It was a little after seven in the morning on February 18, 1991, and USS Princeton (CG-59) was steaming slowly through the northern Persian Gulf off Kuwait. Lookouts were posted on the bow and in the 5-inch gun mounts, eyes on the water, because everyone aboard knew what was out there. A few hours earlier, in the dark, the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli (LPH-10) had hit a mine about ten miles away. Then, at roughly 7:15, the sea under Princeton's stern erupted.
The first blast lifted the cruiser and whipped her up and down an estimated four to six feet. Seconds later a second mine went off off the starboard bow. For six or seven seconds the ship bucked and shook, and sailors were thrown into bulkheads and overheads. The captain sounded general quarters. What the crew did over the next day is one of the great damage control stories of the modern Navy.
The Deployment: Long Beach to the Persian Gulf
Princeton was barely two years old. Built by Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi, she was commissioned on February 11, 1989, as one of the Navy's newest Ticonderoga-class Aegis guided-missile cruisers. Her homeport was Naval Station Long Beach, California.
1990 had already been a busy year. By the time she left for war, Princeton had spent 255 days at sea since January, including a trip to the Soviet Union. After Iraq invaded Kuwait, she came home to Long Beach and joined the battle group preparing for the Persian Gulf. On December 8, 1990, Princeton departed Long Beach with the USS Ranger (CV-61) battle group, under the command of Rear Adm. R.J. Zlatoper. Her commanding officer was Capt. Edward B. "Ted" Hontz.
The transit took the group west across the Pacific, with a stop at Subic Bay in the Philippines, then through the Strait of Malacca and across the Indian Ocean into the Persian Gulf. When Desert Storm began, Princeton was on station in the northern Persian Gulf.
Operations: Air Defense Over a Minefield
Iraq had seeded the northern Persian Gulf with mines, and clearing them was a prerequisite for any amphibious operation along the Kuwaiti coast. Tripoli served as flagship for the airborne mine countermeasures effort, her flight deck crowded with minesweeping helicopters. Princeton's job was to guard that force from the air. As the mine countermeasures group's anti-air warfare guard ship, she carried the Aegis radar and missiles that kept enemy aircraft and missiles away from the slow, vulnerable sweepers.
That put her right where the mines were. Tripoli struck a moored contact mine at about 4:30 that morning, tearing a hole roughly 20 feet across in her starboard bow. Less than three hours later, it was Princeton's turn.
She had set off two Italian-made Manta influence mines, the kind that sit on the bottom and wait for the magnetic or acoustic signature of a passing ship. The first detonated almost directly under the port rudder. The second, about 300 yards off the starboard bow, was most likely set off sympathetically by the first.
The damage was severe:
- The superstructure cracked at midships, and the aft gun and missile systems were knocked out.
- The port rudder jammed and the port shaft was put out of action.
- Hull plating buckled, and fuel tanks ruptured.
- A cracked pipe flooded an electrical switchboard room.
Captain Hontz later described his ship as seriously damaged and at risk of sinking.
Damage Control: Keeping Her Fighting
This is where the training paid off. The crew had drilled constantly for exactly this, and when it came they had to fight six or seven casualties at once: flooding, shock damage, electrical problems and a fight to keep the combat system alive.
Just as important, Princeton did not go blind. Her four engines and generators stayed on line, and the crew brought her combat systems and forward weapons back on line within hours of the blasts. The tactical action officer that morning, then-Lt. Michael Gilday, worked to get the combat system back in service and personally took up the duties of local anti-air warfare commander. His Navy Commendation Medal with combat "V" called him "the key to Princeton's unequaled combat readiness throughout Operation Desert Storm." Princeton kept covering the mine countermeasures force from inside the minefield until the cruiser USS Valley Forge (CG-50) relieved her.
Out of the Minefield
Getting a crippled cruiser out of an active minefield was its own operation. The salvage ship USS Beaufort (ATS-2) came to take her under tow, and the minesweeper USS Adroit (MSO-509), a 35-year-old ship, went ahead to find a safe path. Adroit found so many mines that she ran out of flares to mark them and switched to chemical lights. The Canadian destroyer HMCS Athabaskan also came to help, escorting Princeton south before handing her off to Adroit and Beaufort.
The little convoy crept through the night. It was the early morning hours of February 19 before Princeton was reported clear of the minefield and in safe water. Her crew had stayed at battle stations the whole way.
Injuries
Three of Princeton's sailors were injured, one of them seriously; two were medically evacuated. No one was killed. Contemporary accounts noted that many of the crew were at breakfast or in their racks when the mines went off, which likely kept the number of injuries down. Aboard Tripoli that morning, four crewmen were injured.
Ports of Call and Repairs
Princeton's confirmed stops on this deployment were Subic Bay on the way out and, after the strike, the repair ports. Beaufort towed her to Bahrain for initial work, and she then moved to a commercial shipyard in Dubai, where her hull damage was repaired over roughly seven to eight weeks. After that, Princeton sailed back to the United States under her own power for further repairs.
The ship and her crew were awarded the Combat Action Ribbon for Desert Storm.
Life Aboard a Cruiser in a Minefield
A Ticonderoga-class cruiser in 1991 carried more than 350 sailors, and life aboard during Desert Storm was a grind of long watches, general quarters drills and very little sleep. In mined waters, the routine added extra lookouts, slow speeds and the constant awareness that the next mile might be the one. Ships were set up for battle, with watertight doors and hatches closed down and repair parties ready.
Then there was the work after the strike: hours of shoring, pumping and rewiring, standing watches on systems that had just been rattled hard, and riding a towline through the dark while a minesweeper dropped lights on the water ahead. Anyone who served on Princeton in those weeks knows what it means to hold a ship together.
Legacy
The mine strike on Princeton became a textbook case, both for damage control and for mine warfare. One contemporary estimate put the cost of the influence mine that did the damage at about $3,000. Weighed against a modern Aegis cruiser, that lesson about cheap, hidden weapons has shaped Navy thinking on mine countermeasures ever since.
It became a textbook case for the people involved, too. Lt. Gilday went on to become the 32nd Chief of Naval Operations, and at his 2019 confirmation hearing he spoke about the time he spent in a shipyard repairing that damage. Princeton herself returned to the fleet and kept deploying for decades. In February 2021, on the 30th anniversary of the strike, her crew ran a simulated general quarters drill to commemorate the day and to drive home the same point the 1991 crew proved: drill hard, because the day you need it, you will need all of it.
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