USS Bulkeley Departs Souda Bay for Sixth Fleet Deployment

SOUDA BAY, Greece — The USS Bulkeley (DDG 84) departed Souda Bay on April 9, 2026, after a port visit, according to a U.S. Navy photograph released by the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service.

The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer carries a crew of approximately 300 sailors and is equipped with the Aegis Combat System, SPY-1D radar, and a mix of Standard Missile interceptors, Tomahawk cruise missiles and 5-inch guns. Its current rotation forms part of the standing U.S. naval presence that routinely maintains 1-2 destroyers in the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic under U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa command.

The ship left its mooring lines secured and moved from pier side into the Mediterranean under standard deployment orders. Prior to departure it had been pierside at the U.S. Navy support activity at Souda Bay, a primary logistics hub for Sixth Fleet operations.

The April 9 underway marks the transition from port call to operational patrol status; no end date for the deployment is specified in the release.

The movement commits the Bulkeley and its embarked weapons load to Sixth Fleet tasking for the remainder of its scheduled cruise. That assignment directly supports the command’s mission to sustain warfighting readiness, conduct ballistic-missile defense patrols when directed, and provide surge capacity for NATO allies or partner nations.

Any Sixth Fleet operational tasking that follows will now draw on the Bulkeley’s sensors and strike assets rather than those of another hull still in maintenance or in another theater. Congress receives quarterly readiness reports on such deployments through the Navy’s classified operational summaries; the next such report will reflect the Bulkeley’s contribution to forward-deployed days in the European theater.

This deployment continues a pattern of routine Arleigh Burke rotations through Souda Bay that has occurred multiple times per year since the base’s expansion in the 2010s. The Navy has maintained a near-continuous guided-missile destroyer presence in the Sixth Fleet area since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, using Souda Bay as the primary eastern Mediterranean hub for crew rest, resupply and ballistic-missile-defense operations.