The USS McCampbell , part of the Seventh Fleet , a destroyer , based in Japan , involved in keeping a watch on North Korean shipping in the past , tied up in Townsville , North Queensland, this month without the landlubber media in the garrison city noticing . However, our Shipping Reporter , who keeps a close watch on the waterfront , took the above photograph and others . The warship is named after Captain David S. McCampbell , the US Navy's leading WWll aviator who received the Medal of Honor and Navy Cross .
Information supplied about the Arleigh-Burke class destroyer says it maintains an onboard VBSS active team to conduct anti-piracy, anti-smuggling and anti-terrorist operations .
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Water police officer and others near destroyer .
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In June 2009 McCampbell replaced USS John S. McClean in shadowing a North Korean ship, Kang Nam 1 ; in 2011 it intercepted another North Korean ship, MV Light , suspected of carrying missile technology, the ship refused permission to board , returned to port .
During January 24 this year, in company with another US naval vessel , McCampbell made a routine Taiwan Strait transit according to international law.
The ship was first on station to provide food and aid to survivors of the massive undersea March 2011 Tohoku earthquake , which caused huge tsunami waves up to 40 metres high , resulting in the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster, the loss of thousands of lives and destruction of many buildings. The quake moved Honshu, Japan's largest island, 2.4 metres east and is even said to have moved the Earth off its axis .
Interviewing the captain of a ship involved in the aftermath of this monumental disaster and other important patrols would have made an interesting and timely Fourth of July special.
In port at the same time was another stand out ship - stock carrier Ocean Drover which in May was the centre of a major news story in which Animals Australia had lodged a 700 page submission against a pending shipment of 56,000 head of sheep from Western Australia to the Middle East .
