USS Pharris

Pharris carried a name that meant something. Jackson Charles Pharris was a Navy enlisted man who received the Medal of Honor for his actions aboard USS California during the attack on Pearl Harbor — wounded, in burning oil, still fighting to save his ship and his shipmates. The frigate named for him was a Knox-class workhorse, commissioned in 1971 and built for the Cold War's essential unglamorous work: chasing Soviet submarines through the North Atlantic with carrier battle groups counting on her to clear the way. Decommissioned in 1992 and transferred to Turkey, Pharris served that name well.