Updated at 12:30 p.m., Oct. 20, 2014
Sailors from one guided-missile destroyer came home to San Diego Monday following a seven-month deployment, while the crew of another was poised to head out.
The 300 sailors of the USS Wayne E. Meyer returned from an independent deployment to the western Pacific Ocean, along with a detachment of “Blue Hawks” from Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 78, based in Coronado.
The 509-foot-long vessel maintained the Navy’s presence in the region, and the sailors took part in several community relations projects at different ports-of-call.
The ship is named for the late Rear Adm. Wayne E. Meyer, considered the father of the Navy’s Aegis air defense system.
The Blue Hawks flew more than 820 hours with two MH-60R aircraft in missions like anti-submarine warfare, medical evacuations and supply replenishments. They also participated in several international exercises.
This afternoon, the USS Milius will head out for an exercise that will involve vessels from Canada and Japan, and continue on for its own western Pacific deployment.
The Navy announced last week that the 505-foot Milius is one of two San Diego-based vessels that will be transferred to Yokosuka, Japan. The Navy has been gradually rotating ships that have recently been overhauled and received technological improvements into the Asian theater.
The Milius is scheduled to move to Japan in just under three years. The USS Benfold is set to go next summer.
The Milius is named for Navy Capt. Paul L. Milius, who ordered his seven fellow crew members to bail out as he held their badly damaged aircraft steady before it crashed over Laos in 1968. All seven were later rescued, but Milius was declared missing in action.
His body never recovered and he was later presumed killed in action. The aircraft was damaged by enemy fire. Milius was awarded the Navy Cross posthumously in 1978.
—City News Service