Moored on the Saginaw River in Bay City is a real Navy destroyer that served in the Pacific and Vietnam. USS Edson (DD-946) has been a museum ship in the Great Lakes region since 2012, and it is one of the most distinctive attractions in town, especially in a city that spent decades building warships.
Quick facts
• Museum: Saginaw Valley Naval Ship Museum, listed at 1680 Martin St, Bay City
• Ship: Forrest Sherman-class destroyer, commissioned November 7, 1958
• Length: about 418 feet overall
• Crew in service: 17 officers and 218 enlisted
• Plan: allow a couple of hours. Tour days and hours are seasonal, so confirm on the museum's own website before you go.
Who was Edson?
The ship is named for Major General Merritt "Red Mike" Edson of the U.S. Marine Corps, who received the Medal of Honor for his actions on Guadalcanal in World War II. His widow sponsored the ship when it was launched at Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine, on January 4, 1958.
A ship that saw service
After shakedown training, Edson deployed repeatedly to the western Pacific from her home port in Long Beach, California. She patrolled the Taiwan Strait, took part in operations off Japan and Okinawa and, in 1960, rescued three aviators from a carrier after their aircraft ditched. During the Vietnam War she performed gunfire support, search and rescue and plane-guard duty off the Vietnamese coast, and she earned a Navy Unit Commendation for service in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964. In 1975 she took part in the evacuations of Phnom Penh and Saigon, work for which she received Meritorious Unit Commendations.
She was a gun destroyer: her armament included three 5-inch guns, 3-inch anti-aircraft guns, anti-submarine weapons and torpedo tubes. She was powered by steam turbines that could drive her at more than 32 knots. Edson was decommissioned on December 15, 1988.
From New York to the Great Lakes
After retirement, Edson served as a museum ship at the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in Manhattan from 1989 to 2004 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990. After years in storage in Philadelphia, the Navy agreed in 2012 to let the Saginaw Valley Naval Ship Museum bring her to Michigan. She left on July 18, 2012, and arrived in the Bay City area on August 7 of that year. After about a year at a temporary mooring she moved up the Saginaw River to her permanent berth in May 2013.
She is one of only two surviving Forrest Sherman-class destroyers; the other is USS Turner Joy. She also appeared in an episode of The Twilight Zone, "The Thirty-Fathom Grave."
Why a destroyer in Bay City?
Bay City has a long shipbuilding history. The Defoe Shipbuilding Company built destroyer escorts, guided-missile destroyers and patrol craft here for the U.S. and Australian navies until it closed in the mid-1970s. Edson was built in Maine, not Bay City, but her arrival fits the city's identity as a place that built, and still honors, naval vessels. Read the story in our Defoe shipbuilding guide.
Tips for visiting
- Wear sturdy shoes. Navy ships have steep ladders, narrow passages and high thresholds.
- Check accessibility. A warship was not designed for wheelchairs, so call the museum if mobility is a concern.
- Check tour times and prices on the museum's website before you drive over, or read our museum visitor's guide for tickets, tours and the October haunted attraction.
- Combine it with the riverfront. Our riverfront guide and one-day itinerary show how to fit the ship into a day with lunch and a walk.
Sources
Ship facts come from the public encyclopedia article on USS Edson and the Saginaw Valley Naval Ship Museum. This guide is independent and is not run by the museum.