Coast Guard vet served aboard historic cutter ship
Mark Congdon described himself as “just a dumb kid from Stone Mountain who had never been on a ship” when he joined the United States Coast Guard in 1980.
“I served a four-year hitch with three years aboard the Taney,” he said of the vessel described as a USCGC, or U.S. Coast Guard Cutter. “My service was pretty lackluster — except for getting shot at and rammed by drug runners while doing interdictions in the Windward Passage (of the Caribbean Sea).”
Congdon, an Ellijay realtor, was also a rescue swimmer aboard the Taney whose only “save” was a fellow rescue swimmer, he said. Then as time elapsed at sea, including sailing across the Atlantic to ports in the Mediterranean, he began to learn about the ship’s history. The Taney was docked in Honolulu on December 7, 1941, the date of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that launched the U.S. into World War II. Although 8 miles away from Pearl, the Taney fired on a squad of Japanese Zeroes.
Tomorrow is the 82nd anniversary of the attack, and only a handful of veterans who survived are still alive. Around 2,400 military personnel, primarily sailors, were killed on the “date that will live in infamy,” as President Franklin Roosevelt famously stated. However, in 2001 Congdon and some fellow “Coasties” he’d served with were invited to a 60th anniversary memorial service at the Baltimore Maritime Museum in Maryland. As the last ship involved in the attack still afloat, the Taney now serves as its own museum in Baltimore.
“I had visited her in Baltimore a few times, and kept up with a few of my buddies I’d served with,” he said of the Taney. “Then I met some of my old shipmates up there on Dec. 7, 2001, for the 60th commemoration of the attack on Pearl Harbor. There were a few old veterans who spoke that were at Pearl when it was attacked. It was one of the coolest days of my life.”
With the commemoration being just three months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., Congdon described the 60th anniversary as “a very emotional time for a lot of people for a lot of different reasons.”
“When those vets spoke three months after 9/11, they had quite a bit to say about never forgetting,” he said. “I remember this one guy who talked about the famous quote from the Japanese general, ‘We have awakened a sleeping tiger’ and he tied it in with 9/11. He said, ‘You know, we fell back asleep!’”
Dignitaries and “big-shot Washington people” also attended, Congdon recalled, but what stuck out in his mind were the words from the Pearl Harbor survivors. Afterward, he and his pals were able to meet some of the Pearl veterans and thank them.
“It wasn’t like today when you take pictures and post them on Facebook,” he said. “I was honored to be in their presence because they were a national treasure, and you knew they wouldn’t be around forever.”
Congdon called a commemorative lapel pin he received at the memorial service — dual American flags with “7 Dec. 41” under one and “11 Sept. 01” under the other — his “most prized possession.”
About the USCGC Taney
The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Taney is now preserved as a museum in Baltimore, Md. She was docked at Honolulu, Hawaii, just over 8 miles away from Pearl Harbor on the day of the sneak attack of December 7, 1941. The ship’s gunners fired at some Japanese planes that morning, but they were out of range. At almost noon, five enemy planes came within range — and several .50-caliber tracers fired from the ship appeared to pierce the wing and tail structure of one of the planes — but the attackers changed course to avoid the barrage, warfarehistorynetwork.com states.
“Visitors to the historic vessel can gain a poignant appreciation for the actions and efforts of Coast Guardsmen in World War II while exploring one of the ships they took into battle,” according to the website.