A Navajo-class, ocean-going tug under development by shipmaker Austal will bear the name of James D. Fairbanks, a former Camp Pendleton Marine who also served in the Navy, where he became a prominent figure in the Seabees.
The announcement was made Wednesday by Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro during a ceremony at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.
The Navy said Del Toro was following the tradition of naming towing, salvage and rescue ships after prominent Native Americans or Native American tribes. The vessel will formally be called USNS James D. Fairbanks.
Fairbanks grew up on the White Earth Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota and went on to compile a long service record.
He joined the Marines in late 1970, attending basic training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. Fairbanks then served with Second Battalion Eleventh Marines (2/11) at Camp Pendleton and left the Corps in 1972.
He then did two hitches in the Navy, one that included service during Operation Iraqi Freedom, where he was awarded the Bronze Star for meritorious leadership under proximate enemy fire and threat of attack, the Navy said. He also was hailed for his service in the Seabees, the Navy’s storied construction battalion.
“He was a builder, but not just any builder. He was a Seabee,” Paulette Fairbanks Molin, Fairbanks’ sister, said in a statement.
