USCGC Ingham sails again…kinda.

Posted on 1 September 2009 by Sean P. Lawler | Comments

Over here in glorious, and humid Charleston, we have a museum called Patriots Point. It’s an amazing place consisting of historical ships including: USS Yorktown, USS Clamagore, and the USS Laffey. The museum also boasts vintage war planes from WWII and Korea in the Yorktown’s hangar deck and on the flight deck an array of aircraft from the Vietnam War and Desert Storm up to modern marvels such as the F-14 Tomcat and S-3 Viking. In addition to the ships, the museum also has a Vietnam Base Camp replica, a Medal of Honor museum, and a Cold War memorial. And, until recently, the attractions featured the USCGC Ingham. Which one is that you ask?

The historic 327 foot Coast Guard Cutter was the most decorated ship in the Coast Guard at the time of her decommissioning and is the only Coast Guard Cutter to have received two Presidential Unit Citations. The menace of drug runners hardly began in the 1970s and 80s. The 327-ft. class of fast attack cutters were needed because of a mid-1930s increase in opium smuggling. But for the Ingham crew, the mission of chasing drug runners along with coastal search and rescue would give way to a new level of danger – WWII and German U-Boats lurking in the North Atlantic.
On December 17, 1942 Ingham located what appeared to be a prowling U-boat. Dropping a barrage of depth charges, Ingham recorded its first victory. U-626 went to the bottom with all hands. Ingham would serve in the Pacific as flagship for several troop landings on islands such as Panay and Tigbauanan.
Her long history included dozens of naval gunfire support missions in the Vietnam War and in 1980 rescued at least twenty Cubans in the waters between Florida and Cuba during the Mariel boat lift. Ingham’s 52 years of service ended when she was decommissioned on May 27, 1988.

With todays economic crunch, the museum has fallen on hard times. A lack of tourist visits, higher operating costs, and severely deteriorating ships have all lead to financial difficulties for the venue. It is estimated that Patriots Point needs about 20 million dollars to repair it’s ships, of which 9.2 million will be spent on the decommissioned USS Laffey in dry dock.
**See here for a little humor**

With the primary focus being placed on fixing the aging Navy platforms, Patriots Point decided that the USCG doesn’t make sense among an all navy exhibit, deciding to transfer ownership of the cutter to a Florida museum. The Ingham will now be placed along side the cutter Mowhak as part of the Miami-Dade CGC Maritime Museum. Currently, the Ingham costs Patriots Point an average of $80,000 a year in maintenance, with an estimated $2.7 million in needed repairs to its hull, a responsibility the Florida museum will take on. The Ingham is currently sitting at the FLETC base and awaiting transportation to Jacksonville, FL where restoration work will be done before it makes it’s final transit to Key West, FL. For information on the Ingham, check out the Patriot’s Point website here. You can go here to see video clip of crews setting the Ingham loose and out to sea. You may not be able to see it from a CGWS. Sorry.