19431776 Club
Navy commissions the USS Harmon, its first warship named for a Black sailor
Leonard Roy Harmon's mother christened the ship that would carry his name into the Pacific war.
Nine months after Mess Attendant Leonard Roy Harmon died aboard USS San Francisco during the Battle of Guadalcanal, the Navy gave his name to a warship of its own. On 31 August 1943 at Quincy, Massachusetts, the Buckley-class destroyer escort USS Harmon was commissioned, becoming the first U.S. Navy ship named for an African American. Harmon's mother, Naunita Harmon Carroll, had sponsored the launch five weeks earlier. Lieutenant Commander Kendall E. Read took command, and the ship then sailed to Bermuda for shakedown…
