | 1 × SH-2F LAMPS I[2] |
Aviation facilities | hangar, flight deck, & repair shop |
USS Aubrey Fitch (FFG-34), the twenty-sixth ship of the
Ordered on 23 January 1978, as a part of the FY-1978 program, Aubrey Fitch was laid down on 10 April 1981 at the Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine. She was launched on 17 October 1981—sponsored by Mrs. Francesca Fitch Ferguson, the granddaughter of the late Admiral Fitch—and was commissioned at Bath, Maine, on 9 October 1982.[3]
This warship was decommissioned on 12 December 1997 and stricken from the Navy's list on 3 May 1999.
1982
After commissioning, Aubrey Fitch remained at Bath for another five weeks completing her outfitting, propulsion plant testing, and sailors' training. In mid-November, she made the passage from Bath to her home port,
1983
Early in January 1983, the guided-missile frigate embarked upon her shakedown cruise to the vicinity of
The guided-missile frigate was so engaged when United States military forces invaded the small Caribbean island nation of Grenada on 25 October. Aubrey Fitch interrupted refresher training to conduct patrols in defense of the base at Guantánamo Bay against possible hostile action by Cuba as a result of the conflict in Grenada.[3]
Early in November, however the warship completed refresher training and assumed tactical control of Aquila and Taurus for the purpose of testing the feasibility of operating guided-missile frigates and guided-missile hydrofoil gunboats together in the same task organization. Demands attendant to the continuing American presence in Grenada, however, overtook the experiment and sent Aubrey Fitch and her two consorts south to the tiny republic. Duty in the waters adjacent to Grenada lasted until mid-December when the warship returned to Mayport.[3]
1984
Aubrey Fitch began 1984 in her home port. Later in January, she embarked upon a normal schedule of training operations in the
1985
The warship opened 1985 much the same way as she did 1984. After concluding holiday leave and upkeep at Mayport during the first half of January, she returned to sea for the usual training exercises, equipment operation certifications, and
Near the end of June, she put to sea for special operations off the west coast of the Isthmus of Panama. She transited the Panama Canal and then operated from PSA Panama International Terminal during July, August, and part of September. After passing back through the canal in mid-September, Aubrey Fitch arrived back at Mayport on the 21st. Repairs took up the remainder of September as well as October and November. She concluded her restricted availability with sea trials on 5 and 6 December and, after a brief round trip to Charleston and back, settled into the usual year-end holiday routine.[3]
1986
The relative inactivity of holiday standdown carried over into the first three weeks of 1986. On 21 January, Aubrey Fitch put to sea for a week of ASW training in the
On 4 June, Aubrey Fitch stood out of Mayport in company with the frigate Talbot to rendezvous with the destroyers Nicholson and Semmes. She and her traveling companions then laid in a course that took them across the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, through the Suez Canal, and around the Arabian Peninsula to the Strait of Hormuz. Aubrey Fitch and her consorts arrived at Bahrain in the Persian Gulf on 8 July. The guided-missile frigate spent the next four months conducting patrols and escorting merchant ships in the strategic–and troubled–waters of the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, and the northern portion of the Arabian Sea. No untoward events marred her sojourn in the region, and she concluded her assignment on 30 October by turning her responsibilities over to the destroyer USS Sampson. Retracing her outward-bound voyage via the Red Sea, the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean, Aubrey Fitch steamed into Mayport on 4 December. Post-deployment standdown took up the remainder of 1986.[3]
1987–1997
Over the next ten years, Aubrey Fitch continued to the Middle East and the West Indies. During a 1988 deployment to the Persian Gulf, the frigate participated in
In August 1991, following the invasion of Kuwait by
In February 1993 the frigate participated in
In 1994, Aubrey Fitch carried out two deployments to Haiti in support of Operation Uphold Democracy, where the crew boarded over 50 ships to enforce economic sanctions against the government and provided security and search-and-rescue support for operations within Port-au-Prince Harbor.[3]
In the summer of 1995, the frigate sailed to Europe both to conduct NATO training exercises and to participate in the 50th anniversary commemoration of the Battle of the Atlantic and the end of the war in Europe.[3]
Aubrey Fitch spent March through July 1995 touring Western Europe, including Bermuda; Brest, France; Rota, Barcelona and Ibiza, Spain; Casablanca, Morocco; Gibraltar, Portsmouth & Liverpool, UK; Lisbon, Portugal; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Derry & Portrush, Northern Ireland and Rosyth, Scotland.
From September 1996 to March 1997, Aubrey Fitch conducted her last operational deployment as part of
Aubrey Fitch was decommissioned on 12 December 1997 and towed to the former
Aubrey Fitch (FFG-34) was the first ship with this name in the
References
This article includes information collected from the Naval Vessel Register, which, as a U.S. government publication, is in the public domain. The entry can be found here.
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
Photo gallery of USS Aubrey Fitch (FFG-34) at NavSource Naval History