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USS ''Biddle'' (CG-34), also DLG-34, named for Captain Nicholas Biddle of the Continental Navy, was a guided missile cruiser of the United States Navy. Her call sign was "Hard Charger" ''Biddle'' was laid down by the Bath Iron Works Corporation at Bath, Maine on 9 December 1963, launched on 2 July 1965 and commissioned on 21 January 1967. She saw action in Vietnam, where she is believed to be the last ship to down an enemy aircraft with hand-loaded guns. She was involved in the Gulf of Sidra incident in 1981. The cruiser was decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 30 November 1993 and sold for scrap to Metro Marine Corporation of Philadelphia on 4 December 2000. ==History== Five months after commissioning, ''Biddle'' completed preparations for her final acceptance trials, concluded those trials, and conducted shakedown training out of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. She completed shakedown on 29 May and headed, via Yorktown, Virginia--to Boston, Massachusetts. The Destroyer Leader "guided-missile" arrived in Boston on 2 June and began post-shakedown availability at the Boston Naval Shipyard five days later. ''Biddle'' completed the availability on 30 October and got underway for her new home port—Norfolk, Virginia--the following day. The warship entered Hampton Roads early in November, but stayed only four days, putting to sea on 7 November for the first in a series of exercise and weapons-qualifications cruises to the Caribbean. Those at-sea periods occupied her until mid-December when she began holiday standdown and preparations for overseas movement. On 22 January 1968, ''Biddle'' put to sea bound ultimately for the combat zone off the coast of Vietnam. Along the way, she transited the Panama Canal and made stops at Pearl Harbor and Guam before reaching her base of operations at Subic Bay in the Philippines on 24 February. After an availability, the guided-missile frigate departed Subic Bay for Vietnamese waters on 3 March. She entered port at Danang, South Vietnam, on 5 March and, the following day, was on her way for a PIRAZ (Positive Identification Radar Advisory Zone) station. For the next four months, ''Biddle'' alternated between periods at sea—either carrying out PIRAZ duty, serving as an antiair warfare (AAW) picket, or acting as a sea-air rescue (SAR) vessel—with time in port at Subic Bay or Yokosuka, Japan. On 14 July, the warship completed her final tour of duty off the coast of Vietnam. She returned to Subic Bay for the period 16 to 19 July and then got underway for the voyage home. During the voyage, she completed a circumnavigation of the world and visited such diverse places as Singapore, Lourenco Marques (now Maputo) in Mozambique, the Cape Verde Islands, Lisbon in Portugal, and Copenhagen in Denmark. The warship arrived back in Norfolk on 12 September and remained in port until mid-November. On the 15th, ''Biddle'' got underway for missile exercises in the West Indies. She returned to Norfolk on 25 November and remained there through the end of the year. On 13 January 1969, she got underway from Norfolk bound for Philadelphia. The warship spent five days there for fire fighting and damage control training, returning to Norfolk on 20 January. ''Biddle''s sojourn at Norfolk lasted until 28 March when she put to sea, bound for the Caribbean. While there, the warship conducted tests on recent modifications to her radar and made six missile shoots. Returning to the Hampton Roads area, she loaded missiles, torpedoes, and ammunition at Yorktown, Virginia, on 30 April before reentering Norfolk on 1 May. On 26 May, ''Biddle'' departed Norfolk on her way to the western Pacific. She transited the Panama Canal on 31 May and 1 June and then set a course for Hawaii. The guided-missile frigate stopped at Pearl Harbor from 10 to 12 June before resuming her voyage. She made a brief stop at Guam for fuel on the 20th and arrived in Subic Bay on 24 June. After a four-day stop, ''Biddle'' stood out of Subic Bay on her way to South Vietnam. The warship made a brief stop at Danang on 30 June before relieving the cruiser on 1 July as strike-support and search-and-rescue ship. The guided-missile frigate kept watch off the Vietnamese coast for the next month. The only event of note occurred near the end of the month when she rescued several North Vietnamese fishermen adrift in their boat. Relieved by ''Chicago'' on 1 August, ''Biddle'' dropped the fishermen off at Danang and then headed for the Philippines. The warship spent a week at Subic Bay and three days at Manila before heading back to Vietnam on 13 August. On 15 August, she relieved ''Chicago'' on station in the Gulf of Tonkin. She served as strike-support and search-and-rescue ship until 22 August when she relieved ''Chicago'' as PIRAZ (Positive Identification Radar Advisory Zone) ship. The warship alternated between those two tasks until 10 September when she was relieved on PIRAZ station by the destroyer . The guided-missile frigate entered Yokosuka, Japan on 14 September, after a brief stop at Subic Bay to disembark her helicopter detachment. ''Biddle'' completed a two-week tender availability on 27 September and departed Yokosuka for the combat zone. Steaming by way of Subic Bay, she arrived back on Yankee Station on 2 October. Between the 2d and the 6th, Commander, Destroyer Squadron (ComDesRon) 3, rode in ''Biddle'' and served as antiair warfare coordinator for Task Force (TF) 77. On the 6th, the warship resumed PIRAZ duty, relieving ''Jouett''. For almost a month, she operated alternately as PIRAZ ship and as strike-support and search-and-rescue ship. Relieved by the cruiser on 27 October, ''Biddle'' put into Hong Kong on 29 October for a six-day liberty call. The guided-missile frigate departed Hong Kong on 4 November, made a fuel stop at Subic Bay, and then headed back to Vietnam. She arrived back in the Gulf of Tonkin on 7 November and spent the next six days serving as plane guard for the aircraft carrier . On 13 November, the warship cleared Vietnamese waters. She stopped at Subic Bay from 15 to 18 November and then embarked on the long voyage home. After a brief fuel stop at Guam and a three-day liberty call at San Francisco, California, ''Biddle'' arrived in the Canal Zone on 16 December. She completed the canal transit on the 17th and shaped a course for Norfolk. Upon her arrival in Norfolk on 21 December, her crew began a combination post-deployment and holiday standdown. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「USS Biddle (CG-34)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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