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The U.S. Navy's looking for a name for its upcoming FFG (X) class of guided missiles frigates. I humbly suggest "Roberts" or "Samuel B. Roberts" for several reasons:
1) In 1942, Coxswain Samuel B. Roberts steered his boat within range of Japanese machine guns to draw their fire away from Marines withdrawing from the beach. His valor was marked with a posthumous Navy Cross...
2) ...and a namesake ship: DE 413, an 1,800-ton destroyer escort that in 1944 helped drive off a far superior force of Japanese battleships threatening U.S. troopships off Leyte — the legendary Battle off Samar.
“In no engagement of its entire history,” Navy admiral-historian Samuel Eliot Morison wrote, “has the United States Navy shown more gallantry, guts and gumption than in those two morning hours between 0730 and 0930 off Samar.”
3) The Navy commemorates valiant ships as well as sailors, and so in 1946 the service commissioned DD 823, a destroyer that won two battle stars off Vietnam, took part in the Cuban missile blockade, helped hunt for USS Thresher, and far more.
4) The third "Sammy B" was a Perry-class guided missile frigate that won glory in 1988 when its crew beat the odds with a successful fight against fire and flooding after an Iranian mine blew a truck-sized hole in the hull.
Navy brass have rightly discarded a suggestion (by the recently resigned acting secretary) to name the FFG(X) the "Agility" class. https://news.usni.org/2020/04/08/navy-leaders-sink-ship-names-proposed-in-secnav-modlys-last-days
Still, some have suggested that the ships still be named for adjectives or Constitutional concepts or other abstract idea.
Still, some have suggested that the ships still be named for adjectives or Constitutional concepts or other abstract idea.
But I would argue that the Navy does best when it honors past valor. The service should press forward with technology and tactics, but paint history and heritage on its ships' sterns.
And speaking of historical precedent, all of the Navy's steel-hulled frigate classes were named for naval heroes: Bronstein, Garcia, Glover, Knox, Brooke, Perry.
In naming its next, the Navy should renew its remembrance of another hero: Samuel B. Roberts.
In naming its next, the Navy should renew its remembrance of another hero: Samuel B. Roberts.
For more info, try these:
* https://www.navytimes.com/opinion/2015/05/27/the-case-for-a-fourth-uss-samuel-b-roberts/
* Coxswain Roberts: http://www.navybook.com/no-higher-honor/timeline/coxswain-samuel-b-roberts/
* DE 413: http://www.navybook.com/no-higher-honor/timeline/uss-samuel-b-roberts-de-413/
* DD 823: http://www.navybook.com/no-higher-honor/timeline/uss-samuel-b-roberts-dd-823/
* FFG 58: http://www.navybook.com/no-higher-honor/
* https://www.navytimes.com/opinion/2015/05/27/the-case-for-a-fourth-uss-samuel-b-roberts/
* Coxswain Roberts: http://www.navybook.com/no-higher-honor/timeline/coxswain-samuel-b-roberts/
* DE 413: http://www.navybook.com/no-higher-honor/timeline/uss-samuel-b-roberts-de-413/
* DD 823: http://www.navybook.com/no-higher-honor/timeline/uss-samuel-b-roberts-dd-823/
* FFG 58: http://www.navybook.com/no-higher-honor/
