Guided Missile Frigate
FFG 30 - USS Reid
Type, Class:		Guided Missile Frigate; Oliver Hazard Perry - class (short hull) planned and built as FFG 30
Builder:		Todd Pacific Shipyard, San Pedro, California, USA
STATUS:		Awarded: January 23, 1978 Laid down: October 8, 1980 Launched: June 27, 1981 Commissioned: February 19, 1983 Decommissioned: September 25, 1998 Fate: stricken September 25, 1998 transferred to Turkey (sold) on January 5, 1999 renamed TCG Gelibolu (F-493); in service in Turkish Navy
Homeport:		-
Namesake:		Named after and in honor of Samuel Chester Reid (1783 - 1861) > see history, below;
Ship's Motto:		PRIDE - DISTINCTION - HONOR
Technical Data: (Measures, Propulsion, Armament, Aviation, etc.)		see: INFO > Oliver Hazard Perry - class Guided Missile Frigate
ship images
Samuel Chester Reid
Namesake & History:
Sailing Master Samuel Chester Reid, US Navy (August 25, 1783 – January 28, 1861):
Samuel Chester Reid (24 August 1783 - 28 January 1861) was an officer in the United States Navy who commanded a privateer during the War of 1812. He is also noted for having helped design the 1818 version of the flag of the United States, which first established the rule of keeping thirteen stripes and adding one star for each U.S. state. Reid was born in Norwich, Connecticut and entered the Navy in 1794. He served in Constellation with Commodore Thomas Truxtun and in 1803 became master of the brig Merchant. During the War of 1812 he commanded the privateer General Armstrong and at Faial, Azores, in 1814 engaged a powerful British force en route to Jamaica and New Orleans, Louisiana. Although repeated British assaults eventually forced Reid to scuttle and abandon his ship, Andrew Jackson credited Reid's action with delaying the British squadron and so aiding General Jackson's defense of New Orleans. The battle was the subject of many popular prints. In January 1817, Reid was asked by Representative Peter H. Wendover for advice in the design of a new U.S. flag. The flag then in use had fifteen stars and fifteen stripes; it had not been updated to reflect the five new states which had joined the union since that version of the flag was implemented in 1795. Wendover was the head of a congressional committee tasked with investigating possible alterations to the flag. Together, Wendover and Reid decided that the best way to honor all twenty states was to restore the number of stripes to the original thirteen, have twenty stars on the canton, and add a new star each time a new state joined the union. Reid sketched three flag designs, one for general use which featured the twenty stars arranged in the shape of a larger star, one for use on government vessels and buildings which featured an eagle on the canton instead of stars, and one for use on ceremonial occasions which featured a different element (stars, stripes, the Great Seal, and the Goddess of Liberty) on each of the flag's four quarters. Wendover and his congressional committee adopted Reid's general-use flag, but never seriously considered his other two designs. Wendover drafted a bill which stipulated that the thirteen-stripe, twenty-star design become the new official flag of the United States. The bill passed and was signed into law as the Flag Act of 1818 by President James Monroe on April 4, 1818. The pattern of the stars was later changed from Reid's "great star" design to four rows of five stars each. He was appointed master in the Navy in 1844 and died at New York 28 January 1861. Four ships were given the name USS Reid in his honor.
USS Reid (FFG 30):
-- FFG 30 history wanted --
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