$1 billion Chung-Hoon warship to be christened
By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer
Saturday's christening of the guided-missile destroyer USS Chung-Hoon in Pascagoula, Miss., is important for Hawai'i for a couple of reasons.
Northrop Grumman Corp.
DDG 93, scheduled to be commissioned in 2004, will be the second new $1 billion Arleigh Burke-class Aegis destroyer to be homeported at Pearl Harbor within two years' time.
The USS Chung-Hoon, a $1 billion Arleigh Burke class destroyer, will be christened Saturday in Mississippi. Members of Hawai'i's Chung-Hoon family will attend the ceremony.
The USS Chafee will be commissioned in October in Newport, R.I., and arrive in Hawai'i sometime after that.
The Chung-Hoon also is noteworthy for its namesake: Rear Adm. Gordon Pai'ea Chung-Hoon, a local boy with high-reaching Hawaiian ancestry, who received the Navy Cross for his courage and leadership following a kamikaze attack on his ship, the USS Sigsbee, in 1945.
On Saturday, Chung-Hoon's niece will break a bottle of champagne across the bow of the 509-foot destroyer to celebrate its launch by the Northrop Grumman Corp.
"I'm going to try to represent my family and Hawai'i the best that I can," said Michelle Punana Chung-Hoon, 53. "It's going to be an experience we will always remember."
The Makaha resident is making the trip with her 19-year-old daughter, Asti Punana Sorgé, and cousin Nancy King Holt. Perry White, the admiral's stepson, also is participating in the ceremonial launch.
As many as 400 people are expected for a "sponsor's party" Friday night. Adm. Walter F. Doran, commander of Pacific Fleet, will be the principal speaker for Saturday's christening.
Rear Adm. Chung-Hoon, who was born in Honolulu in 1910 and died in 1979, received the Navy Cross and Silver Star "for conspicuous gallantry and extraordinary heroism" as commanding officer of the destroyer Sigsbee, which helped down 20 enemy planes while screening a carrier strike force off the Japanese island of Kyushu in the spring of 1945.
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On April 14, a kamikaze crashed into Sigsbee, but despite extensive damage, then-Cmdr. Chung-Hoon kept his anti-aircraft batteries delivering "prolonged and effective fire" while also directing damage control, the Navy said.
Rear Adm. Gordon Pai'ea Chung-Hoon was born in Honolulu in 1910 and died in 1979. He received the Navy Cross and Silver Star.
Michelle Chung-Hoon remembers that although her uncle "had that military control, he had it with a heart."
Part Chinese, British and Hawaiian, Chung-Hoon was a direct descendent through Ka-maka-ele'ele-o-Kanaha 'O'u-ka-maka-o-ka-wauke-'oi-'opiopio of Kaha-'opu-lani ("the chiefess who nursed Kamehameha on her own breast"), according to historian and family friend James Ka'upena Wong Jr.
Providing the primary protection for the Navy's battle forces, Aegis destroyers are designed to match maximum survivability with potent offensive capability, carrying a 90-cell vertical launch system capable of firing Tomahawk, Harpoon anti-ship and anti-submarine missiles.
Four Arleigh Burke destroyers — the Hopper, O'Kane, Paul Hamilton and Russell — are based at Pearl Harbor. The O'Kane, commissioned in October 1999, is the newest of approximately 12 surface ships and 18 attack submarines based at Pearl Harbor.
Saturday's christening is the second Michelle Chung-Hoon's family has participated in. In 1965, Pauline King — her grandmother's sister-in-law — launched the submarine USS Kamehameha. Her husband, Samuel Wilder King, was governor of the territory of Hawai'i.
Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5459.
