WHEREAS, On March 29, 1969, the officers and men of the USS
Frank E. Evans
departed Long Beach, California for the Western Pacific Deployment with the United States Navy to carry out the operational orders of their Commander in Chief during a time of war in Vietnam;
WHEREAS, On June 3, 1969, the USS
Frank E. Evans
, while on an allied naval exercise during the Vietnam War, collided with the Australian aircraft carrier, HMAS
Melbourne
in the South China Sea, near the coast of Vietnam; and
WHEREAS, The collision severed the ship into two sections, with the forward section sinking in less than three minutes, taking the lives of 74 American sailors; and
WHEREAS, A Philadelphia boy, Patrick M. Corcoran, was on the ship, along with five other men from Pennsylvania.
WHEREAS, Members of the United States armed forces who died during the Vietnam War have been memorialized by engraving names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C.; and
WHEREAS, The United States Department of Defense falsely maintains that the men who died as a result on the USS
Frank E. Evans
do not meet the criteria for inclusion on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial because the accident occurred outside the combat zone when, in fact, that ship and every other American ship in the vicinity was awarded a Vietnam Service Medal on the very day of the accident; and
WHEREAS, the Department of Defense, despite the favorable endorsement of the Department of the Navy that the names be added to The Wall in Washington, continues to deny the placement of the names of the lost 74 sailors on the memorial; and
WHEREAS, The Vietnam combat zone boundaries, which were ill-defined and were changed from time to time, should not be applied to exclude the names of the lost sailors from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial; and
WHEREAS, Members of the United States armed forces who died outside the designated Vietnam War combat zone have had their names placed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial furthering the argument as to why that the names of the 74 sailors from the USS
Frank E. Evans
should be included in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial; and
WHEREAS, despite all the urging to the Department of Defense, the Vietnam Wall in Washington still doesn't recognize Philadelphia's own Patrick Corcoran and his 73 shipmates, five of them Pennsylvanians. Yet, the Philadelphia Vietnam Veterans Memorial does in fact list Corcoran as a casualty, as many state and city Vietnam memorials do for this group of fallen, young American sailors; and
RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, that the names of the 74 sailors from the U.S.S
. Frank E. Evans
should be included on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and this Council fully supports an immediate favorable decision by the United States Department of Defense to make an exception to its criteria and include those names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C.; and
FURTHER RESOLVED, that a copy of this resolution be transmitted to the President and Vice President of the United States, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to the Majority Leader of the Senate, and to each Senator and Representative from Pennsylvania in the Congress of the United States of America.
End