Friday, March 19, 2021

USCG Cutter Munro Returns to Alaska

After 49 days in the Bering Sea, crew members of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Douglas Munro recently arrived home to Kodiak, Alaska, the USCG announced March 17.

While deployed, the high endurance cutter provided enforcement coverage in a region encompassing 890,000 square miles, protecting the $13.9 billion Alaskan fishing industry by undertaking fisheries boarding and enforcing rules to ensure commercial fishing vessel compliance.

Crew members also got their first COVID-19 vaccine doses when they made a logistics stop in Dutch Harbor.

"This has been an extremely exciting and rewarding patrol as it is the end of an era for not only this cutter, but also for all the 378s that have served the Coast Guard since 1967,” said Capt. Riley Gatewood, the Douglas Munro’s commanding officer. “The legacy of Signalman First Class Douglas Munro lives on due to the hard work put forth by the many crew members who spent time away from loved ones to accomplish Coast Guard missions aboard Douglas Munro. It is a great honor and privilege to serve as Commanding Officer of the Coast Guard’s last 378-foot-high endurance cutter.”

The Douglas Munro, which was commissioned in 1971, is named in honor of Signalman First Class Douglas A. Munro, the U.S. Coast Guard’s only Medal of Honor recipient, who was killed during the Guadalcanal Campaign of World War II on that same date in 1942. The ship is scheduled to be decommissioned later this year.