Winston S. Churchill is the first ship to be named after a British citizen or British Prime Minister of the modern era.
[…]
On 29 November 1995, on a visit to the United Kingdom, President Bill Clinton announced to the British Parliament that a new warship would be named after Sir Winston Churchill. She was the first destroyer and fourth American warship named after a British citizen, and the first since 1976 named after a non-U.S. citizen (that being USS Comte de Grasse), though Churchill was an honorary U.S. citizen and his mother Lady Randolph Churchill was American-born.
The three other U.S. warships which had been named after Britons included the Continental Navy frigates Alfred (named after Alfred the Great) and Raleigh (named after Sir Walter Raleigh, though three subsequent USS Raleighs—and two Confederate warships—would be named after the North Carolina city, which did not exist at the time), and Effingham, named after Thomas Howard, 3rd Earl of Effingham who resigned his commission rather than fight the Americans during the American Revolutionary War.
They named a ship after an Australian PM who probably drowned.
The former frigate Harold E. Holt was also named after a person from a country in the Commonwealth of Nations, Harold Holt, the Australian Prime Minister, who disappeared, (presumed drowned), while still in office just a year before Harold E. Holt was laid down.
This next bit made me laugh.
On 14 September 2001 (three days after the 11 September 2001 attacks), the German Navy destroyer Lütjens passed close abeam Winston S. Churchill and rendered honors by manning the rails, flying the Stars and Stripes at half-mast, and the display of a banner reading “We Stand By You”. An e-mail sent by an ensign on board Winston S. Churchill described the occasion.
Weird that we named a ship after Churchill
I did a quickie check of the Wiki page.
They named a ship after an Australian PM who probably drowned.
This next bit made me laugh.
I wish there was a “fan edits” site of Wikipedia pages. It’s only dumb luck that kept reading and I saw the stuff about 9/11 before I closed the page.