Cochrane (DDG 21) - Naval Cruise Book

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ceived notification that she had again won the Battle Efficiency E , as well as Departmental E 's for Oper- ations and Supply, the A for ASW. She deployed to WESTPAC in February of 1971 and again in August of 1973, primarily operating in the South China Sea sup- porting the effort in Vietnam. Her third overhaul com- menced in June of 1973 and included the installation of DDG-TDS and the STANDARD Digital Fire Control System update. COCHRANE escorted the USS CON- STELLATION into the Persian Gulfg conducted oper- ations in the Indian Ocean and assisted in the evacuation of Vietnam during her seventh deployment which com- menced in October of 1974. COCHRANE was never wanting for something to do between deployments. If it was not any of a dozen major inspections to prepare for, it was a major fleet exercise. The paperwork was endless: as soon as the proud ship was painted out it needed to be painted again and nobody can ever remember a time in her entire history that there wasn't at least one passageway that was secured due to wet wax. She headed West again in April of 1976 to join the Seventh Fleet. Not long after she returned she en- tered the yards for the fourth time in overhaul. She painted on Departmental E 's in Supply, Gunnery, Operations, Missiles and the Communications NC . COCHRANE passed her OPPE the first time around in July of 1978 and earned the nickname Fastest DDG in PEARL HARBOR following her highly successful full power trial. Capt. C. J. Carmody, Commander Fleet Training Group, called COCHRANE's REFTRA per- formance . . the finest noted during the past year for U.S. Navy DDG, DD and FF type ships. Similar out- standing grades on her Nuclear Weapons Acceptance Inspection maintained COCHRANE's reputation as NUMBER ON E . COCHRANE departed on her ninth deployment on 24 January 1979, but this time she left Hawaiian waters on a southerly course. Following the initiation of well over three hundred lowly pollywogs into the ancient my- stcries of the domain of Neptunus Rex, COCHRANE paid a call on the tropical islands of Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and New Caledonia, as well as New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Philippines, Guam and Midway to round out her first SOUTH PAC deployment. USS COCHRANE is a unit of Destroyer Squadron TWENTY FIVE and is homeported in Pearl Harobr, HAWAII.

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