USS Pinckney Returns From Historic Deployment

SAN DIEGO (NNS) -- Sailors aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Pinckney (DDG 91) returned to San Diego Feb. 24, after a five-month deployment to the Western Pacific in support of the global war on terrorism (GWOT).

Pinckney made port visits to Guam, Singapore, Australia, Fiji and Hawaii. While in Guam, Pinckney became the first guided-missile destroyer to refuel and replenish the Mark Five (MK V), a high-performance combatant craft used by Navy SEALs. Pinckney was also the first DDG to embark two HH-60H Seahawk helicopters with their detachment, 20 Marine Corps personnel of a Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team (FAST) detachment and a five-person surgical team, for an exercise simulating an Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB) in support of the GWOT.

“We knew we were accomplishing something that had never been done before by providing a new weapon in the arsenal of the Navy/Marine Corps team and fully leveraging the fleet's finest Sailors and Marines in the process,” said Cmdr. James J. Malloy, Pinckney’s commanding officer. “Each Sailor and Marine was humbly aware that we were blazing new ground. We were careful to capture lessons learned for improvement along the way.”

Pinckney participated in the Pacific 2006 International Maritime Exposition in Sydney, Australia’s, Exhibition Centre. This was a major international event that showcased the latest in maritime and naval technology from around the world.

“Australia was a place for us to show off our ship to high-ranking officials and display what we are able to accomplish while on deployment,” said Sonar Technician Surface 2nd Class (SW) Stephanie Murchison. “As a plankowner, I am proud to show off my ship and what I did to make it successful.”

“This deployment was a success due primarily to the hard work, preparation and resourcefulness of the Sailors aboard,” said Malloy. “We are happy to return home, but like our namesake, we are always proud to serve.”

060130-N-0000X-018 Sydney, Australia (Jan. 30, 2006) – The guided missile destroyer USS Pinckney (DDG 91) transit pass the World Famous Sydney Opera house as it prepares to make a scheduled port visit to Sydney. Pinckney will be participating in the Pacific 2006 International Maritime Exposition at Sydney’s Exhibition Centre. This is a major international event that showcase the latest in maritime and naval technology from throughout the world. Royal Australian Navy photo by Able Seaman Paul Berry (RELEASED)

http://www.pinckney.navy.mil/shipinfo/bioandcrest.htm

STORY OF PINCKEY'S HEROISM
"Of the six men in the handling room crew adjacent to Repair Two, four were killed. The other two were knocked out by the blast and came to in the dark, smoke-filled wreckage littered with the torn bodies of their shipmates. Jim Bagwell, a Third Class Gunner's Mate, groped his way, only half alive, through the flames to where a shattered hatch let in light from the hangar deck above. As he started painfully up the short vertical ladder, William Pinckney, Third Class Officers' Cook and the only other survivor, found the same hatch. In the first seconds after the bomb. the burnt area was worse than any imaginable inferno. Flames towered out of the smoke that burned the eyes and lungs. There were dark holes where the steel deck had been. Even a half-conscious man could smell gasoline enough to blow the whole deck again any second.
Carefully, little Bill Pinckney helped Bagwell up the ladder, but when the gunner's mate got his hands on the hatch combing at the top he yelled sharply with pain and fell back to the deck unconscious. With fires above and below, the hangar deck hatch was hot enough to sear the flesh. Nearly blind with smoke and barely able to breathe, still in shock and his ears ringing from the bomb blast a few feet away a few seconds ago, Pinckney picked Bagwell up and lifted him through the hatch to safety before he climbed up himself."

- Excerpt from Edward P. Stafford's The Big E, The story of the USS ENTERPRISE

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