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About the Ship's Coat of Arms

About the Name "Fahrion"

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USS Fahrion (FFG 22)

USS FAHRION was the 14^th OLIVER HAZARD PERRY class guide missile frigate and one of the "short-hull" versions in that class. USS FAHRION was homeported in Mayport, FL., and after decommissioning the frigate was sold to Egypt where she was renamed SHARM EL SHEIKH.

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS FAHRION. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.

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About the Ship's Coat of Arms:

The Shield:

Within the shield of the seal, the voided pile forms a "V," a symbol worn by the Navy recipients of both the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star Medal to denote combat involvement. The gold stars are indicative of successive awards of those combat awards. The combination of the "V" and the stars is suggestive of the destroyer screens Admiral Fahrion led defending convoys in the Atlantic and conducting raids on the Gilbert Island in the Pacific. The red connotes wartime service, dark blue and gold the traditional Navy colors symbolizing sea power.

The Crest:

The crest, the upper portion consisting of the dragon and missile, symbolizes Admiral Fahrion's weapons development work, and his significant service in "Operation Crossroads," the atomic bomb tests of 1946 at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands.

The dragon also dramatizes the firepower and the design mission of the FFG, which is to provide self-defense and protection to underway replenishment groups and military and mercantile convoys against surface, air and sub-surface threats.

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About the Ship's Name, about Admiral Frank George Fahrion:

Admiral Fahrion was born on 17 April 1894 in Pickens, West Virginia. He was graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy with the Class of 1917, and served in a succession of destroyers. Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, he lead a destroyer division guarding convoys to Iceland and to Mid-Atlantic rendezvous with British escorts.

During World War II, Fahrion was the Destroyer Screen Commander for the "YORKTOWN" carrier task force in the early Central Pacific raids on the Gilbert Islands. For service as Chief of Staff to Commander North Pacific Force, he was awarded the Legion of Merit. He earned a Gold Star in lieu of a second Legion of Merit for the skillful direction or research development and manufacturing phases of the successful torpedo program, while commanding the Naval Torpedo Station in Newport, Rhode Island, February 1943 - July 1944. The Bronze Star Medal for Valor was won by Fahrion as Commanding Office of the battleship USS NORTH CAROLINA (BB 55) during Fleet raids ranging from the Philippines to Iwo Jim and Okinawa. He was advanced to flag rank in January of 1945. In recognition of his skillful and intensive direct naval gunfire support missions while commanding Cruiser Division Four throughout the Okinawa Campaign, Admiral Fahrion received a Gold Star in lieu of a second Bronze Star Medal.

At the close of World War II, Admiral Fahrion was awarded a Gold Star in lieu of a third Legion of Merit for superbly organizing and directing the target and salvage units of the Joint Task Force One during "Operation Crossroads," the atomic bomb tests of July 1946 at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands.

Before retirement, he served as Inspector General, Pacific and U.S. Pacific Fleet: Commander Destroyers, U.S. Pacific Fleet (1946 - 1948), and Superintendent of the Naval Gun Factory, Washington, D.C. In July 1950, he assumed command of the Destroyer Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, and was Commander Amphibious Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, from January 1952 until his retirement on 1 May 1956.

After retirement from the Navy, Admiral and Mrs. Fahrion made their home in La Jolla, California, where he died on 16 January 1970.

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USS FAHRION History:

Ordered on February 28, 1977, USS FAHRION was built by Todd Pacific in Seattle as a short-hull OLIVER HAZARD PERRY-class guided missile frigate. Her keel was laid on December 1, 1978, and she was launched on August 24, 1979. Delivery followed on December 29, 1981, and the ship was commissioned on January 16, 1982, at Seattle, with Cmdr. Richard E. Carey as the first commanding officer. From the outset, USS FAHRION joined a surface fleet that was still very much in a late-Cold War rhythm: the United States was sustaining forward naval presence while also maintaining readiness for high-end conflict, and PERRY-class frigates like USS FAHRION were designed to be multi-mission workhorses - escorting higher-value units, screening sea lines of communication, and operating helicopters to extend surveillance and antisubmarine reach.

One early, widely reported early chapter of FAHRION's history placed her in the Eastern Mediterranean during the most volatile phase of the Lebanese civil war, when international forces were trying - uneasily - to stabilize the situation around Beirut. That environment exposed United States Navy surface units to asymmetric threats in constrained waters, and it framed the kind of forward presence work that frigates routinely performed: sustained station time, escort and patrol duties, and the constant balancing act between deterrence, force protection, and political signaling.

By the mid-1980s, the ship's operational profile also reflected another reality of the era: the Navy's growing role in supporting maritime law enforcement. On May 19, 1987, a Coast Guard law-enforcement detachment operating with USS FAHRION was logged in national law-enforcement statistics as involved in the seizure connected with the vessel JACQUELINE, recorded at 850 pounds of marijuana with three arrests. That entry is a small line in a much larger dataset, but it captures something very real about the period: Navy ships were increasingly partnered with Coast Guard teams to provide the endurance, sensors, and sea-keeping to intercept smugglers far from shore.

In 1988, USS FAHRION's documented activities intersected with the peak tensions of the Iran-Iraq War's "tanker war" phase, when the United States was escorting reflagged or protected shipping and responding to Iranian small-boat harassment and mining. On July 3, 1988, the day of the Iran Air Flight 655 tragedy, USS FAHRION was explicitly recorded as being in port at Ras al Khaimah for a routine port visit. That same day's events, as laid out in the formal investigation, illustrate how rapidly the Persian Gulf operating picture could shift from routine to crisis: surface contacts, small-boat activity, and fast-moving command decisions in a dense maritime environment. Even though USS FAHRION herself was in port at the time, her presence in that theater - and the fact that her location and status were noted in the official investigative record - anchors her within the operational geography and tempo of United States naval forces supporting convoy and security operations in the Strait of Hormuz region during that period.

After the tanker-war era, the ship's record again becomes more visible in public sources at moments when Navy outreach and strategic messaging were tied to port visits and domestic engagement. In 1990, USS FAHRION took part in a Great Lakes cruise designed to bring a modern Navy warship to inland audiences. On July 9, 1990, she moored at Chicago's Navy Pier during a four-day Great Lakes cruise port visit, hosting Major League Baseball all-star personnel and former baseball greats in connection with the 1990 all-star game at Wrigley Field. The same report described visiting players requesting tours of the Charleston-based frigate and noted that the ship returned to the pier following one of several "day sail" guest cruises, underscoring that this was not merely a static pier-side appearance but a public-relations effort built around underway demonstrations and tours.

By 1994, the geopolitical focus had shifted again - this time toward large-scale migration crises and regional instability in the Caribbean. During Operation Able Vigil, the United States used naval forces to support the response to Haitian and Cuban migration surges, including patrol and interception operations in the Florida Straits while migrants were taken to processing and holding facilities at Guantanamo Bay. A contemporary newspaper graphic covering that operation listed USS FAHRION among the ships involved and identified her as based at Charleston. The same operational snapshot placed her alongside USS SAMUEL ELIOT MORISON (FFG 13), USS KLAKRING (FFG 42), and USS TAYLOR (FFG 50), with additional support from USS VICKSBURG (CG 69) and USS WHIDBEY ISLAND (LSD 41), plus Coast Guard cutters including USCGC BEAR, USCGC MANITOU, and USCGC CHASE. That lineup matters for understanding what USS FAHRION was doing: Able Vigil was a joint, multi-ship, multi-agency effort in which frigates provided the persistent at-sea presence and command-and-control connectivity to complement cutters, amphibious capability, and logistics. It also reflected the post-Cold War reality that U.S. naval forward presence in the Western Hemisphere could be driven as much by humanitarian and migration pressures as by classic state-on-state naval confrontation.

In 1995, USS FAHRION was tied to another long-running diplomatic and operational instrument: the annual UNITAS series with partner navies in the Americas. UNITAS deployments blended interoperability training, professional exchanges, and maritime operations across multiple national jurisdictions, and they often served as a visible demonstration of United States engagement in the hemisphere. A professional naval aviation discussion of the era specifically noted that an SH-2G Seasprite helicopter deployed during UNITAS 1995 aboard USS FAHRION, reflecting the ship's continued use as an aviation-capable platform for maritime surveillance and surface warfare support.

The ship returned to Great Lakes public-outreach duties later in her career. Minnesota's governor issued a formal proclamation documenting that USS FAHRION visited Duluth and conducted an open house from July 9 through July 14, 1997, as part of the Navy's 1997 Great Lakes Cruise. The proclamation also established July 12, 1997 as "USS FAHRION Day" in Minnesota and explicitly described the ship being opened for free public tours so citizens could learn about the Navy and its role in world events.

By the late 1990s, force-structure reductions and the expansion of security-assistance transfers were reshaping the fate of many OLIVER HAZARD PERRY-class frigates. USS FAHRION's status was changed on March 15, 1998 in connection with disposal through the security-assistance process, with Egypt listed as custodian. She was then decommissioned on March 31, 1998, and struck from the Naval Vessel Register the same day. In Egyptian service she became SHARM EL-SHEIKH, reflecting a broader pattern in which former United States frigates were transferred to partner navies to extend their service lives under new flags while the United States Navy concentrated resources on fewer, more capable platforms.

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USS FAHRION Image Gallery:

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