History

USS O'Hare (DD/DDR-889) was a Gearing class destroyer of the United States Navy, named for Lieutenant Commander Edward "Butch" O'Hare, Medal of Honor recipient, who was shot down at Tarawa on November 27, 1943.

O'Hare was laid down at the Consolidated Steel Corporation at Orange, Texas on 27 January 1945; launched on 22 June 1945, sponsored by Mrs. Selma O'Hare, the mother of Lieutenant Commander O'Hare, and commissioned on 29 November 1945.

In February 1946, following shakedown, O'Hare became an active unit of the Navy. After spending 1946 in operations ranging from New Brunswick down to the Florida Keys, she embarked her first group of midshipmen for a cruise to Latin America during the summer of 1947. Departing Norfolk, Va. early in May 1948 she sailed to the Mediterranean temporarily serving under the United Nations' flag as an evacuation ship off Haifa, Palestine, 24 June through July, during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Several goodwill visits took place before departure for home in September at the conclusion of this first deployment with the Sixth Fleet.

Eight additional such tours of duty, prior to the end of 1962, permitted ship's company to gain a great deal of familiarity with the area. Midshipman cruises and NATO maneuvers added new vistas and dimensions to her training exercises as did several rescue operations. Twice in 1952 this destroyer received commendations for her efforts after ships had collided at sea, while in 1957 and again in 1961 aviators from the carriers Randolph (CV-15) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (CV-42) respectively were plucked from the sea. Meanwhile, to update and increase her value to the Navy, O'Hare was converted during 1953 to a radar picket ship (DDR-889) and in 1958 received installation of the electronic data system. The next major modification, in 1963, a FRAM Mk I overhaul, restored her original designation.

The increasing tempo and scope of conflict in Vietnam brought DD-889 an assignment to WestPac duty. Steaming from Norfolk, 1 June 1966, she assumed station as a gun support ship along the coast of Vietnam on 15 July, firing missions in all four Corps areas in the South. O'Hare served as plane guard for aircraft carriers on Yankee Station in the Tonkin Gulf, participated in Sea Dragon operations, patrolled on search and rescue duties off the communist North. O'Hare returned home 17 December via the Suez Canal—completing a circumnavigation of the world. She remained along the East Coast until January 1969 when with Destroyer Squadron 32 (DesRon 32) she again deployed to the Mediterranean.

The O'Hare was deployed to Vietnam as gunfire support on December 1st 1972 until the end of the war. It was the last East Coast ship to make the trip around. It passed through the Panama Canal on 6 Dec 1972. Also the O'Hare is a Blue-Nosed ship. It broke the Arctic Circle 18 June 1969.

SPS Méndez Núñez (D63)

O'Hare was decommissioned and stricken from the U.S. Naval Vessel Register on 2 June 1973, transferred to Spain, and renamed SPS Méndez Núñez (D63), in honor of Vice Admiral Casto Méndez Núñez (1824–1869). She was sold to Spain 17 May 1978, stricken and scrapped in 1992.