GUNN-CHERONE

CASUALTY OF THE USS COLE ATTACK - OCTOBER 12, 2000

The guided missile destroyer USS Cole (DDG-67) was commissioned on June 8, 1996, and was named in honor of SGT Darrell Cole, USMC, who died during the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.  In August 2000 Cole was deployed from her home port of Norfolk, Virginia, to the Mediterranean.  On October 12, 2000, Cole was refueling while docked at Aden, Yemen, when two al-Qaeda suicide terrorists brought an inflatable Zodiac-type speedboat alongside the port side amidships, and detonated their lethal cargo.  Subsequent extensive investigation conducted by the FBI and NCIS determined the bomb contained over 1,000 pounds of C4 explosives.  The explosion blew a 40X60-foot wide hole at the waterline in Cole but the crew’s valiant damage control efforts saved the ship from sinking.  In addition to the two terrorist, 17 members of Cole’s crew died in the attack and 37 of their shipmates sustained wounds, many of whom were transported to Germany for hospital treatment and recovery.  At the time of this attack the rules of engagement prohibited U.S. forces from firing at suspected threats unless they had been fired on.  As a result of the Cole attack the Navy enhanced global force protection training during crucial transits, and sailors qualified to fire M60 and Browning M2 .50 caliber machine guns are now permitted to defend against assaults by low-slow flying aircraft and small boats.  The Cole attack was the deadliest against a U.S. naval vessel since an Iraqi attack on the USS Stark (FFG-31) on May 17, 1987, during the Iran-Iraq War.  Two of the masterminds of the Cole attack were later killed in separate U.S. airstrikes and a third key figure in the plot is in U.S. custody.

Signalman Seaman Cherone Louis Gunn was one of the 17 casualties.  He was born February 14, 1978, in Rex, Georgia, and graduated from Kempsville High School in Virginia Beach, Virginia, in 1997.  On January 20, 2000, he followed his father, a retired Navy chief petty officer, by also joining the Navy.  After completion of basic training on March 29, 2000, at Great Lakes, Illinois, he was a student at Surface Warfare School Command, also at Great Lakes, completing training on May 5, 2000.  SMSN Gunn reported to USS Cole on May 23, 2000.  He has been buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)