Coast Guard cutter earns wave of praise for 50 years of service
Galveston-based Dauntless, crew still sail the seas, protecting shores, making history
GALVESTON — In 1968, Tom Jones was a wide-eyed crewman on the maiden voyage of the newly commissioned Dauntless, a Coast Guard cutter making its way from a shipyard in Lorain, Ohio, to its first home port in Miami.
As a member of the Dauntless’ first crew, Jones was officially a “plank owner” of the ship, an honor named for a time when sailors on newly commissioned wooden ships could take a plank as a souvenir.
A half-century later, Jones stood on the deck of the Dauntless in awe of the vessel as it was honored at a ceremony in Galveston on Thursday for its service on the front lines of history — from the Mariel Boat Lift of Cuba to the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, and even a cameo in the James Bond film, “License to Kill.”
“It’s good to see the old girl,” Jones said. “There was a lot of good people on board. We were a good crew, we got along pretty well and we were proud of our ship.”
Docked at the Galveston Coast Guard station, the Dauntless cuts an imposing figure — a 210foot medium-endurance Reliance class cutter outfitted with a large, 25 mm belt-fed machine gun on the front deck and two .50-caliber guns near the bridge. A gold marijuana leaf is painted
on the ship’s superstructure, recognition of its seizure of 1 million pounds of marijuana — making it the first cutter in history to accomplish such a feat — and 97 narcotics busts over its lifespan.
“This cutter and this crew has had the opportunity to participate in history, to make history for the last 50 years on the front lines of our war against transnational criminal organizations who move drugs and migrants, weapons and other threats to our homeland,” said Rear Adm. Paul Thomas, commander of the 8th Coast Guard District, which includes Houston and Galveston.
Reliving the memories
For Jones and other former Dauntless crewmen, captains and commanders in attendance, the ceremony, which included a pennant presentation and the unveiling of a 50th anniversary coin, brought back waves of nostalgia.
Capt. Dwight Mathers, commanding officer of the Dauntless from 2007 to 2009, recalled being on the ship out at sea in the Caribbean in 2008 when Hurricane Ike made landfall back in Galveston. With family members and fellow servicemen braving the storm on the mainland, all Mathers could do was monitor former Houston Chronicle reporter Eric Berger’s SciGuy blog for updates on the storm’s movements.
“We had limited connectivity when we were [at sea] so everyone’s trying to pull [Berger] up to see what the storm was doing,” Mathers said.
Storm damage to the Coast Guard station in Galveston forced Mathers and crew to leave the Dauntless behind in St. Petersburg, Fla.
“Everyone was concerned about families, people left cars here that just got trashed,” Mathers recalled. “We did relief efforts for a couple months The base was in pretty bad shape, so we were cleaning the base up and several families had their homes damaged or destroyed so we helped them get ready to go.”
Jones remembers a particular search-and-rescue operation involving small boats filled with Cuban refugees, fleeing the Fidel Castro regime.
“Large numbers of Cuban refugees that were coming over in basically rowboats,” Jones said. “They would have small children laying in those rowboats. That was very heartwarming to rescue them and get them out of the ocean so they didn’t perish at sea.”
It wouldn’t be the last time that the Dauntless found itself in the middle of tense Cuba-U.S. relations. During the Mariel Boat Lift, the mass Cuban refugee exodus between April 23 and May 13, 1980, the Dauntless towed over 25 vessels to safety, rescued eight persons adrift at sea and conducted 55 search-and-rescue cases.
Fifteen years later, after a $21 million stem-to-stern renovation and a home port relocation from Miami to Galveston, the Dauntless rescued 578 migrants from an overloaded 75-foot coastal freighter, the largest number of migrants rescued from a single vessel in Coast Guard history.
Challenger and beyond
Of course, the ship’s most publicized case was during January 1986, when Dauntless was first to arrive and served as on-scene commander for the response to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. The shuttle broke apart just 73 seconds after liftoff, claiming the lives of its seven crew members.
The Dauntless’ countless maritime accomplishments have taken their toll on the ship. In addition to its renovation in 1993, the ship underwent massive structural and equipment upgrades in 2009, with the goal of keeping it operational for another 15 years. The ship will soon continue operations at its new home port in Pensacola, Fla.
Several of the speakers at Thursday’s ceremony made humorous references to the Dauntless’ age, and Mathers later observed that the Coast Guard is working with an aging fleet and significantly fewer resources than its law enforcement counterparts.
“I think we’re underfunded, frankly,” Mathers said. “When I was here, I think they were talking about 10 more years. Now they’re talking about another 10 years. I’m 52, so I’m just a little bit older than this ship.”
But other former crewmen see the ship’s endurance through wear and tear as another in a long line of badges of honor.
“I’m a part of history,” said Steve Lake, who served on the Dauntless from 2000 to 2001. “I was choked up at everything they were saying up there. It is a tribute to those that went up before me and after me that [the Dauntless] is 50 years old and still able to go out there and do its job.”