Description
USS Turner Joy DD-951 Ashtray made out of aluminum as pictured.
The USS Turner Joy DD-951 is a 418 foot historic U.S. Navy destroyer. She is located just an hour outside of Seattle in Bremerton, Washington. She is one of the most complete naval museum ships in the US offering a unique historical naval adventure taking visitors back to the Vietnam war.
The destroyer ship is most remembered for her participation with USS Maddox (DD-731) in the in the Gulf of Tonkin incident which occurred August 2, 1964, an action that led to the United States’ increased involvement in the Vietnam War.
The Gulf of Tonkin incident was the “match that lit the fire,” and remained a major turning point for the United States in terms of its involvement in the Vietnam War. The incident mobilized public opinion to the point that the Congress of the United States approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, thereby opening the door to and dramatically escalating the American combat presence in Vietnam.
The Turner Joy, named after Admiral Charles Turner Joy, had her keel laid in the fall of 1957 in Seattle, Washington, by the Puget Sound Bridge and Dredging Company. She was subsequently launched in the spring of 1958 and commissioned in mid-summer, 1959. Commander Ralph S. Wentworth was the first to command her bridge. The ship was the last of the Forrest Sherman Class destroyers built.
