Tom Marfiak
Great ships have a way of imprinting themselves indelibly on our hearts and on the pages of history. The guided missile destroyers and cruisers of the Cold War period, representing the apogee of the shipbuilders’ art in so many ways, did more. They represented the synthesis of the lessons learned from hard combat in World War II, the advent of the jet age and high-speed data links, and set the stage for the fleet of today. Furthermore, they were the forge on which the spirit and hardiness of sailors was tempered to a fine edge. This book, told by the participants, is the story of one of the greatest of them, the USS Biddle (CG-34).
The last of the single ended guided missile frigates, her exploits, the story of the men who sailed into harm’s way, begins in a Maine shipyard, and ends, as these things must, in another shipyard years and thousands of sea miles away. The intervening years saw sailors come and go, commanding officers leave their imprint, and a proud tradition established. The adventures, both amusing and sad, are the stuff of seafarers everywhere. What is unique in the story of USS Biddle is her presence at the cutting edge of complex fleet operations throughout her career. From an accelerated training cycle after commissioning, to her final series of systems upgrades, her crews never settled for second best. Her excellence in war, in fleet exercises, in applying technology to resolving the problems of multi-platform warfare, was unquestioned throughout her experience. Those of us who were privileged to serve aboard her during those years grew in our personal and professional experience. Our memories, and the memories of those who sailed the great seas in her sister ships, and the doughty guided missile destroyers that sailed alongside, are the stuff of legend. As it is said, “they don’t make them like that any more.”
Truly they were thoroughbreds. The destroyers that ran the Atlantic convoys, or that pounded their way into the Pacific, displaced about 1800-2100 tons. Their freeboard was measured in inches or a few feet at best—and their combat range was the measure of their five-inch guns. In Vietnam, they were the gun ships, ranging freely along the shoreline, their brass accumulating on deckhouses as a measure of their combat experience. The new frigates, soon to be designated cruisers in an early “truth in advertising” campaign, were another breed entirely. They packed an enormous missile system, several sensors, air, surface and sub-surface, and a powerful communications empire built into their 8,000 ton hulls. The entire ship was driven by an intricate engineering plant that demanded constant vigilance and precision. As a sea keeper, the hull was unparalleled, rising easily to thirty foot swells. When others were driven to a stop, her great bow would continue to leverage apart the seas. In the far oceans of the world, north and south, she kept alive American naval presence.
This first hand account may mark a trend. The experience of generations of seamen and officers who grew to manhood aboard these ships would become the leaders of the next ships of the fleet. They would learn, first hand, the value of time, and training, and responsiveness. And their builders, having sent them to sea with their best, would learn how do even better, so that the future, where we are now, would be as capable as it has proven it can be.
We all treasure those nights when the stars are bright, and the wind and seas are gentler. But we learn so much more when we must overcome great obstacles, restore capability under pressure, and fight our ships in the worst of circumstances. Then we truly find out what we are made of. Then the value of our country’s trust in our training and seamanship becomes apparent. This is one of those stories. This then is the story of one Hard Charger, inspired by her first captain, sustained by successive crews, and, until the very end, a valiant contributor to the freedom we enjoy today.
Hard Charger! 