Naval Station Rota Spain Patch

Naval Station Rota flies the Spanish flag and is commanded by a Spanish vice admiral, and the U.S. Navy has been a tenant there since 1953. That is why this patch says it twice, once in English and once in Spanish. The base sits in the Province of Cadiz, near the mouth of the Mediterranean. For more than seventy years American ships, squadrons and families have shared it with the Armada Espanola. Anyone stationed there knows the gate, the flight line and the town just outside it.

Submarine Squadron 16 arrived on 28 January 1964 with the tender USS Proteus AS-19, and USS Lafayette SSBN-616 finished the first Polaris deterrent patrol and the first refit at Rota. The squadron converted to Poseidon in the early 1970s, finishing when USS Francis Scott Key SSBN-657 returned on 14 January 1974, and the boats moved to Kings Bay, Georgia, by July 1979. VQ-2 flew reconnaissance out of Rota from 1959 to 2005, VR-22 flew C-130F Hercules transports there from 1962 to 1993, and P-3 Orion patrol squadrons rotated through. In the 2010s Arleigh Burke-class destroyers such as USS Ross DDG-71, USS Porter DDG-78, USS Arleigh Burke DDG-51 and USS Roosevelt DDG-80 were forward deployed to Rota. A 2023 agreement raised the number of homeported destroyers from four to six.

This is a 4 inch round with a thick black merrowed edge. A gold field carries "U.S. NAVAL STATION ROTA, SPAIN" in black across the top and "BASE NAVAL DE ROTA" around the bottom. The red center holds a fouled anchor in silver and gray, the anchor tangled in its own white line. Gold naval aviation wings are spread across the anchor, set over a white swept-wing shape. Ships and aircraft on one anchor is exactly what Rota has always been, a port and an airfield on the same base.

Rota has been a stop for nearly every sailor who crossed into the Mediterranean, whether he stood watch there for three years or tied up for a week. Submariners remember the tender and the refit, aircrews remember the long VQ-2 and patrol flights, and today's destroyer crews remember it as home. Spanish and American sailors have worked side by side there for generations, and plenty of Navy kids grew up in base housing a few miles from the beach. HSM-79 still flies MH-60R Seahawks from Rota, and EOD Mobile Unit Eight works out of the base. Few overseas stations have held their place this long.

It belongs in a shadow box with your ship or squadron patch from the Rota years, or on a jacket at the next reunion. It also makes a good gift for a shipmate or a Navy brat who grew up there. Measures 4 x 4 inches with a merrowed edge and iron-on backing, and it can also be sewn on.