Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:

• The USCGC Tampa sank in 1918, claiming 131 lives—the single greatest loss of life at sea that the United States suffered during World War I.
• After nearly a century, the shipwreck of the USCGC Tampa was discovered 50 miles off the coast of Cornwall in 2026.
• The rediscovery highlights the Coast Guard’s World War I contributions and the enduring legacy of its crew.

This story is a collaboration with Biography.com.

When the USCGC Tampa sank off the coast of Britain on September 26, 1918, it took 131 souls with it to the depths of the Bristol Channel, including 111 members of the Coast Guard. Today, the sinkingis remembered as the single largest naval combat casualty loss suffered by the United States during the First World War.

Roughly ten years after it sank, in May of 1928, the United States Coast Guard Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery was dedicated, with one side inscribed with the names of all the men who went down with the USCGC Tampa. Almost a century after that dedication, in 2026, the wreckage of the USCGC Tampa itself has finally been located.

As noted by Phys.org, the Coast Guard announced that the wreckage of the Tampa was found roughly 50 miles off the coast of Newquay, Cornwall. A British technical-diving team called the Gasperados discovered the ship more than 300 feet beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.

“This discovery is the result of three years of research and exploration,” remarked dive team leader Steve Mortimer in a post on the Facebook page for the Gasperados Dive Team, a group of volunteers who describe themselves as “working alongside researchers and historians to find and identify important shipwrecks around the UK.”

That collaboration was key to the Tampa’s ultimate discovery. “We provided the dive team with historical records and technical data to assist in confirming the wreck site,” said Dr. William Thiesen, Coast Guard Atlantic Area Historian, in a press release. “This included the archival images of the deck fittings, ship’s wheel, bell, weaponry, and archival images of the Tampa.”

It took the Gasperados Dive Team ten trips before they identified the right dive site to finally reach the final resting place of the Tampa and its crew. But in doing so, they’ve solved a maritime mystery, and turned the final page on a century-old chapter of naval history.

“When the Tampa was lost with all hands in 1918, it left an enduring grief in our service,” Admiral Kevin Lunday, commandant of the Coast Guard, said in a statement. “Locating the wreck connects us to their sacrifice and reminds us that devotion to duty endures.”

The rediscovery of the Tampa serves as a reminder of the Coast Guard’s contributions to the war effort during WWI, but the ship actually predates the Coast Guard as we know it today.

When the Tampa launched in February of 1912 (originally under the name Miami) it was under the command of the United States Revenue Cutter Service, a precursor to the Coast Guard. The Revenue Cutter Service originated in 1790 and operated not under the authority of a military branch, but of the Department of the Treasury, at the suggestion of Alexander Hamilton.

It would not be until January of 1915—nearly three years into the Miami’s service—that President Woodrow Wilson signed Pub. L. 63-239, otherwise known as the Coast Guard Act, which merged the Revenue Cutter Service with the United States Life-Saving Service (a government maritime rescue service established in 1878) to form the United States Coast Guard.

A year later, the Miami was renamed the USCGC Tampa. A year after that, the United States entered World War I, and control of the ship was transferred from the Coast Guard to the Navy. However, despite the transfer of control, the crewman aboard the ship remained members of the Coast Guard. It was a crew of Coast Guardsmen who were manning the USCGC Tampa when it was ordered to overseas duty, and it was a crew of Coast Guardsmen who dutifully escorted convoys from Gibraltar to mainland England’s southern coast for eleven months, before a single torpedo fired by UB-91 on September 26, 1918, submerged the ship and its crew for more than 100 years.

Now, in 2026, the Coast Guard is actively working on plans for underwater research and exploration of the wreckage, to learn even more about this crucial piece of Coast Guard history.