Bath Iron Works began fabrication work on the future USS Thomas G. Kelley (DDG 140) on May 21 at the shipyard’s structural fabrication facility in Brunswick.

The ship is the seventh Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer built at the Bath shipyard. The ship is named after retired Navy Capt. Thomas Kelley, a Medal of Honor recipient who served in the Vietnam War. His wife, retired Cmdr. Joan Kelley, a ship sponsor, attended the fabrication ceremony last week.

“When the announcement was made that DDG 140 was awarded to Bath Iron Works, I was thrilled that ‘USS TGK’ would be Bath built (and) best built,” Kelley said.

In 1969, then Lt. Cmdr. Kelley was in charge of a column of eight river assault craft extracting a company of U.S. Army infantry from the east bank of the Ong Muong Canal in Kien Hoa Province. After a mechanical failure, Viet Cong fighters opened fire from the opposite bank. Kelley suffered serious head wounds from a rocket blast, but directed other boats in his column to repel the attack.

In addition to the Thomas G. Kelley, BIW is working on the Flight IIA Arleigh Burke-class destroyer Patrick Gallagher (DDG 127), including the Flight III destroyers Louis H. Wilson Jr. (DDG 126), William Charette (DDG 130), Quentin Walsh (DDG 132), John E. Kilmer (DDG 134), Richard G. Lugar (DDG 136) and J. William Middendorf (DDG 138).

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