USS Quentin Walsh
USS Quentin Walsh is a planned Aegis guided missile destroyer of the United States Navy. She will be named for Captain Quentin Walsh, a United States Coast Guard officer who earned the Navy Cross during the World War II.
Namesake
Then-United States Coast Guard Commander Walsh served on the command staff of US Naval Forces Europe, where he helped draw up plans to seize the strategic port of Cherbourg on the northern edge of Normandy's Cotentin Peninsula during the planning for Operation Overlord. Walsh's plan called for the formation of a specially trained naval reconnaissance unit to determine the condition of the port after its capture. He volunteered to lead the special mission, which after some training arrived off Utah Beach on 9 June 1944, only three days after D-Day.Walsh's 53-man unit landed and contacted elements of the US Army's 79th [Infantry Division |79th Infantry Division], which was engaging the Germans in fierce house-to-house fighting. Allies of [World War II|Allied] forces quickly captured the eastern part of the port, while most of the Germans retreated to the western section of the city. Knowing the port was essentially unusable with pockets of resistance remaining, Walsh personally led a 16-member unit of his special task force on a raid to an arsenal area and adjacent waterfront on the western side of the port city. Armed with bazookas, hand grenades, rifles, and submachine guns, he and his party overcame sniper fire and blew open steel doors of underground bunkers, capturing 400 Germans. He later assisted with reconnaissance of the Brittany Peninsula, including the port of Brest, and Le Havre port.