A pair of Bath-built U.S. Navy destroyers fended off an attack by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels as the ships were traveling through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait of the Red Sea, according to Pentagon officials.
On Tuesday, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said Houthis launched at least eight drones, five ani-ship ballistic missiles, and three anti-ship cruise missiles at Navy destroyers the USS Stockdale and the USS Spruance on Monday with no damage or injuries reported.
The Associated Press later reported Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, in a prerecorded statement on Tuesday, claimed the rebels attacked two American destroyers in the Red Sea with ballistic missiles and drones.
According to reports by the U.S. Naval Institute, this is the second time the two independently deployed destroyers have come under Houthi fire. The previous attack, launched in late September, targeted the USS Spruance, USS Stockdale, and USS Indianapolis. Both Bath-built destroyers were part of Operation Prosperity Guardian, the U.S. multinational effort to protect merchant vessels moving through the region.
USS Stockdale and USS Spruance were attached to the Lincoln strike group when they came under fire.
The USS Spruance’s keel was laid down in Bath on May 14, 2009, and the ship launched on June 6, 2010. The Navy commissioned the USS Stockdale on April 18, 2009.
The 20-mile-wide Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, is of great strategic and economic importance and sits between Arabia and Africa.
General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works did not respond to a request to comment on the story.