Benjamin Bottoms arriving in Los Angeles | |
History | |
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United States | |
Name | USCGC Benjamin Bottoms |
Namesake | Benjamin A. Bottoms |
Operator | United States Coast Guard |
Builder | Bollinger Shipyards, Lockport, Louisiana |
Commissioned | May 1, 2019 [1] |
Homeport | San Pedro, California |
Identification |
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Status | in active service |
Badge | |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Sentinel-class cutter |
Displacement | 353 long tons (359 t) |
Length | 46.8 m (154 ft) |
Beam | 8.11 m (26.6 ft) |
Depth | 2.9 m (9.5 ft) |
Propulsion |
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Speed | 28 knots (52 km/h; 32 mph) |
Range | 2,500 nautical miles (4,600 km; 2,900 mi) |
Endurance | 5 days |
Boats & landing craft carried | 1 × Short Range Prosecutor RHIB |
Complement | 2 officers, 20 crew |
Sensors and processing systems | L-3 C4ISR suite |
Armament |
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USCGC Benjamin Bottoms (WPC-1132) is the 32nd Sentinel-class cutter built for the United States Coast Guard. She is the fourth of four Fast Response Cutters homeported in San Pedro, California. [1]
The USCGC Benjamin Bottoms was placed in commission on 1 May, 2019 by ADM Charles Ray, vice commandant of the Coast Guard, with LT Lennie Day serving as her plank owner commander, who oversaw her fitting out from delivery. [2]
On July 15, 2021, Benjamin Bottoms, along with Munro and Haddock, were diverted to extinguish a boat fire on the Relentless, seven miles west of Carlsbad, California. [3]
Under the command of LT CDR Allice Gholson, Benjamin Bottoms participated in GALAPEX III from 23 June to 9 July, 2024, a joint training exercise centered around Ecuador's Galápagos Islands to gain greater cooperation and understanding with sailors from 14 partner nations in an effort to combat illegal fishing and other littoral violations. The Benjamin Bottoms transited over 7,500 nautical miles round trip across the Equator, spending 43 days deployed at sea as the only US surface asset to participate. [4] [5]
Benjamin Bottoms is named after Benjamin A. Bottoms, who died in November 1942 while attempting to rescue the crew of a crashed USAAF bomber. He was assigned on a Grumman J2F-4 Duck floatplane as the radioman, and after receiving a radio message that a B-17 crashed, and accompanied pilot John A. Pritchard to search for the downed plane. The pilot spotted the crashed bomber, and landed it as close to the wreak as possible. They were able to assist two of the injured crew back to their plane and back to the USCGC Northland. On their second trip, the plane encountered bad weather, causing the plane to crash, killing both men. [6]
The Sentinel-class cutter, also known as the Fast Response Cutter due to its program name, is part of the United States Coast Guard's Deepwater program. At 154 feet (46.8 m), it is similar to, but larger than, the 123-foot (37 m) lengthened 1980s-era Island-class patrol boats that it replaces. Up to 71 vessels are to be built by the Louisiana-based firm Bollinger Shipyards, using a design from the Netherlands-based Damen Group, with the Sentinel design based on the company's Damen Stan 4708 patrol vessel. The Department of Homeland Security's budget proposal to Congress, for the Coast Guard, for 2021, stated that, in addition to 58 vessels to serve the Continental US, they requested an additional six vessels for its portion of Patrol Forces Southwest Asia.
United States Coast Guard Base Boston is located in the North End, Boston, Massachusetts. It is home to a number of cutters, including the USCGC Escanaba (WMEC-907), USCGC Spencer (WMEC-905), USCGC Marlin (WPB-87304), USCGC Pendant (WYTL-65608) and USCGC Seneca (WMEC-906), along with other small fleet units. The small boat station located on the base was re-opened in 2003 after being closed in 1996. It is also home to Flotilla 5-3 of the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary.
USCGC William Flores (WPC-1103) is a Sentinel-class cutter homeported in Coast Guard District 7, Miami, Florida.
USCGC Paul Clark (WPC-1106) is the sixth Sentinel-class cutter. Like the previous five vessels of her class she is homeported in Miami, Florida. She was delivered to the Coast Guard, for testing, on May 18, 2013.
USCGC Raymond Evans is the tenth vessel in the United States Coast Guard's Sentinel-class cutter. All the vessels are named after members of the Coast Guard, or its precursor services, who are remembered for their heroism. Names had already been assigned for the first fourteen vessels, when Commander Raymond Evans died, and the USCG Commandant announced that the next Sentinel class cutter would be named after him. Joseph Napier, who was originally scheduled to be the namesake of the tenth vessel, had his name moved to the beginning of the second list of heroes names, and will now be the namesake of the fifteenth vessel.
USCGC Joseph Napier is a Sentinel-class cutter homeported in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She is the fifteenth Sentinel class to be delivered, and the third of six to be assigned to Puerto Rico. she was commissioned on 29 January 2016.
USCGC Winslow Griesser (WPC-1116) was the sixteenth Sentinel-class cutter to be delivered. She is the fourth of six Sentinel-class vessels to be stationed in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Bollinger shipyards delivered her to the United States Coast Guard, in Key West, Florida, on December 23, 2015. After she completed her acceptance trials, she was commissioned on March 11, 2016.
USCGC Benjamin Dailey (WPC-1123) was the United States Coast Guard's 23rd Sentinel-class cutter. She was the first cutter of her class stationed in the Coast Guard's Eight District, with a homeport in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
USCGC Joseph Gerczak (WPC-1126) is the 26th Sentinel-class cutter built for the United States Coast Guard. She is one of three Fast Response Cutters homeported in Honolulu, Hawaii.
USCGC Richard Snyder (WPC-1127) is the 27th Sentinel-class cutter built for the United States Coast Guard. She is the first of her class to be home-ported in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina.
USCGC Forrest Rednour (WPC-1129) is the 29th Sentinel-class cutter built for the United States Coast Guard. She was the first of the four vessels of her class to be home-ported at USCG Base Los Angeles/Long Beach in San Pedro, California. Other sister ships have been based in Florida, Mississippi, Puerto Rico, New Jersey, North Carolina, Hawaii, and Alaska prior to Forrest Rednour's assignment to Base LA/LB. Sister ships Robert Ward (WPC-1130), Terrell Horne III (WPC-1131), and Benjamin Bottoms (WPC-1132) soon joined her at Base LA/LB.
USCGC Oliver Berry (WPC-1124) is the United States Coast Guard's 24th Sentinel-class cutter. She was the first member of the three members of her class to be homeported in Honolulu, Hawaii.
USCGC Robert Ward (WPC-1130) is the 30th Sentinel-class cutter, and the second of four assigned to the U.S. Coast Guard Base Los Angeles / Long Beach, in Los Angeles, California.
Benjamin Bottoms was a United States Coast Guardsman who died while attempting to rescue the crew of a USAAF bomber that had crashed-landed in Greenland in November 1942. Bottoms was the radioman of the USCGC Northland's Grumman J2F-4 Duck floatplane. When a B-17 bomber crash landed near Northland his aircraft was assigned to search for it. Bottoms's pilot Lieutenant John A. Pritchard sighted the bomber, and landed as close to the wreck as possible—four miles away. Pritchard and Bottoms were able to assist two of the injured bomber crew to their plane, and take them back to Northland. However, on their second rescue visit they encountered bad weather, and crashed. It took seventy-five years to locate their bodies.
USCGC Daniel Tarr (WPC-1136) is the United States Coast Guard's 36th Sentinel-class cutter, and the first of three to be homeported in Galveston, Texas.
USCGC William Sparling (WPC-1154) is the United States Coast Guard's 54th Sentinel-class cutter.
USCGC Harold Miller (WPC-1138) is the United States Coast Guard's 38th Sentinel-class cutter.
USCGC Glen Harris (WPC-1144) is the United States Coast Guard's 44th Sentinel-class cutter.
USCGC Charles Moulthrope (WPC-1141) is the United States Coast Guard's 41st Sentinel-class cutter, and the first of six to be homeported in Manama, Bahrain.
USCGC Terrell Horne (WPC-1131) is the United States Coast Guard's 24th Sentinel-class cutter. She is the third of four of her class to be homeported in Long Beach, California.