USCGC Northland (WPG-49) was a United States Coast Guard cruising class of gunboat especially designed for Arctic operations in commission from 1927 to 1938 and from 1939 to 1946.

[4] After her U.S. Coast Guard career ended, the ship entered Israel service, including duty as the flagship of the Israeli Navy with the name INS Eilat.

[2] She was 216.6 ft (66.0 m) long, had a maximum displacement of 2,150 tons, and had diesel-electric propulsion driving a single four-blade screw.

For the United States Department of Justice, she enforced the law, apprehended criminals, and transported floating courts.

For the United States Department of the Interior, she carried teachers to their posts, conducted sanitation inspections, and guarded timber and game.

On 1 June 1941, the U.S. Coast Guard organized the South Greenland Patrol with the cutters USCGC Comanche (WPG-76), Modoc, and Raritan, and the former United States Coast and Geodetic Survey survey ship Bowdoin, with Bowdoin under the command of her original owner, the legendary Arctic explorer Commander Donald B.

On 1 July 1941, the Coast Guard organized the Northeast Greenland Patrol with Northland, the former United States Department of the Interior ship USCGC North Star (WPG-59), and USS Bear with Captain Edward H. "Iceberg" Smith, USCG, in command.

Northland sighted the German-controlled Norwegian sealer SS Buskø on 12 September 1941 and sent a boarding party to investigate.

A search of Buskø also led to the discovery of a German radio station about 500 miles (800 km) up the Greenland coast from Mackenzie Bay.

On 7 December 1941, the United States entered World War II with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Ultimately, while on a rescue mission involving a downed United States Army Air Forces B-17 Flying Fortress bomber on the Greenland ice sheet in November 1942, the Duck crashed in whiteout conditions, killing its two-man crew (Lieutenant Pritchard and Radioman First Class Benjamin A.

she was returned to the control of the U.S. Department of the Treasury on 1 January 1946 and remained on weather patrol duty until she decommissioned on 27 March 1946.