USS Edson - DD-946
International Call Sign: November-Juliet-Romeo-Echo
USS Edson (DD-946) was a Forrest Sherman-class destroyer 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.
Edson was decommissioned on 15 December 1988, and towed to the Philadelphia Inactive Ships Maintenance Facility for storage. At the time of her decommissioning, she was the last all-gun destroyer in the United States Navy.
Edson served as a museum ship at the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in New York City from 30 June 1989 to 14 June 2004 when she was replaced by a Concorde airliner. The ship was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1990.
In 2004 the ship was towed to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where hull repairs were completed, and then towed back to the Philadelphia Inactive Ships Maintenance Facility for storage. The Saginaw Valley Naval Ship Museum at Bay City, Michigan, and the Wisconsin Naval Ship Association at Sheboygan, Wisconsin, both submitted applications to the Naval Sea Systems Command to relocate Edson and reinstate her as a museum ship in their respective locations. The Bay City proposal was successful.
The Navy declared USS Edson seaworthy on 17 July 2012 and she was cleared to begin her journey to Michigan on 18 July with arrival at the museum site on 7 August 2012. After roughly a year at a temporary mooring at Wirt Stone docks, she was floated up the Saginaw river to her permanent mooring site, and on Tuesday, 7 May 2013 at 15:01 hours, USS Edson arrived at her permanent mooring site in Bangor Township, Michigan.
