The ship was commissioned into service with the Revenue Cutter Service as USRC McCulloch on 12 December 1897. Captain D. B. Hodgsdon, USRCS, was her first commanding officer, who later commanded McCulloch at the Battle of Manila Bay.
Just as McCulloch brought El Fraile Rock abaft the starboard beam, soot in her funnel caught fire and sent up a column of fire like a signal light, breaking the black stillness. Immediately thereafter, a Spanish battery on El Fraile took McCulloch under fire. Boston, in column just ahead of McCulloch, answered the battery, as did McCulloch with her starboard guns,[2] and the Spanish gun emplacement was silenced. McCulloch's chief engineer, Frank B. Randall, died of overexertion and heat exhaustion while trying to extinguish the soot fire in the funnel.[4]
As the rock fell astern, Dewey reduced speed to four knots (7.4 km/h; 4.6 mph) so as to reach the head of Manila Bay in time to join action with the Spanish Navysquadron off Cavite at daybreak on 1 May 1898. His orders required McCulloch to guard the two store ships from Spanish gunboats. She was also to protect the ships in the line of battle from surprise attack, tow any disabled ship out of range of Spanish gunfire, and take her place in the line.
In the ensuing Battle of Manila Bay, Dewey′ ships made five firing runs at close range, wreaking devastation on the Spanish squadron. MccCulloch. under fire, guarded the store ships and made ready a 9-inch (23 cm) hawser with which to assist any U.S. ship that ran aground, although that turned out to be unnecessary; at one point, in between firing passes by the U.S. squadron, she intercepted the British mail steamer Esmeralda to convey to the British steamer Dewey's orders for Esmeralda's movements in the vicinity of the battle. The battle, which began at 05:40, was over in seven hours. All of the Spanish warships were destroyed, and 381 Spanish seamen were killed. No American warship was seriously damaged, and only eight American sailors were wounded. Randall was the only American to die during the battle.[4][5]
After the battle, because of her speed, McCulloch was dispatched to the closest cable facility, that at Hong Kong, bearing the first dispatches of the great U.S. naval victory. On 17 May 1898, McCulloch left Hong Kong with Emilio Aguinaldo – the Philippine revolutionary who would later lead the Philippine forces in the Philippine–American War – aboard, arriving at Cavite in Manila Bay on 19 May.[6]
Tasked on 9 August 1906 with the enforcement of fur seal regulations, McCulloch operated in the vicinity of the Pribilof Islands until 1912. During these years of service on the Bering Sea Patrol, she was especially well known because of her services as a floating court to towns along the coast of the Territory of Alaska. Upon her return to San Francisco in 1912, McCulloch resumed patrol operations in her regular cruising district along the U.S. West Coast, with occasional deployments to Alaska. In 1914, she underwent an overhaul at Mare Island Navy Yard in Vallejo, California, in which her boilers were replaced, fuel tanks were installed, her mainmast was removed, and her bowsprit was shortened.[2][3] Her barkentine rig also was removed, and she emerged from the overhaul with two military masts instead.[1][2] On 24 November 1914, she came to the aid of the steam passenger schoonerHanalei, which had run aground on Duxbury Reef in the Pacific Ocean off California with the loss of 18 lives.[2][10]
On 6 April 1917 – the same day that the United States entered World War I – McCulloch was transferred to the U.S. Navy for wartime service as a patrol vessel, serving as USS McCulloch, the first U.S. Navy ship to bear the name. She continued patrol operations in the Pacific Ocean along the U.S. West Coast.[3]
Sinking
McCulloch sinking on 13 June 1917.
On 13 June 1917, McCulloch was steaming with 90 U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy personnel on board from San Pedro, California, to Mare Island Navy Yard, where she was to be fitted with larger guns for her wartime Navy service. She was proceeding cautiously in heavy fog about four nautical miles (7.4 km) west-northwest of Point Conception, California, at 07:30 when her crew heard the fog signal of the Pacific Steamship Company passenger steamer Governor, which was southbound from San Francisco to San Pedro with 429 passengers and crew aboard. Governor's crew also heard McCulloch's fog signal, and Governor's captain ordered full speed astern and ordered Governor′s whistle to blow three times to indicate that her engines were at full speed astern. McCulloch was off Governor's port bow when Governor struck her on the starboard side just aft of the pilot house at 07:33, tearing a hole in McCulloch's hull and seriously injuring one of McCulloch's crewmen in his bunk. Governor, which suffered no casualties among her passengers and crew, took aboard all of McCulloch's crew, and McCulloch sank 35 minutes after the collision three nautical miles northwest of Point Conception. Her injured crewman died on 16 June 1917 in a hospital in San Pedro.[2][3]
The sinking of McCulloch was headline news across the United States because of her involvement in the Battle of Manila Bay 19 years before.[2] An inquiry into the collision found Governor at fault for disobeying the "rules of the road." Governor's owners agreed to a settlement payment of $167,500 to the United States Government in December 1923.[4]
On 13 June 2017 – the 100th anniversary of McCulloch's sinking – the U.S. Coast Guard held a media event to announce the discovery of the wreck. Officials also announced a decision to leave all remains of the cutter on the ocean floor because strong currents and a build-up of sediment at the wreck site and the fragility of the wreck made recovery of parts of the wreck impractical.[11][12]
McCulloch and her crew were fine examples of the Coast Guard's long-standing multi-mission success from a pivotal naval battle with Commodore Dewey, to safety patrols off the coast of California, to protecting fur seals in the Pribilof Islands in Alaska. The men and women who crew our newest cutters are inspired by the exploits of great ships and courageous crews like the McCulloch."[12]
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