Monthly Archives: September 2025

York in the Bay

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80 years ago today: The King George V-class battleship HMS Duke of York (17) in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945, the day the instruments of surrender were signed by representatives from the Empire of Japanese aboard USS Missouri. Besides the flag of Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser (one of five different admirals who flew their flag on her during the war), the Ensigns of four Allied nations (Soviet, French, Dutch, U.S.) were flown for a ceremonial “Sunset.” Note the battlewagon’s two quad QF 2-pounder/40mm “Pom-Pom” gun mounts, her massive four-barreled BL 14-inch Mk VII stern turret, and five smart Royal Marine buglers (center) atop the guns ready to sound Sunset.

Cross, G W (Sub Lt) Photographer, IWM A 30511

Having sunk the Scharnhorst in open combat in the Barents Sea, the battleship was the 8th in the Royal Navy to carry the name. Notably, the chairs the delegates aboard Missouri sat on were supplied by the Duke of York’s wardroom.

During the surrender ceremony itself, a massive flight of Hellcats and Corsairs from the US Task Group 38.1, which was cruising off the south coast of Honshu Island, flew overhead, yielding a much better-known image of the above scene.

Securing from the watch, 1945

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First off, Happy Labor Day.

Here’s to some of the hardest-working yet most unsung folks in WWII.

Official wartime caption: “Coast Guard lookout in Pacific. As a Coast Guard combat cutter skirts an island somewhere in the South Pacific, lookouts keep an unceasing watch for signs of the enemy. Their warnings bring the call to ‘battle stations’ to preserve the safety of the vessel.”

National Archives Identifier 205584962. Local Identifier 26-G-01-10-44(2)

On 1 September 1945 Coast Guard counted 170,480 personnel in uniform, including 9,624 women in the SPARS.

In addition to the 1,677 commissioned Coast Guard vessels in active service at the end of the 1945 fiscal year, Coast Guard personnel on 1 August 1945 were manning 326 Navy craft and 254 Army vessels, with about 50,000 Coast Guard men serving on Navy and 6,000 on Army vessels.

The 351 Navy vessels that the Coast Guard manned during the war included:

  • 22 Transports (AP)
  • 9 Auxiliary Transports (APA)
  • 15 Cargo Ships (AK)
  • 5 Auxiliary Cargo Attack Ships (AKA)
  • 18 Gasoline Tankers (AGO)
  • 28 Landing Craft, Infantry (LCI)(L)
  • 76 Landing Ships, Tanks (LST)
  • 30 Destroyer Escorts (DE) (in five full Escort Divisions)
  • 75 Patrol Frigates (PF)
  • 40 Patrol Vessels (YP)
  • 8 Gunboats or Corvettes (PG)
  • 6 Submarine Chasers (SC)
  • 4 Submarine Chasers, Patrol (PC)
  • 1 Coastal Yacht (PYC)
  • 1 Ferryboat and Launch (YFB)
  • 1 Ambulance Boat (YHB)
  • 1 Gate Vessel (TNG)
  • 1 Range Tender (YF)
  • 1 Motor Torpedo Boat Tender (AGP)
  • 1 Submarine Chaser, Auxiliary (WPC)
  • 1 Auxiliary, Misc. (WAG)
  • 7 Miscellaneous, Unclassified (IX)

Another 2,998 Coast Guard Reserve vessels had been acquired through purchase, charter, or gift, principally to combat the submarine menace along the coasts during the War as the famed “Hooligan Navy.” Still, by September 1945, this number had been whittled down to 336.

The Coast Guard maintained 24 air stations and myriad outlier fields along the coasts of the CONUS United States during the war, under the operational control of the various sea frontiers, with over 300 “fighting” aircraft, mostly PBM-3/5 Mariners (27), Kingfishers (76), PBY-5A/6A Catalinas (114), and at least 10 PB4Y-1 Liberators/P4Y-2G Privateers with smaller numbers of Grumman Duck, Widgeon, and Goose amphibians. Besides ASW patrol, these served as task units in the conduct of air-sea rescue. Assistance was rendered in 686 plane crashes, and 786 lives were saved during the 1945 fiscal year alone, while 5,357 emergency medical cases were transported and 149 obstructions to navigation and derelicts were sighted for removal.

At the same time, at least three USCG Curtiss SB2C-3/4 Helldivers were based at San Diego to patrol the skies offshore for Japanese Fu-Go incendiary balloons. Meanwhile, four huge Consolidated PB2Y-5 Coronados in USCG service were flying on LORAN support missions out of Coast Guard Air Station San Francisco.

More than 92 percent of the 214,000 personnel who served in the Coast Guard during World War II (including 12,846 women) were volunteer Reservists in for the duration, with an additional 125,000 personnel serving in the stateside Temporary Reserve—many of those draft exempt due to war industry jobs and/or age and just looking to “do their part” to protect the beaches and ports. My great-grandfather, 4F due to his age, nonetheless volunteered for the overnight USCG Beach Patrol in Pascagoula, equipped only with a Coleman lantern and a Stevens 12-gauge.

During the war, the USCG sustained a total of 1,918 casualties (one while a Japanese POW), with 639 killed in action and 1,279 wounded.

On December 28, 1945, President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 9666, which directed the transfer of the Coast Guard from the Navy back to the Treasury Department, with only its 17,000~ regulars guaranteed a job in the coming days.

Their war was done.

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