The Myrtle Hazard, one of three Guam-based Coast Guard fast-response cutters, is pictured near the island on May 13, 2024. (Sara Muir/U.S. Coast Guard)
The Coast Guard will double its Guam fleet to six cutters but doesn’t plan to accompany the Philippine coast guard as it struggles to maintain territorial claims in the South China Sea, the service’s Pacific-area commander said Friday.
The service is part of the U.S. military expansion on Guam, Vice Adm. Andrew Tiongson said during a video call from Japan with news reporters. Billions are already invested in building a new Marine Corps base and improving Andersen Air Force Base on the island.
“We are also expanding our footprint in Guam,” Tiongson said, adding that funding is already secured for three more Sentinel-class fast-response cutters to be homeported on the island.
The Coast Guard will not escort Philippine resupply missions to the BRP Sierra Madre, a grounded warship garrisoned by Filipino troops at the Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea, according to Tiongson.
“No,” he answered succinctly when asked during the call.
Three fast-response cutters have been stationed at Coast Guard Forces Micronesia Sector Guam since July 2021. Each of the 154-foot-long vessels has a crew of 24 and is equipped with advanced command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems, according to the Coast Guard’s website.
The cutters can move faster than 28 knots and cover 2,500 nautical miles during a five-day patrol. They are armed with a stabilized 25-mm machine gun mount and four crew-served .50-caliber machine guns, the website states.
The Coast Guard exercised a $113.1 million contract option May 8 with Bollinger Shipyards of Lockport, La., for two more Sentinel-class cutters. Sixty-seven are planned.
“Fifty-five FRCs are in operational service, operating out of 13 homeports located across the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf Coasts, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Guam,” the service said in a May 16 news release.
The fast-response cutters are ideal for the Pacific, Tiongson said.
“A lot of our partners don’t have big navies, but they have patrol vessels like that 150-foot cutter,” he said. The cutters are outfitted for search and rescue, maritime law enforcement, maritime security and humanitarian assistance and disaster response.
Tiongson didn’t say when the new cutters would arrive on Guam, but said the Harriet Lane, a medium-endurance cutter homeported since December at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, patrols the Western Pacific.
“It’s possible we may get another Indo-Pacific support cutter,” he said.
The Harriet Lane visited Australia in March. And one of the Guam-based cutters, the Frederick Hatch, went to the Philippines last fall.
The service is looking for a port in Japan or Australia where cutters can routinely replenish and allow crew some time ashore, Tiongson said.
A Coast Guard patrol is planned for next year in the West Philippine Sea, with observers aboard from Australia, India and Japan, Tiongson said. The four nations’ leaders agreed to the patrol on Sept. 21 in Delaware.
Tiongson said he anticipates no aggression aimed at U.S. cutters by either Chinese or Russian vessels.
The Philippines has clashed repeatedly this year with the Chinese coast guard in disputed territory in the South China Sea.
The Philippines has not asked for escorts, Tiongson said.
“We do advise, and we do assist,” he said. “We provide what we would do in this situation.”
