PORT HUENEME : Public Invited on High-Tech Navy Destroyer

For Joe Silva, Sunday’s tour of the Navy destroyer USS Merrill was an event that caused the 70-year-old former Navy signalman to reflect on his service during World War II and later during the Korean conflict.

Silva, on vacation from Brookings, Ore., said he read about the Spruance-class destroyer’s open house in a local newspaper and knew that he had to take one of the 45-minute tours of the warship docked at the Naval Construction Battalion Center in Port Hueneme on Saturday and Sunday.

“This thing gave me the shivers,” Silva said. “The technology inside this vessel is nothing short of amazing. We were throwing rocks at the enemy compared to what this thing can do.”

The open house was a part of the Merrill’s stop at the Naval Surface Warfare Center--a tenant command at the Seabee Center that helps engineer and test weapons systems, according to Terri Reid, a Navy spokeswoman.

Cmdr. Steven Busch, the Merrill’s skipper, said he was impressed by the level of questions from visitors.

“I’ve been impressed by the turnout and by their interest in the detailed workings of the ship,” Busch said.

“It’s been fun to show the public exactly what their tax dollars have purchased.”

After waiting in a dockside line that stretched along half of the Merrill’s 563-foot length, visitors were taken aboard the high-tech destroyer for the tour that gave them rare glimpses of a warship’s combat information center--a below-decks room where the ship’s automated weapons and radar systems are controlled and monitored.

The tour also included stops on the ship’s bridge, its missile bays, its two automated five-inch deck guns and an aft hangar that houses two attack helicopters.

Busch said the Merrill, based in San Diego and commissioned in 1976, is the first destroyer to fire a Tomahawk missile.

Its primary mission as a warship is to hunt down and destroy enemy submarines, but it has also served tours of duty in the war-torn Mediterranean and most recently in narcotics search missions with other federal agencies.

For the past 15 months, the vessel has been in port during retrofit operations.

Thousand Oaks resident Roy Lewis, 44, said that when he heard about the public visitation on a local TV station, he jumped at the chance to go aboard.

“You don’t everyday get a chance to see a ship like this up close,” Lewis said. “I was very impressed.”