Hegseth announces renaming of USNS Harvey Milk to USNS Oscar V. Peterson, WWII veteran

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday announced the renaming of the USNS Harvey Milk to USNS Oscar V. Peterson, who was a World War II veteran and Congressional Medal of Honor recipient.

"We are taking the politics out of ship-naming," Hegseth said in a video posted on X on Friday. "We're not renaming the ship to anything political. This is not about political activists, unlike the previous administration. Instead, we're renaming the ship after a United States Navy Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, as it should be.

"People want to be proud of the ship they're sailing in, and so, we're renaming it after a chief, a Navy chief, that during the Battle of the Coral Sea in May of 1942, Chief Watertender Peterson led a repair party on the USS Neosho. The ship was severely damaged by Japanese dive bombers, and the entire repair party was either killed or severely wounded," he added.

“Peterson himself was gravely wounded, yet he managed to single-handedly close the bulkhead stop valves, thereby helping to keep the ship operational,” Hegseth continued. He died of the wounds he incurred while repairing the ship, and Hegseth praised him for "his spirit of self-sacrifice and concern for his cremates," which "was in keeping with the finest traditions of the Navy."

The renamed USNS Harvey Milk, an oil ship that was named after the first openly gay man elected to public office in California, received its name in 2016 by then-President Obama’s Navy secretary.

The renaming, which Hegseth ordered the Navy to do earlier this month, comes amid Pride Month and earned applause from conservative figures, many of whom pointed to Milk's darker history, including alleged predatory behavior.