Tag Archives: Oliver Hazard Perry

The echoes of John Lawrence

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Check out this haze gray beauty, some 32 years young, in a recent photo essay from PAO of PHIBRON 8m built around the Iwo ARG and the 22nd MEU (SOC):

Official caption: Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG 70) approaches Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7) for a replenishment-at-sea while underway in the Caribbean Sea, Feb. 3, 2026. U.S. military forces are deployed to the Caribbean in support of the U.S. Southern Command mission, Department of War-directed operations, and the president’s priorities to disrupt illicit drug trafficking and protect the homeland. (U.S. Navy photos by Seaman Andrew Eggert)

Ticonderoga class guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG 70) breaks away from the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7) after a replenishment-at-sea while underway in the Caribbean Sea, Feb. 3, 2026. (U.S. Navy photos by Seaman Andrew Eggert)

Commissioned 24 July 1993, Lake Erie is named after the circa 1813 battle in which 28-year-old Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry, with five newly constructed shallow draft schooners, three brigs, and a sloop under his command, bested a smaller British Squadron under CDR Robert Heriot Barclay. OHP’s battle flag carried the rallying cry “Don’t Give Up the Ship,” the last words spoken by mortally wounded Capt. James Lawrence three months before Lake Erie during the USS Chesapeake vs. HMS Shannon battle.

It is CG-70s rallying cry as well.

Good to see her still looking great.

260203-N-FN990-1042

OHPs were tough nuts to crack

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During RIMPAC 2016 the Navy and her allies conducted two SINKEXs, both on retired Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates. Stripping the ships of combustibles, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), transformers and large capacitors, trash, floatable materials, mercury or fluorocarbon-containing materials, readily detachable solid PCB items and useful items such as 20mm Phalanx CIWS mounts (though not the Mk 75 76mm guns which the Navy and Coast Guard are retiring) they were sent to the deep after a lot of munitions were poured on them.

The first, ex-USS Thach (FFG-43) withstood a tremendous amount of damage from Harpoon anti-ship missiles launched from Australian P-3 Orions and the cruiser USS Princeton (CG 59) before taking torpedo hits from a submarine at periscope depth.

Then, in the below video, the decommissioned ex-USS Crommelin (FFG 37) just gets pounded mercilessly by live fire from ships and planes on 19 July, 60 miles north of Kauai, Hawaii.

It takes a lot to put her down.

It should be noted that two of their sisters, USS Samuel B. Roberts and USS Stark, both withstood terrific damage from a floating sea mine and surface to air missiles respectively in the Persian Gulf during the 1980s.

Get a little lean on

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An SH-60B Sea Hawk helicopter assigned to Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron Light (HSL) 48 prepares to take off from the flight deck of the Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigate USS Underwood (FFG 36). (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Frank J. Pikul/Released)

An SH-60B Sea Hawk helicopter assigned to the “Vipers” of Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron Light (HSL) 48, prepares to take off from the flight deck of the Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigate USS Underwood (FFG 36). (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Frank J. Pikul/Released)

When you are a 400~ foot long ship, it gets a little tight sometimes when conducting heli operations, especially when you consider a Sea Hawk has a 63-foot long fuselage and a 50+ foot wide rotor span.

Sadly, both the aircraft and vessel are history.

Commissioned 1983, Underwood was decommissioned on March 8, 2013 after 30 years of hard service. She has been stricken from the Naval List and is berthed at NAVSEA Inactive Ships, Philadelphia, PA, in Maintenance Category X, awaiting disposal, likely by scrapping or SINKEX.

The Navy does still use the HH-60 frame, though in its more modern MH-60 variant, the last SH-60’s being retired from active duty in May 2015.

In light of this move, HSL-48, whose ‘Hawk is shown above, is now HSM-48 but is still the “Vipers” and still based at Mayport.