On Admiral Paul Yost's watch, the USCGC Mellon (WHEC-717) gained distinction as the only Coast Guard cutter to fire a Harpoon antiship missile.
Admiral Paul A. Yost Jr. graduated from the Coast Guard Academy in 1951 and rose in an action-packed career to serve as Coast Guard Commandant from 1986 to 1990. He believed deeply—as he underlined in his Naval Institute oral history—in the Coast Guard’s role as “a military outfit.”
During a 1968-69 tour in Vietnam, he received the Silver Star for his role as commanding officer of a fast patrol craft (PCF) squadron in fierce-fighting river operations. The citation reads, in part:
As the PCFs were proceeding up river in column formation, they encountered an enemy ambush. . . . The two lead boats took severe damage, but all boats returned fire until clear of the ambush area. Upon discovering that PCF-43 had lost control and was aground in the middle of the ambush site, Commander Yost personally returned to rescue the UDT personnel and crew of PCF-43 with two boats while the remaining boats beached out, set up a defense perimeter and called in medevac helicopters. . . . His valiant actions under fire saved the lives of 15 USN personnel.
While Commandant, Yost wanted the service’s large ships missile-equipped.
The ships . . . had as their major weapon a 5-inch/38 or a rapid-fire three inch, one or the other. Both of these weapons were too old. They were World War II in technology. Missiles were the new standard, and I wanted missiles on those ships. So we did a midlife rehab of the 378-foot cutters, the Hamilton class. When we did that midlife we saved weight and space for the Harpoon. We also saved weight and space for the Vulcan/Phalanx Gatling gun antimissile. [Chief of Naval Operations Admiral] Carl Trost supported that. He could see that those ships were big, they were fast, they were very similar to some of the destroyers the Navy had in speed, manning, and in capability once we put that kind of equipment on them.
On 16 January 1990, the USCGC Mellon (WHEC-717) was the first cutter to fire the Harpoon. There would be Harpoons on five cutters.
I flew out to the West Coast for the first exercise on the Pacific Missile Range. The Navy wants to get everything out of the shoot it can, so it had a cruiser at the other end of the range. The cruiser was going to take the missile under fire, probably with Phalanx, and shoot it out of the air.
I went down in [the combat information center] where the operation was being run. On the trigger, on the gear that actually fired the missile on the console, we had a second-class petty officer. I sat down beside him, four-star alongside the second class, and I said, “I can’t tell you, sailor, how much I want this cruiser.” This was a cocky kid. He said to me, “Admiral, don’t worry about it. Once I get this cruiser in my sights, he’s history.”
I went up on deck to watch the firing. Boom, off went the missile, and down the range it went. It got halfway down the missile range and over the circuit came the missile control officer. “The range is fouled. There’s a merchant ship that’s ventured into the range.” He said, “I’m going to destroy the missile.” The missile range officer destroyed the missile.
I said, “That’s foul play,” and I told the skipper, “Paint a cruiser on the wing. I’m not taking no for an answer on this one.”
Well, the very sad story about this is that after I was no longer Commandant, people within the Coast Guard began to second-guess my view of what the Coast Guard was.
The Harpoon came off the five ships.
By the time the next four years were up, much of the warfighting ability had drifted back to “It’s just another mission.”
