CVA-31 USS Bon Homme Richard I Have Not Yet Begun To Fight Patch

I HAVE NOT YET BEGUN TO FIGHT is what John Paul Jones is remembered as saying aboard the first Bonhomme Richard off Flamborough Head on 23 September 1779, and the Essex class carrier that carried her name put it right over the old sailing ship. Jones named his frigate for Benjamin Franklin, and the Navy has brought the name back for later ships. CV-31 took it to the Pacific in 1945 and kept it there through Korea and Vietnam. Her sailors called her the Bonnie Dick.

The New York Navy Yard laid her down in 1943, and she was commissioned on 26 November 1944. She joined Task Force 38 off Okinawa in June 1945 and flew strikes until the war ended, earning one battle star. Decommissioned in 1947, she came back on 15 January 1951 and earned five battle stars off Korea, and she was redesignated attack carrier CVA-31 on 1 October 1952. After the SCB-27C and SCB-125 rebuild at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard she recommissioned on 6 September 1955. She then made five combat tours off Vietnam, with CVW-21 in 1967 and CVW-5 from 1968 to 1970, and F-8 Crusaders of VF-51 flew from her catapults.

This patch is 3.75 inches wide by 4.5 inches tall, a round light blue design with a white merrowed edge and a curved bottom tab. I HAVE NOT YET BEGUN TO FIGHT runs across a tan scroll at the top, and DON'T TREAD ON ME rides a second scroll below. Between them a three-masted ship under full white sail carries a coiled rattlesnake on the mainsail, an early stars and stripes at the masthead and a red pennant astern. Gold wings spread behind the sails, joining the frigate to the carrier and her air wing. The dark blue tab reads U.S.S. BON HOMME RICHARD CVA-31, and the back has an iron-on backing, though sewing it on will always hold best.

Bonnie Dick went to war in three conflicts in about twenty-five years. Her deck crews launched and recovered strikes in the heat of the Tonkin Gulf, and her squadrons came home with MiG kills to show for it. She was decommissioned for the last time on 2 July 1971 and laid up at Bremerton. She was sold for scrap in 1992. The men who served aboard her still gather under that name, and they still quote the motto.

Put it in a shadow box with your Westpac cruise book and Vietnam Service ribbon, or sew it on the jacket you wear to the Bon Homme Richard reunion. It also makes a good gift for a shipmate from VF-51 or the flight deck, or for a grandson who wants to know what carrier Grandpa rode. Jones would have liked the motto on it.