USS Shoup Set for Pacific Fleet Commissioning

USS Shoup (DDG 86), the newest in a series of advanced Aegis guided missile destroyers built for the U.S. Navy by Northrop Grumman Corporation's (NYSE: NOC) Ship Systems sector, will be commissioned at 11 a.m. PDT Saturday, June 22, 2002, at Port Terminal 37 in Seattle, Wash. This ship is named in honor of U.S. Marine Corps Gen. David M. Shoup (1904-1983), a World War II naval hero, a Medal of Honor recipient for his actions during the initial landings on Betio, Tarawa Atoll, in the Pacific in 1943, and who later became the 22nd commandant of the Marine Corps. More than 5,000 invited guests are expected to be in attendance when the Ship's Sponsor and Matron of Honor order DDG 86's more than 300 officers and enlisted personnel to their posts. Claudia Natter, wife of Adm. Robert J. Natter, USN commander in chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, and Mrs. Zola Shoup, of Arlington, Va., the widow of Gen. Shoup, are the Ship's Sponsors. Matron of Honor, Lt. Col. Catherine Chase, USMCR, of Fairport, N.Y., will represent her grandmother at the ceremony. Gen. James L. Jones Jr., USMC, commandant of the Marine Corps, will deliver the principal commissioning address. Others scheduled to participate include U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen of Washington's Second Congressional District; Adm. Natter; Rear Adm. Roland B. Knapp, USN, program executive officer for Aircraft Carriers; Rear Adm. Vinson E. Smith, USN, commander, Naval Surface Group, Pacific Northwest/ commander, Navy Region Northwest; Capt. David G. Yoshihara, USN, commander Destroyer Squadron NINE; Capt. Philip N. Johnson, USN, supervisor of shipbuilding conversion and repair, Pascagoula, Miss.; and Dr. Philip A. Dur, Northrop Grumman corporate vice president and president, Northrop Grumman Ship Systems.

Following commissioning, DDG 86 will be homeported in Everett, Wash., as an element of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Cmdr. E. Bernard Carter, a native of Hopkins, S.C., will command the 509.5-ft., 9,300-ton destroyer.

USS Shoup (DDG 86) is the 36th ship of the DDG 51 Aegis destroyer program and the 16th to be built by Northrop Grumman Ship Systems. The ship is the fourth of the revised Flight IIA ships built by Northrop Grumman, with hangars for two SH-60B/F helicopters and an enlarged flight deck.

Following DDG 86, Northrop Grumman has contracts to produce nine additional Aegis destroyers, with six of those ships in various stages of production, including Pinckney (DDG 91), which will be christened in a public ceremony in the shipyard Saturday, June 29. USS Shoup was delivered to the Navy by Northrop Grumman Feb. 18, 2002, and departed Pascagoula April 22. Aegis destroyers are equipped to conduct a variety of missions, from peacetime presence and crisis management to sea control and power projection. These multimission ships provide primary protection for the Navy's aircraft carriers and battle groups, as well as essential escort to Navy and Marine Corps amphibious forces, combat logistics ships and convoys. DDG 86 carries Tomahawk Cruise missiles for land attack, as well as standard missiles to intercept hostile aircraft and missiles at extended ranges. Its undersea warfare suite is the most advanced system in the world. Four gas turbine engines power the destroyer to speeds in excess of 30 knots.