{"id":487428,"date":"2026-10-06T23:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T23:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/487428\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T23:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T23:52:10","slug":"one-of-the-navys-last-cruisers-headed-to-san-diego-for-decommissioning-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/487428\/","title":{"rendered":"One of the Navy\u2019s last cruisers headed to San Diego for decommissioning \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The USS Robert Smalls, one of the Navy\u2019s last five cruisers, has left forward deployment in Japan and is en route to San Diego, where it will be prepared for decommissioning.<\/p>\n<p>The Navy has been removing Ticonderoga-class cruisers from the fleet because their role has been supplanted by Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, which are known as the \u201cworkhorses of the Navy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This is an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandiegouniontribune.com\/2025\/08\/10\/navy-is-retiring-the-last-of-its-storied-cruisers-to-san-diego-veterans-they-were-the-pinnacle-of-naval-power\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">emotional moment<\/a> for many older, retired sailors, because the Cold War-era \u201cTicos,\u201d as they\u2019re called, were famous for their sleek design, huge firepower and air-defense equipment, which helped them shield aircraft carriers from attack. The Navy built 27 of the cruisers from 1980 to 1994.<\/p>\n<p>Smalls will join the three other Ticos that operate out of San Diego. Two of those ships, the USS Princeton and USS Chosen, are on deployment. A third vessel, the USS Cape St. George, is in San Diego.<\/p>\n<p>The fifth, USS Gettysburg, is based in Norfolk, Va.<\/p>\n<p>The Robert Smalls\u2019 current name is meant to honor a Civil War-era maritime pilot who commandeered a Confederate ship in 1862 and turned it over to the Union forces. The ship was previously known as the Chancellorsville, in honor of the Battle of Chancellorsville, a Confederate Civil War victory. A government commission made the name change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The USS Robert Smalls, one of the Navy\u2019s last five cruisers, has left forward deployment in Japan and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,181,23,1703,100,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":["post-487428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-california","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-military","tag-news","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}