New ship named for Pearl Harbor radioman

The U.S. Coast Guard has launched a new multi-mission ship, the Melvin Bell. The vessel is named , named for a soldier who radioed the first alarms after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

According to a report in the Lock Haven Register, the $45 million fast-response cutter (FRC) was built by workers at Bollinger Shipyards in Lockport, La. It is designed for drug and migrant interdiction, coastal security, fisheries enforcement, search and rescue, and national defense. She is the 55th of 65 such Sentinel-class ships that the Coast Guard has ordered to replace 1980s-era 110-foot patrol boats, according to the Lock Haven Register report.

The ship will be moored in Boston. The crew is to sail on its first mission in mid-April.

Melvin Kealoha Bell was the first Pacific Islander to achieve the rank of chief petty officer, the first master chief electronics technician and the first master chief petty officer of color, according to the Coast Guard. He joined the service in 1938 and on Dec. 7, 1941, he was on duty at the Coast Guard radio station at Diamond Head Light on Oahu, where he received a teletype dispatch from the 14th Naval District directing him to alert all commercial ships and stations that the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor was under attack.

He and his wife eventually settled in California and had nine children.