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Medal of Honor Recipient

Philip Bogan Keefer

U.S. Navy · Spanish-American War

MOH-RC-002448Source-based record

The award

Representative medal image: early Navy star design and striped ribbon. Not a portrait or a photograph of this recipient’s own medal.
Navy Medal of HonorAction-era reference: 1898

Portrait not yet available. Representative medal shown.

About this image

Presentation date is not usable for design selection. This is an action-era reference; a later presentation or replacement medal may differ.

Medal imagery and historical designs →

Medal of Honor

July 20, 1898

Santiago de Cuba, Cuba

Rank at action
Coppersmith
Service
U.S. Navy
Conflict
Spanish-American War
Unit or command
U.S.S. Iowa

The Citation

Sources ↓
On board the U.S.S. Iowa off Santiago de Cuba, 20 July 1898. Following the blow-out of a manhole gasket of that vessel which caused the fireroom to be filled with live steam and the floor plates to be covered with boiling water, Keefer showed courageous and zealous conduct in hauling fires from 2 furnaces of boiler B.

Sources & record notes

General Order comparison: pending. Current-profile review does not mean that the underlying original order has been examined.

  1. Philip Bogan Keefer — current Society profile ↗Congressional Medal of Honor Society · Checked 2026-08-30

    current identity, service, action metadata, and citation comparison

Transcription, metadata & provenance notes
Award ID
MOH-AW-002459
Transcription status
Legacy full text · current reference profile matched
Last source check
2026-08-30
Recorded order reference (not verified against the original)
501
Accredited to
District of Columbia
Archive transcription SHA-256
e7c417eb9ea0f830281d896774bda5a8ca6045effaddbbc4900c5332a9460357

Legacy transcription retained without substantive editing; rendered current reference profile variants documented in the Phase 10 evidence snapshot.

The inherited rank-1 Society candidate was confirmed by substantive comparison of identity, service, rank, unit or command, action context, and citation; candidate rank or successful rendering alone was not treated as verification. The current evidence expands or refines the inherited display name Philip B. Keefer to Philip Bogan Keefer; the inherited form remains preserved as a separately attributed variant. The controlled canonical unit or command is U.S.S. Iowa; the current structured profile renders U.S.S. Iowa, and the inherited wording Not documented remains preserved as a separately attributed variant. The current authoritative evidence controls the action date as 1898-07-20 and classifies the action under Spanish-American War; the inherited unnormalized date and conflict values remain preserved in the audit record. The controlled historical action place is Santiago de Cuba, Cuba; the current structured place Santiago de Cuba, Cuba and the complete inherited geocoder value Santiago de Cuba, Cuba remain preserved in the audit evidence. The inherited full citation remains canonical and checksum-protected; current rendered wording is preserved separately where transcribed. No underlying General Order was examined, so the exact-order gate remains pending and no General Order verification is claimed.

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