Jane Edwards
Huntington Ingalls Industries and the U.S. Coast Guard christened the agency’s sixth National Security Cutter ship during a christening ceremony Saturday at the company’s shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
The company’s Ingalls Shipbuilding division unveiled the Legend-class NSC ship’s name as Munro at the ceremony attended by nearly 600 guests, HII said Saturday.
Munro, a 418-foot-long vessel, is named after Signalman First Class Douglas Munro, who posthumously received the Medal of Honor for his role in the evacuation of a detachment on Guadalcanal in 1942.
Ingalls Shipbuilding is scheduled to hand over the ship to the service branch by the end of 2016.
Julie Sheehan, Munro’s great niece, served as ship sponsor during the event.
Adm. Paul Zukunft, commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard; Ingalls Shipbuilding President Brian Cuccias; and Capt. Thomas King, the vessel’s prospective commanding officer, were also in attendance.
Legend-class NSCs are intended to replace Hamilton-class cutters for maritime security operations and are designed to sail at a range of up to 14,000 miles.
