Page 12 - Mariner-Summer-2023 Volume-66-Issue-2

NAVY NEWS

Blue Angels Select Officers for 2023 Show Season, image by CPO
Paul Archer

Navy Christened Guided-Missile Destroyer

Harvey C. Barnum Jr. (DDG 124)

28 July 2023

WASHINGTON (July 28, 2023) — The Navy chris- as an officer. Stationed at Pearl Harbor in 1965, he vol-
tened the USS Harvey C. Barnum Jr. (DDG 124) during unteered for a temporary assignment in Vietnam. He was
a 10:30 a.m. EDT ceremony on Saturday, July 29, at fighting the Viet Cong in less than two weeks.
General Dynamics Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine.
Then-1st Lt. Barnum was the artillery forward observer
The ship's namesake, Col. Harvey C. Barnum Jr., received for Company H when it was flown to a mountaintop near
the Medal of Honor for heroism displayed during an Ky Phu. They were replacing the wounded companies
action outside Ky Phu, Quang Tin Province, Vietnam. fighting in Operation Harvest Moon. They were pinned
Barnum was born in Cheshire, Connecticut, on July 21, down by enemy fire and cut off from the rest of the bat-
1940, and graduated from high school in 1958. Inspired talion. Barnum ran into the open to retrieve Capt. Paul
by a Marine recruiter who visited his school when he was Gormley, who died in his arms. Barnum ran out again to
18, he went to Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire grab the radio off the slain radio operator. He'd called in
and joined the ROTC. By 1962, he was leading Marines artillery fire.

Above: Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro attends the christening ceremony of USS Harvey C. Barnum (DDG 124) July 29. The ship’s
namesake, Col Harvey C. Barnum Jr., USMC, was a veteran of Vietnam and recipient of the Medal of Honor. (Shannon E. Renfroe/U.S. Navy)

12 The Mariner • 2023 SUMMER Edition • Volume 66 • Issue 2

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