USS Coontz (DDG-40) - Decommissioning

Decommissioning

Commander Cobb was relieved as Commanding Officer by Commander W.E. Cox on 21 July 1989. Commander Cox oversaw the decommissioning of the Coontz in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 2 October 1989. She was sold for scrapping in April 1994, but had to be repossessed in October 1996. The ship was sold again in February 1999 to Metro Machine of Philadelphia. Although a few bits and pieces of her remain in private collections, the bulk of the ship was dismantled. The scrapping of the USS Coontz was completed on 26 March 2003 in Philadelphia, with the scrap metal being sold to Camden Iron and Metal in Camden, New Jersey.

In 2006, the USS Coontz Association, composed of former officers and crew of the USS Coontz, obtained the transom of ship from a private collector who had saved it from the scrap heap. The transom, which bears the name of the ship, was then donated to the city of Hannibal, MO, birthplace of the ship's namesake, Admiral Robert. E. Coontz. On 31 March 2007, several former crew members of the USS Coontz, Navy deputy chief of information Admiral Nathan Jones and Hannibal city officials dedicated the transom at Nipper Park. The dedication occurred 50 years to the month after the laying of the keel of the ship.

In May 2007, the USS Coontz Association launched an online petition drive in an effort to convince the Secretary of the Navy to name another U.S. Navy ship for Admiral Coontz. The last Arleigh Burke class destroyer name was selected in May 2008, USS Michael Murphy (DDG-112).