The North Carolina Submarine Museum Foundation, in partnership with the City of Asheville, will host the USS Asheville PG-21 Memorial Ceremony at 2 p.m. on Sunday, March 3, 2024. A monument commemorating the crew of the PG-21 will be unveiled at Riverside Cemetery at 53 Birch St. in the historic Montford neighborhood.
Rear Admiral Samuel J. Cox USN (RET.), director of the Naval History and Heritage Command at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., is the keynote speaker for the event.
On March 3, 1942, the USS Asheville PG-21, a single-screw, steel-hulled gunboat,encountered three Japanese warships returning from the attack on Pearl Harbor. The out-gunned Asheville and her crew of 160 were sunk in the South Java Sea after a desperate, yet valiant, fight.
Since the loss of the first USS Asheville, there have been three additional Navy ships named in memory of the PG-21 and the City of Asheville, including the current USS Asheville (SSN-758), a Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered Fast Attack Submarine patrolling the Pacific and South China Sea from her homeport in Apana, Guam.
Although not forgotten by its citizens, the monument at Riverside Cemetery will be the first permanent memorial for the PG-21 in Asheville, North Carolina.
The event is open to the public.