USCGC Itasca was a Lake-class cutter of the United States Coast Guard launched on 16 November 1929 and commissioned 12 July 1930. It acted as "picket ship" supporting Amelia Earhart's 1937 world flight attempt, and was the last vessel in radio contact with her as she and Fred Noonan were supposed to be reaching Howland island in the Pacific. In 1941, it was transferred to the United Kingdom and served as a convoy escort in World War II as HMS Gorleston.

Frederick Joseph Noonan was an American flight navigator, sea captain and aviation pioneer, who first charted many commercial airline routes across the Pacific Ocean during the 1930s. As the flight navigator for famed aviator Amelia Earhart in their pioneering attempt at circumnavigating the globe, they disappeared somewhere over the central Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937.