tellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> welcome to the coast guard cutter ingham museum here in key west. bishop will be 80 years old next year. -- the ship will be 80 years old next year. it was built in 1936. its first station was alaska. then in 1941, she was put on convoy duty in the north atlantic. she did 41 convoys between here in england across the north atlantic. she sank german u-boat 626. she is the last ship of float -- american ship afloat that ever sank a german submarine. this was the secretary class named after the secretaries of the treasury. because the coast guard was under the treasury department for 130, 140 years. this one was samuel d. ingham, the secretary for the treasury for andrew jackson. president andrew jackson.

so that is how she got her name. her early period was serving alaska, patrol duty, fisheries and saving lives in the alaskan waters. when we declared war in 1941 they had to have ships escort merchant ships and this is one of the ships that did that function. the escorts had up to four or five different ships escorting them. somebody up front into the rear and on each flight, the size -- side. -- f;lank, the side. the size of the convoys could be anywhere from 10 to 80 ships. sometimes the larger ones had a really large convoy. the longest battle all the war it was nasty out there. storms came up. hurricanes, ice all over the ships, really adverse conditions. the ships were outfitted with depth charge racks and k guns.

they were heavily loaded with weapons. it is a little bigger than a destroyer escort. in one of her crossings she picked up the sound of a u-boat and closed in on it and dropped depth charges on it and sank u-boat 626. this was in late 1942. this was just south of iceland. between reykjavik and greenland. in what they called the air gap. the reason was that airplanes did not reached their so -- reach there so they depended on ships to cover that particular part of the ocean. while you are escorting these merchant ships, you would have to break off, chased down submarine contacts, do what you can do, and in get back to escorting the merchant ships. after the north atlantic battle, the atlantic continued with other ships. the ingham served in the africa. then served in the philippines. she was the command ship or the flagship for five of them. she was general macarthur's

ship for his return. on february 25, 1945, she hosted general macarthur on board for the final stages of the seaside battle. there was also of course paratroopers doing the land side operations, and so, that was one of the highlights of her period out in the philippines. then she moved on for the amphibious landing at the gulf, the largest naval battle of the whole pacific war. her job was to conduct the amphibious landings. putting people at stores -- think people ashore. -- think people ashore. -- putting people ashore. the lsm's were medium-size landing crafts.

some carried troops. lsd's carry tanks and heavy equipment. everybody got up on the beach for the invasion and they had admiral arthur struble on here. he was the guy who planned the d-day landings for eisenhower in europe and after that was over, they sent him to the philippines to land the rest of the landings there. they had a large armada. the south china naval forces and send the south china naval force to china and formosa and vietnam, that area. the japanese were still being located back in japan and it was selected as the flagship for that. with admiral elliott buckmaster. and elliott buckmaster, when he was the officer for the yorktown , when it was sunk at the battle of midway. the bottom line, a lot of high-powered guys served here during world war ii. vietnam, she did coastal gunfire support missions. she was over there for a year,

covering all the way down the coast of the vietnam. back to the other side. the support missions were when people back on the beaches heard -- beaches needed support they called for gunfire offshore. the ship participated in 87 gunfire support missions and she received two navy presidential unit citations. so the coast guard ship, the only coast guard ship that got gw president citations. she came back from vietnam and she went back to her normal station. the north atlantic, posting themselves out there. in the old days it was checking for icebergs, plotting icebergs. also did work with going between

here and europe and giving them positions and reports. and also rescues at sea. after the ocean station work in 1980 the 200,000 cubans came over from cuba, right in the harbor where we are standing there now. >> to be cubans see left has -- sea l;ift has slowed a bit but 20,000 refugees have come to america. >> castro gave them a one-time chance to get out if they wanted to, and they did, a lot of people. getting here is kind of treacherous even though it is 90 miles away. the water can get nasty. the operation lasted for about -- four or five months. the cubans were on anything that could float. a lot of them had to be rescued. a lot of the things that they were on, floating on had to be towed in. a lot of lives were saved. it was a pretty hectic period. it was right in this harbor were that occurred in 1980. many of them had been out there for days. no water, no food, most of the boats were overloaded, oh way

overloaded. many capsized. and so it was a rescue mission as much as anything. a lot of people tried to help out, cubans from miami and so forth. those that could make it got out. after the marial period, she went back to her normal duties on the north atlantic and in 1985 she became the most decorated ship in the country. 21 ribbons. then the budget got her in 1988. they retired her in 1988. but the unique thing about it, since this was the last of the ships of the class of seven, most of the stuff was on there. ships, most of the stuff was left on here. cigarette packs are still the way they left it. it is a true time capsule of the period.

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