Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 7, 1995 TAG: 9510090038
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium
``We're here to complete the celebration of a generation of excellence,'' Raymond Peet, a retired vice admiral and former assistant secretary of defense, said at the ship's deactivation ceremony.
On a rainy October day in 1962, with Peet as its first commanding officer, the Bainbridge was commissioned and sent into the Atlantic for its first cruise. A couple of weeks later, the Cuban missile crisis erupted.
Last year, the Bainbridge was the U.S. flagship in the Adriatic for Navy enforcement of United Nations sanctions against Bosnia.
``This ship has been part of every interesting event that has shaped U.S. history in the past 33 years,'' said Capt. James Brown, the guided missile cruiser's current skipper.
The Bainbridge was the Navy's first nuclear-powered frigate. It, along with the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and the cruiser USS Long Beach, conducted a global cruise in 1964 - Operation Sea Orbit - to showcase U.S. development of naval nuclear propulsion.
The Bainbridge later saw service in the Gulf of Tonkin and South China Sea during the Vietnam war and in the Arabian Sea during the Persian Gulf War. It was reclassified as a cruiser in a 1975 Navy reorganization.
Peet, in remarks to about 500 people who attended the ceremony at the Norfolk Naval Base, said he was handpicked as the Bainbridge's first skipper by Adm. Hyman Rickover, the founder of the nuclear Navy.
His competitor for the job was Elmo Zumwalt, who later became chief of naval operations, Peet said.
Later, Peet said, Rickover told him that he was chosen because he had obtained an advanced engineering degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ``So you can chalk one up to higher education,'' he said.
But later, Peet said, Rickover stopped taking his phone calls after he allowed a subordinate to leave the service for a post-degree program, against Rickover's wishes. It was during that time that Peet encountered his first problem with the Bainbridge's nuclear reactors.
Peet said he called Rickover and told the admiral's secretary to pass along two words: ``stuck rods.''
``He came on the line immediately,'' the former skipper said.
The Bainbridge got its name from Commodore William R. Bainbridge, a hero of the War of 1812. Three other ships, including the Navy's first destroyer, commissioned in 1903, also have carried the name.
by CNB