USS Dale (DLG-19)

USS "Dale" (DLG-19/CG-19) was a United States Navy 5670-ton Leahy class cruiser. "Dale" was named in honor of Commodore Richard Dale (1756–1826).

"Dale" was built at Camden, New Jersey, USA and commissioned in November 1963. Assigned to the Pacific Fleet, she made five deployments to the Western Pacific over the next seven years. Between 1965 and 1970, "Dale"'s Seventh Fleet tours included participation in Vietnam War operations, during which she rescued several American aviators in the Gulf of Tonkin.

In November 1970 "Dale" began modernization at Bath, Maine. This work fitted her with the Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS) and other improvements that enhanced her anti-air and anti-submarine warfare capabilities. When recommissioned in December 1971, "Dale" joined the Atlantic Fleet. While on the first of her many Sixth Fleet cruises, she operated in the eastern Mediterranean Sea during the tense period of U.S.-Soviet relations that accompanied the October 1973 Yom Kippur War. "Dale" was reclassified as a guided-missile cruiser (CG-19) at the beginning of July 1975. A year later, in July 1976, she helped represent the U.S. Navy during the Bicentennial Naval Review in New York Harbor. During another Mediterranean deployment, in mid-1980, she entered the Black Sea to visit Romania.

"Dale" was regularly updated, receiving Harpoon surface-to-surface guided missiles and the Phalanx gun system in 1981 and the New Threat Upgrade combat systems enhancement at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard later in that decade. During the 1980s her Mediterranean tours were sometimes extended to take her into the increasingly important Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf regions. In 1986 she took part in the confrontation with Libya.

"Dale" spent much of her final years of service on counter-narcotics patrols in the Caribbean area, and the Gulf of Mexico, as well as on regular cruises with the Sixth Fleet. During 1991 she went to the Red Sea to help enforce sanctions against Iraq after Operation Desert Storm. She had similar duties in 1992–93, in support of United Nations' Resolutions concerning Bosnia and Yugoslavia.

Fate

"Dale" was decommissioned in September 1994 at Naval Station Mayport, Florida. She was sunk as a target in January 2000.

References

External links

* [http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/d1/dale-v.htm Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships - Dale V]
* [http://www.nvr.navy.mil/nvrships/details/CG19.htm Naval Vessel Register - CG-19]
* [http://www.navysite.de/cg/cg19.htm A page on USS "Dale"]
* [http://www.ussdale.com Official Homepage for USS Dale (CG-19) Association]
* [http://www.navsource.org/archives/04/1119/040119.htm Photos and history at NavSource Online]