USS Hopper (DDG-70)

USS Hopper (DDG-70)

USS Hopper (DDG-70), an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, is a ship of the United States Navy named for the pioneering computer scientist, Rear Admiral "Amazing" Grace Hopper.

The contract to build her was awarded to Bath Iron Works Corporation in Bath, Maine on 8 April 1992 and her keel was laid down on 23 February 1995. She was launched on 6 January 1996 sponsored by Mrs. Mary Murray Westcote, sister of the ship's namesake, and commissioned on 6 September 1997 in San Francisco to be near Silicon Valley, with Commander Thomas D. Crowley in command.

Hopper is only the second U.S. Navy warship to be named for a woman from the Navy's own ranks. The other was the World War II destroyer USS Higbee named for the Superintendent of the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps during World War I, Lenah Higbee.