USS San Jacinto is a in the United States Navy. She is named for the Battle of San Jacinto, the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution. The "San Jac" was built at Pascagoula, Mississippi and commissioned 23 January 1988 by then vice-president George H. W. Bush in Houston, Texas. She completed her fitting out and work-ups, then deployed to the Mediterranean Sea in late May 1989, returning in November. While San Jacinto and her sister ship were underway off the Virginia coast performing testing of CEC, the Iraqi army invaded and occupied Kuwait. The next day, Leyte Gulf detached and headed back to Mayport, Florida. The day after, San Jacinto returned to her homeport of Norfolk, Virginia, to prepare for the massive sortie to the Middle East. After CINCLANT had all their ships provisioned, barely five days later, San Jacinto headed for the Mediterranean. Other ships in the battle group included the cruiser and the aircraft carriers and. She fired the opening shots of Operation Desert Storm with the launch of two BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles, firing a total of 16 missiles during the 43-day war. She was also the first ship of her class to be deployed with a full load of 122 missiles. While stationed in a search area at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula in the Red Sea, her Visit, Boarding, Search & Seizure teams inspected several dozen ships for contraband being smuggled for the Iraqi government. The crew came to call that duty station 'San-Jacircles' or 'San-Jac in the Box'. During her 2000-2001 deployment with Carrier Group Two. she had aboard Helicopter Antisubmarine Squadron Light 42 Det 8 with two SH-60B Seahawks. On 26 May 2010 San Jacintos VBSS team rescued 5 Yemenis hostages from 13 suspected pirates. The master stated his dhow had been under pirate control for one day only. The VBSS team detained the pirates on the dhow without conflict. On 13 October 2012, San Jacinto was involved in a collision with US nuclear submarine off the coast of northeastern Florida. The cruiser suffered damage to its sonar dome. San Jacinto would have been unable to join Carrier Strike Group Ten and aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf, had they deployed on schedule, due to the emergency dry docking. The cruiser has undergone approximately $11 million in repairs since the accident. On 04 May, 2020 The crew of USS San Jacinto became one of the most unique shellback known as The Iron Shellback for maritime personnel who crossed the equator after 100+ consecutive days underway during their 2020 deployment with the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. Later in that same deployment, the San Jacinto and Eisenhower became the first USN ships to exceed 160 consecutive days at sea.
