USS Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG 7)
The USS Oliver Hazard Perry was the first of its 51-ship class — at the time, the largest U.S. Navy class since World War II. The effort to design and build a new open-ocean escort vessel was launched in 1970 by then-Chief of Naval Operation Elmo Zumwalt, who sought to replace a large number of WWII-era warships in affordable fashion. The Perrys were not universally welcomed; many admirals argued that the Navy should pour its shipbuilding funds into more sophisticated, yet fewer ships. But Zumwalt feared that path would leave the fleet with too few hulls to do its mission.
The contest to design the frigates was won by Bath Iron Works, and the program became a model for other U.S. shipbuilders when it began delivering ships on time and under budget. The USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58) would be the third-to-last of the class.
A starboard bow view of the guided missile frigate USS Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG 7) underway on 24 Aug 1979 in the Great Lakes. U.S. Navy photo by PHC Francavillo
FFG 7 sails in formation with two sister ships, USS Antrim (FFG 20) and USS Jack Williams (FFG 24), on 1 July 1982. Six years later, Jack Williams would sail with USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58) on its fateful deployment to the Persian Gulf. U.S. Navy photo
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.
