Valor Friday

Most of you probably already know that US Navy warships are given awards and decorations just like other members of the US military. While the ships cannot earn individual awards (like an Achievement Medal or the Silver Star) they earn unit citations, campaign medals, and readiness decorations.

USS Constitution “Old Ironsides” herself is the oldest commissioned US warship. Ordered in 1794 she first sailed in 1798. She’s been in service since then. One the country’s first warships, she saw active combat service in several wars and conflicts that predated the earliest American campaign medals by decades.

It wasn’t until the Civil War that the US would issue a campaign participation medal, and that medal wasn’t created until 1905, 40 years after the war ended. So Constitution received no awards or decorations for her combat role in the Quasi-War with France, the First Barbary War (including at Tripoli, the shores of which feature in the Marine Corps Hymn), the War of 1812, anti-slave trade efforts, and finally the US Civil War (where she served as a training ship for US Naval Academy midshipmen).

Since 1900, USS Constitution has been a museum ship, but she does on occasion sail. She’s not only America’s oldest commissioned warship, she’s the oldest commissioned warship in the world that is still afloat.

USS Constitution rates the following awards:

USS O’Bannon (DD-450) was the second of three US Navy destroyers to be named for First Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon. O’Bannon was a Marine Corps officer who led the successful capture of Derna, Tripoli during the First Barbary War in 1805. It was O’Bannon’s heroic successes that led to the aforementioned “Shores of Tripoli” being included in the Marine Corps Hymn. O’Bannon’s bravery so impressed Prince Hamet Karamanli, the Bey of Tripoli we were fighting to reinstate, that the Prince presented him with a Mameluke sword. In 1825, the Mameluke became the ceremonial sword of all Marine Corps officers, due to O’Bannon’s stature among Marines. The Mameluke Marine officers wear through to today has changed little.

O’Bannon’s second namesake ship was a Fletcher-class destroyer commissioned in 1942 and saw extensive service during World War II. After participating in the Battle of Guadalcanal, legend has it that in 1943 USS O’Bannon came upon a surfaced Japanese submarine. The submarine skipper brought his boat inside O’Bannon’s gun range, so close the captain said that the ship’s cook believed he could throw a potato at it. The media picked up a story that O’Bannon had sunk a Japanese warship with potato fire.

After earning 17 battle stars and a Presidential Unit Citation in World War II, O’Bannon served out of Pearl Harbor starting in 1951. From there she sailed for Korea to participate in the war on that peninsula. She earned another three battle stars there.

After Korea, the ship took part in nuclear testing operations at Eniwetok and Johnston Island. When the Vietnam War intensified, the veteran destroyer was part of the screening force for the carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CVA-63) in Vietnam coastal waters from 1964 to 1965.

O’Bannon then participated in preparing for the at-sea recovery operations of the US space program, participating in the recovery of Gemini 11 in 1966. Gemini 11 had seen NASA astronauts (and US Navy officers) Pete Conrad and Richard Gordon conduct the first successful orbital rendezvous and docking. This was a critical next step on the long road to the moon (where both Conrad and Gordon would go on the Apollo 12 mission, though only Conrad would walk on the moon).

After playing her role in the Space Race, O’Bannon returned to Southeast Asia, shelling enemy targets from off the coast of Da Nang in 1967. The ship also took enemy fire and rescued the crew of a downed airplane that had been forced to crash into the ocean.

In 1970, O’Bannon was decommissioned, stricken, and sold for scrap. The venerable warship had earned this impressive array of decorations during her decades of service across three wars. That wasn’t unusual in itself, as many ships from World War II stayed in service into and even past the Vietnam-era. What is unusual is her seeing active combat in all three wars.

USS O’Bannon’s World War II honors alone make her the most decorated US destroyer of the war and they tie her for third place with USS San Francisco (CA-38) behind the most decorated US ships of the war USS Enterprise (CV-6) with 20 battle stars and one Presidential Unit Citation and USS San Diego (CL-53) which earned 18 battle stars.

A sister ship of O’Bannon, USS Nicholas (DD-449), also a Fletcher-class destroyer commissioned in 1942. Named for the US Marine Corps’ first commissioned officer (and by tradition first Commandant of the Marine Corps) Major Samuel Nicholas, she earned 16 battle stars in the Pacific Theater during World War II and a Presidential Unit Citation.

Participating in many of the same battles as O’Bannon, she fought at places like Guadalcanal, Tulagi, New Ireland, Leyte, and Corregidor. All well known locations, and usually known because of the ferocity of the fighting both at sea and on land.

At the end of the war USS Nicholas and USS O’Bannon were ordered by Fleet Admiral Halsey to be present in Tokyo Bay for the Japanese Surrender, which ended World War II. They were selected “because of their valorous fight up the long road from the South Pacific to the very end.”

After that glorious tour of war duty, Nicholas was decommissioned briefly before Korea became embroiled in war. She earned a further five battle stars for service during the Korean War where she shelled shore positions from off the coast.

USS Nicholas continued to serve through the 50s and into the 60s. Serving in coastal Vietnam, Nicholas earned another nine battle stars. For those keeping count, that’s thirty (30!) battle stars over more than 20 years through three wars. This is a record among US Navy warships that still stands.

Like O’Bannon, Nicholas too participated in the NASA recovery efforts, first for Apollo 7 and then Apollo 8. Apollo 8 being the historic first flight around the moon over Christmas in 1968.

In 1970, once again alongside her sister USS O’Bannon, USS Nicholas too was decommissioned for the last time, ending her service as one of the most decorated US warships of all time.

Finally, the unofficial “most decorated” ship is one few have likely ever heard of. If I told you there was a US warship in service from 1974 to 2004 that earned nine (9!) Presidential Unit Citations during that time period, you’d probably wrack your brain trying to think of a single ship that saw that much combat. This ship never actually saw combat though.

It is true that most awards of the Presidential Unit Citation (for all the uniformed services) are for combat performance, combat is not a requirement of the award. The award criteria is “Gallantry, determination, and esprit de corps in accomplishing its mission under extremely difficult and hazardous conditions.”

This has been interpreted pretty widely on occasion. USS Nautilus (SSN-571) received a Presidential Unit Citation (PUC) with special device for the first submerged passage of the North Pole. This would also be the first peacetime award of a PUC to a Navy unit in 1958. Similarly, USS Triton (SSN-586) received a PUC with distinctive device in 1960 for the first fully submerged circumnavigation of the globe. Other notable peacetime awards were for Hurricane Katrina response, in which President G.W. Bush awarded a PUC (again with distinctive device) to the whole of the US Coast Guard. President Obama awarded one to all members of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps in 2015 for their response to the Ebola outbreak that year. President Trump similarly cited the PHS Commissioned Corps in 2021 for their performance during the COVID-19 pandemic.

USS Parche (SSN-683) was a Sturgeon-class nuclear submarine commissioned in 1974. She was the second ship named for the Parche, a type of coral-dwelling butterfly fish. The first USS Parche (SS-384) had served six war patrols during World War II. The elder Parche earned five battle stars and a Presidential Unit Citation. After the war she was part of the target fleet at Operation Crossroads, the Bikini Atoll nuclear tests. She survived both the air burst and the underwater burst directed at the ships. With a pedigree such as that, Parche the Younger had big shoes to fill.

The nuclear Parche was initially part of the Atlantic Fleet from 1974-76, moving to the Pacific Fleet then until receiving modifications in 1978. From then until she retired, USS Parche was the most elite spy sub in the American fleet. You’ve likely never heard of her, because most of her operations are still classified.

Parche is claimed to have successfully tapped into Soviet underwater transcontinental communications wire in 1979. For the 1980s, she spent most of her time recovering missile fragments from Soviet test launches. Allegedly.

At the end of that decade, Parche was given an extensive refit, including an additional 100ft to her hull. The was to accommodate a larger crew and signals intelligence (SIGINT) equipment. Coming into her new role in the waning days of the Cold War, Parche again rejoined the Pacific Fleet.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Parche’s attention was turned to China. Allegedly. It’s been posited that Parche recovered Chinese missile fragments when the mainland fired missiles into the ocean in the general direction of Taiwan in 1995 and 1996.

While there are no details around the circumstances of the awards, USS Parche received an unprecedented number of awards over her three decades of service. She earned PUCs in 1979, 80, 81, 82, 86, 93, 94, 98, and 2004. This ties Parche with the 1st Marine Division for the record for most PUCs to a given unit.

In addition to all of those Presidential Unit Citations, which are considered the unit-level equivalent of the Navy Cross (which as an individual award is second only to the Medal of Honor), Parche received ten Navy Unit Commendations (the unit-level equivalent of a Silver Star).

Because Parche was operating in foreign waters (allegedly), in action against an armed foe (either the USSR or China), and in operations for which no other campaign medal was awarded, she received 13 Navy Expeditionary Medals. She received the same number (13) of Navy Battle Efficiency awards. Lastly, while Parche’s sail doesn’t reflect it, the ship is a recipient of the highly coveted National Defense Service Medal with two award stars (indicating three awards).

Speaking of her sail, when Parche was decommissioned, only the sail was preserved. It is now at a park near Puget Sound Navy Yard in Bremerton in Washington State.

Category: Historical, Navy, We Remember