USS Richmond K. Turner (CG-20)

USS Richmond K. Turner (CG-20): Named for the Master of Amphibious Warfare

Commissioned on 13 June 1964, USS Richmond K. Turner was a Leahy-class guided missile cruiser named for Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, one of the most consequential naval officers of World War II. Turner developed and commanded the amphibious forces that carried the Pacific War from Guadalcanal to Okinawa, landing hundreds of thousands of troops under fire across five years of island-hopping warfare. His mastery of amphibious operations was a decisive factor in American victory in the Pacific. Naming a cruiser for him honored the doctrine as much as the man.

Turner earned six Vietnam battle stars and three Gulf War battle stars, nine total, one of the higher combined totals in the Leahy class. Her Vietnam deployments placed her in the Gulf of Tonkin through some of the war's most contested periods, providing air defense coverage for the carrier task forces that formed the naval striking arm of American operations in Southeast Asia.

Her Gulf War service came in a different strategic context: Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990 and 1991, where the Cold War Navy designed for carrier escort and nuclear deterrence found itself in conventional limited war against a regional power. Turner's Leahy-class systems remained capable enough to contribute meaningfully to coalition naval operations, earning three Gulf War battle stars three decades after her commissioning.

Turner was decommissioned on 28 June 1995. Nine battle stars across Vietnam and the Gulf War. Tactically Acquired's USS Richmond K. Turner (CG-20) collection honors the admiral's legacy and every sailor who served aboard the ship that bore his name through the full arc of Cold War naval service.