Bath Iron Works begins work on destroyer USS J. William Middendorf

Bath Iron Works has started fabrication on USS J. William Middendorf, and for Bath that means more than another Navy hull taking shape. The work adds to a production line already crowded with destroyers in multiple stages, keeping steady pressure on the yard’s workforce, suppliers and the broader Sagadahoc County economy.

Fabrication on the Arleigh Burke-class Flight III guided missile destroyer began around May 19 at BIW’s Structural Fabrication Facility in East Brunswick. BIW has said DDG 138 is the 47th Arleigh Burke-class destroyer built in Bath and the sixth Flight III destroyer whose production has started there. In late 2025, the company said it already had seven other destroyers under construction in addition to Middendorf, a backlog that includes Harvey C. Barnum Jr. (DDG 124), Patrick Gallagher (DDG 127), William Charette (DDG 130), Quentin Walsh (DDG 132), John E. Kilmer (DDG 134) and Richard G. Lugar (DDG 136).

That queue matters in a city where BIW remains the largest employer and one of the clearest drivers of local spending. A fuller production schedule can mean more consistent work for welders, electricians, pipefitters and the contractors that feed the yard, but it also means more overtime pressure and a tighter hunt for workers in a region already grappling with housing constraints. BIW said in October 2025 that it was investing in 84 apartments at 150 Congress Avenue in Bath, with units expected in mid-2027, part of an effort to retain and attract workers as shipbuilding demand stays elevated.

The Navy named DDG 138 USS J. William Middendorf on June 10, 2022, after the ship was appropriated in the fiscal year 2022 budget. The vessel honors J. William Middendorf II, who was born in 1924, served in the U.S. Navy from 1944 to 1946 aboard USS LCS (L)(3)-53, later served as U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands from 1969 to 1973 and became the 62nd secretary of the Navy on April 8, 1974. The Navy says he championed the Trident submarine program, the AEGIS Missile system and the F/A-18 Hornet, and helped create the Marine Corps Marathon.

The start of work on Middendorf also lands in a wider national push to rebuild shipbuilding capacity. The Navy’s May 2026 Shipbuilding Plan calls for revitalizing the maritime industrial base and frames that effort around a modern “Golden Fleet.” At Bath Iron Works, where the start of fabrication for Louis H. Wilson Jr. (DDG 126) was marked on March 3, 2020, each new destroyer now carries both military significance and local economic weight.