Jack of Harts

Wilmington, North Carolina had long been home to various Coast Guard cutters, usually named Diligence, long before the Second Great Depression began. The last of them had departed for Florida decades before due to the changing nature of the Coast Guard’s mission, but when that ship was retired, Wilmington purchased her and brought her home again. They kept her seaworthy, took her out on celebrity cruises, and generally treated her as the city’s most welcome guest and attraction. Then the Second Great Depression began, and North Carolina realized it required a navy of its own. They had very little to work with. They were no longer blessed with major United States naval bases, but they did have multiple Navy and Coast Guard reserve stations, filled with naval reservists looking for a what to serve their State. And they had Diligence. That was how a 210 foot retired Coast Guard cutter became the flagship of a major American State Navy. She did not serve in that capacity for long. They acquired better ships in time. But she was the first flagship of the North Carolina Navy, and Wilmington does not let anybody walk by her dock without telling them of that fact.