USS Philippine Sea CG 58 – History of the U.S. Navy's Aegis Guided Missile Cruiser & Navy Decals

USS Philippine Sea CG 58 – History, Service Record & Navy Decals

The USS Philippine Sea (CG-58) was the twelfth ship of the Ticonderoga class of Aegis guided missile cruisers, serving the Atlantic Fleet through more than two decades of distinguished active service. Named for the Battle of the Philippine Sea — fought on June 19–20, 1944, in the waters west of the Mariana Islands — the largest carrier air battle in history and one of the most decisive American naval victories of World War II, the engagement that American aviators nicknamed the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” for the lopsided destruction of Japanese carrier aviation that sealed Japan's fate in the Pacific.

The Battle of the Philippine Sea

By June 1944, the American advance across the Central Pacific had brought U.S. forces to the Mariana Islands — Saipan, Tinian, and Guam — whose capture would give American B-29 Superfortresses bases within bombing range of the Japanese home islands. Japan could not allow the Marianas to fall without a fight, and the Imperial Japanese Navy assembled its largest carrier force since Midway — nine carriers, five battleships, 13 cruisers, and 28 destroyers under Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa — for a decisive engagement that Japanese planners called Operation A-Go.

What followed on June 19, 1944, was the most one-sided carrier air battle in history. Admiral Raymond Spruance's Fifth Fleet, protected by Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher's fast carrier Task Force 58, waited for the Japanese strike. American pilots, flying the superb new F6F Hellcat fighter and guided by shipboard radar and fighter direction officers who had perfected the art of vectoring interceptors against incoming raids, met the Japanese attack waves far from the American fleet. The result was a slaughter. In a single day of air combat, American pilots and anti-aircraft gunners destroyed approximately 300 Japanese aircraft while losing fewer than 30 of their own. American submarine USS Albacore torpedoed and sank Ozawa's flagship carrier Taiho — Japan's largest and newest carrier — and USS Cavalla sank the veteran carrier Shokaku, survivor of Pearl Harbor.

The following day, June 20, Mitscher launched a desperate long-range strike at extreme range against the retreating Japanese fleet — knowing his pilots might not have enough fuel to return. They sank the carrier Hiyo and damaged two others. On the return flight, fuel-exhausted aircraft splashed into the darkened ocean around the fleet. In one of the most celebrated acts of command in naval history, Mitscher ordered his ships to turn on all lights — risking submarine attack to save his aviators — illuminating the night sea so his pilots could find their carriers. Scores of aircraft were lost, but most of the aviators were rescued.

The two-day battle destroyed three Japanese carriers, approximately 600 Japanese aircraft, and — most critically — the experienced aviators who could not be replaced. Japan's carrier aviation never recovered. At Leyte Gulf four months later, the Japanese carriers that sortied did so virtually without aircraft, used only as decoys. The “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” had ended Japan's ability to contest American air supremacy at sea. USS Philippine Sea carried that legacy of decisive, crushing American naval air power throughout her Atlantic Fleet career.

Keel, Launch & Commissioning

Philippine Sea's keel was laid down on May 8, 1986, at the Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine. She was launched on July 12, 1987, and commissioned into the U.S. Navy on September 18, 1989, as the twelfth ship of the Ticonderoga class under hull designation CG-58.

Class & Design

USS Philippine Sea was one of 27 Ticonderoga-class Aegis guided missile cruisers, equipped with the Mk 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS) carrying a mixed load of Standard Missiles, Tomahawk cruise missiles, and ASROC across 122 cells. At approximately 567 feet in length and displacing approximately 9,600 tons fully loaded, she also carried two 5-inch/54 caliber guns, Harpoon anti-ship missiles, two Phalanx close-in weapon systems, and torpedo tubes, paired with the full AN/SPY-1 Aegis radar and combat system — herself the supreme expression of the carrier air defense mission that the Battle of the Philippine Sea had made the foundation of American naval power.

Atlantic Fleet Career & Desert Storm

Commissioned in September 1989 — just months before Desert Storm — USS Philippine Sea was assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, homeported at Mayport, Florida, and immediately entered one of the most operationally demanding periods in post-Cold War naval history. She deployed to the Persian Gulf for Operation Desert Storm in January–February 1991, firing Tomahawk cruise missiles against Iraqi targets and providing Aegis air defense coverage for Coalition naval forces — remarkable timing for a ship commissioned only 16 months before her first combat deployment, a testament to the readiness standards of the Ticonderoga class.

Following Desert Storm, USS Philippine Sea continued her Atlantic Fleet career through more than two decades of Mediterranean deployments with the Sixth Fleet — escorting carrier strike groups, conducting NATO exercises, participating across the full range of post-Cold War and War on Terror contingencies, and maintaining the American forward naval presence in the Mediterranean that remained the foundation of American strategic commitments from the Adriatic to the Suez Canal. Named for the battle that proved American carrier aviation supreme — and equipped with the Aegis system that made that carrier aviation's defense impenetrable — USS Philippine Sea was a fitting guardian of the carrier battle groups she escorted through every Mediterranean deployment of her distinguished career.

Decommissioning

USS Philippine Sea was decommissioned on June 30, 2016, after nearly 27 years of commissioned service — a career spanning Desert Storm, the full post-Cold War era, and the early years of the War on Terror, with Mediterranean deployments that kept her at the operational center of American naval power in the world's most strategically contested body of water.

Legacy

For the sailors who served aboard Philippine Sea — the Aegis system operators, VLS technicians, combat systems specialists, and surface warfare professionals who kept this Atlantic Fleet cruiser ready and lethal through nearly 27 years of service — she represents a career of exceptional dedication to American naval power. Named for the battle where American Hellcat pilots and radar-guided fighter direction turned the largest Japanese carrier air assault into a “turkey shoot,” where Mitscher lit up his ships in the dark to bring his aviators home, and where Japan's carrier aviation was shattered beyond recovery — USS Philippine Sea guarded the carriers of the Atlantic Fleet with the same commitment to air defense excellence that her name commemorated, from Desert Storm to decommissioning.

Shop USS Philippine Sea CG 58 Navy Gifts & Decals

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