She was named for Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan, who was killed in action aboard his flagship, the heavy cruiser San Francisco, during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal on 13 November 1942.

Subsequent to this, the U.S. Navy elected to commission her and her sister ships for service in the Persian Gulf and Mediterranean Sea, as they were equipped with heavy-duty air conditioning and were also well suited to filtering sand and the NBC warfare contaminants.

Korean Air Lines Flight 007, on its way from Anchorage, Alaska to Seoul, South Korea, carrying 269 passengers and crew, strayed into Soviet airspace.

During its survey of the crash site, the Callaghan was under very close scrutiny of the Soviet Navy, narrowly avoiding open conflict while engaged in their search.

For grading period January 1985 to June 1986 Callaghan earned her second Battle Efficiency E by winning all the awards from the ships in competition.

The Callaghan steamed up the coast of Italy, made a port call at Monte Carlo and after that anchored at Toulon, France 16 May.

Following this cruise, Callaghan underwent a short Ship Repair Availability (SRA) before deploying independently to the Persian Gulf for Operation Earnest Will in August of 1988.

"Callaghan left San Diego for a six-month deployment on 11 August 1988, making stops at Pearl Harbor (17–18 August), Subic Bay (2–5 September) and Singapore (9–10 September) en route to the Middle East, where the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq was drawing to its conclusion.

Following her maintenance period, the ship once again resumed Gulf patrols until Christmas Eve, when she transited the Strait of Hormuz and commenced the voyage back to the United States.

Touching first at Colombo, Sri Lanka, to refuel on 28 December, Callaghan’s crew celebrated the new year in Phuket, Thailand, from 1–5 January 1989.

https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/c/callaghan-ii.html Also of note, on April 27th, 1989, during routine drug interdiction operations, Callaghan detected a high-speed contact off Colombia waters.

They were individually unloaded by the crew dressed in whites during the first CONUS port call upon return from the deployment in a spectacular media event covered by all networks in NAVSTA San Diego.

After almost two years of refit and training in the U.S., Su Ao was commissioned on 17 December 2005 at Kee-Lung naval port in northern Taiwan.