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USS Aquila (PHM 4)

USS AQUILA was the fourth ship in the PEGASUS class of hydrofoil boats. She was homeported in Key West, Florida, and on July 30, 1993, all six ships of her class were decommissioned and stricken from the Navy list. AQUILA was sold for scrapping on August 19, 1996.

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Crew List:

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

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USS AQUILA History:

USS AQUILA was one of the U.S. Navy's PEGASUS-class patrol combatant missile hydrofoils - small, extremely fast surface combatants conceived in the late Cold War era, when NATO planners placed heavy emphasis on sea-control in constrained waters, rapid reaction, and the ability to strike or screen at high speed. On October 20, 1977, the ship's construction contract was awarded. USS AQUILA's keel was laid on July 10, 1979, and she was built by Boeing's Marine Systems organization in the Seattle/Renton, Washington area. She was launched on September 16, 1981, and delivered to the U.S. Navy on January 26, 1982. USS AQUILA was commissioned on June 26, 1982.

After commissioning and initial preparations on the U.S. West Coast, USS AQUILA undertook the long repositioning voyage to her operational base in Florida - reflecting the Navy's decision to concentrate the hydrofoils where their speed and shallow-water agility best matched day-to-day missions. During that 5,000-mile transit from the Pacific Northwest to the Southeast, USS AQUILA and her accompanying ships transited the Panama Canal on August 8, 1982, then continued into the Atlantic and reached Key West, Florida, three days later. On August 11, 1982, she moored at Naval Air Station Key West at the end of that passage. From there, USS AQUILA operated as part of the Key West-based hydrofoil squadron during a period when U.S. maritime priorities increasingly blended traditional military readiness with regional security tasks in the Caribbean basin.

From June 1982 until July 1984, USS AQUILA was commanded by Lt. Cmdr. David M. Lee. Under that early command period, and as U.S. policy in the Caribbean sharpened in response to regional instability, USS AQUILA went on to take part in the 1983 operations associated with Grenada, where she patrolled coastal waters for an extended period in an escort/surveillance role. The Grenada crisis unfolded against a broader Cold War backdrop of competing influence in the Caribbean and heightened U.S. concern over the security of American citizens and regional partners. Naval forces were tasked not only to project presence but also to control sea approaches, monitor traffic, and support follow-on stability operations.

In July 1984, command passed to Cmdr. Thomas F. Hartrick, who led USS AQUILA from July 1984 to October 1986. The ship remained part of a force built around speed, surprise, and the ability to simulate missile-boat style attacks in exercises - capabilities that were regularly used to give larger "blue force" units a realistic, hard-to-track surface opponent during training. In October 1986, Lt. Cmdr. Marvin E. Butcher assumed command, serving until December 1988. These mid-decade years were also the period in which the United States increasingly emphasized maritime enforcement and interception in the broader Caribbean corridor - an operating environment that rewarded the hydrofoils' ability to close contacts rapidly and work with other agencies and units.

In December 1988, Lt. Cmdr. John W. Mickelson took command (December 1988 to December 1990). During this era, USS AQUILA executed one of the most distinctive, well-documented peacetime "reach" events for the class: in July 1989 she visited Pictou, Nova Scotia, Canada. The transit from Key West to Pictou was completed in five days, and the visit was noted as marking the furthest north any U.S. Navy hydrofoil had ever operated - an event that underscored both the platform's endurance for its size and the diplomatic value of an uncommon, high-profile ship type during port calls.

In 1990, USS AQUILA participated in Operation Solid Shield, an amphibious and joint work-up exercise that - importantly in retrospect - served as a pre-Desert Shield/Desert Storm readiness builder for forces that would later deploy to the Persian Gulf. Within that exercise framework, USS AQUILA conducted multiple realistic foilborne "attacks" against blue forces, providing challenging and valuable training to participating units at a time when the U.S. Navy was refining how it would fight in littoral environments and coordinate across strike, amphibious, and screening roles. Around this same broader period, USS AQUILA also completed the first Propulsion Light-Off Examination conducted in a hydrofoil in the previous five years, and it was described as the first such examination administered under consolidated guidance spanning both the Atlantic and Pacific Fleet leadership structures - an administrative and technical milestone reflecting the Navy's effort to standardize oversight and readiness assessment even for a small, specialized class.

In December 1990, Lt. Cmdr. William E. Landay III assumed command (December 1990 to October 1992). By the early 1990s, USS AQUILA's service sat at the intersection of two very different strategic realities: on the one hand, the Cold War was ending and budgets and force structures were under pressure; on the other, day-to-day operational demand in the Caribbean - counter-drug operations, migrant interdiction and rescue, and rapid-response maritime security tasks - remained intense. It was also during this general timeframe that USS AQUILA sustained significant damage in a foilborne collision with a whale. The ship entered an extended shipyard period to repair that damage and was returned to operational service in 1992, a reminder that high-speed operation - especially for specialized craft - carried unique risks and maintenance burdens.

Once back in service, USS AQUILA's 1992 record includes several precisely described events. During a June 1992 law enforcement patrol, she rescued 30 Cuban refugees from two different boats and delivered them safely to Key West. The account notes that, within twelve hours, USS AQUILA was required to transit in excess of 200 nautical miles while conducting those rescues, ranging from east of Cay Sal Bank to west of the Dry Tortugas - an operational snapshot of how quickly circumstances could shift during Caribbean patrols, and how a combatant's speed could translate directly into humanitarian outcome. Later that summer, when Hurricane Andrew threatened the region, USS AQUILA served as the officer in tactical command for the squadron during the hurricane evasion sortie. That sortie was described as the first time the hydrofoil squadron conducted underway operations as a unit, reflecting both the severity of the storm and the maturity of squadron-level seamanship and coordination.

In October 1992, Lt. Cmdr. Jeffrey E. Kline took command (October 1992 to July 1993). Under his command, USS AQUILA carried out what the record highlights as a pioneering concept of operations: in September 1992, she initiated independent, extended operations in the Yucatan Channel region. These operations continued through the second quarter of fiscal year 1993, culminating with USS AQUILA's final - and described as most fruitful - patrol, which ended with the seizure of 5,000 pounds of marijuana. The emphasis on "independent, extended operations" is telling: it points to efforts to stretch the hydrofoil's operational utility beyond short, close-to-home sorties, even as the Navy weighed the long-term cost and sustainability of keeping the class in commission.

On July 30, 1993, USS AQUILA was decommissioned and stricken from the Navy list as part of the class-wide retirement of all PEGASUS-class hydrofoils - an outcome consistent with the early post-Cold War force reduction environment and the reality that a small, unique class could be disproportionately expensive to maintain and modernize compared with more standardized platforms. After several years out of service, USS AQUILA was sold for scrapping on August 19, 1996.

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