USS John Young (DD-973)


 * See also USS Young for similarly named ships.

USS John Young (DD-973), named for Captain John Young USN, was a Spruance-class destroyer of the United States Navy. The ship was built by the Ingalls Shipbuilding Division of Litton Industries at Pascagoula, Mississippi.

History
John Young, following appropriate Congressional notification, became one of eight combat ships that began receiving women as crewmembers in 1994.

As part of a reorganization by the Pacific Fleet's surface ships into six core battle groups and eight destroyer squadrons, with the reorganization scheduled to be completed by 1 October 1995, and homeport changes to be completed within the following, year, John Young was reassigned to Destroyer Squadron 23.

On 28 April 1996, Navy and Coast Guard inspectors aboard John Young boarded a merchant ship thus marking the 10,000th such boarding in support of UN sanctions against Iraq. As part of a multinational maritime interception force, operating in the Persian Gulf, the team boarded an Indian flagged dhow in the Persian Gulf to make the milestone boarding. The vessel was empty and permitted to proceed.

John Young departed San Diego on 18 November 1997 en route to the Persian Gulf for a six-month deployment as part of the Middle East Force (MEF).

John Young teamed up with a Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment (LEDET) in late March 2001 for a major drug bust at sea. She was last stationed at San Diego, California.

Fate
John Young was decommissioned 30 September 2002 and stricken 6 November 2002, laid up at Bremerton, Washington NISMF. On 13 April 2004, John Young was sunk by a Mark 48 torpedo fired by USS Pasadena (SSN-752) during exercise RimPac 2004.

Two computer games, U.S.S. John Young 1 and 2, published for the Commodore 64 in 1990 and 1992, were simulations of combat featuring the John Young.