Figure 1: USS Belknap (CG-26) in the Kithira Strait off of Greece on October 1975. View from the Soviet ship Krasny Krim ( a Kashin class DDG). Photograph courtesy of Eugene Ivkin. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 2: USS Belknap (CG-26) in the Kithira Strait off of Greece on October 1975. View from the Soviet ship Krasny Krim ( a Kashin class DDG). Photograph courtesy of Eugene Ivkin. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 3: USS Belknap (CG-26) in the Kithira Strait off of Greece on October 1975. View from the Soviet ship Krasny Krim ( a Kashin class DDG). Photograph courtesy of Eugene Ivkin. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 4: USS Belknap (CG-26) in the Kithira Strait off of Greece on October 1975. View from the Soviet ship Krasny Krim ( a Kashin class DDG). Photograph courtesy of Eugene Ivkin. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 5: USS Belknap (CG-26) in the Kithira Strait off of Greece on October 1975. View from the Soviet ship Krasny Krim ( a Kashin class DDG). Photograph courtesy of Eugene Ivkin. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 6: USS Belknap (CG-26) was heavily damaged and caught fire when it collided with the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) during night operations in the Ionian Sea on 22 November 1975. In this photograph, firefighters aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Claude V. Ricketts (DDG-5) direct spray from their hoses onto the fire on board Belknap. US Navy Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 7: USS Belknap (CG-26) was heavily damaged and caught fire when it collided with the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) during night operations in the Ionian Sea on 22 November 1975. In this photograph, firefighters aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Claude V. Ricketts (DDG-5) direct spray from their hoses onto the fire on board Belknap. US Navy Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 8: Official US Navy photograph taken on 23 November 1975, the day after Belknap’s collision with John F. Kennedy. Though essentially intact up to the weather deck, her aluminum superstructure burned and melted. This significantly influenced the decision to build the Arleigh Burke class destroyers with steel superstructures. US Navy Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 9: An overhead amidships view of the damaged superstructure of the guided-missile cruiser Belknap on 23 November 1975, the day after she collided with the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy during night operations in the Ionian Sea. US Navy photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 10: USS Belknap (CG-26) on 10 May 1980, the day she was re-commissioned after completing extensive repairs due to her collision with the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67). Courtesy Dale Hargrave. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 11: Port bow view of Belknap (CG-26) in 1983, location unknown. US Navy photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 12: Belknap (CG-26) taken sometime in 1985, location unknown. After her collision with USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67), she was rebuilt and then selected to serve as the flagship for the commander of the Sixth Fleet. This is the flagship configuration. Note the added deck house in front of the superstructure. Courtesy Demetrius J. C. Carter, SM1 USN. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 13: A port bow view of the guided-missile cruiser USS Belknap (CG-26) and the guided-missile destroyer USS Conyngham (DDG-17) moored at a pier, with the city of Gaeta, Italy, in the background. Photograph by JO1 Burke, 1 November 1989. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 14: A port bow view of the guided-missile cruiser USS Belknap (CG-26), flagship of the US Sixth Fleet, 21 July 1992. Photograph by JO1 James Slater. US Navy Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Named after Rear Admiral George Belknap (1832-1903), the 8,957-ton USS Belknap (CG-26) was the lead ship of a class of guided-missile cruisers for the US Navy. The ship was built by the Bath Iron Works at Bath, Maine, and was commissioned on 7 November 1964. Belknap was approximately 547 feet long and 55 feet wide, had a top speed of 34 knots, and had a crew of approximately 477 officers and men (610 when it acted as a flagship). The cruiser was heavily armed with one 5-inch gun, two 3-inch guns, one Terrier missile/SM-2ER launcher, six 15.5-inch torpedoes, Harpoon missile launchers, and two 20-mm Phalanx Close-in Weapons Systems (CIWS). Belknap was also loaded with various radar and sonar systems.
After completing her sea trials and shakedown cruise in 1965, Belknap was assigned to the US Navy’s Atlantic Fleet. For roughly the next year, Belknap completed numerous training exercises, and patrol and escort missions. In August 1966, Belknap was part of a major NATO deployment just off the coast of Norway and north of the Arctic Circle. She was joined by other American warships, as well as ships from the Norwegian and British navies. After finishing this assignment, Belknap returned to her home port at Norfolk, Virginia, and then headed for the Mediterranean Sea in September 1966 for a six-month tour of duty with the Sixth Fleet.
A year later in September 1967, Belknap was ordered to steam to the Pacific and served off the coast of Vietnam. After the ship arrived in the Gulf of Tonkin, Belknap served as a powerful floating radar station for Task Force 77 of the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet. Belknap monitored the positions of all US and enemy aircraft over the gulf. The ship was also used for various search-and-rescue duties before leaving Vietnam in early 1968.
Belknap spent the rest of 1968 and the first three months of 1969 in dry dock being overhauled. After that, she completed some trials and training exercises before being sent back to the Gulf of Tonkin in early 1970. Belknap left Vietnam in March 1970 and arrived back at Norfolk in May. In September, Belknap was sent back to the Mediterranean and joined the Sixth Fleet for a second time. While there, she was awarded the Meritorious Unit Commendation.
Belknap remained with the Sixth Fleet, but on the night of 22 November 1975, the cruiser was severely damaged by the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) in a collision in the Ionian Sea off the coast of Sicily. A huge fire broke out on board Belknap and quickly spread throughout the ship. Other American warships, such as the destroyer USS Claude V. Ricketts (DDG-5), rushed to assist the burning cruiser. The fire was so intense that it melted the aluminum superstructure of the ship, gutting Belknap right down to the deck level. The fire was finally put out the next day, after it claimed the lives of seven crewmembers and injured 47 others. What was left of Belknap was towed back to the United States to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The ship was decommissioned on 20 December 1975.
Belknap was basically reconstructed at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard from 30 January 1976 to 10 May 1980, when she was re-commissioned into the Navy. Belknap returned to the Sixth Fleet and played a brief role in the American intervention in Lebanon in 1983. Belknap also served as the flagship of the Sixth Fleet from May 1985 to March 1986.
In December 1989, Belknap served as the American flagship for the Malta Summit between President George H.W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. President Bush maintained his sleeping quarters on board Belknap, but because of stormy weather the meetings actually took place on board the Soviet cruise ship Maxim Gorkiy. Belknap also won awards for combat preparedness in 1988, 1989, and 1994, and earned three more Meritorious Unit Commendations in 1989, 1992, and 1994.
USS Belknap was decommissioned for the last time on 15 February 1995 and was sunk as a target for gunnery practice on 24 September 1998. Because the tragic fire on board Belknap melted its aluminum superstructure, it was determined by the US Navy that only steel would be used in the superstructures of future warships. That decision was reflected in the next major class of US warships, the USS Arleigh Burke class destroyers. All of the ships were built with steel superstructures.
