Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday that the U.S. Navy is renaming the USNS Harvey Milk after a World War II Medal of Honor recipient. The rare ship renaming drew sharp criticism from Democrats, especially for its timing during Pride Month.
The fleet replenishment oiler will henceforth be known as the Oscar V. Peterson, honoring a Navy chief who died heroically during the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942. Hegseth made the announcement in a video on X.
“We are taking the politics out of ship naming,” Hegseth said. “We’re not renaming the ship to anything political. This is not about political activists, unlike the previous administration.”
Oscar Verner Peterson, a chief water tender aboard the USS Neosho, led a repair party when the Cimarron-class oiler ship was severely damaged by Japanese dive bombers. Despite being wounded, Peterson single-handedly closed bulkhead stop valves to keep the ship operational. Days later, he died from his injuries and burns; he received the Medal of Honor posthumously.
The oiler’s Milk name was announced in August 2016, shortly before President Donald Trump’s first election victory. The ship was christened in 2021 with the name Milk and entered service in 2023. The 746-foot ship was briefly in the San Francisco Port in March 2024.
Milk, California’s first openly gay elected official, was assassinated in 1978 in San Francisco. He served in the Navy, achieving the rank of lieutenant during the Korean War before accepting an other-than-honorable discharge. House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who represents San Francisco, where Milk served as a supervisor, condemned Hegseth’s announcement as “a shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers.”
“Harvey Milk proudly served as a lieutenant in the United States Navy and was a formidable force for change — not just in California, but in our country,” Pelosi said June 3, when reports of the renaming first emerged.
On June 12, Pelosi joined 69 other House members in a letter demanding that Hegseth rescind the order, calling the timing during Pride Month “a cruel insult to tens of thousands of LGBTQI+ individuals currently serving in our nation’s military.”
The lawmakers argued that renaming ships that had been christened for civil rights leaders “does nothing to ‘reestablish the warrior culture'” and instead serves to “divide the Joint Force.”
Secretary of the Navy John Phelan officially renamed the vessel Thursday at Hegseth’s request, according to a Defense Department official. The ship is undergoing maintenance at Alabama Shipyard in Mobile. According to a USNI News report, the renaming process, including repainting and updating official symbols, is estimated to take no more than six months once funding is secured. The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the cost of the renaming.
Officials said there are no plans to rename other ships in the John Lewis class of fleet replenishment oilers.
There are few precedents for renaming Navy ships aside from changes mandated in 2023 by Congress to remove Confederate-linked names from military assets.
The John Lewis class was intended to be named after civil rights leaders. Lewis was a Georgia congressman from 1987 until 2020, when he died at 80. The ships provide fuel, water, and other supplies to vessels at sea.
Under U.S. law since the 19th century, the secretary of the Navy is responsible for naming Navy ships, not the Defense Secretary.