Carl Theodore Vogelgesang - Namesakes

Namesakes

During World War II, the U.S. Navy destroyer escort USS Vogelgesang (DE-284) was named for Rear Admiral Vogelgesang. Her construction was cancelled in March 1944 before she could be launched.

However, in New York City on 3 August 1944, work began at the Bethlehem Steel Corporation shipyard at Staten Island on a new destroyer, to which the name Vogelgesang had been transferred. She was christened USS Vogelgesang (DD-862) on 15 January 1945, by Vogelgesang's daughter Zenaide (by then Mrs. Walter Bradley of Whitefield, New Hampshire). The christening party also included his widow and daughter-in-law, Mrs. Shepard Vogelgesang, Mrs. Gregory Davison, Mr. and Mrs. George Moulson, Barbara Jane Sullivan, T. Sp. 1/c, Lieutenant Bill Vogelgesang, USNR, and Lieutenant Commander Woodson P. Vogelgesang, USNR, the last three named being on active duty with the Navy in that area.

USS Vogelgesang was commissioned on 28 April 1945, and served in the U.S. Navy until decommissioned in 1982; she then served in the Mexican Navy from 1982 to 2002 under the name Quetzalcoatl, and finally was scuttled as an artificial reef in 2006.