last us navy ship to sink during the vietnam war

retaliation for a mine strike on the Simpson’s sister ship, the USS Samuel B. The Simpson was tasked that morning with taking out an Iranian oil platform as U.S. “I was the rookie, I was the new guy on board,” he said, though he was likely the oldest person among the 200-person crew. McTigue, 67, the ship’s captain in 1988, came aboard Simpson four months before the face-off in the Persian Gulf. “They were learning as they went,” he said.

Eighty percent of the crew were on their first ship. “We commissioned the ship, trained everybody up, took them to sea and then we made history,” Tierney said. Tierney, 59, and Buterbaugh, 55, are Simpson “plank owners,” sailors with the ship when it joined the fleet in 1985. They’re the guys who pulled it off, and they got together Monday for the first time in 27 years to tell CNN about the encounter on April 18, 1988. Three men who agree with Davis are Mark Tierney, Tom Buterbaugh and James McTigue. “It’s a tremendous feat for a ship like this to be able to do.” “We don’t do battles like that anymore,” the Simpson’s final executive officer, Lt. The Simpson’s moment came in 1988, when it scored four missile hits on an Iranian gunboat, the Joshan, during a battle in the Persian Gulf, the only U.S.

Sights and Sounds as the USS Simpson is Decommissioned

Last us navy ship to sink during the vietnam war