The Coast Guard's 378-foot high-endurance cutter, the Munro has returned to its mooring at Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak.

The Munro has been on a three-month training exerise in Honolulu. The exercise, which was Navy taught, included damage control training. The crew underwent training in combat fire and flooding.

Family and friends eagerly awaited the ship and its crew on the dock in Kodiak yesterday. The crowd, which included children and pets, gathered there waving signs and celebrating their return.

The Cutter Munro is routinely tasked with patrolling the waters of the Bering Sea, which is considered one of the deadliest bodies of water in the world.

The Munro was commissioned in September of 1971 at the Avondale Shipyard in New Orleans, and was the first cutter to be named after a Coast Guard hero. Previous cutters have traditionally been named after Secretaries of the Treasury. The Munro was named after Signalman First Class Douglas Munro, who died while evacuating a detachment of Marines who were under attack by an overwhelming number of Japanese troops on Guadalcanal on Sept. 27, 1942.