USS Ralph Johnson Destroyer To Commission Saturday in Charleston, S.C.

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The Navy is scheduled to commission the guided-missile destroyer USS Ralph Johnson (DDG-114) at a ceremony in Charleston, S.C., Saturday.


Ralph Johnson is the second Arleigh Burke-class destroyer built by Huntington Ingalls Industries in Pascagoula, Miss., since the Navy decided to restart the DDG-51 production line in 2008. The first of the restart DDG-51 guided-missile destroyers, USS John Finn (DDG-113), was commissioned on July 15, 2017. General Dynamics Bath Iron Works’ first DDG restart, USS Rafael Peralta (DDG 115), commissioned two weeks later, on July 29. BIW is still working on the last of the four DDG restart ships, the future Thomas Hudner (DDG-116), which is set for commissioning later this year.

The new DDG-51s such as Ralph Johnson are being built with the Aegis Baseline 9 Integrated Air and Missile Defense system. These ships have increased computing power and radar upgrades that improve detection and reaction capabilities against modern air warfare and ballistic missile defense threats. The modified version of the Aegis Combat System creates a composite picture of the battle space by enabling ships such as Ralph Johnson to link radars with other ships and aircraft. The new destroyers will be able perform traditional air warfare missions and ballistic missile defense missions simultaneously.

“The future USS Ralph Johnson will become one of the most capable weapons in our nation’s arsenal,” Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer said in a Navy news release.
“It will serve for decades to come as a fitting tribute to the heroic actions of Pfc. Ralph Johnson who, in the face of certain death, sacrificed his own life to save the life of a fellow Marine.”

Gen. Robert Neller, commandant of the Marine Corps, is scheduled to deliver the ceremony’s principal address. The ship honors Marine Corps Pfc. Ralph Henry Johnson, who posthumously received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity” during the Vietnam War, according to his citation.

Johnson was born in Charleston, S.C., and the Charleston VA Medical Center was renamed the Ralph H. Johnson Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in 1991.

https://news.usni.org/2018/03/23/uss-ralph-johnson-to-commission-saturday-in-charleston-s-c