SAULT SAINT MARIE, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – A United States Coast Guard sailor and Sault Ste. Marie native received a Purple Heart on Monday, exactly 104 years after he died while serving on the USS Tampa.
Alfonso Busho was one of 111 Coast Guard members aboard the USS Tampa in the Bristol Channel in Great Britain when a German submarine missile sunk the vessel on Sept. 26, 1918.
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Busho was 21-years-old, and everyone on board perished.
Sector Sault Ste. Marie Coast Guard held a ceremony to permanently display Busho’s Purple Heart and rename the galley in his honor. It’s a ceremony that organizers say have been five years in the making.
The entire crew was honored with the Purple Heart medal in 1999. Since then, Coast Guard researchers and historians have been working to find remaining families of the Tampa’s lost Coast Guard sailors.
Approximately 40 medals remain unclaimed.
