The third Barry was laid down on 15 March 1954 at Bath, Maine, by the Bath Iron Works Corporation; launched on 1 October 1955; sponsored by Mrs. Francis Rogers, a great grandniece of Commodore John Barry; and commissioned at the Boston Naval Shipyard, Charleston, Mass., on 7 September 1956; Commander Isaac Campbell Kidd, Jr., in command.
Barry fitted out at the Boston Naval Shipyard through November, testing her new electronics, ASW gear and gunnery systems into December. After a brief underway period in Narragansett Bay, she departed 3 January 1957 for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to continue her shakedown. Her training exercises were interspersed with port visits to Kingston, Jamaica; Cuelebra, Puerto Rico, and Santa Marta, Columbia, before she departed for Colon, Panama.
The destroyer transited the Canal Zone on 26 February and anchored at Salinas, Ecuador, two days later to begin the first of three “good will” visits to Latin American ports. After a five-day visit, she departed for Callao, Peru. Arriving 5 March, she hosted the United States Ambassador to Peru, the Honorable Theodore C. Achilles, and the Prefect of Callao, before sailing for Valparaiso, Chili, on 9 March. Three days later, Barry‘s Captain received official calls from the Chilean provincial governor, the Commander in Chief of the Chilean Navy, Vice Almirante Francisco O’Ryan; the American consul to Valparaiso, and the American Commandant, First Naval Zone; all on the same afternoon. After refueling operations, she cleared Valparaiso on 17 March, and shaped course for Panama. Transiting the Canal Zone on 23 March, where she damaged a ships boat boom in Gatun Locks, she reached Boston on 29 March with her shakedown competed.
The destroyer under went post-shakedown alterations and repairs at the Boston Naval Shipyard, and cleared the harbor 15 May for a schedule of local operations off New England. On 27 June Barry departed for Rosslare, Ireland, and her first deployment to Europe. She visited St. Nazaire, France, and Lisbon, Portugal, before arriving at Gibraltar on the morning of 16 July. Assigned to the 6th Fleet, the destroyer escorted carriers, operated as plane guard, and conducted ASW barrier patrols before returning to Newport, R.I., in August.
On 24 September, after several weeks of post-deployment repairs and upkeep, she steamed into Narragansett Bay to assist the Norwegian freighter Bellevillewhich lay aground off Seal Rock. On 26 September, she helped escort the nuclear submarine Seawolf (SSN-575), carrying President Dwight D. Eisenhower, as she conduced a diving demonstration off Newport. After several months of routine operations, including ASW exercises and plane guard operations withForrestal (CVA-59) and Leyte (CV-32), the destroyer spent May, 1958, preparing for her next deployment to the Mediterranean.
Underway 6 June, she transited the Straits of Gibraltar and reached Rhodes on the morning of 20 June. For the next three weeks, Barry operated with 6th Fleet, conducted standard ASW exercises, until 14 July when a coup, organized by young military officers, seized Baghdad and declared a republic in Iraq. The Lebanese government, led by a Christian president, Camille Chamoun, feared a similar revolution might grow out of a Pan-Arab insurgency active in the Bekaa, Tripoli, and Beirut. President Camille Chamoun, following a pro-western policy, immediately requested that the United States land troops to stabilize the situation between Christians, Muslims, and Druze. President Eisenhower honored the request and, fearing the spread of Egyptian and Syrian influence, ordered Marines to Lebanon that same day.
Barry moored at Salonika, Greece, got underway the next morning, 15 July, to operate with Saratoga (CV-60) as her TG stood watch over the eastern Mediterranean. She remained in the region, patrolling the Lebanese coast and escorting carriers, in support of the Marines ashore. After upkeep alongside Grand Canyon (AD-36) at Izmir, Turkey, and fleet operations in Augusta Bay, Sicily, she sailed for home 17 September. Entering Boston Naval Shipyard 14 October, Barry received, after extensive alternations to her forefoot, the new bow-mounted SQS-23 sonar. Emerging from the yard 17 March, she spent the remainder of the year working up the sonar gear and carrying out tactical trials out of Newport and Key West. After a brief yard period at Boston in December, the destroyer conducted routine East Coast operations through May, 1960.
Barry moored at Salonika, Greece, got underway the next morning, 15 July, to operate with Saratoga (CV-60) as her TG stood watch over the eastern Mediterranean. She remained in the region, patrolling the Lebanese coast and escorting carriers, in support of the Marines ashore. After upkeep alongside Grand Canyon (AD-36) at Izmir, Turkey, and fleet operations in Augusta Bay, Sicily, she sailed for home 17 September. Entering Boston Naval Shipyard 14 October, Barry received, after extensive alternations to her forefoot, the new bow-mounted SQS-23 sonar. Emerging from the yard 17 March, she spent the remainder of the year working up the sonar gear and carrying out tactical trials out of Newport and Key West. After a brief yard period at Boston in December, the destroyer conducted routine East Coast operations through May, 1960.
She cleared Newport on 6 June for a summer goodwill tour and sonar demonstration cruise to Northern Europe. Before the end of June, Barry visited Portsmouth, England, and Kiel, Germany, to conduct naval reviews and in-port sonar demonstrations. During July, when she visited the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Belgium, the destroyer’s crew found the regional navies were eager to discuss both technological and security concerns. And, as Barry conducted four at-sea sonar demonstrations with friendly submarines, that foreign naval officers were impressed with U.S. naval technology. In August, after exercises with French and Portuguese diesel submarines, the destroyer returned to Newport on 31 August.
After local operations, and a port visit to Montreal, Canada, Barry set out for the Virginia Capes operation areas on 9 January 1961, for hunter-killer ASW exercises. After a brief dry-dock period at Boston, she ranged the eastern seaboard, conducting tactical tests on her bow sonar and participating in amphibious exercises, from Guantanamo Bay to Halifax, Nova Scotia. After another long yard period at the Boston Naval Shipyard, she departed for the Mediterranean with a task group formed around Randolph (CVA-15) in June, 1962. The destroyer operated with 6th Fleet for the next two months, watching a steady flow of Soviet merchant ships sail out of the Black Sea towards Cuba, before returning to Newport in August for post-deployment upkeep.
On 16 October, the day President John F. Kennedy was shown aerial reconnaissance photographs of Soviet nuclear missiles and launch sites under construction in Cuba, Barry was still undergoing upkeep at Newport. On 22 October, when President Kennedy told the nation that he had initiated “as strict quarantine of all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba,” she cleared Newport on the night of 22 October, in company with Blandy (DD-943), Charles S. Sperry (DD-697) and Keppler (DD-765). After rendezvous with Essex (CVS-9) on the 26th, she operated as a screening vessel and plane guard. Two days later, she was detached to operated on ASW surveillance and, after taking over the task from Bache (DD-470) and Eaton (DD-510), kept a close watch on contact “C-19,” a surfaced Soviet submarine. Barry, at this time well east of the “Quarantine” line, kept the Foxtrot-class diesel boat under surveillance unit it submerged at 1814 that evening.
Barry remained on the line, carrying out patrols, until 8 November when, during refueling operations with Essex, the destroyer had embarked, via highline transfer, a three-man photographic and interpreter party. Barry, ordered to investigate a soviet merchantman, proceeded to her station on the 9th and sighted the merchant ship that evening. She closed to within 400 yards on the merchantman’s starboard quarter, illuminated the ships’ quarter and bow, and identified here as the Soviet-registry Metallurg Anosov. Trailing astern, Barry followed the merchant ship, heading east away from the quarantine zone, until morning. After dawn, the destroyer closed the merchant, to “obtain photographs of deck cargo,” until late morning when she shaped course for Essex for refueling and transfer of photographic personnel.
With her part in the “Cuban Quarantine” completed, Barry reached Narragansett Bay on 15 November for upkeep. She put out to sea for exercises with Essex on 30 November, ranging as far as Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic and San Juan, Puerto Rico, before returning to Newport on 21 December. For the next six months, Barry carried out type-training and ASW exercises before entering the Boston Naval Shipyard in June 1963 for a scheduled interim overhaul period. Later that summer Barry, with midshipmen embarked for at-sea training, cruised the eastern seaboard of the United States. While the midshipmen enjoyed the ports of call, including New York and Halifax, Nova Scotia, they also had to ride out a hurricane off Bermuda.
The year 1964 saw Barry following a similar routine of exercises. On 27 March, while bound to Puerto Rico, the destroyer received a distress call, a serious fire had broken out in the forward hold, from the stores issues ship Antares (AKS-33). Barry‘s fire and rescue party, the first assistance to arrive, helped extinguish the blaze after an 18-hour battle. A short deployment followed during which Barry participated in a joint NATO exercise with three German destroyers along the Atlantic coast.
In later July, after Warrington (DD-843) lost steering control during a highline transfer and damaged Barry, the destroyer spent a week in Boston Naval Shipyard. Administrative and operational preparations followed and, on 7 September 1964, Barry sailed for a three-and-a-half-month deployment in European and Mediterranean waters. After initial NATO exercises in the Norwegian Sea, during which Barry crossed the Arctic circle on 21 September, she sailed south for antisubmarine screening with 6th Fleet. Visits to Valencia and Barcelona, Spain; Palma, Mallorca; Marseilles and Toulon, France; and Naples, Italy, provided diversion for the ship’s company between U.S. and NATO operations “Teamwork,” “Masterstroke” and “Steel Pike I.” She returned to Newport on 18 December.
In February 1965, Barry ventured south to the Caribbean for the annual spring training exercises and, in June, acted as assistant recovery ship for the Gemini Four space shot. The balance of the summer, highlighted by her winning the Squadron Battle Efficiency “E” for ASW, was spent preparing for the destroyer’s first Western Pacific deployment. As flagship of DesRon 24, the first group of Atlantic Fleet destroyers to deploy to Vietnam, she departed Newport with Samuel B. Roberts (DD-823), Charles S. Sperry, Hawkins (DD-873), Vesole (DD-878), and Ingraham (DD-594) on 29 September. The Norfolk-based Harold E. Ellison (DD-864) and Bache accompanied the squadron.
Passing through the Panama Canal on 6 October, Barry touched at Hawaii, for a short liberty, and Midway before crossing the International Date Line the night of 25 October. At 0100, the “calendar was advanced to the 27th and the 26th of October was lost forever.” After visiting the Japanese ports of Yokosuka and Sasebo, she reached Subic Bay, in the Philippines, on 17 November, and commenced type training at the Tabones Naval Gunfire Support Range. Barry cleared Subic Bay on 30 November in company with Task Group 77.7, including Enterprise (CVAN-65), Bainbridge (DLGN-25), and Samuel B. Roberts for the South China Sea.
Arriving on station at “Point Dixie,” off the coast of South Vietnam, Barry screened the nuclear-powered carrier during the 2 December air strikes against Viet Cong positions near Bien Hoa and throughout South Vietnam. Leaving the carrier to continue these “milk-run” strikes, to allow pilots and crew to become accustomed to combat, Barry was ordered to the South Vietnamese coast for gunfire support duty. Steaming slowly up the Saigon River near Vung Tau on the morning of 7 December, she was given orders to bombard Viet Cong positions several miles east of the river. For two days, her 5-inch guns fired on supply points and entrenchments, getting credit from Army air spotters for “excellent target coverage,” before moving to the Mekong Delta region. Closing the beach near the coastal town of Cho Phuoc Hai, Barry continued fire missions in support of III and IV Naval Zones. After firing some 1500 5-inch rounds, including opportunity fire near Ba Dong and south of Bung Tau, the destroyer rejoined TG 77.7 on 15 December.
Enterprise, steaming off Danang at “Point Yankee,” launched a series of strikes at north Vietnamese bridges, roads and supply centers. Barry, screening the carrier as the task group skirted the Gulf of Tonkin, watched as A-4 Skyhawks and F-4 Phantoms struck at North Vietnamese anti-aircraft and radar defense systems. Further strikes, on 22 December, disabled the Uong Bi power complex, the Hai Doung bridge was bombed the following day, and barges and junks were interdicted offshore. Christmas was spent at sea, during an uneasy and temporary truce, and January 1966 saw a resumption of the bombing campaign. Barry continued plane guard and screen duties until 17 January when the entire task group arrived at Subic Bay.
Alongside Piedmont (AD-17), conducting repairs needed after 48 days of continuous combat operations, the destroyer’s crew expected a week of upkeep at Subic followed by a well-earned liberty in Hong Kong. On the very next day, however, Barry received orders to get underway in 36 hours for “special operations” in South Vietnam. After laboring for two straight nights and a day, the destroyer, assisted by repair crews from Piedmont, managed to reassemble her machinery in time to steam out of Subic Bay the morning of 19 January.
Attached to III Marine Amphibious Force (MAF), Barry was to provide naval gunfire coverage for the 29 January landing of 5,000 Marines on beaches north of Duc Pho in Quang Ngai province. Three battalions were landed, by helicopter and landing craft, in the largest combat assault since Inchon during the Korean War. Despite light rain and rough weather, the initial stage of Operation “Double Eagle” was competed in two days. As the Marines moved inland, searching for two suspected NVA regiments, they encountered scattered Viet Cong guerrillas instead. For the next five days, Barry, with the cruiser Oklahoma City (CLG-5), provided fire missions for reconnaissance teams, conducted harassing fire at night, and commanded a South Vietnamese junk patrol designed to counter VC coastal infiltration.
Detached south on 5 February, to support 1st Cavalry and ARVN units in Operation “Masher-White Wing,” Barry ranged 150 miles of coastline, firing harassing missions against Viet Cong positions. The destroyer, having fired over 700 5-inch rounds in combat and hosting several 1st Cavalry officers aboard, departed 15 February for a well-deserved liberty in Hong Kong.
Clearing the British Crown Colony on 25 February, Barry, after rendezvous with the scattered units of Destroyer Squadron (DesRon) 24, sailed for Penang, Malaysia. After refueling on 1 March, and the traditional Shellback ceremony south of Singapore, the destroyers “chopped” to Atlantic Fleet upon arrival at Cochin, India. A reception by Indian naval officers followed before the squadron proceeded to the British Protectorate of Aden. On 12 March Barry transited the Suez Canal, pushed on to Naples and Barcelona, before stopping to refuel at Gibraltar, B.C.C. After a final fuel stop at Ponta del Gada, Azores, the destroyers steamed into Newport, having circumnavigated the globe, on 8 April 1966.
After a month of leave and tender availability, Barry, and other ships of DesRon 24 conducted two weeks of torpedo firing, gunnery and engineering training exercises. A brief series of engineering tests were conducted at Boston Naval Shipyard, preparatory to her scheduled overhaul the following January, before a midshipman training cruise and amphibious exercises in June. On 23 July Barry entered the Boston shipyard again to begin a gunnery evaluation project.
The project, a single-ship evaluation of the new Mk 86 fire control system, involved the installation of an optical pulse-compression radar and an experimental gun platform on the destroyer. While in drydock, shipyard personnel also completed long-delayed engineering repairs and installed a new SQS-23 sonar transducer. Departing Boston on 6 September, Barry spend two months operating out of Newport while Lockheed engineers conducted post-installation tests on the new fire control system. Operational evaluation followed in mid-November when the destroyer sailed to Culebra Island in the Caribbean for the shore bombardment phase of the Mk 86 evaluation. On 5 December, Barry departed for Mayport, Florida, and the surface firing evaluation in the Jacksonville Operating Area. Despite bad weather, and typical “teething” problems, the tedious process was successfully finished on 15 December.
Entering Boston Naval Shipyard on 4 January 1967 for overhaul and ASW conversion, Barry was decommissioned on 31 January. She received, after a fifteen-month alteration, a variable depth sonar array (VDS), an anti-submarine rocket launcher (ASROC), a new combat information center (CIC), an enclosed bridge, and completely overhauled propulsion and electrical systems. Recommissioned 19 April 1968, Commander Thomas H. Sherman in command, Barry conducted post-overhaul equipment shakedown and shipyard availability for the following year.
On 26 May 1969, after rearming her weapons systems, the destroyer departed for a six-week Caribbean cruise. A week of weapon calibration off St. Croix, and two weeks of refresher training at Guantanamo Bay, was followed by a Bar Harbor, Maine, port visit in late July. After rendezvous with Yorktown (CVS-10) ASW Group (HUK) the destroyer steamed to European waters for a four-month North Atlantic deployment. In between NATO exercises, including Arctic Circle operations, she visited Antwerp, Oslo, Bergen, and Le Havre for goodwill visits before sailing for Newport on 1 December. Three days later, appropriately while on plane guard duty, Barry rescued the crew of a disabled helicopter.
For the next two years, except for a brief October 1970 deployment to Greece in response to the Jordanian-PLO conflict, the destroyer operated on a routine schedule of type training, operational exercises, port visits and annual midshipmen cruises. After a three-month regular yard period in early 1972, Barry conducted refresher training, gunfire support qualifications and ASROC firing tests in the Caribbean. Then, as part of a new forward deployment program, Barry began preparations to change her homeport to Athens, Greece.
Departing 18 August, she joined 6th Fleet at Rota, Spain, before sailing into Athens 1 September. Following a monthlong standdown, to settle crew and dependents in new housing, Barry began intensive Fleet operations. NATO exercises with Greek and Turkish ships; goodwill port visits to Italy, Spain, Turkey and Greece; and ASW training, highlighted by the surfacing of a Soviet Foxtrot-class diesel submarine on 11 January, continued well into 1973.
On 3 July, Barry received an upgrade to her AN/SQS-23 sonar at Hellenic Shipyards, Athens. in October, in response to the soviet naval buildup during the Arab-Israeli war, Barry steamed to join the 6th Fleet’s Amphibious Task Forces. On 16 November, while on reserve station south of Crete, a Marine CH-46 helicopter from Guadalcanal (LPH 7) lost engine power during a routine flight while hovering above Barry. The craft, with crewmen aboard, crashed into the destroyer’s ASROC deck, rolled over the starboard side, and almost immediately sank. While no one on Barry was injured, only two helicopter crewmen were found by the ship’s Motor Whale Boat. Further contingency operations, mostly as carrier escort, followed until the end of the year.
The destroyer conducted standard patrol operations in 1974, highlighted by a month of tense operations during the Cyprus crisis of August and the tracking of an active sonar contact while Admiral James L. Holloway, CNO, was aboard on 19 September. In October, she was drydocked to have her seaweed-fouled hull sandblasted and finished the year inport after a visit to the French Riviera. After NATO Exercise “Sardinia 75” in April, including type training with Italian ships,Barry began preparations to leave Athens after the Greek government canceled the naval station agreement.
Departing 20 July, after 36 months of forward deployment, the destroyer steamed via Ville Franche, France; Palma de Mallorca and Rota, Spain, before arriving at Philadelphia on 20 August. The remainder of the year was spent in port. Except for her participation in the 200th Navy birthday celebration in New York City, the remainder of the year was spent conducting training exercises or in port. In February 1976, after training off the Virginia Capes, she entered Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for her first major overhaul period since 1968.
Barry remained in the yard until 9 February 1977 when she departed for sea trials. She transferred her homeport to Mayport, Florida, on 4 March and began a series of shakedown exercises, including weapons qualifications training, that culminated in her fifth deployment to the Mediterranean. She rendezvoused with America (CV-66) on 29 September, steamed to Lisbon, Portugal, and then onto Naples, Italy, before joining 6th Feet operations. On the night of 10 November, Barry assisted in the successful rescue, primarily with boats and searchlights, of two crewmembers of an aircraft that had ditched on approach to America. After several missile exercises, ASW training, and a port visit to Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, Barry finished out her year moored alongside Yosemite (AD-19) in Naples, Italy.
Following a routine visit to Ville Franche, France, Barry steamed through the Straits of Messina in response to an Eastern Mediterranean cruise by units of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. Between 24 January and 3 February 1978, the destroyer shadowed Kiev (TAKR) and Moska (PKR) Task Group while it operated in the Levantine Basin. Barry observed and evaluated Kiev‘s underway replenishment ability, flight operations and seakeeping characteristics before returning to Italy. Following “Exercise Sardinia 78,” part of NATO’s National Week XIV, Barry began a series of exercises off Sicily and Valencia, Spain, before departing for Mayport, Florida, 14 April. Underway again in late June, the destroyer operated in the Mayport and Chesapeake Bay areas until early August when she prepared for a northern European cruise. Departing 22 August, as part of Exercise “Common Effort,” Barry helped demonstrate NATO’s capability to replenish Europe by sea. Operation “Northern Wedding,” a major NATO exercise, took place in early September and was followed by a routine port visit to Copenhagen, Denmark. Another NATO exercise, “BALTOP’s 78,” took place in the Skaggerak and Baltic Sea with units of Germany, Holland and Norway, through 3 October. Barrythen sailed to Helsinki, Finland, her first visit since 1960, before port visits at Bremen, Germany, and Amsterdam, Netherlands. She also stopped at Middleborough, U.K., for the Captain James Cook (RN) Festival, before sailing for home. After a brief stop at the Azores to refuel, the destroyer arrived at Mayport 8 November for upkeep.
The new year began with ASW and naval gunfire support operations off Jacksonville and Puerto Rico until February when she underwent repair and maintenance availability in preparation for another Mediterranean deployment. The destroyer, in company with Battle Group 2 (BG2), reached Gibraltar 24 March to begin a series of port visits. Barry, on a routine cruise to “show the flag,” visited Tunis, Tunisia; Crotone, Italy; Monaco; Toulon, France; and La Spezia, Italy, before participating in National Week XXV with Italian naval units.
Underway on 2 June 1979, in company with Sampson (DDG-10), Barry sailed for the Suez Canal, transiting the waterway on 6 June enroute to Djibouti. After a refueling stop, and detaching from Sampson, she proceeded on to Karachi, Pakistan, for a routine port visit. On arrival 16 June, she wore the flag of Rear Admiral Samuel H. Packer II, Commander Middle East Forces. Due to the revolutionary events in Iran, the Islamic Republic having been declared 1 April, Barry‘s next orders deployed her into the Persian Gulf to support American civilians/personnel in Iran and reassure friendly countries in the region. Arriving at Bahrain on 23 June, she underwent repair availability before starting patrol operations in the Gulf on 4 July. After a port visit to Abu Dhabi, U.A.E., she conducted surveillance and counter-terrorist patrols in the Straits of Hormuz. Joined by the Sultan of Oman Navy in these patrols, interspersed with fuel stops at Muscat, Oman and Sitra, Bahrain, continued until 31 July when Barry departed for Djibouti. After a brief fuel stop, she visited Victoria, Seychelles, for a port visit before rendezvousing with Sampson and Elmer Montgomery (FF-1082) on 20 August for return to the Mediterranean. She transited the Suez Canal on 25 August and eventually rejoined BG-2 at Rota, Spain. Underway for Mayport, Florida, soon after the destroyer arrived home 21 September for post-deployment leave and upkeep. The remainder of the year was spent conducting local operations out of Mayport and preparations for a scheduled overhaul the following year.
On 17 January 1980, Barry‘s homeport was changed to Boston and the following day, she entered Bethlehem Steel Shipyard, Boston, for a yearlong regular overhaul. The crew, once hull maintenance began, moved into quarters ashore as extensive repair and overhaul of the engineering plant, electronic suite and weapons systems were performed. She departed drydock on 7 August and moored alongside pier #2 to complete the remaining repair work. Ultimately, Barry got underway on 31 March 1981 for her shakedown. Over the next few months, the ship ranged from Newport to the Virginia Capes, working to rejoin the fleet, spending much of that time on local operations in the Narragansett Bay area. While conducting further refresher training in the Bahamas and at Guantanamo Bay, operations were suddenly canceled when the ship received a message directing her to return to Newport to prepare for a Middle East deployment.
Barry sailed for her assignment on 10 November 1981, bound for Hamilton, Bermuda, on the first leg of her transit of the Atlantic. The ship then pressed on for the Azores, and thence into the Mediterranean, ultimately transiting the Suez Canal on 26-27 November. Joining an Amphibious Readiness Group (ARG) formed around Saipan (LHA-2), Raleigh (LPD-1), and Barnstable County (LST-1197), Barry helped escort these ships through the Bab el Mandeb Straits on the 29th. Steaming separately, the destroyer touched at Djibouti for fuel on 30 November, before joining with the battle group formed around Coral Sea (CV-42) on 1 December.
Barry remained with that unit for a week, acting as screen and naval gunfire support ship during Operation “Bright Star ’82.” Following the exercise, the destroyer escorted the ARG’s ships back through the Straits of Bab el Mandeb before Barry proceeded on to Mombassa, Kenya, arriving there on 21 December. She tarried at Mombassa for the remainder of 1981, departing the Kenyan port on 2 January 1982 for the Persian Gulf. Patrol operations in the Gulf lasted through February until 9 March when the destroyer turned for home. She reached Newport, via Malaga, Spain, on 9 April.
Over the ensuing months, Barry‘s schedule of operations was fairly light; she provided support for the American Sail Training Association’s “Tall Ships ’82” race, visited Bristol, R.I., and served as escort and host ship for the Italian cruiser Duilo during that ship’s visit to New York City and Philadelphia.
On 1 September, as part of a destroyer replacement program, the ship was ordered to commence decommissioning standdown. On 5 November 1982, Barry was decommissioned. Five days later, under tow of Papago (ATF-160), she was on her way to the Inactive Ship Facility at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, reaching that facility on the 12th. Ultimately, in 1984, the destroyer was brought to the Washington Navy Yard where she served as a museum ship until 2015.
Barry earned two battle stars for her service in the Vietnam War.
