USS Edson (DD-946) is a Forrest Sherman-class destroyer, formerly of the United States Navy, built by Bath Iron Works in Maine in 1958. Her home port was Long Beach, California and she initially served in the Western Pacific/Far East, operating particularly in the Taiwan Strait and off the coast of Vietnam. Her exceptionally meritorious service in 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin was recognized with the first of three Navy Unit Commendations. During the following years she was shelled by North Vietnamese land forces, and apparently received friendly fire from the US Air Force.
Following an onboard fire in 1974, Edson returned to the West Pacific and was later commended for her roles in the evacuation of Phnom Penh and Saigon.
She was decommissioned in 1988 and struck on January 31, 1989. In 1989 she became a museum ship at the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in New York and returned to Navy lay-up in 2004. It was agreed in 2012 that she should again become a museum ship, at Bay City, Michigan. A National Historic Landmark, she is one of only two surviving Forest Sherman-class destroyers. |