From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Career
Ordered:	13 June 1968
Laid down:	23 January 1970
Launched:	22 September 1971
Commissioned:	16 February 1974
Decommissioned:	9 July 1999
Fate:	nuclear ship recycling
Stricken:	9 July 1999
General characteristics
Displacement:	10,643 tons light, 11,548 tons full, 905 tons dead
Length:	181.6 meters (596 feet) overall, 173.7 meters (570 feet) waterline
Beam:	18.5 meters (61 feet) extreme, 18.2 meters (60 feet) waterline
Draft:	10 meters (33 feet) maximum, 7 meters (23 feet) limit
Propulsion:	two General Electric D2G nuclear reactors
Speed:	30+ knots
Complement:	40 officers and 544 enlisted
Armament:	2x Mk 141 launchers for RGM-84 Harpoon, 2x 5"/54 caliber Mark 45 gun, 2x 20 mm Phalanx CIWS, 1x ASROC missile launcher, 2x Mk 13 launchers for Standard Missile, Mark 46 torpedoes
Aircraft:	Helicopter deck aft able to accommodate SH-2 Seasprite LAMPS Mk1, SH-3 Sea King, and CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters. No hangar facility.
Motto:

USS California (CGN-36), the lead ship of her class of nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser, was the seventh ship of the United States Navy to be named for the 31st state.

USS California and her sister ship South Carolina were equipped with two Mk-13 launchers, fore and aft, for the Standard Missile, one ASROC missile launcher, and two Mk-141 launchers for the RGM-84 Harpoon missiles. They were equipped with two 5"/54 caliber Mark 45 gun rapid-fire cannons, fore and aft. These two cruisers also had a unique arrangement aft of the superstructure, with a flight deck. There was also a full suite of anti-submarine warfare equipment. Thus, these ships were designed to face all threats, in the air, on the surface, and underwater.

The contract to build her was awarded to Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in Newport News, Virginia on 13 June 1968 and her keel was laid down on 23 January 1970. She was launched on 22 September 1971 sponsored with a "near miss" of the champagne bottle by First Lady of the United States Patricia Nixon, and commissioned on 16 February 1974 by The Honorable James E. Johnson, Assistant Secretary, US Navy (Manpower and Reserve Affairs), with Captain Floyd H. Miller, Jr., in command. She was commissioned as a frigate (DLGN); her designation was changed to cruiser (CGN) on 30 June 1975.

She was known as the "Golden Grizzly," commemorating the California Gold Rush and the grizzly bear appearing on the California state flag. She represented the United States Navy in the 1977 Silver Jubilee naval review in Portsmouth, honoring Queen Elizabeth II. In 1980, she circumnavigated the globe, the first nuclear-powered warship to do so since the USS Enterprise and her task force in 1964.

Decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 9 July 1999, California entered the Nuclear Powered Ship-Submarine recycling program at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard on 1 October 1998. Scrapping was completed on 12 May 2000.

Author J. Lanier Yeates served aboard the USS California in 1974 and 1998. In 2005, he wrote Bay of One Hundred Fires, an alternate history novel in which the California is overhauled and upgraded, and plays a key role in fighting Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, who has created a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.

• CGN-36 Personnel Roster at HullNumber.com

This article includes information collected from the Naval Vessel Register, which, as a U.S. government publication, is in the public domain.