Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility Patch

When the smoke cleared over Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, 21 ships had been damaged or sunk, and the shipyard workers put most of them back in the fight. USS Nevada was patched up and floated into dry dock. USS California and USS West Virginia were raised from the mud and repaired. Congress had set up the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard in 1908 with $3 million, and by 1941 it was the Pacific Fleet's repair yard. That job has never changed. This round patch carries the yard's name, its motto and a battleship at the pier.

Dry Dock 1 opened in 1919, followed by Docks 2, 3 and 4 in 1941, 1942 and 1943 as the war pushed the yard to its limit. In 1959 Pearl Harbor became the planning shipyard for the Regulus and Permit class submarines and began Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization (FRAM) overhauls on submarines and destroyers. Today the work is mainly nuclear submarine repair and maintenance, including the Los Angeles class fast attack boats homeported in Hawaii. The shipyard and the Intermediate Maintenance Facility were consolidated in 1998 into Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and IMF, a tenant command on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. With about 5,800 civilians and 500 active duty personnel, it is the largest industrial employer in Hawaii.

The patch is 4.5 inches round with a black merrowed edge and a khaki ring carrying WE KEEP THEM FIT TO FIGHT across the top and PEARL HARBOR NAVAL SHIPYARD around the bottom. Inside, a gray battleship lies alongside the pier under a lattice crane lowering its hook. Behind her stand tall stacks and a red-and-white checkered water tower, with an aircraft passing overhead. Across the bottom a bald eagle spreads red-brown wings with its talons locked on an anchor and chain. It has an iron-on backing and can be sewn on for good.

The fleet gets the headlines, but nothing sails without the yard. Shipfitters, welders, pipefitters, riggers, electricians and crane operators have worked Pearl's dry docks through every war since 1941, often around the clock. Many families have put two and three generations through its shops. Sailors who brought a damaged ship or a boat due for overhaul into Pearl remember the yard birds who got them back to sea. Fit to fight is the whole job, and the yard has done it for more than a century.

Mount it in a shadow box with your shipyard badge and service pin, or wear it on a work jacket or reunion vest. It is a good gift for a retiring yard worker or a sailor from Naval Station Pearl Harbor whose ship went through overhaul at the yard. Keep them fit to fight, then go home and tell the stories.