Qualla: USS Agerholm

USS Agerholm: Introduction

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Navy, Public domain. Private First Class Harold Crist Agerholm was nineteen years old when he died on Saipan, carrying wounded Marines to safety under withering Japanese fire until enemy bullets found him. The Medal of Honor came posthumously. Three years later, his mother Rose stood at Bath Iron Works in Maine and christened the destroyer that would bear her son's name. USS Agerholm (DD-826) would go on to serve for three decades, participate in the evacuation of an American embassy, appear in a Hollywood film, and ultimately become one of the first targets ever destroyed by a Tomahawk cruise missile.

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Image: U.S. Navy | Public domain

USS Agerholm: The Hero of Saipan

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Navy, Public domain. Harold Agerholm enlisted in the Marine Corps at eighteen and shipped out with the 2nd Marine Division. On July 7, 1944, during the assault on Saipan, the young PFC from Racine, Wisconsin found himself in the midst of chaos. Without being ordered to, he commandeered a stretcher an...

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Image: U.S. Navy | Public domain

USS Agerholm: Cold War Warrior

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit USN, Public domain. Agerholm spent her early years training out of San Diego, mastering the destroyer arts in waters ranging from the Caribbean to the Western Pacific. She made 21 WestPac deployments over her career, an extraordinary number that took her from Korea to Vietnam and across the vast rea...

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Image: USN | Public domain

USS Agerholm: Hollywood and High Scores

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Between her combat deployments, Agerholm found time for an unexpected career in entertainment. In 1976, she landed a role in Airport '77, the third installment of the disaster film franchise. The destroyer participated in midshipman training cruises as well, introducing generatio...

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Image: Public domain

USS Agerholm: Death by Tomahawk

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit USN, Public domain. By 1978, Agerholm's age was showing. The Board of Inspection and Survey examined her in October and concluded that her lack of modern capabilities could not be economically corrected. She was decommissioned on December 1, 1978, and struck from the Navy list the same day. But her ...

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Image: USN | Public domain