The launch of a new class of frigate took place on September 25, 1976 at Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine. The Oliver Hazard Perry FFG-7 was the first ship of her class and the first ship built for the U.S. Navy at BIW for seven years. The event was attended by about 10,000 people and when the moment of truth came...

The keynote speaker was Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld who made the case for passage of a new defense bill that was in Congress. The purely political speech contained nothing of note that would be worth reprinting here, but he did what he could to secure funding for the military before what turned out to be the disastrous presidency of Jimmy Carter which would plunge the nation into a deep recession and end with Americans being held hostage in Iran.

However future events were not on anyone's mind at BIW, the first concern was to get their new ship into the water. After the speeches Mrs. Morgan Hebard, the great-great granddaughter of Commodore Perry broke the bottle of champaign across the bows. With great excitement the crowd watched, but the ship did not move. There are several versions of what happened next, which one is exactly true will never be known.

One of the guests at the podium stood up, approached the ship and gave her a shove, after which she began to move and the launch was a success. Some say this happened just as the last of the blocks was removed, another account claims the guest looked over at the men working to free the stuck ship, and on a cue from one of the men he placed his hand on the ship and she went down the ways. There are still other variations on the story, but one thing is for sure true. The guest did appear to shove the ship and the ship did slide down the ways, the other details will always be in dispute, but it made a great show.

The Oliver Hazard Perry class would become one of the most prolific classes of warships ever built, there were seventy-five built for four navies (United States, Australia, Spain and Taiwan). Many are still serving in the aforementioned navies as well as Poland, Turkey, Egypt and Bahrain, the last one was launched on Oct. 17, 2002. Bath Iron Works built twenty-four of them, but none of them had such an interesting launch.

The guest...well one would need a legend to create a legend and in Bath, Maine that day a legend was present. You might know him as Big Jake or even Rooster Cogburn, yes it was "The Duke", that's right, John Wayne.