Florida Historical Markers Programs - Marker Detail

Description: Side 1: This berth was once the home of the 255 foot Owasco class patrol gunboat, Sebago (WPG 42), which was commissioned in September 1945 as the United States’ most heavily armed war vessel per foot. The ship carried an initial complement of 273 sailors, which was reduced in 1952 to 143 sailors when she was refitted for peacetime missions. Sebago’s first postwar assignment was in San Francisco patrolling the northern Pacific waters. The ship was quickly reassigned to the Atlantic waters and in 1954 became the largest cutter operating in the Gulf of Mexico. She performed duties related to law enforcement, fisheries support, cadet and reserve training, and search and rescue missions. In 1964, Sebago moved from her home port in Mobile, Alabama to Pensacola, Florida, where she would remain assigned until she was decommissioned. While stationed in Pensacola, Sebago patrolled Ocean Stations Bravo, Charlie, Delta, and Echo, as she provided communications and navigation support for aircraft crossing the Atlantic and gathered weather and oceanographic data. A civilian meteorologist was often on board during station patrols. Side 2: In December 1966, Sebago helped fight the fire that destroyed Pensacola’s Frisco Docks. Sebago was reclassified as a high endurance cutter (WHEC 42) and in 1968, was refurbished at the Alabama Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company in preparation for a combat tour in Vietnam. As part of the Coast Guard Squadron Three, Vietnam, she provided naval gunfire support (NGS) and small craft interdictions during Operation Market Time in 1969. In addition to combat actions, the ship conducted humanitarian missions that provided medical aid to the Vietnamese before she returned to Pensacola. Automated weather and oceanographic buoy systems replaced ocean station patrols in the early 1970s and all Owasco class cutters were retired. Sebago was decommissioned at this pier on February 29, 1972, and scrapped at Panama City in 1974. Throughout her service, the cutter was on patrol about 220 days each year and usually in-port 21 days between patrols. This marker is dedicated in memory of the ship, to all of the men who sailed aboard her, and to their families who waited weeks on end in the shelter of her home port. “Semper Paratus is our guide, our fame, our glory too!”