Ship's Crest
Detroit's emblem was constructed by a member of the ship's pre-commissioning crew. This was the rationale:
1. A profile of the first Detroit
2. A flaming mine to symbolize ordnance
3. A wheat-filled cornucopia to symbolize provisions
4. A fuel valve to symbolize petroleum products
5. Electron paths to symbolize the nuclear era
6. Five stars to represent the five ships named Detroit named in honor of the City of Detroit, Michigan
7. The ship's motto, Superare Optimum; "To Surpass the Finest."
The first Detroit was a 19-gun sloop captured from the British in the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812. The black hull and white sails of the first Detroit are set against a background of light blue sky and deep blue sea. The symbols for ordnance, provisions, and petroleum products are set along the electron paths which symbolize the modern nuclear age. These symbols reflect the mission of the fast combat support ship: to support naval forces at sea in the theater of operations.
Read more about this topic: USS Detroit (AOE-4)
Famous quotes containing the words ship and/or crest:
“We want some coat woven of elastic steel, stout as the first, and limber as the second. We want a ship in these billows we inhabit. An angular, dogmatic house would be rent to chips and splinters, in this storm of many elements. No, it must be tight, and fit to the form of man, to live at all; as a shell is the architecture of a house founded on the sea.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“What shall he have that killed the deer?
His leather skin and horns to wear.
Then sing him home.
Take thou no scorn to wear the horn,
It was a crest ere thou wast born;
Thy father’s father wore it,
And thy father bore it.
The horn, the horn, the lusty horn
Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)