USS William H. Standley (CG-32)

USS William H. Standley (CG-32): Named for the Admiral Who Went to Moscow

Commissioned on 9 July 1966, USS William H. Standley was a Belknap-class guided missile cruiser named for Admiral William Harrison Standley, Chief of Naval Operations from 1933 to 1937 and U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1942 to 1943. Standley's ambassadorial service came at one of the most complex moments in American-Soviet relations: the wartime alliance that required collaboration between two systems with fundamentally incompatible interests. His blunt diplomatic style, more comfortable on a bridge than in the Kremlin, earned him a recall. He had been a better admiral than ambassador, but the Navy remembered him as both.

The irony of naming a Cold War missile cruiser for an admiral who had served as American ambassador to America's Cold War adversary was probably not lost on the sailors who served aboard her. CG-32 Standley was designed specifically to counter the Soviet Navy that Standley had watched being built during his time in Moscow, a circle of history running from wartime alliance through Cold War confrontation through the ship bearing his name.

Standley served through the Vietnam era earning four battle stars for Western Pacific deployments and Gulf of Tonkin operations as part of the carrier task forces conducting American naval operations in Southeast Asia. She followed the standard Cold War deployment pattern through the 1970s and 1980s before decommissioning on 15 July 1995.

Four Vietnam battle stars for a ship with a diplomatically resonant name. Tactically Acquired's USS William H. Standley (CG-32) collection honors the admiral's complex legacy and the Cold War sailors who served his name through decades of naval operations.