USS Barry (DD-933) was one of eighteen s of the United States Navy, and was the third US destroyer to be named for Commodore John Barry. Commissioned in 1954, she spent most of her career in the Caribbean, Atlantic, and Mediterranean, but also served in the Vietnam War, for which she earned two battle stars. Another notable aspect of her service was the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Decommissioned in 1982, she became the "Display Ship Barry" (DS Barry), a museum ship at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., in 1984.
Renovation of DS Barry to allow her to continue as a museum ship was deemed too expensive to justify. Furthermore, the planned construction of a fixed-span bridge to replace the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge, a swing bridge, would have trapped her at the Washington Navy Yard permanently. Scrapping was therefore the only realistic option. An official departure ceremony for the ship took place on 17 October 2015, and she was towed away on 7 May 2016 to be scrapped in Philadelphia. Scrapping was completed by 11 February 2022.Naval Vessel Register|
Construction and commissioning Barry was laid down on 15 March 1954 at Bath, Maine, by the Bath Iron Works Corporation; launched on 1 October 1955; sponsored by Mrs. Francis Rogers, a great-grandniece of Commodore Barry; and commissioned at the Boston Naval Shipyard, Charlestown, Massachusetts, on 7 September 1956; Commander Isaac C. Kidd, Jr., in command.
1956–1959 Barry fitted out at the Boston Naval Shipyard through November, testing her new electronics, ASW gear, and gunnery systems into December. After a brief underway period in Narragansett Bay, she departed 3 January 1957 for Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to continue her shakedown. Her training exercises were interspersed with port visits to Kingston, Jamaica; Culebra, Puerto Rico, and Santa Marta, Colombia, before she departed for Colón, Panama.
The destroyer transited the Canal Zone on 26 February and anchored at Salinas, Ecuador, two days later to begin the first of three "goodwill" visits to Latin American ports. After a five-day visit, she departed for Callao, Peru. Arriving 5 March, she hosted the United States Ambassador to Peru, the Honorable Theodore C. Achilles, and the Prefect of Callao, before sailing for Valparaíso, Chile, on 9 March. Three days later, Barry's Captain received official calls from the Chilean provincial governor, the Commander in Chief of the Chilean Navy, Vice Almirante Francisco O'Ryan; the American consul to Valparaíso, and the American Commandant, First Naval Zone; all on the same afternoon. After refueling operations, she cleared Valparaíso on 17 March and shaped course for Panama. Transiting the Canal Zone on 23 March, where she damaged a ship's-boat boom in Gatun Locks, she reached Boston on 29 March with her shakedown completed.
The destroyer underwent post-shakedown alterations and repairs at the Boston Naval Shipyard. She cleared the harbor on 15 May for a schedule of local operations off New England. On 27 June Barry departed for Rosslare, Ireland, and her first deployment to Europe. She visited St. Nazaire, France, and Lisbon, Portugal, before arriving at Gibraltar on the morning of 16 July. Assigned to the 6th Fleet, the destroyer escorted carriers, operated as plane guard, and conducted ASW barrier patrols before returning to Newport, Rhode Island, in August.
On 24 September, after several weeks of post-deployment repairs and upkeep, she steamed into Narragansett Bay to assist the Norwegian freighter Belleville which lay aground off Seal Rock. On 26 September, she helped escort the nuclear submarine , carrying President Dwight D. Eisenhower, as she conducted a diving demonstration off Newport. After several months of routine operations, including antisubmarine warfare (ASW) exercises and plane guard operations with the carriers and , the destroyer spent May 1958, preparing for her next deployment to the Mediterranean.
Underway 6 June, she transited the Straits of Gibraltar and reached Rhodes on the morning of 20 June. For the next three weeks, Barry operated with the 6th Fleet, conducted standard ASW exercises until 14 July, when a coup, organized by young military officers, seized Baghdad and declared a republic in Iraq. The Lebanese government, led by a Christian president, Camille Chamoun, feared a similar revolution might grow out of a Pan-Arab insurgency active in the Bekaa, Tripoli, and Beirut. President Camille Chamoun, following a pro-western policy, immediately requested that the United States land troops to stabilize the situation between Christians, Muslims, and Druze. President Eisenhower honored the request and, fearing the spread of Egyptian and Syrian influence, ordered Marines to Lebanon that same day.
Barry moored at Salonika, Greece, got underway the next morning, 15 July, to operate with as her Task Group stood watch over the eastern Mediterranean. She remained in the region, patrolling the Lebanese coast and escorting carriers to support the Marines ashore. After upkeep alongside at İzmir, Turkey, and fleet operations in Augusta Bay, Sicily, she sailed for home 17 September. Entering Boston Naval Shipyard 14 October, Barry received, after extensive alternations to her forefoot, the new bow-mounted SQS-23 sonar. Emerging from the yard 17 March, she spent the remainder of the year working up the sonar gear and carrying out tactical trials out of NS Newport and Key West. After a brief yard period at Boston in December, the destroyer conducted routine East Coast operations through May 1960.
1960–1962
She cleared Newport on 6 June for a summer goodwill tour and sonar demonstration cruise to Northern Europe. Before the end of June, Barry visited Portsmouth, England, and Kiel, Germany, to conduct naval reviews and in-port sonar demonstrations. During July, when she visited the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Belgium, the destroyer's crew found the regional navies were eager to discuss technological and security concerns. Furthermore, as Barry conducted four at-sea sonar demonstrations with friendly submarines, foreign naval officers were impressed with U.S. naval technology. In August, after exercises with French and Portuguese diesel submarines, the destroyer returned to Newport on 31 August.
After local operations and a port visit to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Barry set out for the Virginia Capes operation areas on 9 January 1961, for hunter-killer ASW exercises. After a brief drydock period at Boston, she ranged the eastern seaboard, conducting tactical tests on her bow sonar and participating in amphibious exercises, from Guantanamo Bay to Halifax, Nova Scotia. After another long yard period at the Boston Naval Shipyard, she departed for the Mediterranean with a task group formed around in June 1962. The destroyer operated with the 6th Fleet for the next two months, watching a steady flow of Soviet merchant ships sail out of the Black Sea towards Cuba before returning to Newport in August for post-deployment upkeep.
Cuban Missile Crisis
On 16 October, the day President John F. Kennedy was shown aerial reconnaissance photographs of Soviet nuclear missiles and launch sites under construction in Cuba, Barry was still undergoing upkeep at Newport. On 22 October, when President Kennedy told the nation that he had initiated "as strict quarantine of all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba", she cleared Newport on the night of 22 October, in company with , and . After rendezvous with on the 26th, she operated as a screening vessel and plane guard. Two days later, she was detached to operate on ASW surveillance and, after taking over the task from and , kept a close watch on contact C-19, a surfaced Soviet submarine. Barry, at this time well east of the "Quarantine" line, kept the Foxtrot-class diesel boat under surveillance until it submerged at 1814 that evening.
Barry remained on the line, carrying out patrols, until 8 November when, during refueling operations with Essex, the destroyer had embarked, via highline transfer, a three-person photographic and interpreter party. Barry, ordered to investigate a Soviet merchantman, proceeded to her station on the 9th and sighted the merchant ship that evening. She closed to within 400 yards (370 m) on the merchantman's starboard quarter, illuminated the ship's quarter and bow, and identified her as the Soviet-registry Metallurg Anosov. Trailing astern, Barry followed the merchant ship, heading east away from the quarantine zone until morning. After dawn, the destroyer closed the merchant to "obtain photographs of deck cargo" until late morning when she shaped course for Essex to refuel and transfer photographic personnel.
1962–1965
With her part in the "Cuban Quarantine" completed, Barry reached Narragansett Bay on 15 November for upkeep. She put out to sea for exercises with Essex on 30 November, ranging as far as Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic and San Juan, Puerto Rico, before returning to Newport on 21 December. For the next six months, Barry carried out type-training and ASW exercises before entering the Boston Naval Shipyard in June 1963 for a scheduled interim overhaul period. Later that summer Barry, with midshipmen embarked for at-sea training, cruised the eastern seaboard of the United States. While the midshipmen enjoyed the ports of call, including New York and Halifax, Nova Scotia, they also had to ride out a hurricane off Bermuda.
The year 1964 saw Barry following a similar routine of exercises. On 27 March, while bound to Puerto Rico, the destroyer received a distress call; a serious fire had broken out in the forward hold, from the stores issues ship . Barry'''s fire and rescue party, the first assistance to arrive, helped extinguish the blaze after an 18-hour battle. A short deployment followed, during which Barry participated in a joint NATO exercise with three German destroyers along the Atlantic coast.
In later July, after lost steering control during a highline transfer and damaged Barry, the destroyer spent a week in Boston Naval Shipyard. Administrative and operational preparations followed and, on 7 September 1964, Barry sailed for a three-and-a-half-month deployment in European and Mediterranean waters. After initial NATO exercises in the Norwegian Sea, during which Barry crossed the Arctic Circle on 21 September, she sailed south for antisubmarine screening with the 6th Fleet. Visits to Valencia and Barcelona, Spain; Palma de Mallorca; Marseille and Toulon, France; and Naples, Italy, provided diversion for the ship's company between U.S. and NATO operations "Teamwork", "Masterstroke", and "Steel Pike I". She returned to Newport on 18 December.
In February 1965, Barry ventured south to the Caribbean for the annual spring training exercises. In June, she acted as an assistant recovery ship for the Gemini 4 space shot. The balance of the summer, highlighted by her winning the Squadron Battle Efficiency "E" for ASW, was spent preparing for the destroyer's first Western Pacific deployment. As the flagship of Destroyer Squadron 24 (DesRon 24), the first group of Atlantic Fleet destroyers to deploy to Vietnam, she departed Newport with , Charles S. Sperry (DD-697), , , and on 29 September. The Norfolk-based and Bache accompanied the squadron.
Vietnam War Passing through the Panama Canal on 6 October, Barry touched at Hawaii, for a short liberty, and Midway before crossing the International Date Line the night of 25 October. At 0100, the "calendar was advanced to the 27th and 26 October was lost forever". After visiting the Japanese ports of Yokosuka and Sasebo, she reached Subic Bay, in the Philippines, on 17 November, and commenced type training at the Tabones Naval Gunfire Support Range. Barry cleared Subic Bay on 30 November in company with Task Group 77.7, including , , and Samuel B. Roberts for the South China Sea.