The veteran destroyer served as a target ship during the atom bomb tests in 1958 ( Operation Hardtack I , shots WAHOO and UMBRELLA ) , and in 1962 engaged in high explosive tests in the Chesapeake Bay to assess the structural effects of the ship 's nuclear exposures . '' Killen '' was struck from the Navy List and sent to the US Naval Station at Roosevelt Roads , P.R. in January 1963 to be used as a target ship for missile and gunnery practice off the nearby Puerto Rican island of Vieques where she was eventually sunk/scuttled in a shallow bay in 1975 and still lies today
Operation Hardtack I
Operation Hardtack I
USS Killen (DD-593)