USS Kidd (DDG-100)

USS Kidd (DDG-100) is an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer in the United States Navy. She is the third Navy ship named after Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, who was on board USS Arizona (BB-39) during the attack on Pearl Harbor, and was the first American flag officer to die in World War II. The ship is part of Destroyer Squadron Twenty-one (DESRON-21) of Carrier Strike Group Three which is currently headed by the Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74).

Kidd was christened on 22 January 2005 at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Commander Richard E. Thomas of Westwood, New Jersey, served as her first commanding officer until February 2008. Commander Charles P. Good of Huntington Beach, California, took Kidd on her maiden deployment.

The ship was damaged at the shipyard docks during Hurricane Katrina on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, requiring a return to dry dock for repairs, delaying her commissioning and deployment with the navy. She was commissioned in Galveston, Texas on 9 June 2007. She is currently homeported in San Diego.

On 5 January 2012, the Kidd rescued the 13-member crew of an Iranian-flagged fishing vessel, the Al Molai, from Somali pirates who had been holding them hostage for over 40 days, capturing fifteen pirates in the process with no casualties.



In popular culture
In the 2009 science fiction movie Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the USS Kidd fires at and destroys a Decepticon named Devastator with a railgun (mounted in place of the standard cannon) during the movie's climactic battle in Egypt. Moments earlier in the film the captain of the USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) queues the USS Kidd into action but the hull of the USS Preble (DDG-88) is shown instead. The footage of the combat information center and the forecastle with the railgun was shot on the USS Kidd.