April 19, 2021: U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear
Image courtesy of the U.S. Navy. Download larger version (jpg, 275 KB).
U.S. Revenue Cutter (USRC) Bear served nearly 80 years in the Revenue Cutter Service, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S. Navy, with a rich history of meritorious service in the Arctic, the North Atlantic, and Antarctica. Originally built as a sealer in 1874, it went down in 1963 in waters near the United States-Canada international boundary approximately 260 miles due east of Boston and 90 miles south of Cape Sable, Nova Scotia. In 2019, NOAA and the U.S. Coast Guard began the search for this famous vessel.
In this image, Bear is moored to the ice shelf at West Base, Antarctica, in January 1941, showing the vessel's pre-World War II configuration.