FFG 58 Launched at Bath Iron Works
The guided missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58) was launched on 8 December 1984 at Bath Iron Works in Maine. The BIW launch crew rose before dawn to complete a checklist that was long but familiar, burnished over a century that had sent 393 ships into the Kennebec River.
Photos by Bath Iron Works / Courtesy Paul Rinn
The official party assembles before FFG 58. Among them are prospective CO Cmdr. Paul Rinn, BIW CEO William Haggett, Sen. Mitchell and Rep. McKernan of Maine.
Haggett, left; Mrs. Jack Yusen, wife of a survivor of USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE 413); and Ivonette Roberts, the ship's sponsor and the sister-in-law of its namesake. Roberts holds the ceremonial wine bottle, swathed in protective fabric.
Roberts swings the bottle at the ship's prow.
Haggett makes some remarks about FFG 58.
FFG 58 begins to slide sternward, propelled by gravity alone.
The ship leaves the slideway, backing into the Kennebec River.
Tugs take FFG 58 under tow and pull it to the BIW pier so that construction can continue.
About The Book
No Higher Honor is the first book to detail the extraordinary tale of the USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58) and the crew's heroic efforts to save the ship after it hit an Iranian mine in 1988. Drawing on years of research and scores of interviews, Bradley Peniston chronicles the origins of the Perry-class frigate; the crew's training; its operations in the Persian Gulf; the U.S. retaliation against Iran, which became the biggest surface battle since World War II; and the complex repairs that returned the ship to duty.
Published by Naval Institute Press, the 275-page book contains 20 photos, several diagrams of the damage, and a muster list of the shipmates aboard the Roberts during its fight for survival.
