NWS25oct-4. Navy's newest destroyer, USS O'Kane commissioned
at Pearl Harbor

NAVY WIRE SERVICE (NWS) - October 25, 1999 

by Pacific Fleet Public Affairs
    PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (NWS) -- The Navy's newest guided-
missile destroyer officially joined the U.S. Pacific Fleet
as USS O'Kane (DDG 77), commissioned into active naval
service during a ceremony at Naval Station Pearl Harbor
Saturday, Oct. 23.
    The Arleigh Burke class destroyer, one of the most
technologically advanced ships in the Navy, is named in
honor of Rear Adm. Richard H. O'Kane (1911-1994), a native
of Dover, N.H.  O'Kane was awarded the Medal of Honor for
his daring attacks on two Japanese convoys while in command
of the World War II submarine USS Tang (SS 306) in 1944.
After his submarine was sunk, the Japanese captured then-
Cmdr. O'Kane, who spent the rest of the war in captivity.
    Retired Navy Capt. Edward L. Beach, a personal friend of
Rear Adm. O'Kane, was the ceremony's principal speaker.
Beach recalled a visit with O'Kane after the war in a rest
camp in Guam, where O'Kane was recovering from his six
months in a Japanese prison camp.  Beach described O'Kane's
anguish when recounting his final patrol and the loss of his
ship and crew. This new ship, he said, "is more than a piece
of machinery, it embodies the virtues and ideals of Admiral
O'Kane."
    "With this wonderful ship, we honor Richard O'Kane,"
Beach said. "But the real fact is that it is he who is
honoring us. It is we, who bask in his memory, who are truly
honored by the privilege of doing so."
    In time honored tradition, the ship's sponsor, Leslie
Allen Berry, Rear Adm. O'Kane's granddaughter, gave the
order to "man our ship and bring her to life!"  Ernestine
O'Kane, wife of Rear Adm. O'Kane, was the ship's Matron of
Honor.
    Cmdr. David C. Hulse, from Mendham, N.J., commands
O'Kane and its crew of 318 officers and enlisted Sailors.
    O'Kane is only the second ship in U.S. naval history to
be commissioned in Hawaii. The Pearl Harbor-homeported
guided missile cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG 70), was
commissioned in Pearl Harbor in July 1993. Both
commissioning ceremonies were sponsored and organized by
members of Hawaii's community and the Honolulu Council Navy
League.
    O'Kane's commissioning ceremony kicked off a series of
events celebrating the centennial of the Navy's submarine
force.
    O'Kane will get underway for several weeks of testing
and qualifications of its new combat systems equipment. The
ship will do much of this testing on the ocean range off the
Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai.
    The Navy's newest ship was built at Bath Iron Works in
Bath, Maine and is the 27th destroyer of her class and the
16th built by Bath Iron Works. The ship was built at a cost
of $900 million. O'Kane's construction began with the keel
laying on May 8, 1997. The ship was launched and christened
in Bath, Maine, on March 28, 1998. O'Kane left Bath, Maine
for her transit to Hawaii on Aug. 26, 1999 and arrived in
Pearl Harbor on Oct. 15, 1999.
    This multi-mission ship is equipped with the Navy's
modern Aegis combat weapons system, which combines space-age
communication, radar and weapons technologies in a single
platform for unlimited flexibility. These versatile ships
are designed to operate independently or in support of
aircraft carrier and amphibious operations.
    O'Kane joins 12 other ships and 15,000 other Sailors
currently stationed in Hawaii.                            

-USN-