USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) is one of the final ships in the United States Navy's of guided missile frigates (FFG). Commissioned in 1986, the ship was severely damaged by an Iranian mine in 1988, leading U.S. forces to respond with Operation Praying Mantis. Repaired and returned to duty, the ship served until decommissioned in 2015. Commissioning and namesake The frigate was named for Samuel B. Roberts, a Navy coxswain who was killed while evacuating the U.S. Marines during the battle of Guadalcanal in 1942. Roberts was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. Samuel B. Roberts was the third U.S. ship to bear the coxswain's name, after , a , commissioned in 1944 and sunk in the Battle off Samar later that year; and , a , commissioned in 1946 and struck in 1970. Samuel B. Roberts was launched in December 1984 by Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine and sponsored by the wife of Jack Yusen, a member of DE-413's crew. The frigate was put in commission in April 1986 under the command of Commander Paul X. Rinn. 1988 deployment and mine strike Samuel B. Roberts deployed from her homeport in Newport, Rhode Island, in January 1988, heading for the Persian Gulf to participate in Operation Earnest Will, the escort of reflagged Kuwaiti tankers during the Iran–Iraq War. Samuel B. Roberts had arrived in the Persian Gulf and was heading for a refueling rendezvous with USS San Jose on 14 April when the ship struck an Iranian mine in the central Persian Gulf, an area she had safely transited a few days earlier. The mine blew a hole in the hull, flooded the engine room, and knocked the two gas turbines from their mounts. The blast also broke the keel of the ship; such structural damage is almost always fatal to a vessel. The crew fought fire and flooding for five hours and saved the ship. Among other steps, sailors cinched cables on the cracked superstructure in an effort to stabilize it. She used her auxiliary thrusters to get out of the minefield at . San Jose's helicopters provided firefighting and engineering supplies to augment the crew's efforts. According to How We Fight, by the US Naval War College, the ship never lost combat capability with her radars and Mark 13 missile launcher. However, according to No Higher Honor by Bradley Peniston, the ship lost power for at least five minutes.