The Coast Guard Cutter Tampa has been found off the coast of Britain more than a century after it was lost, closing a search that began with a British dive team’s inquiry in 2023. The wreck of the United States Coast Guard cutter was located about 50 miles off Cornwall, more than 300 feet down in the Atlantic Ocean.
The Coast Guard confirmed the discovery on Wednesday. In 1918, the Tampa was sunk by the German submarine UB-91 while sailing through the Bristol Channel toward a Welsh port for more fuel, killing all 131 people aboard. Those lost included 111 Coast Guardsmen, four U.S. Navy personnel and 16 British Navy personnel and civilians.
The wreck carries a place of singular grief in Coast Guard history. In the summer of 1917, six United States Coast Guard cutters were sent overseas on convoy duty for the war, and the Tampa was the only one that never returned. Under Capt. Charles Satterlee, the cutter escorted 18 convoys and earned a special commendation for exemplary service before it was torpedoed on the night of Sept. 26, 1918.
The ship sank in less than three minutes. Adm. Kevin Lunday said that when the Tampa was lost with all hands in 1918, it left an enduring grief in the service, and that locating the wreck connects the Coast Guard to that sacrifice and reminds it that devotion to duty endures. The words land differently now because the final resting place of the crew, long sought and long unknown, is finally known.
The breakthrough came after the British diving team Gasperados contacted the Coast Guard in 2023 about searching for the ship. The service provided archival images of the deck fittings, ship’s wheel, bell and weaponry. After three years of searching, the team said last week it would explore two final target areas after receiving new intel, and three days later it said it had finally cracked it and found the Tampa.
The discovery also opens a new phase of work. The Coast Guard is developing plans for further underwater research and exploration of the wreck using robotics and autonomous systems, part of a broader push to document World War I losses now being found in deep water. Other shipwrecks from the war have also been identified in recent years, including nine ships off Morocco and the HMS Hawke off Scotland.
Steve Mortimer said the discovery is the result of three years of research and exploration, and called the Tampa of huge importance to the United States and the relatives of everyone who died that day. For families and for the service, the ship is no longer a name on a list. It is a place.
