Select an option below to continue reading this premium story.
Already a Honolulu Star-Advertiser subscriber? Log in now to continue reading.
Two of the Navy’s newest Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers will bear the names of a Pearl Harbor Medal of Honor recipient and a Kaneohe Marine who was killed in Iraq in 2004 when he used his body to save members of his unit.
The Navy announced Wednesday that two destroyers will be named after John Finn and Marine Staff Sgt. Rafael Peralta, respectively.
Finn, who retired as a Navy lieutenant, received the Medal of Honor for shooting down a Japanese plane on Dec. 7, 1941 at the Kaneohe air base despite having 21 shrapnel wounds.
Peralta was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for covering a grenade with his body to shield fellow Marines from the blast in the Battle of Fallujah in Iraq on Nov. 15, 2004. Peralta, 25, nicknamed "Rafa," was with the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, out of Kaneohe Bay.