DDG-13 USS Hoel Patch

The small blue crescent at the bottom of the USS Hoel crest is the heraldic mark of a second son, because DDG-13 was the second destroyer to carry the Hoel name. The first, DD-533, was lost in the Battle off Samar in October 1944. The guided missile destroyer that followed took the name back to sea in 1962 and kept it there for 28 years. Both ships honored Lieutenant Commander William R. Hoel, a Civil War naval officer who lived from 1824 to 1879. The ship's motto, Prima Inter Optimas, means first among the best.

The Defoe yard in Bay City, Michigan laid down this Charles F. Adams-class ship on August 3, 1959 and launched her on August 4, 1960. She was commissioned on June 16, 1962 under Commander Allen W. Slifer, with San Diego as her first homeport. Off Vietnam she served as plane guard for the carriers on Yankee Station and took part in Sea Dragon operations, search and rescue patrols and naval gunfire support. On December 8, 1966 she became the gunfire support ship for the I Corps area and fired 2,100 rounds. Later that month, while screening USS Coral Sea, she helped rescue a pilot whose A-4 Skyhawk had gone down.

The patch is a 4.25 by 4.88 inch shield in royal blue with a thin white border and a cut edge. A gold scroll across the top reads USS HOEL DDG-13. Below it, a white shield carries a red chevron with a battle axe and a trident above it and the crescent beneath. The shield and chevron stand for defense, the trident for sea power and the axe for strength. PRIMA INTER OPTIMAS runs along the gold scroll at the bottom, and it has an iron-on backing that a few stitches will make permanent.

Hoel steamed through the Vietnam years, the long Cold War deployments to the Western Pacific and the tanker war in the Persian Gulf, where on October 19, 1987 she was one of four destroyers in Operation Nimble Archer and fired nearly 400 rounds at two militarized oil platforms. Her deployment list runs from 1963 to 1989, and she earned a Meritorious Unit Commendation for the second half of 1972. Hoel was decommissioned on October 1, 1990 and struck from the Naval Vessel Register on November 20, 1992. The crews that took her through those years still keep her name alive at their reunions.

It belongs in a shadow box beside a cruise book and a Vietnam Service Medal, or on the jacket worn to the next Hoel reunion. It is also a good gift for a son or daughter who wants to know what a parent's ship stood for. First among the best, stitched in gold.