USS Truxtun CGN 35 – History of the U.S. Navy's Nuclear Guided Missile Cruiser & Navy Decals

USS Truxtun CGN 35 – History, Service Record & Navy Decals

The USS Truxtun (CGN-35) was a nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser of the United States Navy — unique in American naval history as the only single-shaft nuclear-powered surface combatant ever built by the U.S. Navy — and one of the most technologically distinctive warships of the Cold War era. Named for Commodore Thomas Truxtun — one of the six original captains of the United States Navy, a founding hero of American sea power, and one of the most aggressive and technically accomplished naval commanders of the early republic — USS Truxtun carried a name synonymous with the fighting spirit and professional excellence that defined the Navy from its earliest days.

Commodore Thomas Truxtun – Founding Hero of the U.S. Navy

Thomas Truxtun was born in 1755 on Long Island, New York, and went to sea as a boy, learning his trade in the merchant marine and as a privateersman during the Revolutionary War. By the time the United States Navy was reconstituted in the 1790s in response to the crisis with revolutionary France — the Quasi-War, an undeclared naval war fought primarily in the Caribbean from 1798 to 1800 — Truxtun was one of the most experienced and capable sea officers in America, appointed as one of the original six captains of the new Navy and given command of the frigate USS Constellation.

On February 9, 1799, Truxtun in Constellation encountered the French frigate L'Insurgente in the Caribbean and brought her to action in one of the most decisive single-ship frigate engagements in American naval history. Truxtun handled Constellation with masterful aggression — maneuvering to close the range quickly, delivering broadsides with exceptional accuracy, and fighting his ship with the kind of controlled ferocity that would characterize the great American frigate actions of the War of 1812. L'Insurgente struck her colors after a sharp fight: 29 French killed and 41 wounded against American losses of 2 killed and 3 wounded. It was the young American Navy's first significant ship-to-ship victory, and it electrified the nation.

Less than a year later, on February 1–2, 1800, Truxtun again brought Constellation into action, this time against the larger and more powerful French frigate La Vengeance in a brutal night engagement that lasted five hours. La Vengeance struck her colors multiple times during the fight, but Constellation's mainmast fell at a critical moment, preventing Truxtun from taking possession of his prize. La Vengeance escaped in the darkness, badly damaged and with 50 dead and 110 wounded. Constellation had suffered severe damage and 14 killed, but Truxtun had demonstrated that the young American Navy could take on and punish even larger French men-of-war. His two actions against L'Insurgente and La Vengeance established the fighting tradition of American naval professionalism and aggressive seamanship that the great frigate captains of the War of 1812 — Hull, Decatur, Bainbridge, Stewart — would carry to even greater glory. USS Truxtun carried that founding legacy of fighting spirit and technical excellence throughout her remarkable Cold War career.

Design – The Only Single-Shaft Nuclear Cruiser

USS Truxtun was originally designed and classified as a nuclear-powered destroyer leader (DLGN), redesignated as a guided missile cruiser (CGN) in 1975. She was the only U.S. Navy nuclear-powered surface combatant ever built with a single shaft — a unique engineering configuration that distinguished her from every other nuclear cruiser in the fleet. Her nuclear propulsion plant used two D4G pressurized water reactors driving a single propeller shaft, giving her virtually unlimited range at high speed without refueling — the defining strategic advantage of nuclear surface warfare that made her a natural escort for nuclear-powered aircraft carriers on extended deployments.

Armed with the Terrier/Standard missile system for area air defense, ASROC for anti-submarine warfare, and torpedo tubes, Truxtun was a fully capable multi-mission surface combatant with the endurance to escort a nuclear carrier anywhere on earth without breaking away to refuel. She displaced approximately 9,127 tons full load and measured 564 feet in length — a formidable presence in any fleet formation.

Keel, Launch & Commissioning

Truxtun's keel was laid down on June 17, 1963, at the New York Shipbuilding Corporation in Camden, New Jersey. She was launched on December 19, 1964, and commissioned into the U.S. Navy on May 27, 1967, under hull designation DLGN-35, redesignated CGN-35 on June 30, 1975.

Cold War Career – Nuclear Carrier Escort & Pacific Fleet Service

Commissioned in May 1967, USS Truxtun was assigned to the Pacific Fleet and served as a primary nuclear carrier escort, operating with USS Enterprise (CVN-65) and other nuclear carriers in the all-nuclear task groups that represented the pinnacle of American naval power projection during the Cold War. These all-nuclear task groups — nuclear carrier, nuclear cruiser escorts, nuclear attack submarines — could operate indefinitely at high speed anywhere on earth, unconstrained by the need to refuel surface combatants, representing a fundamentally different kind of naval power than conventionally powered forces.

Truxtun deployed to the Western Pacific during the Vietnam War, contributing to naval operations off the coast of Vietnam as part of the American naval presence that supported air operations against North Vietnam and provided gunfire support and logistics for forces ashore. Her deployments brought her through the waters of the South China Sea and the Gulf of Tonkin during some of the most intense years of American involvement in the conflict.

Throughout the Cold War, Truxtun operated across the Pacific and Indian Oceans as a nuclear carrier escort, participating in exercises with allied navies, demonstrating American naval power through presence operations, and maintaining the readiness standards that the nuclear carrier strike group demanded of its escorts. Her unique single-shaft nuclear propulsion plant gave her engineering teams challenges and distinctive expertise that set Truxtun apart from every other warship in the fleet.

Decommissioning

USS Truxtun was decommissioned on September 12, 1995, after 28 years of commissioned service — a career spanning from the height of the Vietnam War through the Cold War's final decades and into the post-Cold War drawdown that saw the U.S. Navy retire its nuclear surface combatant fleet in favor of the conventionally powered Aegis cruisers and destroyers that form the backbone of the surface Navy today.

Legacy

For the sailors and nuclear-trained officers who served aboard Truxtun — the reactor operators, engineering watch-standers, weapons systems operators, and surface warfare professionals who mastered the unique demands of the Navy's only single-shaft nuclear cruiser — she represents one of the most technically demanding and distinctive careers in Cold War naval history. Named for Thomas Truxtun, whose two frigate actions against the French in the Caribbean established the fighting spirit of the American Navy in its earliest days, USS Truxtun carried that legacy of technical excellence, professional aggression, and limitless endurance across 28 years of nuclear-powered Pacific Fleet service — from the waters off Vietnam to the Indian Ocean and back, unconstrained by fuel, limited only by the skill and determination of her crews.

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