U.S. Coast Guard Forces Micronesia/Sector Guam’s Fast Response Cutters conducted four patrols over 44 days, enhancing safety and prosperity in the Pacific Islands region while combatting illicit maritime activity, including illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing and the illegal and unsafe transport of passengers.
Lt. j.g. Sims and Ensign Salang welcome the Marine Corps Detachment in Chuuk for Operation Koa Moana aboard the USCGC Frederick Hatch (WPC 1143) for a tour while visiting Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia, on July 28, 2023. The crew conducted a patrol in FSM in support of Operation Rematau. (U.S. Coast Guard photo)
The crews of USCGC Frederick Hatch (WPC 1143), USCGC Myrtle Hazard (WPC 1139), and USCGC Oliver Henry (WPC 1140):
Conducted seven boardings and five observation reports.
Completed over 20 training evolutions.
Qualified 18 new shipboard members.
Supported the investigation into the transport of 11 people aboard an overloaded vessel transiting to Guam from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands on an illegal charter following their rescue by DoD partners.
Supported operations such as Operation Blue Pacific, Operation Rematau, Operation Nasse, and Operation Koa Moana.
Operational Achievements and Highlights
USCGC Frederick Hatch (June 21 – July 2 and July 18 – Aug. 3): Enhanced international relations, streamlined boarding processes, qualified new personnel, and improved communication with FSM Maritime Police.
USCGC Myrtle Hazard (July 3 – 16): Strengthened connection with CNMI, ensured maritime law enforcement presence in less patrolled areas, and enhanced collaboration with customs and public safety departments.
USCGC Oliver Henry (July 18 – 23): Increased U.S. presence, enforced fishing regulations, and fostered crew readiness with weapons proficiency and collaboration.
Myrtle Hazardhas also been invited by Papua New Guinea (PNG) to join their lead in maritime operations to combat illegal fishing and safeguard maritime resources during August 2023. This comes after Oliver Henry became the first U.S. Coast Guard Fast Response Cutter to call on port in Papua New Guinea during their southern expeditionary patrol in the fall of 2022 to build relations, conduct engagements, and resupply and the two countries inked a security agreement a couple of months ago.
The crew of the USCGC Myrtle Hazard (WPC 1139) arrive in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea on Aug. 20, 2023. The U.S. Coast Guard is in Papua New Guinea at the invitation of the PNG government to join their lead in maritime operations to combat illegal fishing and safeguard maritime resources following the recent signing and ratification of the bilateral agreement between the United States and Papua New Guinea. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Chief Warrant Officer Sara Muir)
Via USCG:
This collaborative effort marks the first time a joint patrol effort will be executed at sea since the signing and ratification of the recent bilateral defense agreement between PNG and the United States, which allows the U.S. to embark ship riders from PNG agencies aboard the ship to conduct at sea boardings on other vessels operating in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) under their national agency authority. This is the U.S. Coast Guard vessel deployment first announced during Secretary of Defense Austin’s engagement with Prime Minister James Marape in July.
The Coast Guard has ordered 65 Sentinel (Webber)- class Fast Response Cutters (FRCs) to date.
With the recent commissioning of USCGC Patterson (WPB 1153) in Portland Maine earlier this month–the fourth of six FRCs to be stationed in Boston– 53 FRCs are in service: 13 in Florida; seven in Puerto Rico; six in Bahrain with PATFORSWA; four each in California and Massachusetts; three each in Alaska, Guam, Hawaii, Texas and New Jersey; and two each in Mississippi and North Carolina. Future FRC homeports include Astoria, Oregon; and Kodiak and Seward, Alaska.
At least one more FRC will be sent to Guam, where she will no doubt be put to good use.
Above we see the Department of Commerce’s United States Lighthouse Service’s Violet-class coast-wise tender Lilac standing by the wreck of a derelict sailing ship in New York harbor, circa 1930s, with Lady Liberty in the background, likely during one of the vessel’s regular trips to the Service’s St. George Depot on Staten Island. If you look closely, you’ll note the USLHS’s brass lighthouse emblem bolted to her bow.
Lilac would later go on to serve, including a spell in haze gray, for another 40 years, and continues to clock in today.
The last tenders of the USLHS
The U.S Lighthouse Establishment was founded in 1789 and morphed across several iterations until, as the U.S Lighthouse Board in the 1890s, developed a basic design for its largest steam tenders that would remain little changed for a century. Between 1892 and 1939, no less than 33 such large coast-wise tenders were built, typically ranging in length from 164 to 174 feet and outfitted to carry about two dozen crew to work a series of large steam-powered booms to service a growing array of federally maintained aids to navigation– 11,713 in 1910 when the USLHS was formed swelling to 30,420 by 1939. These included lighted aids (lighthouses, lightships, and buoys), fog signals, radio beacons, unlighted buoys, and daymarks.
The trio of Violet class tenders (joined by the near-sister Arbutus) was led by the Manitowoc-built USLHT Violet, contracted in September 1929, followed by our Pusey & Jones Co. built Lilac and Mistletoe. Modern vessels, they were built almost entirely of riveted steel, including hulls, decks, deckhouses, and masts, edged with wood as a protective against heavy buoys, chains, and cement anchors. They had electric lights throughout and refrigerated storerooms.
Some 173 feet in length (163 feet six inches on the waterline) the class had a molded breadth of 32 feet, and the minimum depth of hull at the side, from the top of the main deck to the top of the keel, of 14 feet 6 inches. At a displacement of approximately 770 tons (799 is full load), the draft is 10 feet seven inches in salt water, essential to being able to tread in hazardous shoals.
Early plans of near-sister Arbutus, which was of the same overall type although slightly deeper of hold and with Foster-Wheeler boilers rather than Babcock & Wilcox as used by the Violets.
Arbutus out of the water before launch at Pusey & Jones. Note the wooden strakes to protect her hull while working buoys and the USLHS lighthouse insignia on her bow. (USCG photo)
The fuel capacity of the class was 29,000 gallons of fuel oil for their pair of Babcock & Wilcox boilers, each driving a triple expansion engine. The designed top speed of the class was approximately 13.7 knots at 1,000 hp– although later maximum speed was in the typically 11.5 knot range. They were not built as racehorses. The range, at 10 knots, was 1,734 nm which allowed them to range along the coast and keep station for weeks if needed.
Lilac, seen here ready for launch at Wilmington Delaware in 1933. She was moved through the water by twin four-bladed propellers 7 feet 5 inches in diameter. Each propeller was driven by a triple expansion, reciprocating steam engine developing 500 indicated horsepower at 160 revolutions per minute. The engines were built by the ship’s builders, Pusey & Jones of Wilmington, Delaware, and had high, intermediate, and low-pressure cylinders 11 1/2, 19, and 32 inches in diameter respectively with a 24-inch stroke. Steam to operate the engines and booms was supplied at 200 pounds per square inch by two Babcock & Wilcox oil-fired watertube boilers. (Hagley Library)
The deck gear included a 20-ton capacity boom with a steam-powered hoist, here seen in action aboard Lilac in 1948. (Philadelphia Inquirer archives)
Besides normal crew berthing of about six officers and 20 crew while on USHLS orders, the class also had spare accommodations to allow ferrying rotating crew members to lightships and keepers to lighthouses as well as providing space for district and national officials on periodic inspection tours.
Meet Lilac
Our subject had been planned to be named Azalea, contracted on 13 April 1931 to Hampton Roads Shipbuilding of Portsmouth, Virginia. However, Pusey & Jones subsequently underbid Hampton Roads, and the former was awarded the contract, after which the USLHS changed the new tender’s name to Lilac.
The name “Lilac” was the second in the USLHS, with the first being a 155-foot tender built in 1892 that served in the Navy during the Great War on patrol off the East Coast and in the Caribbean.
Ordered for $334,900 from Pusey & Jones on 16 August 1932, she was launched on 26 May 1933 and entered service with the service later that same year under the command of Capt. Andrew J. Davidson, a man who began his long career 42 years prior as a ship’s carpenter aboard the lighthouse tender Zizania and would be her skipper for five years.
Lilac was assigned to the Fourth Lighthouse District, which covered the Delaware River, from Trenton, New Jersey south to the mouth of the Delaware Bay. She replaced the old (c. 1899) tender Iris and was based in Edgemoor, Delaware, just north of the mouth of the Christina River, where she would spend the next 15 years. Among her more famous charges was the Breakwater Lighthouse, founded in 1885 and now part of the Cape Henlopen State Park.
The Delaware Breakwater Lighthouse. LOC.
Joining the Coast Guard
On 1 July 1939, with the world edging towards war, the USLHS merged with the U.S. Coast Guard, which is still in charge of the maintenance and operation of all U.S. lighthouses, lightships, and aids to navigation. Lilac and her sisters were among 63 existing and building tenders of all sorts transferred to the USCG. With that, the triangular pennant of the Lighthouse Service was lowered for the last time on 7 July and the Coast Guard pennant ran up.
Upon commissioning into the Coast Guard, the vessels were given the WAGL designation meaning “auxiliary vessel, lighthouse tender” with the “W” being the USCG’s service differentiator. Lilac’s pennant number, therefore, became WAGL-227.
Other changes included repainting the all-black stacks to the standard Coast Guard buff with a black cap and removing the brass USHLS lighthouse emblems from the bows. Internally, the complement switched to two officers, two warrant officers, and 34 enlisted. Room for a small arms locker was set aside and plans were made to mount a topside armament drawn up.
When the Coast Guard was transferred to the Navy under Executive Order 8929 of 1 November 1941, out came the guns and thick haze grey paint. The Violets would pick up a single 3″/50 DP mount on the foc’sle, a pair of 20mm/80 Oerlikon single mount amidships behind the wheelhouse, and a pair of depth charge tracks over the stern. They would also, late in the war, pick up an SO-1 (Violet, Lilac, and Arbutus) or SO-8 (Mistletoe) detection radar on the top of their masts and WEA-2 sonars.
Mistletoe seen in 1943 during WWII before she had her SO-8 radar fit.
Lilac seen in late Sept. 1945, with her armament apparently landed but still wearing her “war paint.” 4th Naval District Photographer WC Dendal
Lilac would spend her war in the 5th Naval District on orders in the Delaware River system and would be fitted with a degaussing system for protection against magnetic mines laid off the mouth of the Delaware Bay by German U-boats. She would stand by when they brought in the surrendered U-858 in May 1945 and docked her at Fort Mills.
Mistletoe and Violet, also under 5th District Orders based in Norfolk and Baltimore, respectively, would work in Chesapeake Bay during the war.
Arbutus, assigned to the 1st Naval District, was used as a net tender at Newport RI. Her armament would be much the same with the exception of a smaller 3″/23 rather than a 3″/50 and a BK series radar initially fitted as early as 1943.
The men who tended the lights and buoys were in the war as well, and it should be remembered the USLHS lightship LV-71 was sunk in the Great War by the German submarine U-104 near Diamond Shoals, North Carolina while the unarmed USCG Speedwell-class buoy tender Acacia (which had joined the old USLHS in 1927) was sent to the bottom by gunfire from U-161 in 1942 during WWII. Another tender, the former 173-foot circa 1904 USLHT Magnolia, was lost in USCG/Navy service in 1945 when the American Mail Line freighter SS Marguerite Leland in Mobile Bay ran her down.
Postwar
Postwar, Lilac and her sisters would return to a more typical life, reverting to their peacetime livery. At first this would be a black hull with a white superstructure and bow eyebrow and buff stack with a black cap.
Tender Lilac 5 Sept 1946 near Burlington NJ Photographer McKisky
Tender Lilac 5 Sept 1946 at Harbor of Refuge. Note the radar fit on her mast top. Photographer McKisky
Mistletoe, 1947, note her SO-8 radar on her top mast. USLHS Digital Archive
Then this would change to an all-black hull, losing the eyebrow, and wearing large white hull numbers.
Tender Lilac 5 W227 1950s
Lilac underway circa 1940s (U.S. Coast Guard)
Lilac with unidentified light
In 1948, Lilac was transferred to Gloucester City, New Jersey, where, in addition to her ATON work, would be remarkably busy in a series of SAR cases.
As detailed by the Coast Guard Historian’s Office, here is just a two year-run down:
On 15 to 17 May 1952, she assisted following the collision between the motor vessels Barbara Lykes and F. L. Hayes in the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.
On 22 May 1952, she assisted the tug Pateo and the Atlantic Dealer in the Delaware River.
On 26 May 1952, she assisted following the collision between the tanker Michael and the motor barge A. C. Dodge near Ready Island.
On 30 January 1953, she assisted the fishing vessel Benjamin Brothers in the Delaware River.
From 6 to 12 June 1953, she assisted following the collision between the tankers Pan Massachusetts and the Phoenix in the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.
On 24 and 25 June 1953 she fought the fire on board the tanker Pan Georgia and searched for survivors in the Christina River.
On 30 December 1953, she assisted the motor vessels Atlantic Dealer and Atlantic Engineer in the Delaware River.
On 13 July 1955, she assisted the yacht Nip and Tuck in the Delaware River.
LILAC underway circa 1950s (U.S. Coast Guard)
Taking buoy on board Lilac (Philadelphia Enquirer)
Bridge, buoy tender LILAC 220211-G-G0000-011
Wheelhouse of Lilac (Philadelphia Enquirer)
In a 1961 refit for a further decade of service, she would be equipped with an SPN-11 radar and UNQ-1 sonar.
By 1965, the USCG switched the WAGL designation to WLM for “‘medium or coastal buoy tender” and Lilac became WLM-227.
She would pick up the now-classic Coast Guard racing stripe after 1967.
She was decommissioned on 3 February 1972, capping just under 40 years with the USLHS/Navy/USCG.
Tender Lilac decommissioning
Her sisters Arbutus, Mistletoe, and Violet had been taken out of service already, decommissioned and disposed of between 1963 and 1969. None are afloat.
Arbutus met her end in Florida in the 1980s after serving as one of treasure hunter Mel Fisher’s “sentry” vessels over the Atocha wreck site.
The Arbutus wreck was celebrated, and she was later used by Jimmy Buffett for a back cover shot for his 1985 album ‘Songs You Should Know By Heart’.”
Switching careers
Just a few months after she was decommissioned, ex-USCGC Lilac was donated to the Harry Lundeberg Seafarers International Union seamanship school in Maryland, where she was used as a stationary pier side training vessel until 1984. In this role, she provided accommodation and class space to mariners upgrading their ratings across both bridge, deck, and engine room departments.
After 1984, she passed hands a few times and was used as a salvage company’s office for a spell, grounded in a dredged berth along the James River outside of Richmond, before she was listed in 1999 for scrap value, still relatively intact but showing her age.
Preservation
The non-profit NYC-based Tug Pegasus Preservation Project became involved in the prospect of saving Lilac and she was refloated on 25 February 2003, then towed to a shipyard in Norfolk where, after a favorable report on the condition of the ship’s hull– she had spent most of her life in freshwater– she was purchased on 11 March 2003, with the intent to return her to operation as a steam vessel based in New York harbor.
After berthing at the Hudson River Park’s Pier 40 and transfered to the newly created non-profit LILAC Preservation Project, she was eventually moved to the newly built Pier 25 in Tribeca in 2011 and has since opened as a museum ship.
The last unaltered American steam-propelled and steam-hoisting lighthouse tender designed for work on the open sea and connecting bays and sounds, Lilac is special and, other than the diesel-powered tender Fir (which was still under construction when the service was absorbed by the USCG was preserved at the Liberty Maritime Museum in Sacramento for a half-decade and is now apparently looking for a new owner) is the only USLHS tender still around– and the only one on display.
She is the oldest Coast Guard “black hull” afloat.
If you have a chance to visit her, please do.
Ships are more than steel and wood And heart of burning coal, For those who sail upon them know That some ships have a soul.
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The Harrison County (Mississippi) Library System’s Local History and Genealogy Department recently posted this great snapshot from the Joe Scholtes Collection, showing the old U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Biloxi.
Formed in 1934, USCGAS Biloxi was built on the City’s 18-acre Point Cadet Park, which was (and still is) located on Biloxi’s eastern edge with direct access to Biloxi’s Back Bay. Soon, Public Works Administration funds of some $290,000 went towards a 120×100 ft. (12,000 square foot) steel-framed, asbestos-sided hangar with offices and maintenance shops along each side, a seaplane ramp, a radio station (“NOX”), E-shaped barracks, mess hall, garage, and crash boat dock which was completed in 1938. The peacetime complement, to support three aircraft, was about 10 officers and 35 enlisted.
Coast Guard Douglas RD-4 “Alloth” (V132) taxiing off the Coast Guard Air Station Biloxi, Mississippi. USCG photo
The example shown in the above image of Point Cadet, #132, was named “Alloth” by the Coast Guard and soon transferred (as V127) to Hartford, Connecticut in 1939, dating both of the above images as between 1935-39.
The above image is from 1941. In the far back of the hangar pictured above is a twin-engine PH-2 Hall Aluminum Flying Boat, either V-166 or V-170. Next to it is the single-engine JF-2 Grumman Amphibian V-143. A brand new twin-engine JFR-2 Grumman Amphibian, V-184, pokes its nose into the sunshine.
Biloxi Coast Guard Air Station would become the Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum. The structure was destroyed in Katrina
A stylized 1940s postcard made from composite photographs showing two J2F Ducks, three airborne J4F-1 Widgeons, and an RD-4 Dolphin at USCG Air Sta Biloxi at Point Cadet. After 1966, the old hangar was used by the city for concerts and festivals until it was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina
By WWII, Biloxi was squarely in the war, with six USCG-operated Vought-Sikorsky OS2U-3 Kingfisher floatplanes joined by another half dozen Curtiss SO3C-3 Seamew floatplanes which would be very active in ASW work against German U-boats operating in the Gulf and SAR. They would work in pairs with the radar-equipped Seamew acting as the hunter while a Kingfisher, armed with two 325-pound bombs, would be the killer.
In all, from 1942 into 1943, no less than 24 German U-boats patrolled the Gulf of Mexico– the American Sea– sinking 56 Allied vessels of which 39 are in the coastal waters of Florida, Louisiana, and Texas.
By the end of the conflict, the Kingfishers and Seamews had been replaced by longer-ranged J4F-1s, JRFs, and PBY-5As and the base grew to over 300 personnel. U-166, the only German submarine lost in the Gulf, was unsuccessfully attacked by a USCG J4F-1 Widgeon amphibian (#V212) out of Biloxi
Post-war atrophy and shifting needs of the service saw the closure of the base in 1947, with the PBY operations shifting to nearby Keesler AFB, and the old airplane hanger and barracks which would be used by elements of the Mississippi Army National Guard, later become International Plaza then Point Cadet Plaza.
Meanwhile, the Keeseler Coast Guard seaplane detachment was disbanded in 1966, and replaced by helicopter facilities in New Orleans and Mobile.
Point Cadet returned to the City and the hangar was used for events and festivals while the old barracks housed the Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum (MSIM) which was established in 1986. This persisted until Hurricane Katrina in 2005 when both were swept into Back Bay via a 30-foot storm surge.
Since then, Point Cadet has been rebuilt to include a new MSIM and a multi-use outdoor recreational facility– but the old stepped seawall, which used to support the seaplane ramp, is still there.
Plus, the MSIM has the old bell tower from the circa 1930s USCG barracks as well as images and relics from the base on display.
USCGC Point Swift (WPB-82312) likely off Florida in the 1980s, note the 50 cals
The 79 assorted 82-foot Point class patrol boats largely held the line in the Cold War for the Coast Guard, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, with some serving as late as 2003.
USCGC Point Grey (WPB-82324) off Vietnam. Note her M2/81mm piggyback forward, at least three M2s over the stern, and nearly a dozen Coasties on deck preparing the away boat
Very few of these craft survive, and there is one, formerly USCGC Point Brown (WPB 82362), that is up for grabs in excellent condition. Plus, she is only $70K and would make a great little museum ship, especially for any of the dozens of coastal towns that based these 82s back in the day.
Selling a unique vessel, an ex-US coast guard 82’ patrol/ rescue boat. Built in 1967 by the US coast guard as a point class cutter to serve until 1991, research online the history of these great ships. This was formerly WPB82362 Point Brown, after her service she was repurposed as a training ship at a college in RI. In 2000 she was purchased by a former USCG Commander, he bought her and had her for 20 years as a liveaboard, after 9/11 she was put back into Auxiliary CG service and patrolled NY waters.
I bought her in 2020 and my plans for use have changed due to other ships I have. All details would be better discussed to those of serious interest. Do some research, she’s a great ship, in full operation, ole faithful Cummin diesels VT12-900M, twin 2-71 Det gens. Full galley, mess. 2 heads, accommodations. My plans have changed with her, hauled April 2022 for bottom job, docked on Staten Island. Too many details to list. Negotiable open to offers. Thank you
How about this great view of the Raytheon MIM-23 Hawk X-band CW mono-pulse semi-active radar seeker guidance system, taken a few years ago from a display at the excellent Alabama Veterans Museum in rural Athens. The museum’s nearby location to Redstone Arsenal obviously has some benefits.
What could go wrong?
Hard to believe, but Hawk, developed in the 1950s and initially fielded in 1960, remained in U.S. Army service (as Improved Hawk) until 1997 when the final Ohio ARNG battalion equipped with it was deactivated, while the Marines retired them in favor of Avenger in 1999.
In all of that nearly 40-year run, no U.S. manned Hawk battery engaged an enemy aircraft in combat (at least in acknowledged incidents.)
However, American-supplied Hawks made kills with the Israelis (the first combat use for the system occurred in 1967 when the IDF successfully fired the missiles during the Six Day War with Egypt), the Iranians, and the Kuwaitis, with the latter reportedly downing an impressive 22 Iraqi aircraft and one combat helicopter during the blitzkrieg invasion of that country on 2 August 1990.
And it seems that the old and “obsolete” Hawk is still hard at work, with launchers and missiles being sent to Ukraine in the past couple of years to field against its traditional Cold War foe: red-starred MiGs and Sukohi fast movers.
While bopping around the Gulfport harbor as I often do last week, I saw this bad boy spinning down in the public parking lot next to USCG Station Gulfport, the one typically full of boat trailers on the weekend.
Not that typical…
On closer look, it is an MH-60T Jayhawk, the Coast Guard’s big SAR bird. As only 42 are around, they are pretty rare compared to the more commonly encountered MH-65 Dolphin.
Getting closer still, she sports a “New Orleans” assignment banner on her cowling as well as a gold Fleur de Lis and “Alvin Callender Field” homebase on her hatch. Her number is 6047.
Of interest, of the 42 MH-60Ts on the USCG’s inventory, 39 are converted HH-60J Jayhawk rescue birds, and three are former Navy SH-60F Oceanhawks that were given to the Coast Guard to cover attrition.
Speaking of which, the big Sikorsky we see above was SN 70-1804/ Bu.No 164615, an S-70B-4 (SH-60F) built in 1995. She was seen extensively in HS-11 “Dragonslayers” livery (code AB-612) over the years including deployments with USS Enterprise and USS Theodore Rosevelt until she was converted and refreshed in 2016 to a Jayhawk.
U.S. Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans sign leaning against a building after hurricane Katrina made landfall in August 2005. 231117-G-M0101-2001
6047 is the NOLA’s first MH-65 as the air station last year began transitioning from the MH-65D Dolphin to the Jayhawk, “which will improve the Coast Guard’s operational capabilities along the Gulf Coast in support of Search and Rescue (SAR), Catastrophic Incident SAR, Marine Transportation System, and the offshore maritime environment.”
Built 1989-1991 by Don McQuiston & Sons in San Diego as the S/V Tuolumne, Amazing Grace is an 83-foot (sparred length) topsail schooner working day trips since 2015 for East Islands Excursions out of San Juan, P.R. She is seen here in the Tall Ships Parade in San Diego Bay for Festival of Sail in 2011. Her current condition is…well, keep reading
“East Island Excursions is looking to let go of the Amazing Grace, an 82 ft Baltimore Clipper Style vessel currently located in San Juan Bay, Puerto Rico.
“She has been fully operational as a charter vessel since 2015 with a 26-passenger plus 3 crew COI for inland waterways. The license is currently on hold for several USCG 835 deficiencies. The concerns are mainly in the mast and bow sprit areas.
“All standing and running rigs were replaced in 2018. The vessel was repowered in 2019. New sails, electrical package, forward scuttle, and butterfly hatches were completed in 2021.
“EIE would like to consider donating to any 501C3 non-profit group that is interested in taking over the vessel. The latest rig survey and USCG documents will be available to any interested parties.”
“The vessel could reacquire COI with appropriate repairs or be utilized as a private vessel. East Island Excursions would prefer the vessel to be refurbished with a willing organization. Please don’t delay as hurricane season is upon us.
“Contact Captain Michael Patterson at 831-776-2182 / michael@captms.com or Sorren Varney at 787-860-3434 / sorren@eastislandpr.com for more information or to see the vessel in person.”
As part of the GWOT/Operation Enduring Freedom, in 2002, the Navy tapped Coast Guard Reserve Port Security Units to step up the waterside security abord Naval Station Guantanamo Bay. This was later augmented by USCG Maritime Safety and Security Teams performing anti-terrorism force protection with the combined team termed the Maritime Security Detachment (MARSECDET) as part of Joint Task Force 160, later JTF-GTMO.
The Coast Guard’s eight PSUs, consisting of 120-150 people comprising 12 boat crews, three security squads, and command, logistics, communications, and engineering departments, would typically rotate into Cuba for six or nine-month tours every four-five years or so, maintaining a persistent presence while not burning out the small boat guys too much. Otherwise, they could continue their normal annual 2-week ADT along with monthly IDT weekends.
Coast Guardsmen from Port Security Unit 305 aboard a 32-foot Transportable Port Security Boat patrol the waters off the coast of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Wednesday, July 19, 2017. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew S. Masaschi
A Coast Guardsman with Port Security Unit 305 stands the watch in a battle position at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, July 19, 2017. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew S. Masaschi
Fittingly, Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia-based PSU 305 was the first unit to deploy to GTMO in 2002 and just wrapped up its fifth unit deployment to the base and they will be the last, at least for now. PSU just cased their colors and are headed back home.
Like the Navy, they are shedding as much of the old missions from the GWOT era and pivoting to the Pacific.
U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan and Cmdr. James Lovenstein, Port Security Unit (PSU) 305’s commanding officer, rolls the unit guidon as Master Chief Petty Officer Thomas Lepage, PSU 305’s command master chief, extends it during the unit’s casing of the colors decommissioning ceremony at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, June 13, 2023. PSU 305, based in Fort Eustis, Va., was the first unit in 2002 to begin the Coast Guard’s mission with Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay and is the last to complete it. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Valerie Higdon)
There have been 39 unit rotations to Guantanamo Bay since the Coast Guard began supporting the mission. The men and women assigned to the MARSECDET collectively provided over 200,000 underway hours conducting around-the-clock waterside patrols and over 50,000 hours of shoreside anti-terrorism and force protection defense security to Department of Defense assets and personnel at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay.
PSU 305 departs GTMO after 21 years with an escort from an AS Clearwater H60 (U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater)
How about this great group shot of the officers of the brand new 191-foot U.S. Revenue Cutter Tahoma, dressed in their tropical whites, complete with sun helmets.
U.S. Coast Guard Historian’s Office photo 201210-G-G0000-001
As detailed, the above include: CAPT Johnstone Quinan, Commanding (second row, seated second from left) 1st LT Charles Satterlee, Executive Officer (second row, far left) 2nd LT Edward S. Addison 2nd LT Archibald H. Scally, 2nd LT Russell R. Waesche (front row, center) 1st LT of Engineers Harry M. Hepburn, 3rd LT of Engineers Frank E. Bagger, Passed Assistant Surgeon J. S. Boggess, USPHS. Observe, the ranks are based on U.S. Army tables rather than U.S. Navy.
Of note, the future ADM Russell Randolph Waesche, shown as a young USRCS 2nd LT above, would be the WWII-era commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard.
From his bio:
He also presided over the greatest expansion of the USCG in its history and made sure the service maintained its separate identity while it was under the administrative control of the U.S. Navy. Admiral Waesche saw his small peacetime fleet swell with Coast Guardsmen manning more than 750 cutters, 3,500 miscellaneous smaller craft, 290 Navy vessels, and 255 Army vessels. The Coast Guard participated in every major amphibious operation.
No word on if he did sometimes put the old pith helmet back on.
As for his ride, she had an interesting tale of her own.
Commissioned on 25 March 1909, the 1,215-ton cutter Tahoma, armed with four 6-pounders, still had fresh paint in the above image. Her crew, including the young Mr. Waesche, soon became globetrotters, taking her from her builders at the New York Shipbuilding Company of Camden, New Jersey to her homeport in the Pacific Northwest, via the long way around.
To get to her cruising ground she made the long journey to the Pacific coast via the Suez Canal, setting sail from Baltimore on 17 April 1909. She visited St. Michaels, Azores to obtain coal before arriving at Gibraltar on 3 May 1909. Ordered to proceed as quickly as possible to Alexandrette [now known as Iskenderun, Turkey] by the Treasury Department, she departed Gibraltar, stopping in Malta, before arriving at Alexandrette on 12 May 1909. The U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, had requested a U.S. warship to calm American expatriate nerves during civil unrest in the Empire. The Tahoma remained off the Turkish coast for 13 more days before being ordered to resume her course to the Pacific. She visited Port Said and then transited the Suez Canal. Then it was on to Aden, Colombo, and arrived at Singapore on 30 June 1909. She then sailed for Manila arriving there on 8 July and made a port call at Yokohama on 21 July. She arrived at her new station in Port Townsend on 23 August 1909.
USRC Tahoma off Alaska; scanned from original in Satterlee Collection, U.S. Coast Guard Historian’s Office Special Collections.
One thing I like about the USCG is that they ditch a lot of the political rhetoric when it comes to cutter naming conventions, and make sure they salute their heroes and storied past vessels.
One of the pending OPCs will honor USCGC Icarus (WPC-110) the famed 165-foot “B”-Class cutter that sank one of the first Nazi U-boats, U-352, in 1942 just after U.S. entry into World War II.
A great retelling of that lopsided David v Goliath sea clash, in which the German submarine had superior speed, surface and subsurface armament, is retold in Hickam’s Torpedo Junction.
In the book, Hickam spends a whole chapter on the humble Icarus— a gunboat that didn’t even have a sonar range finder– commanded by 52-year-old LT Maurice David Jester, a life-long Coastie enlisted in the service as a surfman in 1917, and its epic combat against Kptln. Helmutt Rathke’s U-352.
In the end, it came down to a surface action in which the cutter used all of its weapons, including Tommy guns, against the German, sending the sub to the bottom.
Then, in typical Coast Guard fashion, they saved 33 of her crew, including Rathke, and took them ashore to POW captivity for the duration.
Before steaming for Charleston, Jester transmitted:
“Contacted submarine Destroyed same. Lat 34°12 ½” Long 76° 35″. Have 33 of her crew members on board. Proceeding Charleston with survivors.”
Man, she looks short! USS Icarus, CG arriving at Charleston Navy Yard after its epic battle with U-352, photo dated 10 May 1942.
Coast Guard Cutter Icarus drawn in profile. (Coast Guard Collection)
The wreck site of the U-352 as it appears today. (Courtesy of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
Jester was the first Coast Guardsman to receive the Navy Cross and one of only six service members to receive it during the war.
He retired in 1944 with the rank of full commander, capping 27 years of service that spanned the First World War, Prohibition, and the Second World War.
In a fitting salute to the hard-charging commander of the Icarus, the Coast Guard late last week commissioned USCGC Maurice Jester (WPC-1152), a new 154-foot Sentinel-class fast response cutter. Fittingly, she also carries the WPC designation as Icarus and is only 11 feet shorter.
The fast response cutter’s motto is “Against All Odds”.
U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Maurice Jester (WPC 1152), dressed overall during its commissioning ceremony in Newport, Rhode Island, June 2, 2023. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Lyric Jackson) . (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Lyric Jackson)
Farewell, Bayberry
As Jester comes to life, the Coast Guard is putting one of its longest-serving cutters to pasture.
Originally commissioned in 1954 just as Buoy Boat CG-65400-D, the USCGCBayberry (WLI 65400) picked up her name a few years later when the service authorized naming vessels 65 feet long or larger.
Captained by a senior chief petty officer and crewed by seven other enlisted, she had been working hard from San Francisco to Washington to Oak Island where she has been stationed since 2009. The “Keeper of Cape Fear” was just decommissioned after 69 years of service.
The Cutter Bayberry sits at a pier at Station Oak Island, N.C. Jun. 7, 2023, before its special status ceremony to signify the beginning of it being decommissioned after 69 years of active Coast Guard service. The Bayberry was built by Reliable Welding Works in Olympia, Washington. U.S. Coast Guard Photo by Petty Officer 2nd class Katie Lipe.
As noted by the USCG:
The Bayberry’s recent accomplishments include post-hurricane Dorian operations, where the crew led a waterways reconstitution mission, completed a complex voyage correcting 40 aids to navigation discrepancies, enabling the rapid resumption of ferry service, and facilitating the delivery of emergency supplies to 700 residents stranded on Ocracoke Island.
In typical Coast Guard fashion, Bayberry is to be replaced by the rather stalled 35-vessel Waterways Commerce Cutter program, which is far from its first delivery.
