Qualla: USS Somers (DD-947)

USS Somers (DD-947): Introduction

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Two B-52 Stratofortresses from the 20th Bomb Squadron each launched an AGM-142 Have Nap missile at the drifting hull. Both hit. The next day, an explosive ordnance disposal team rappelled from a helicopter onto the listing wreck and set charges. USS Somers sank for the last time on July 22, 1998, thirty nautical miles northwest of Kauai. She came to rest at 2,800 fathoms -- more than three miles down. It was a violent end for a ship that had spent nearly four decades serving her country, but the Navy has its own ideas about retirement.

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

USS Somers (DD-947): Bath-Built and Bound for the World

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Navy, Public domain. The sixth ship to carry the name Somers was laid down at Bath Iron Works in Maine on March 4, 1957, and launched the following May. She was commissioned on April 3, 1959, as a Forrest Sherman-class destroyer -- a fast, versatile warship designed for the open-ocean demands of the ...

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Image: U.S. Navy | Public domain

USS Somers (DD-947): Into the Tonkin Gulf

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Navy, Public domain. As American involvement in Vietnam escalated, Somers found herself in the thick of it. She plied the Gulf of Tonkin on plane guard duty, shadowing aircraft carriers as their strike groups pounded supply lines in North Vietnam. The work was relentless and unglamorous: station-keep...

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Image: U.S. Navy | Public domain

USS Somers (DD-947): A Ship Rebuilt

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit USN; The original uploader was Robinr57 at English Wikipedia. 11 January 2007 (original upload date), Public domain. In April 1966, Somers entered San Francisco Naval Shipyard at Hunters Point for a transformation. Over the next twenty-two months, ninety percent of her superstructure was torn out and replaced. She received the AN/SPS-48A three-dimensional air search radar, the Tartar surface-to...

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Image: USN; The original uploader was Robinr57 at English Wikipedia. 11 January 2007 (original upload date) | Public domain

USS Somers (DD-947): The Pacific's Largest Exercise

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Service Depicted: NavyCamera Operator: DON S. MONTGOMERY, USN (RET.), Public domain. After Vietnam, Somers shifted her home port to Pearl Harbor in 1973 and continued western Pacific deployments through the late 1970s. In July 1981, she participated in FLEETEX 1-81, described as the largest U.S. Navy exercise in history at that time. Her final deployment came lat...

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Image: Service Depicted: NavyCamera Operator: DON S. MONTGOMERY, USN (RET.) | Public domain

USS Somers (DD-947): Three Miles Down

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Service Depicted: NavyCamera Operator: DON S. MONTGOMERY, USN (RET.), Public domain. After decommissioning, Somers sat in the Inactive Ship Facility at Pearl Harbor until about 1988, then was transferred to the Maritime Administration and towed to Port Hueneme, California, where she served as an experimental ship for several years. On May 20, 1998, she was towed ...

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Image: Service Depicted: NavyCamera Operator: DON S. MONTGOMERY, USN (RET.) | Public domain