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File AR/AR-595 Class open entity Accessioned 21 February 2026

USS Gettysburg

Declassified
image slot A grey warship low in heavy grey seas under a dark sky, smoke trailing from amidships.
USS Gettysburg (CG-64), lost east of Shetland on 18 February with thirty-two of her crew.

USS Gettysburg (CG-64) was a Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser of the United States Navy, sunk in the North Sea action on 18 February 2026 with the loss of thirty-two of her crew. She had escorted USS Harry S. Truman from Norfolk through the entire campaign, and provided the naval gunfire support for the Marine landings at Keflavik nine days before she was lost.

Service in the rupture

Gettysburg completed munitions loadout alongside Truman and San Jacinto at Norfolk on 16 January, in the two-day window between the clearing of the statutory holds and the strike group's departure. She screened the carrier across the Labrador Sea, through the Greenland landings, and into the Denmark Strait.

On 9 February she fired in support of the Marine assault waves crossing the southern coast of the Reykjanes peninsula. Nine days later she was on air defence station east of Shetland.

Loss

She fought her own action well. Fourteen sea-skimming missiles were destroyed by her SM-2 and ESSM batteries before a torpedo spread from a French attack submarine forced a manoeuvre that opened her beam to two Exocets. The subsequent fire in auxiliary fuel storage took out electrical distribution to her radar arrays, and after that she could neither see nor shoot.

Three hours of damage control did not stop the flooding. The order to abandon ship came at 07:15 GMT.

Significance

She is the largest single loss of American life in the rupture and the first American cruiser sunk in action since the Second World War. In the Phase II situation report delivered to the Situation Room that evening, her loss occupied one line, between the stockpile figure and the statement that the allied deterrent remained unlocated.

See also

Sources

  1. 16 January 2026 Pentagon unblocks carrier strike group for Arctic departure as allied North Atlantic patrols surge record
  2. 9 February 2026 U.S. Forces Seize Iceland in Kinetic Assault: Operation Northern Hinge Neutralizes French Air Defenses, Overwhelms Allied Garrison at Keflavik record
  3. 19 February 2026 Allied Carriers and U.S. Strike Group Clash in North Sea as Phase II of Albion Anvil Hits Heavy Resistance: USS Gettysburg Sunk, Keflavik Cratered in Standoff Counter-Strike record
The Atlantic RuptureShipsUnited States
▣ restricted access · portions withheld under the classification of the originating authority ▣ declassified in full · originating authority classification lifted for this reader