USS Nicholson (DD-982), a Spruance-class destroyer, was the fourth ship of the United States Navy to be named for a family which was prominent in early American naval history, including James Nicholson, the senior Continental Navy Captain, and Samuel Nicholson, the first captain of USS Constitution. History Nicholson was laid down on 20 February 1976 by the Ingalls Shipbuilding, in Pascagoula, Miss.; launched on 11 November 1977; and commissioned on 12 May 1979. She first deployed on 18 November 1980. Nicholson deployed to the Persian Gulf in 1983 and returned to Charleston SC via the Suez Canal with a refueling stop in Djibouti. The crew enjoyed a port visit to Barcelona, Spain on the way back to home port. The ship encountered heavy seas on the voyage west across the Atlantic and experienced a casualty to the sonar dome. The dome was subsequently repaired in conjunction with a scheduled maintenance period at the Brooklyn Navy Shipyard between May 1984 and Feb 1985. Following the maintenance period the ship returned to Charleston, SC and began work ups for the next deployment including, Combat Systems Ship Qualification Trials, an Anti-Submarine warfare exercise in the Caribbean and Refresher Training in Guantanamo Bay Cuba. Nicholson was deployed for six months, in February 1990, with USS Dahlgren, as part of the Mid-East Force in the Persian Gulf. The deployment was fairly routine except for two incidents. The first was a pair of armed Iranian F-4s that overflew the ship in the Straits of Hormuz, and the second was that Nicholson and Dahlgren left the Persian Gulf for home just a week before Iraq invaded Kuwait. Nicholson was deployed for six months, in January 1992, as part of NATO's Standing Naval Force Atlantic. Nicholson joined the NATO task force in the Puerto Rican Op-areas and detached in Den Helder, Netherlands. Port Visits included Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico; St. Maarten, DVI; Boston, MA; Halifax, Nova Scotia; Tromso, Norway; Bergen, Norway; Den Helder, Neth; Antwerp, Belgium; Oporto, Portugal; Rosyth, Scotland; Frederikshavn, Denmark; Aarhus, Denmark; and St Johns, Newfoundland. Nicholson served as flagship for the second half of the deployment under a US Admiral, RADM Dwyer, USN. During the first half the force was under the command of a Dutch Commodore. Other ships in the task force were Norway – Frigate – HNoMS Oslo (first half); Canada – Frigate – HMCS Skeena (entire cruise); Portugal – Frigate – NRP