USS John Basilone to make homeport switch to Rota

NAPLES, Italy — A Florida-based warship named after one of the most decorated Marines in U.S. history will become the sixth destroyer homeported at a Navy base in Spain, completing a long-wanted expansion of NATO firepower in Europe, the service announced this week.

USS John Basilone will shift its homeport from Mayport, Fla., to Naval Station Rota this fall, U.S. Fleet Forces Command announced in a post to its official Facebook page Wednesday.

The command didn’t say exactly when Basilone, commissioned in 2024, will arrive at NS Rota or offer other details. The Navy typically does not announce the specifics of ship movements and other operations, citing operational security.

Basilone’s homeport switch follows a May 2023 pact with Spain to increase the U.S. destroyer presence in the country from four ships to six. The destroyers work in conjunction with land-based Aegis ballistic missile defense sites to protect Europe.

Sailors board the USS John Basilone in New York, Nov. 9, 2024. (Danny Gonzalez/U.S. Marine Corps)

Sailors stand aboard the USS John Basilone in New York, Nov. 9, 2024. (Theoplis Stewart II/U.S. Navy)

In 2024, the first of those two additional destroyers, USS Oscar Austin, joined USS Roosevelt, USS Arleigh Burke, USS Bulkeley and USS Paul Ignatius as part of Destroyer Squadron 60.

U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. Sixth Fleet declined to comment Thursday. Previously, 6th Fleet officials have said the additional destroyers provide allies with added security and assurance.

The announcement of Basilone’s pending arrival comes just days after NATO’s top military commander warned that the security environment in Europe is unsettled and likely to become even more so over the next several years.

Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, NATO supreme allied commander in Europe and head of U.S. European Command, said that the growing reach of drones puts every European country, not just Poland and the Baltic states, on the front line of potential attacks.

The threat extends across the entire alliance, including North America, Grynkewich told European Union parliamentarians in Brussels on Monday.

Increasingly, Europe is confronting unidentified drone incursions at military bases, airports and other locations, suspected sabotage of undersea cables, and other activities below the threshold of open warfare. European leaders have blamed Russia for many of the incidents.

Rota’s destroyers play a sizable role in European and Middle East deterrence and defense, patrolling waters from the High North to the eastern Mediterranean Sea, around most of Africa and in the Middle East.

For example, Rota-based destroyers operating in the eastern Mediterranean have protected Israel against Iranian missiles and defended commercial ships against Houthi militant attacks in the Red Sea.

The U.S. began keeping destroyers in Spain in 2014, beginning with USS Ross and USS Donald Cook.

The vessels are armed with vertically launched anti-submarine rockets, Tomahawk missiles and MK-46 torpedoes. They are designed for anti-air, anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, and the most recent versions can simultaneously defend against aircraft and missiles threats, according to the Navy.

Stars and Stripes reporter John Vandiver, based in Stuttgart, Germany, contributed to this report.