About

The first PATRIOT, a wooden schooner, was purchased by the Navy at Baltimore on 13 August 1861 to be used to block the channel leading into the Carolina Sounds at Hatteras Inlet. She then served as a Store Ship in Hampton Roads before disappearing from naval and maritime records.

The second PATRIOT was a Coastal Patrol vessel. On 1 March 1941, she reported to duty in Boston with the First Naval District. There, she conducted Coastal Patrol assignments until she was brought out of service on 29 September 1944. She was laid up at Quincy, Massachusetts until she was sold back to her former owner for one dollar.
 
Built of white oak, Douglas fir, and Alaskan cedar, USS PATRIOT (MCM 7) was launched on 15 May 1990 in Marinette, Wisconsin. On 13 December 1991, she was commissioned in Charleston, South Carolina by Commander Michael J. O’Moore. She was originally homeported in Charleston, South Carolina until 1993, and then she transferred to Ingleside, Texas.
 
In 1994, she was called to serve in the Pacific, and since then has served as one of the two forward deployed Mine Countermeasure ships in U.S. SEVENTH Fleet's Expeditionary Strike Group. Although she was permanently assigned to Sasebo, Japan, her Crew served on a rotational basis from Ingleside, Texas, with each rotation lasting approximately six months. In 1997, the Crew assignment was changed to permanent overseas assignments.  USS PATRIOT is currently assigned to Mine Countermeasures Squadron SEVEN, operating as part of CTF 76/3 and U.S. SEVENTH Fleet.
 
USS PATRIOT routinely participates in combined Mine Warfare training exercises with the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force designed to foster U.S. Navy and Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force interoperability through the use of the MCM Triad, Surface MCM (SMCM), Air MCM (AMCM), and Explosive Ordnance disposal teams.
 
She also participates in annual exercises with the Republic of Korea Navy. It is one of the largest, international; mine counter-measures exercises in the world. USS PATRIOT proudly operates with both Unites States and partner nation forces through the U.S. SEVENTH Fleet area of responsibility.

 

 
A wooden schooner, purchased in 1861 by the Union Navy, which planned to scuttle the ship at the mouth of the Hatteras Inlet in order to block the Confederate shipping channel; however, the plan proved unnecessary after the union victory at the battle of Hatteras Inlet Batteries, and PATRIOT was used instead as a Store Ship at Hampton Roads.