The guided-missile cruiser USS Robert Smalls, seen here in the Indian Ocean on July 22, 2023, will soon depart Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan for a homeport shift to San Diego. (Ryre Arciaga/U.S. Navy)
YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — The last U.S. Navy cruiser based in Japan will soon depart for the United States, closing out a decadelong deployment with the U.S. 7th Fleet.
The guided-missile cruiser USS Robert Smalls, formerly known as the USS Chancellorsville, will relocate to San Diego as part of a permanent change of station, according to a Tuesday news release from the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
Replacing the cruiser is the guided-missile destroyer USS Mustin, which departed Naval Base San Diego for Japan on Feb. 23, Naval Forces Japan also announced Tuesday.
Spokespeople for the 7th Fleet directed all questions to Naval Surface Forces Pacific in San Diego, which did not immediately respond to an email request for comment after hours on Wednesday.
The Robert Smalls is one of 10 remaining Ticonderoga-class cruisers in active service and the last to be homeported overseas. Its departure and the arrival of the Mustin are part of a routine force rotation, Naval Forces Japan said in its release.
Congress in the 2019 Defense Department budget set a 10-year limit for Navy ships deployed overseas following back-to-back collisions of the destroyers USS Fitzgerald and USS John S. McCain in 2017. Both were based at Yokosuka for more than a decade when they collided with commercial vessels in separate incidents.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Mustin departs San Diego for its new homeport, Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, Feb. 23, 2026. (Joshua Martinez/U.S. Navy)
The Robert Smalls first arrived in Yokosuka in 2015, when it was then known as the USS Chancellorsville, named for an 1863 battle in Virginia remembered as a major victory for Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
Former Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro announced in 2023 that the ship would be renamed for Robert Smalls, a man born into slavery in South Carolina and conscripted into the Confederate States navy who rose to fame when he hijacked the transport ship Planter and turned it over to the Union. He went on to a successful career in state and national politics.
In 2017, two years after it arrived in Yokosuka, the Robert Smalls narrowly avoided a collision with a Russian destroyer in the Philippine Sea.
The cruiser was recovering one of its helicopters “on a steady course and speed” when the Udaloy I-class destroyer Admiral Vinogradov came from behind and to the right of the U.S. vessel, “accelerated and closed to an unsafe distance” of about 50 to 100 feet apart, 7th Fleet said at the time.
The Mustin previously deployed to Yokosuka between July 2006 and June 2021. It returned to San Diego that year for a maintenance and modernization period that was estimated to last about two years, Pacific Fleet told Stars and Stripes at the time.
The Mustin’s arrival will support “the United States’ commitment to the defense of Japan” and the Pentagon’s policy to deploy “the most capable units” to the region, according to Naval Forces Japan.