The naval commissioning ceremony has been a tradition of all navies for centuries. It has been in the United States Navy since its beginning. The commissioning is the final act that marks entrance of a man-of-war into the naval forces of her nation. This is the final and perhaps the most significant event of the triad that brings a ship to life; keel laying, launching and christening, and commissioning. When her commissioning pennant breaks to fly from the mast, USS ZUMWALT DDG 1000 becomes a proud ship of the line.

In the early period of our Navy’s history, no exact commissioning procedure was prescribed. Thus, a ship’s date of commissioning was recorded as any one of a number of days – when the colors were first raised, when the officers and crew reported aboard, when the first log entry was made, or when the ship first put out to sea.

Today, as the distinctive mark of commissioned warship, the pennant is flown except when displaced by the flag of a higher authority. Our national commissioning pennant is blue at the hoist and a union of seven white stars and a horizontal red and white stripe at the fly. It has been the symbol for centuries of a man-of-war. The symbol is believed to date from the 17^th century, when the Dutch were at war with the English. Dutch Admiral Maarten Harpertzoon Tromp hoisted a broom at his masthead to symbolize his intention to sweep the British from the sea. British Admiral William Blake hoisted a horsewhip to the masthead in response. The victorious British thus set the precedent for a long, narrow commissioning pennant to symbolize the original horsewhip as the distinctive symbol for a fighting ship.