DATE: Monday, June 30, 1997                 TAG: 9706300049

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B7   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   59 lines

DESTROYER DONALD K. ROSS FINALLY IS READY TO HEAD HOME TO NORFOLK SHIP'S NAMESAKE WAS AWARDED THE MEDAL OF HONOR FOR HEROICS AT PEARL HARBOR.

The 330 sailors aboard the destroyer Donald K. Ross, who placed their new ship into commission Saturday in Galveston, can't thank their Texas hosts enough for their hospitality - especially the outdoor barbecues.

But now they are eager to get home to their new port in Norfolk.

Except for a weekend or two when they could get away, most have not been with their families in more than a year.

``We are very excited about getting back to Hampton Roads,'' said Cmdr. Jeff Ginnow, the new ship's captain. ``We've been gone for a very long time.''

The Ross is the Navy's newest Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the 21st to be built of a planned total of about 28.

Constructed at Litton/Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss., it was commissioned in a rare evening ceremony in Galveston Saturday.

The commissioning took place in Galveston, Ginnow said, mainly because he is from Texas and the Galveston Navy League showed interest in sponsoring the ceremony.

In addition, he noted, the Navy wouldn't give him enough money to take the ship to its namesake's hometown in Washington state, nor to Hawaii, where Donald Ross became a hero.

Ross was a retired Navy captain who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroics in Pearl Harbor during the Japanese air raid of Dec. 7, 1941. Then a junior warrant officer, Ross was in the forward dynamo room of the battleship Nevada when the ship came under attack.

He forced his men to flee to safety while he remained on duty. Temporarily blinded by smoke and steam, he eventually fell unconscious.

``Upon being rescued and resuscitated, he returned and secured the forward dynamo room and proceeded to the after dynamo room, where he was later again rendered unconscious by exhaustion,'' his citation reads. Recovering again, he returned to his station until directed to abandon it.

Ross, born in Beverly, Kan., enlisted in the Navy in June 1929, rose through the enlisted ranks and was warranted a machinist in 1940. Awarded the Medal of Honor and commissioned an ensign, he participated in the landing at Normandy and southern France later in the war and retired in 1956 as a captain with 27 years' service.

Helen Lou Ross of Port Orchard, Wash., christened the ship in honor of her late husband last spring.

The ship's crew, which formed as a pre-commissioning unit in Norfolk, where it attended a variety of classes, moved aboard the Ross April 21.

While most families already have settled in the Hampton Roads area, others are still spread around the country, said Ginnow. Those families will begin making the move now that most schools are on summer vacation.

The 505-foot, 8,850-ton destroyer serves primarily as a screening ship for carrier battle groups, but it also has a land strike capability with Tomahawk missiles. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Navy Secretary John H. Dalton attended commissioning ceremonies for

the destroyer Donald K. Ross in Galveston, Texas, on Saturday. KEYWORDS: COMMISSIONING

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu