The visit of the USS Conyngham (DDG-17) to Aalborg in northern Denmark on July 2-5, 1988, could have been a routine port visit. Following only two months after the so-called port visit election, which was provoked by a parliamentary majority instructing the minority government to inform visiting warships of Denmark's ban against nuclear weapons on Danish territory in peacetime, USS Conyngham's visit instead became a test of Denmark's willingness to continue to accept nuclear weapons in its ports.

USS Conyngham was a nuclear-capable destroyer. A sister-ship to the USS Buchanan (DDG-14) that was used to test New Zealand's nuclear ban in February 1985, the USS Conyngham was equipped with the nuclear-capable ASROC (Anti-Submarine Rocket) weapon system. ASROC could carry either a conventional or a nuclear warhead, but it was not possible to tell from a distance what type was on board the ship. Therefore the USS Conyngham's nuclear "fingerprint" was all that could give an indication. And there were plenty of nuclear indications.

During the 1980s, the years prior to the visit in Aalborg, USS Conyngham passed eight nuclear weapons certification inspections. A briefing paper on the USS Conyngham's armament and history was published in Denmark by Greenpeace shortly before the visit. The briefing paper included a description of the ship's nuclear profile as revealed by official navy documents. (download briefing paper from right-hand column)

What was not known at the time, however, was that USS Conyngham in the months immediately prior to the arrival in Denmark underwent additional nuclear weapons certification in connection with a weapons onload following a brief dry-dock period. The last inspection, a Nuclear Weapons (Navy) Technical Proficiency Inspection (NTPI), was held on April 26, 1988, only two months before the destroyer arrived in Aalborg. The following is a chronology of the nuclear weapons related events on the ship in the months prior to and following the port visit to Denmark:

After the visit to Denmark, USS Conyngham continued to Cobh, Ireland. Like Denmark, Ireland also has a policy against nuclear weapons on its territory (including ports), but furthermore prohibits visits by warships taking part in naval exercises. USS Conyngham sailed straight from Cobh to the large-scale Teamwork 88 NATO exercise in the Norwegian Sea. After the exercise, the ship visited Trondheim in Norway, a country which like Denmark and Ireland do not allow nuclear weapons on its territory.

In 1989, the U.S. Navy began the process of retiring three tactical naval nuclear weapons systems (SUBROC, Terrier, and ASROC). The USS Conyngham formally lost its nuclear capability in March 1990, when the nuclear ASROC was omitted from the ship's updated list of instructions.

Two months later, in May 1990, USS Conyngham suffered a major fuel oil leak and fire in the forward boiler room, killing one person and injuring 18 others. The cost of repairing the old destroyer prompted the navy to scrap the ship. USS Conyngham was decommissioned in October 1990 and broken up for scrap by J+L Metals in Wilmington, NC, in 1995.

© Hans M. Kristensen | www.nukestrat.com | 2004-2005