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USS Patriot (MCM 7)

USS PATRIOT is the seventh AVENGER-class Mine Countermeasures Ship and one of the ships in that class forward deployed to Sasebo, Japan.

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Crew List:

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

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Accidents aboard USS PATRIOT:

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History of USS PATRIOT:

USS PATRIOT was built as an AVENGER-class mine countermeasures ship with a non-magnetic, wood-and-fiberglass hull intended to reduce magnetic signature while hunting and neutralizing mines in coastal and near-sea-lane waters. Her keel was laid on March 31, 1987, and she was launched at Marinette, Wisconsin, on May 15, 1990. USS PATRIOT was commissioned at Charleston, South Carolina, on December 13, 1991, with Commander Michael J. O'Moore as her commissioning commanding officer.

After commissioning, USS PATRIOT was initially homeported at Charleston, South Carolina, and remained there through the early 1990s before shifting to the Gulf Coast as the mine-warfare community concentrated its surface mine countermeasures ships at Ingleside, Texas. By March 10, 1995, she was operating in the Western Pacific: on that date, a Navy-released photo captured routine mooring operations with her crew handling heavy mooring gear while the ship was alongside in Guam - one small but concrete indicator of her presence on forward operations and port calls in the region during that period.

Publicly released milestone material for some late-1990s periods is sparse, but the next clearly dated, officially captioned snapshot of her operations appears on June 7, 2001, when USS PATRIOT steamed in formation during Western Pacific operations alongside USS GUARDIAN (MCM 5) and USS INCHON (MCS 12), together with Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force minesweeping units JS BUNGO (MST 464) and JS YAEYAMA (MSO 301). The formation photo is typical of the interoperability work that forward-deployed mine countermeasures ships performed with regional allies - practical seamanship and coordinated maneuvering as a foundation for later, more specialized mine-warfare cooperation.

By early 2004, USS PATRIOT was in a maintenance phase at her forward-deployed base in Japan. On March 10, 2004, she and USS GUARDIAN were documented sitting together in a shipbuilding dry dock in Sasebo for a one-month maintenance and repair schedule, and on May 20, 2004, her crew posed for an official command photo during a dry dock maintenance period - evidence of an extended availability focused on hull, mechanical, electrical, and mission-system upkeep that is especially important for small, high-utilization forward-deployed ships.

A significant operational setback followed in 2005. USS PATRIOT ran aground in Chinhae Bay, South Korea, on March 19, 2005, sustaining damage that required emergency repairs in Chinhae. In the aftermath, on May 7, 2005, the Navy relieved her commanding officer, Lt. Cmdr. Mike Little, for cause due to loss of confidence in his ability to command. Commander Victor Guillory was assigned as the ship's new commanding officer.

Despite that disruption, USS PATRIOT returned to routine forward operations and regional engagement. On July 1, 2005, she was photographed arriving in Vladivostok, Russia, for a port visit, sailing in company with USS GUARDIAN and USS CURTIS WILBUR (DDG 54). The arrival underscored how even niche platforms like mine countermeasures ships were used as steady, low-profile instruments of presence and engagement - particularly notable in the mid-2000s environment when U.S.-Russia naval interactions still included occasional practical contacts and port calls.

In 2006, USS PATRIOT's publicly documented activities show a tempo of deployments and multinational mine-warfare training in Southeast Asia. On May 27, 2006, she was photographed in the Gulf of Thailand departing the Kingdom of Thailand after participating in Cobra Gold 2006. The official caption described her as deployed in Southeast Asia in support of 7th Fleet interoperability and training commitments in mine neutralization warfare and broader maritime operations. Less than three weeks later, on June 14, 2006, she was documented conducting mine-shape recovery operations in the South China Sea as part of the Western Pacific Mine Countermeasures Exercise in Malaysia, a recurring framework aimed at improving procedures among Western Pacific Naval Symposium navies for detection, identification, and safe handling actions that help keep major waterways open.

Later that year, USS PATRIOT was again recorded in a maintenance posture at Sasebo. On September 16, 2006, a Navy photo caption placed her at a ship repair facility in Sasebo undergoing repairs while Typhoon Shanshan passed through the region. Leadership transitions continued as part of the ship's normal cycle. On January 12, 2007, USS PATRIOT held a change of command ceremony in Sasebo in which Cmdr. David W. Dander relieved Cmdr. Judith A. Merritt as commanding officer. Later in 2007, the ship's regional engagement extended again into Russia: USS PATRIOT arrived in Vladivostok on September 24, 2007, to participate in Exercise Pacific Eagle 2007, a U.S.-Russia naval exercise that, at the time, fit within a broader pattern of periodic maritime contact and confidence-building activities in the Pacific.

That same autumn, she became tied to a diplomatically sensitive episode widely reported at the time: in late November 2007, USS PATRIOT and USS GUARDIAN were denied entry to Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour when seeking a port call for fuel and shelter, forcing them to refuel at sea and return to Japan - an incident that drew attention because logistics and weather considerations collided with high-level political signaling.

The early 2010s again contain fewer publicly released, date-certain operational milestones in open sources, but there are clear, verified markers of regional presence and port diplomacy. On February 15, 2012, USS PATRIOT was in Hakodate, Japan, on a goodwill port visit. Official imagery from that day identified Lt. Cmdr. Suzanne Schang as the commanding officer and Command Master Chief Michael D. Kaszubowski as the senior enlisted leader, and recorded engagements ashore tied to local historical remembrance linked to the 1854 U.S. expedition led by Commodore Matthew Perry.

By mid-decade, publicly released imagery again captures her training rhythm in the mine countermeasures force. On March 11, 2016, USS PATRIOT departed White Beach Naval Facility, Okinawa, to rendezvous with USS CHIEF (MCM 14) for squadron-level mine countermeasure training that explicitly included both mine hunting and mine sweeping - core competencies that, in practical terms, blend sonar search, classification, neutralization system employment, and mechanical or influence sweeping procedures depending on scenario and threat model.

Operational documentation becomes more frequent again approaching the late 2010s. On November 6, 2018, USS PATRIOT was photographed underway in the Sea of Japan in company with USS PIONEER (MCM 9), reflecting routine paired operations by forward-deployed mine countermeasures ships operating from Japan to sustain readiness and provide regional commanders with a specialized capability that can be surged when needed. In 2019, official reporting provided concrete port-visit milestones during a Southeast Asia patrol sequence. USS PATRIOT arrived in Jakarta, Indonesia, on June 25, 2019, for a port visit; she then arrived in Darwin, Australia, on July 11, 2019; and she arrived in Cebu, Philippines, on July 22, 2019, continuing a pattern of presence operations that combined operational movement with practical cooperation and relationship-building in key maritime nations along strategic sea lines of communication.

On August 10, 2020, a Navy story highlighted an element of seamanship and navigation training aboard USS PATRIOT: sailors used celestial navigation techniques during an approximately 1,100-mile voyage back toward home waters - an example of how even in an era dominated by electronic navigation, ships periodically train traditional methods as a resilience measure.

Command leadership changes in the 2020s were documented with names and dates. During a ceremony at Commander, Fleet Activities Sasebo on May 16, 2024, Lt. Cmdr. Travis Turner relieved Lt. Cmdr. Peter Bue as commanding officer of USS PATRIOT. In 2025, the ship's publicly visible operational record includes a short maintenance interruption and a return to tasking: USS PATRIOT returned to Sasebo on May 30, 2025, after a five-day, unscheduled urgent maintenance period in Yokosuka, and then departed Sasebo again on June 2, 2025, to resume her mission. A change of command ceremony was held on June 25, 2025.

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