The guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell returns to Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, on March 2, 2024. (Jennessa Davey/Stars and Stripes)
YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — The guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell returned to the 7th Fleet on Saturday after nearly four years of maintenance and upgrades in Oregon.
Taylor Pascual, wife of Chief John David Pascual, a hospital corpsman, was among the family members who stood in the cold and waited for the ship to dock.
“I’m very proud of him for being part of everything McCampbell is doing,” she said.
The McCampbell becomes the 10th warship in Destroyer Squadron 15, the principal surface force for 7th Fleet and routinely the escorts for the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group.
The ship was assigned to Yokosuka from 2007 to 2020. It left for Portland, Oregon, in July 2020 for its mid-life modernization, including upgrades that fortified its “warfighting capability,” according to a news release Saturday from 7th Fleet.
“We are excited for the opportunity to rejoin 7th Fleet and the forward-deployed ships in Yokosuka,” the McCampbell’s skipper, Cmdr. James Pierce III, said in the release. “Our Sailors have trained diligently over the past four years since our departure to prepare for our return to Japan.”
Loved ones reunite as the guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell returns to Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, on March 2, 2024. (Jennessa Davey/Stars and Stripes)
Sailors man the rails as the guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell returns to Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, on March 2, 2024. (Jennessa Davey/Stars and Stripes)
USS McCampbell skipper Cmdr. James Pierce III salutes upon the guided-missile destroyer’s return to Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, on March 2, 2024. (Jennessa Davey/Stars and Stripes)
During its previous 13 years in Japan, the destroyer regularly steamed through the Taiwan Strait and took part in freedom-of-navigation operations near the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea.
It also participated in disaster-relief efforts, including missions following a 2008 earthquake and tsunami off the coast of Indonesia and Operation Tomodachi after an earthquake and tsunami devasted northeastern Japan in 2011.
After a monthlong “acclimation period,” the McCampbell will be fully capable of taking on missions in the Western Pacific, said Capt. Justin Harts, commander of Task Force 71 and Destroyer Squadron 15.
