Sailing Through History: The Remarkable Journey of USCGC Eagle
The New Bedford Whaling Museum welcomes author Will Sofrin for a Sailors’ Series program on the history of the USCGC Eagle. Admission is $25.
The ship launched in 1936 as the German naval training vessel Horst Wessel. After World War II, the United States seized the vessel and recommissioned it as the USCGC Eagle in 1946. Since then, it has trained generations of Coast Guard officers in seamanship, leadership, and service.
Sofrin discusses the ship’s transformation from a Nazi training vessel to a symbol of American ideals. The presentation includes archival photographs, historic film footage, and first-person accounts spanning decades.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Rick Atkinson called the book “a fine book about an extraordinary sailing vessel.”
Doors open at 5:30 p.m. The lecture runs from 6 to 7 p.m. in the Cook Memorial Theater, followed by a light reception and book signing in the Jacobs Family Gallery.
