Bath, Maine | The great-granddaughter of the U.S. naval officer who defeated the Spanish fleet outside Cuba’s Santiago Harbor christened the latest U.S. Navy warship to bear the Sampson name on Saturday with a bottle of champagne.
Clare Parsons, 68, of Wilmington, N.C., ended the ceremony with the customary crash of a bottle along the bow of the $1.15 billion warship that’s nearing completion.
The Sampson is the fourth warship to bear the name of Rear Adm. William T. Sampson, whose blocking squadron destroyed Admiral Pascual Cervera’s Spanish fleet when it tried to escape from the harbor on July 3, 1898, during the Spanish-American War.