The decommissioned destroyer Barry, a historical landmark in the nation's capital, is set to be removed from its pier at the Washington Navy Yard and dismantled.
The display ship must be removed before construction begins in October 2015 on the new Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge, a fixed span that would land-lock the ship in Washington, D.C.
TheUSS Barry was decommissioned on Nov. 5, 1982, and became a permanent public display ship in 1984. It has been used for training and shipboard familiarization, as a ceremonial platform and even as the site of a "haunted" Halloween event.
It was the third Forrest Sherman-class destroyer, and the fourth vessel to bear the name of Revolutionary War hero Commodore John Barry. Commissioned on Sept. 7, 1956, the destroyer served 26 years. The ship supported the 1958 Marine and Army airborne unit landing in Beirut, Lebanon. In 1962, it was a member of the task force that quarantined Cuba in response to evidence that Soviet missiles had been installed on the island.
In Vietnam, the destroyer operated in the Mekong Delta and supported Operation Double Eagle, the largest amphibious operation since the landings in Korea. Barry was credited with destroying more than 1,000 enemy structures, and for its service in the Vietnam conflict Barry earned two battle stars. In the early 1970s it was homeported in Athens, Greece, as part of the Navy's forward deployment program.
