The Cutter Winona

This anchor came from the Coast Guard cutter Winona, and it sits here in the city of Winona, Minnesota, the namesake's twin. The cutter herself was named for Winona Lake in Indiana, built during the Second World War but commissioned just after it ended, on the nineteenth of April, nineteen forty-six. For most of her career she was home ported in Port Angeles, Washington.

The Winona was an Owasco class high endurance cutter, and though she missed the war she was built for, she found plenty of duty. She rode the cold and dangerous waters of the Bering Sea on patrol, and during the Vietnam War she deployed to Southeast Asia for Operation Market Time, the long coastal blockade meant to stop weapons reaching enemy forces by sea. She was decommissioned in nineteen seventy-four.