During the Second World War, Ingham served as a convoy escort in the Atlantic, sinking the German submarine U-626 on 15 December 1942. From 1944, the ship acted as an amphibious flagship and participated in three campaigns in the Pacific theatre of operations.
During the Vietnam War, Ingham was awarded two Presidential Unit Citations for two operations during a deployment between August 1968 and February 1969. Ingham returned to Coast Guard duties for the remainder of her career, notably taking part in a massive search and rescue effort between April and July 1980 to rescue Cuban refugees who had fled the Communist country following Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's opening of the port of Mariel.
When she decommissioned in 1988, Ingham was the second oldest commissioned U.S. warship after the USS Constitution in Boston, Maine. Ingham holds the record as the most decorated vessel in the Coast Guard fleet and the only Coast Guard vessel to ever be awarded two Presidential Unit Citations.
Although part of the Patriot's Point naval museum in Charleston, South Carolina from 1989 until 2009, Ingham was moved to Key West after a drydocking period and is now part of the Key West Maritime Memorial Museum. The ship was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1992 and has been designated by the Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard as the National Memorial to Coast Guardsmen Killed in Action in WWII and the Vietnam War. A plaque on Ingham's quarterdeck lists the names of the 912 coast guardsmen killed in these two conflicts.
Photos taken 27 January 2016, Key West, Florida
