USS KIDD DD-993 DESTROYER - 1991

Description

USS Kidd (DDG-993) was the lead ship in her class of destroyers operated by the U.S. Navy. Derived from the Spruance-class, these vessels were designed for air defense in hot weather. The vessel was the second named after Medal of Honor recipient Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, who was aboard USS Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor, and was the first American flag officer to die in World War II. Originally named Kouroush, the ship was ordered by the Shah of Iran, but was undelivered when the 1979 Iranian Revolution occurred. Subsequent to this, the U.S. Navy elected to commission the Kidd-class for service in the Persian Gulf and Mediterranean, as they were equipped with heavy-duty air conditioning and were also well suited to filtering sand and the results from NBC warfare. Kidd-class ships were known in the fleet informally as the "Ayatollah" or "dead admiral" class. USS Kidd was commissioned 27 June 1981 at Pascagoula, Mississippi. On 9 January 1991 USS Kidd departed from Norfolk, bound for the Persian Gulf, along with USS McInerney, in support of Operation Desert Storm. Kidd faced several roles while operating in the Persian Gulf, among them the location and destruction of naval mines and maritime interdiction force operations. To assist in these duties, a detachment from Anti-Submarine Light Helicopter Squadron 34 (HSL-34) was embarked. The "Green Checkers" came aboard with two SH-2 helicopters which were used early on in SSSC missions – flying beyond the visual horizon of this warship to visually observe all radar contacts on the surface. In early April, two U.S. Army OH-58 AHIPS helicopters were embarked, giving a total of four helicopters embarked on board Kidd at one time. In December 1991 USS Kidd was again awarded the Battle Efficiency "E", this time for excellence during Desert Shield and Desert Storm. USS Kidd was decommissioned for placement into storage as a reserve warship on 12 March 1998, at Norfolk Naval Base, Virginia. Present at this decommissioning ceremony were several of Admiral Isaac Kidd’s surviving family members, including his son, Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, Jr., USN (Ret.). USS Kidd’s last American commanding officer was Commander Thomas R. Andress, USN. The vessel has been renamed ROCS Tso Ying, a Kee Lung-class guided-missile destroyer currently in active service of Republic of China Navy. She was formally commissioned at the Su-ao Naval Base in northeastern Taiwan on 2006-11-03, along with her sister ship, ROCS Ma Kong. Due to her somewhat run-down condition from her storage, she was the third former Kidd-class vessel commissioned by ROCN. Tso Ying is named after the largest naval base in Taiwan, the Tso Ying Naval Base in the Tsoying District, Kaohsiung, of southern Taiwan. The Tso Ying Naval Base is also the location of the Republic of China’s naval academy and fleet headquarters. (Scale : 1/1250e)