Category Archives: USCG

Warship Wednesday (on a Thursday) 23 July 2026: Semper Laborantes

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Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies from 1833 to 1954, profiling a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger 

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Warship Wednesday 23 July 2026: Semper Laborantes

USCG Photo 26-G-07-26-56(13). National Archives Identifier 205592132

Above we see the Balsam (Iris “C”)-class armed ocean-going buoy tender USCG Hornbeam (WAGL-394) hard at work at the scene of one of the most infamous maritime disasters in modern history, some 70 years ago this week.

In the photo, the once-proud Italian liner Andrea Doria lists dangerously in over 200 fathoms of water off Nantucket, with two of her lifeboats alongside Hornbeam.

The Balsams

In 1916, the Revenue Cutter Service and Lifesaving Service were merged to form the Coast Guard, to which the Bureau of Lighthouses was added on 1 July 1939, and as such, all U.S. lighthouses, tenders, and lightships became USCG installations and ships.

The thing is, the lighthouse and buoy tender fleet was a hodgepodge of antiquated single-use vessels to which the Bureau had been looking to replace with a new series of 177-foot lighthouse tenders modeled after the USLHT Juniper, the last vessel designed by the Bureau.

Taking these plans, the Coast Guard made some changes and produced an 180-foot/950-ton single-screw steel-hulled ship that incorporated some new features that the USLHS never needed (an ice-strengthened bow, search and rescue equipment and mission, allowance for armament, etc. al).

The first of these, USCGC Cactus (WAGL-270), was appropriated for $782,381 on 20 Jan 1941 and laid down at Marine Iron & Shipbuilding Corporation, Duluth, Minnesota, on 31 March.

USCGC Basswood through the Straits of Mackinac- 12 May 1944, a good example of the “180s.” Note the 3″/50 behind her wheelhouse facing over the stern as well as her 20mm mounts. ASW weapons, firefighting gear, and buoy-tending equipment were also shoehorned into these ships. Further, as shown above, they could break light ice, a feature that was to serve the units headed to the Pacific well!

The 39 Balsams were built in three slightly different flights: A, Cactus (13); B, Mesquite (6), and C, Iris (20).

All ships of the three subclasses have the same general characteristics, but with slight differences (e.g., the “A/Cactus” class tenders may be differentiated from the other two classes of 180-foot tenders by their unique “A” frame main boom support forward and their large 30,000 gal fuel tanks that allowed an economical 17,000nm cruising range on their gentle diesel suite.)

Likewise, they were constructed at three yards, Marine Iron & Shipbuilding (6 Cactus, 5 Mesquite, 10 Iris), Zenith Dredge (7 Cactus, 10 Iris)– both in in Duluth, Michigan– and the USCG Yard in Curtis Bay, Maryland (1 Mesquite), with the first hull laid down on 31 March 1941 and the final ship commissioned 22 November 1944, an impressive run.

The building process averaged 192,018 hours of labor per vessel.

Which brings us to…

Meet Hornbeam

Our subject was the only warship named after the American Hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana), a small hardwood tree.

Laid down as Yard No CG-152 at Marine and Iron Shipbuilding Corporation, Duluth, on 19 June 1943.

USCGC Hornbeam during construction at Duluth- 17 July 1943. USCG Photo

She hit the water in a side-launch on 14 August 1943 and was commissioned on 14 April 1944.

Launching of USCGC Hornbeam- 14 August 1943. USCG Photo

Our little tender was constructed in 300 days flat for a cost of $864,296. Only one C-series (Iris) Balsam class tender was constructed for cheaper (USCGC Sassafras) and that only barely so ($864,032).

LCDR Taylor accepts USCGC Hornbeam from the builders. USCG Photo

War!

Following a short workup, Hornbeam served on the Great Lakes, between April and July 1944.

USCGC Hornbeam- 15 June 1944. USCG Photo

She was used for general ice-breaking (in spring) and aids-to-navigation work (in summer) before heading to the East Coast via the Weiland Canal (the St. Lawrence didn’t open until 1959).

Arriving at Woods Hole, Massachusetts on 14 August 1944, Hornbeam was a First CG District asset used for coastal ASW patrol in addition to her buoy and marker work.

She was well equipped for the task, delivered with a WEA-2 sonar, two depth charge racks, two forward Mousetraps over the bow, and four Y-gun type depth charge throwers. For surface action, she had her amidships 3″/50 on a bandstand behind the stack, two 20m Oerlikon singles, and a SL-1 radar.

Official wartime caption: “The latest U.S. Coast Guard armed buoy tender is shown slogging into a head sea during an Atlantic storm in this oil painting by USCG Combat Artist Hunter Wood. This type carries heavy guns in case it runs upon a U-boat.” Released February 11, 1944. National Archives Identifier 205575897

It was during the war that she came to the assistance of the USCGC Nemesis (WPC-111) following the 165-foot patrol cutter’s collision with SS Felipe de Neve on New Year’s Day 1945.

To Black Hull Service

Post-war, the Balsams continued in service, albeit without having to keep an eye peeled for Zeroes and U-boats. This meant most of their ASW weapons were removed, and they received a more work-a-day black hull scheme rather than grey and camouflage.

USCGC Hornbeam (WAGL-394), 1950s, 180-foot Iris-class buoy tender, note 3-inch gun. 

Enlisted crew of USCGC Hornbeam on her quarterdeck,1952

For tenders stationed in more northern climes, like our Hornbeam, this meant summers working buoys and markers while being on call for search and rescue and LE missions and the winters breaking ice.

The class was used for any number of ancillary duties. For example, one member, Redbug, was lent to the MSTS for use as a light cargo ship (AKL) in the 1950s, running around remote Pacific bases. The white-hulled Evergreen (later classed as WAGO-295) served as the USCG’s only oceanographic vessel off and on from 1948 through 1982.

Jane’s 1954 entry for the class, noting 38 in USCG service, with Redbud in MSTS but not mentioning Evergreen.

Settling in her regular beat, Hornbeam became one of a series of cutters who had an alternate identity in the Republic of Nantucket, dubbed the RONC Par A Sec 4.

The practice came as noted by the USGC Historian’s Office:

The commanding officers or officers-in-charge of Coast Guard cutters that are assigned to or visit Nantucket play the “Ring Game” with the Nantucket Angler’s Club for “ownership” of the cutter. If the skipper loses, then the Nantucket Angler’s Club becomes the cutter’s owner. The skipper is entitled to decide the newly acquired cutter’s “RON” name.

She clocked in where needed.

Besides her regular work, she regularly ferried personnel and supplies to the five manned lightships marking the northeast coast. She served temporarily as the Nantucket Light Station when the regular light ships were unavailable, and helped them regain station when drifting.

With the huge Gloucester fishing fleet in her stomping grounds, it was often that our tender was called out in an emergency, such as when she came to the assistance of the trawler FV Flamingo near Pollock Rip on 17 Feb 1954. She then came to the aid of FV Shamos, aground at No Man’s Land, that September. In November 1955, she towed the disabled FV Mideay, then turned around just days later and towed the similarly disabled FV Ballard. In 1956, she escorted the distressed MV Chelsea to New Bedford.

That was just a warm-up for something much bigger.

Andrea Doria

The collision between the westbound 29,083-ton luxury liner Andrea Doria, out of Genoa, Italy, racing behind schedule at nearly 22 knots to New York, and the motorship Stockholm (12,165 GRT), steaming east at 18.5 knots out of New York headed for Gothenburg, on the late night of 25 July 1956 while in heavy fog off Nantucket, is very well documented.

Fatalities were light, all things considered. Five were killed on Stockholm, 46 on Andrea Doria. However, it set the stage for a heart-pounding all-hands rescue, with the liner flooding and listing sharply, rendering half her lifeboats immediately unusable.

Although cracked up, Stockholm ended up carrying 572 survivors (327 passengers and 245 crew members) from Andrea Doria, in addition to her own passengers and crew, to New York under her own steam.

The stately but aging 46,000-ton CGT liner, SS Île de France, rushed to the scene and, of 1,706 surviving passengers and crew of the Andrea Doria, about 753 were transferred aboard the Frenchman in six hours.

Other ships were there too.

The Munargo (United Fruit) Lines Liberty ship SS Cape Ann picked up 129 survivors.

The MSTS troopers USNS Private Wm. H. Thomas (159 survivors) and Sgt. Jonah E. Kelley, returning from Europe packed with GIs, was in the right place at the right time.

The Hornbeam sortied out– along with the cutters Campbell, Evergreen, Fredrick Lee, Owasco, and Yakutat— and made it to the scene just before sunrise.

She took aboard the survivors of the last two lifeboats, composed of the final crew to escape the doomed liner. They had remained aboard working the pumps in vain hope she could be saved.

Hornbeam with the badly listing Andrea Doria in the foreground on the morning of 27 July 1956, some 55 miles off Nantucket. Note her eight portside lifeboats are still in their davits. USCG Photo 26-G-07-26-56(04), National Archives Identifier 205592110

Andrea Doria’s skipper, 58-year-old Capt. Piero Calamai, watched his proud vessel slip below the waves from the deck of Hornbeam. Reports range from 45 to 77, the number that Hornbeam took aboard. As the boats had a capacity of 58, either number seems possible.

Andrea Doria rolling. Likely taken from Hornbeam. Note she still has all of her portside lifeboats in their davits. USCG 26-G-07-26-56(17)

Andrea Doria down. Likely taken from Hornbeam. The cutter brought two lifeboats back to Woods Hole, and those that could not be salvaged were sunk by gunfire to prevent them from being shipping hazards. USCG 26-g-097-123-003

Hornbeam transferred her survivors to the larger and faster destroyer escort USS Edward H. Allen (DE-531) to land at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and brought the two large lifeboats from Andrea Doria to shore at Woods Hole.

For her assistance, the destroyer was officially thanked by the Italian Government and her commanding officer, LCDR Boyd Henry Hempen, USNR (OCS ‘43), was decorated with the Italian Legion of Merit.

Allen’s list of 77 Doria survivors, including Calamai, landed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard early on the 27th:

Hornbeam’s skipper, LT Roger F. Erdmann, joined LCDR Hempin of the USS Allen in a ceremony where 35 Navy and USCG personnel were decorated at the Italian Embassy in DC on 18 January 1957.

His Excellency Manlio Brassio [Brosio] [Brosio], Ambassador of Italy, decorates Lieutenant R. F. Erdmann, USCG, for assistance rendered the Italian ship, Andrea Doria, USCG Photo via NARA

Post-Doria

Hornbeam picked up her tackle and got back to work, yet continued to come in as a lifesaver in the clutch.

On 8-9 July 1957, she assisted the MV American Packer off Buzzards Bay

On 25 October 1957, she assisted MV Nicolos, which was aground at Hog Island

On 4 April 1958, she assisted MV Fort Felerman.

On 30 April 1958, she assisted FV Venture 1.

On 7 Aug 1958, she assisted following collision between MVs Graham and MT Gulf Oil in the East passage of Narragansett Bay.

On 29 January 1961, she assisted her sister cutter Spar, which was aground in Narragansett Bay.

USCGC Hornbeam off Nantucket in 1963. USCG Photo

In April 1965, she escorted the icebreaker USS Atka, which was taking on water off New Bedford.

In late November 1965, she assisted U.S. MVs American Pilot and Maume Sum following their collision west of the Cape Cod Canal

In January 1968, she freed the research ship Gosnold from ice near Woods Hole.

Still a warrior

She also undertook some genuine naval work in 1962, leaving her normal cruising grounds to participate in the shipping quarantine around Cuba.

Hornbeam shepherded several small (82 and 95 foot) patrol boats dispatched from New England that were involved in the operation that turned away several Soviet ships carrying offensive missiles intended for deployment in Cuba.

By this time, she carried an UNQ-1 sonar and SPN-11 or SPS-10 radar, and had ditched her Oerlikons for M2 .50 cals but still had her 3″/50 deck gun until at least 1967 when it was landed, leaving her just the .50s and her small arms locker.

See the 1967 Jane’s:

Meanwhile, four of her sisters, USCGC Basswood, Blackhaw, Ironwood, and Planetree, spent numerous tours in the South Vietnam littoral between 1966 and 1972, seeing more than their share of firefights and interdictions during the conflict.

Around this period, her unit patch included Semper Laborantes (Always Working), and for good reason.

Insignia patch of buoy tender assigned to First Coast Guard District, Boston. “Semper Laborantes, Aids to Navigation.” Description: Courtesy of Commander George Wildes, USCG, 1978. Catalog #: NH 88137-KN

Upgrades

In 1965, the service redesignated most large buoy tenders from WAGL (auxiliary lighthouse tender) to WLB (oceangoing buoy tender) to reflect the vessels’ evolving multi-mission capabilities– and the phasing out of manned light ships and light houses, with the latter declining from 670 in 1939 to just 158 by 1965.

The USCG kept these versatile 180-foot tenders in operation well past their prime. Of the 38 remaining Balsams, only 11 did not receive either a Major Renovation (MAJREN) in the 1970s (at which point they were in their 30s) and/or a Service Life Extension (SLEP) rebuild in the 1980-90s (at which point they were in their 40s and 50s).

Hornbeam was in the club of 12 that only ever got the 1970s MAJREN refit, picking up $17.5 million worth of work between 1 July 1976 and 29 Apr 1977 at the CG Yard.

As detailed by her HAER post-decommissioning:

Under the MAJREN program, vessels received new diesel engines while the main electrical motor and its control systems underwent a thorough overhaul. New electrical wiring and switchboards were installed, as were entirely new water piping and sewage handling systems. Each vessel received a bow thruster to improve its maneuverability in close quarters. Future crews benefited from the replacement and modernization of all furnishings in the living areas. Decreasing the size of the forward hold allowed the expansion of the living area itself. Fourteen 180s went through the MAJREN program. These repairs and improvements extended each vessel’s service life by an estimated ten to fifteen years

Following her MAJREN, Hornbeam shifted from Woods Hole, which she had called home for 32 years, and arrived at Cape May, New Jersey in early May 1977.

Post MAJREN and racing-stripe equipped USCGC Hornbeam underway on 15 February 1984. Note the ice accumulation amidships. USCG photo.

Based at Cape May, she was co-located with the service’s boot camp (TRACEN). This allowed her, whenever not on her regular ATON and SAR duties, to serve as a floating training bed for budding coasties and a host of assorted high-profile programs.

Yorktown, Virginia (Apr. 26 1999)–The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Hornbeam (WLB 394) secures the buoy chain after pulling a buoy out of the water as part of the JCOC demonstration at Reserve Training Center Yorktown. The Joint Civilian Orientation Conference (JCOC), sponsored each year by the Secretary of Defense, brings together 60 noted civilians from around the country–a broad cross-section of opinion leaders–and gives them a weeklong, intense orientation on the U.S. military. The program begins with high-level briefings at the Pentagon and then takes the participants to various installations across the country for “hands-on” experiences. USCG photo by PA1 Telfair Brown.

Still, with her ice-strengthened bow, she came in handy on ice patrol and in coastwise icebreaking even at her advanced age.

USCGC Hornbeam underway on International Ice Patrol in 1984

In January and February 1994, Hornbeam, “during a record cold spell,” spent seven weeks breaking ice and installing ice buoys in the Delaware Bay and Delaware River.

While in Cape May, her patch touted Marvin the Martian, noting the tender was “Doing the Impossible.”

End Game

Starting in 1972 with Redbud decommissioned and transferred to the Philippines, the Coast Guard began whittling down the 180s. Before the end of the decade, four further 180s, all from the earliest Cactus variants (Balsam, Cowslip, Woodbine, and Tupelo), were taken out of service and disposed of.

Three of the 180s were lost in accidents.

  • Cactus ran hard aground in 1971, and the damage was so extensive that the government decided to decommission the vessel rather than repair her– nearly 30 years into her service career.
  • In January 1980, USCGC Blackthorn collided with a commercial tanker in Tampa Bay, Florida, and capsized the buoy tender, taking 23 members of her crew to the bottom.
  • In December 1989, USCGC Mesquite grounded on a rock pinnacle jutting from the bottom of Lake Superior, which damaged her so severely that the USCG decided to decommission the old gal, and she was scuttled by a commercial salvage company in 1990.

By the 1980s, Evergreen, no longer needed with the service shuttering its oceanographic office, along with sisters USCGC Citrus (WLB-300) and Clover (WLB-292), were redesignated as Medium Endurance cutters (WMEC) to combat the rising drug trade and replace smaller 143-foot Sotoyomo-class fleet tugs that had been transferred from the Navy in the 1950s. These would later be replaced themselves in the early 1990s by much more effective 270-foot Bear-class cutters.

With the service moving to commission the new and much more capable 225-foot Juniper class of ocean-going buoy tenders, the writing was on the wall for the remaining 180s.

Hornbeam was decommissioned on 30 September 1999, capping a busy and oft-unrecognized 55-year career.

The laid-up tender was berthed first in Custis Bay, then in Baltimore after 2002, where she sat idle next to the Domino Sugar Factory.

The former USCGC Hornbeam (WLB-394), at Baltimore, MD, May 14, 2007.

In November 2007, the sugar factory had an explosion, and the ship was covered in black sugar soot residue.

The old girl was sold on the commercial market in January 2009 to Integrated Technologies & Systems, Ltd, and soon was floating around the Caribbean as the coaster M/V Rum Cay Grace (IMO 8660624).

It was in April 2010 that she was chartered to Volunteer Ministers, the outreach program for the Church of Scientology, to carry earthquake relief supplies (“including an ambulance, a pickup truck to be used as an ambulance, MREs, stoves and wood pellets, and wheelchairs, walkers and crutches”) from Miami to Haiti.

Scientology Volunteer Minister Ship, M/V Rum Cay Grace, (ex USCG Ship Hornbeam), arriving in Haiti, April 2010, bringing 165 tons of materials, food and other aids to the disaster-stricken country. Via Wiki Commons.

Left to languish in Haiti, the abandoned coaster was hijacked by “two old pirates” and a skeleton crew, and sailed to Panama in 2012, where she grounded and wrecked the following year, the end of her tale.

Epilogue

Few relics remain of the old Hornbeam.

Many of her logs, sadly without July 1956 among them, are digitized in the National Archives. 

Hornbeam’s skipper during the Andrea Doria rescue, LT Roger F. Erdmann, USCG, retired as a captain. An exhibit honoring him is at the North Point Lighthouse outside of Milwaukee, where he was stationed from 1957 to 1961. He later commanded the famed 327-foot cutter Duane (WHEC-33) from 1969-1971 before ending his career in the 1st District in Boston. He passed in 1984, aged 65, and is buried in the Central Maine Veterans Cemetery in Augusta.

Two of Andrea Doria’s aluminum-hulled human-powered (Fleming geared) lifeboats, #1 and #13, survive, of which I believe the former was one of the two brought to Woods Hole by Hornbeam immediately after the disaster. No. 13 reportedly was found washed up in New York in 1981, having broken loose from her davits after the liner sank.

After the sinking of the Andrea Doria, Calamai, her final captain, retired. He had joined the Italian Navy in 1916 as an ensign, and had a solid 40 years of military and commercial maritime service under his belt. He is reported to have told one of his friends after the sinking, “Before I used to love the sea. Now I hate it.” When he died in 1972 at the age of 74, his last words were recorded as “Are all passengers safe?”

Wikipedia doesn’t even mention the Hornbeam in its entry on the infamous passenger liner. The USCG Historian’s Office long ago deleted her entry. 

When it comes to her sisters, a few 180s survive in overseas service (Buttonwood, under a Dominican flag) while some others are in commercial or private hands as museum ships. One, Sundew, was at Hornbeam’s birthplace this week and still looks great.

To the crew of privately-owned former USCGC Sundew, departing Duluth this afternoon for the big USCG Festival in Grand Haven, Michigan, on July 24 – August 2. USCGC Spar (WLB-206), seen in the distance, will not be participating this year. Duluth, MN – July 20, 2026. Photo by David Schauer.

Thanks for reading!

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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Maybe the Mk 110 isn’t *that* Bad

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Check out this recent test by the Swedish Navy of the BAE Bofors 57mm Mk3 naval gun system (the Mk 110 in the U.S. Navy), engaging aerial and surface drone targets during live-fire counter-drone exercises aboard the Göteborg-class corvette HMSwS Sundsvall (K24), based at Berga naval base and part of the 4th Naval Warfare Flotilla.

The mount is using Bofors’ 6-mode programmable 3P (Pre-fragmented, Programmable, Proximity- fused) ammunition, of which both the Swedish and Finnish fleets agreed to purchase $171 million worth of shells.

Of interest, the USN currently fields at least 50 of these mounts with more on the way, used on both classes of LCS, the new FFG, the planned FF, and the most modern blue water USCG cutters. Word came from all the counter-drone stuff off the Bab

The USN uses the mount with the Bofors 6-mode 3P (type classified as the 57mm Mk 295 Mod 0) and spent $28 million in 2019-20 for 1,000 of the “golden bullet” L3 High Explosive-4 Bolt Guided (HE-4G) Cartridge (type classified as the Mk 332), which does all sorts of gee-whiz stuff.

Plus, the Navy just dropped another $21 million to Nammo for more HE-PD rounds for the Mk 110 as well.

Contract awarded 25 June 2026:

Nammo Perry Inc., Perry, Florida, is awarded a $21,500,000 modification to a previously awarded, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract (N0017423D0005) to increase the ceiling for 57-mm high explosive- point detonating cartridges, used in the MK110 Gun Weapon System. Work will be performed in Perry, Florida, and is expected to be completed by September 2028. No funding will be obligated at the time of award. The Navy Surface Warfare Center Indian Head Division, Indian Head, Maryland, is the contracting activity.

Coast Guard shifts PATFORSWA to Westpac, ends 24 Year Persian Gulf Mission

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With the Navy being patrol-craft-poor during OIF in the summer of 2002, Big Blue asked its poor uncle, the USCG, to temporarily shift a few 110-foot Island-class patrol boats to CENTCOM control in Bahrain.

Soon after, four East Coast-based Islands, USCGC  Adak, Aquidneck, Baranof, and Wrangell, were carried via heavy lift vessel to the Persian Gulf and eventually became Patrol Forces Southwest Asia (PATFORSWA) while four others, USCGC Bainbridge Island, Grand Isle, Knight Island, and Pea Island, were shifted to the Mediterranean as PATFORMED.

While the Med mission evaporated by 2004 due to Turkey not wanting to help support OIF and was stood down, those four cutters sent TDY to PATFORSWA never saw the U.S. again and were decommissioned there decades later, the force augmented to a full six-pack with the addition of Island-class sisters, USCGC Maui and Monomoy.

Persian Gulf (April 27, 2005) – Coast Guardsmen aboard U.S Coast Guard Cutter Monomoy (WPB 1326) wave good-bye to the guided missile cruiser USS Antietam (CG 74) after the first underway fuel replenishment (UNREP) between a U.S. Navy cruiser and a U.S. Coast Guard Cutter. Antietam completed fuel replenishment with the Monomoy in about two hours and saved the 110-foot patrol boat a four-hour trip to the nearest refueling station. Antietam and Monomoy are conducting maritime security operations (MSO) in the Persian Gulf as part of Commander, Task Force Five Eight CTF-58). U.S. Navy photo by Journalist Seaman Joseph Ebalo (RELEASED)

The force was recently refreshed with six brand-new 154-foot Sentinel-class cutters: USCGC Charles Moulthrope, Robert Goldman, Glen Harris, Emlen Tunnell, John Scheuerman, and Clarence Sutphin Jr arriving, and the old Islands disposed of in-theatre.

220822-A-KS490-1182 STRAIT OF HORMUZ (Aug. 22, 2022) From the left, U.S. Coast Guard fast response cutters USCGC Glen Harris (WPC 1144), USCGC John Scheuerman (WPC 1146), USCGC Emlen Tunnell (WPC 1145) and USCGC Clarence Sutphin Jr. (WPC 1147) transit the Strait of Hormuz, Aug. 22. The cutters are forward-deployed to U.S. 5th Fleet to help ensure maritime security and stability across the Middle East. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Noah Martin)

Now, with the NWU-camo wearing 300-member force (six cutters, an extra crew, and 150 shoreside personnel) pulled out of the Gulf ever since February, as the 154s aren’t really built to operate against non-stop drone attacks, it seems the Navy finally threw in the towel on PATFORSWA’s mission and is shifting them to where they can win more hearts and minds, the Western Pacific.

From USCG PAO:

The United States Coast Guard transitioned its Expeditionary Cutter Squadron (ECS), historically called Patrol Forces Southwest Asia (PATFORSWA), to operate in the Western Pacific conducting maritime security operations and cooperative maritime activities with allies and partner nations in the region, in response to national security requirements.

The Expeditionary Cutter Squadron will be capable of performing missions as part of the U.S. Joint Force. The squadron is currently operating in the U.S. Pacific Command area of operations to protect the homeland and maritime approaches, including Guam and the Pacific Islands.

For more than 20 years, the Coast Guard has provided forward-deployed capabilities to support U.S. Central Command and U.S. Naval Forces Central Command from Bahrain. The unit has successfully executed maritime security, maritime interdiction, and maritime domain awareness missions throughout the Middle East.

“Coast Guard forces have always adapted to meet urgent national needs,” said Adm. Kevin Lunday, Commandant of the Coast Guard. “The Expeditionary Cutter Squadron enhances the Coast Guard’s ability to deploy our forces in support of Combatant Commanders and national security objectives. Our expeditionary cutter forces provide Combatant Commands with uniquely capable maritime assets, leveraging the Coast Guard’s military and law enforcement authorities to advance U.S. national security objectives in the Western Pacific and Western Hemisphere.”

Expeditionary Cutter Squadron forces will integrate with U.S. Combatant Commands to conduct exercises and maritime cooperative activities that enhance interoperability, strengthen strategic partnerships, and advance shared security objectives throughout the region.  The transition of the Expeditionary Cutter Squadron reflects the Coast Guard’s intent to provide agile, capable, and responsive maritime forces. These forces will rapidly support national security objectives across a range of operational theaters while leveraging the Service’s unique authorities.

This explains open-source images of the entire PATFORSWA force seen shipping past Singapore in March.

WarshipCam -Official, March 29 at 4:49 PM. All six Bahrain-based USCG Sentinel-class cutters eastbound in the Singapore Straits – USCGC Charles Moulthrope (WPC-1141), USCGC Robert Goldman (WPC-1142), USCGC Glen Harris (WPC-1144), USCGC Emlen Tunnell (WPC-1145), USCGC John Scheuerman (WPC-1146) & USCGC Clarence Sutphin Jr. (WPC-1147) – March 2026 SRC: X-@StraitsSights

As well as Tunnnell and Moulthrope popping up in the Philippines a couple of weeks ago exercising with the locals in the South China Sea and during Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) in Thailand last week.

Philippine Coast Guard Teresa Magbanua-class multi-role response vessel BRP Melchora Aquino (MMRV 9702) and U.S. Coast Guard Sentinel-class Fast Response Cutter USCGC Charles Moulthrope (WPC 1141) sail in formation during part of the Maritime Cooperative Activity (MCA) in the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone, June 27, 2026. The U.S. Navy routinely operates with the Armed Forces of the Philippines and partners and allies through MCAs to continually develop, exercise, and enhance multi-domain tactical interoperability to uphold peace and security in the region. (Courtesy photo by U.S. Coast Guard)

The squadron is forward-deployed west of Guam, as noted by Janes:

“The cutters are approved to operate from Singapore and Subic Bay in the Philippines through September [2026], with command and logistics handled out of Singapore and vessels rotating through Subic Bay,” the spokesperson said. “These operations reflect a long-standing commitment to a free and open Pacific and support a region where all nations, large and small, can operate freely, safely, and lawfully at sea.”

Are they going to remain there or fall back to Guam?

Of note, the service already has three 154s currently based in Guam, replacing two aging Island-class WPBs. They have been conducting some seriously long-legged (like 5,380nm) patrols as of late.

So does this mean there will be nine 154s in Guam?

Likely not, but you could see these new-to-the-WestPac boats soon spread out across allied Operation Blue Pacific nation partners that have little-to-no maritime forces, such as the Cook Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu– most of which have very real problems with incroachng Chinese influence, smuggling and illegal fising.

Winning hearts and minds in the WestPac littoral via white hulls with racing stripes.

Clouds on Cape Cod: The (Four of the) Five Sisters Cup Finish

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The 400-mile run from the Hudson through the Cape Cod Precautionary Area to Boston by four of the Gorch Fock-class training barques over the weekend was won by Gorch Fock II, which also won the original OpSail76 Five Sisters Race and is the current holder of the Tiffany Trophy.

Ironically, the ship’s skipper, Capt. Elmar Bornkessel is a USN vet, sort of, having previously served as an exchange officer aboard USS Lake Erie (CG 70) from 2004 to 2006.

German Navy ship Gorch Fock transits Boston Harbor during the Sail250 Boston Parade of Sail, July 11, 2026. Sail250 Boston is a global gathering of tall ships and military vessels in Boston’s historic waterfront to celebrate the 250th Anniversary of the founding of the United States. This milestone maritime festival includes more than 50 ships from around the world. From the first Continental Navy to today’s global force, the Navy’s story is America’s story — one of courage, innovation, and an unbreakable commitment to winning and preserving independence. Sail250 Boston honors the maritime heritage that helped build the nation and the Navy’s enduring role in protecting freedom, preserving prosperity, and defending America’s independence. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Coronado)

The Five Sisters’ Cup is awarded to the ship that has the fastest time from New York to Boston as part of Sail250 celebrations July 9-10, 2026. German Navy training vessel Gorch Fock won the cup in 1976 and again in 2026. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Rajesh Harrilal)

The USCGC Eagle (ex-SSS Horst Wessel) came in second while NRP Sagres (ex-SSS Albert Leo Schlageter) and NS Bricul Mircea brought up the rear.

Marine Traffic showed the quartet running– canvas only on the final 57-mile leg- between 6.5 and 8 knots, which isn’t surprising as they were tacking upwind (south-westerly, Force 4–5 on the Beaufort scale) while off the Cape.

All in all, the event produced some epic images.

A mix of USCG and Romanian Navy photos:

Seaman Matheus Kirchner, a deck member assigned to U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle (WIX 327), climbs down from the shrouds to the main deck while underway in the Atlantic Ocean, July 8, 2026. Eagle is participating in the Five Sisters Race from New York to Boston as part of Sail250. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Ashly Murphy)

Petty Officer 1st Class Christopher Trader, left, and Petty Officer 3rd Class Jacob Haslem, boatswain’s mates assigned to U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle (WIX 327), replace the flying jib staysail aboard Eagle while underway, July 8, 2026. Eagle carries spare sails for each sail aboard to support continued operations. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Ashly Murphy)

The USCGC Stone served as escort for the Sisters

Among the souvenirs and tokens exchanged, the skippers of the three allied square riggers all recived a painting of Eagle via the USCG’s Art Program

Of course, the “one owner” German-manned ship is much newer (1958) than the other three circa 1930s ships, built to an improved design, and has a Constant Speed Propeller on her auxiliary diesel which can be feathered rather than freewheeling like her older sisters, but it was a close-run event and a perfect day for sailing.

And waiting for them in Boston was the Navy’s oldest commissioned warship and only frigate, USS Constitution, “Old Ironsides.”

All in all, Sail250 was just all-around outstanding.

Four Sisters Race

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As touched on previously, four of the greater Gorch Fock-class training barques (USCGC Eagle, FGS Gorch Fock II, NRP Sagres, and NMS Mircea) met up in Norfolk earlier this summer as part of Sail250 and carried on to New York.

Now, headed to Boston for the final leg of the tour, they are racing under canvas, with no “iron topsails” (auxiliary engines) involved, a rematch of sorts to the famous 1976 Five Sisters Cup run by the class for OpSail76.

As noted by the USCG: “Yesterday, their commanding officers, sail masters, and cadets gathered for a commemorative breakfast. Today, friendship gives way to friendly competition. Fair winds and following seas to every crew.”

Sal has the full details.

NASA’s Next Moon Mission includes a Coastie and an Army Astronaut

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Following up on yesterday’s NASA color birds article on their patriotic-themed 42-year-old F-15D and F-18B, let us take a look at the interesting lineup of Artemis III astronauts.

While we noted Artemis II was replete with Hornet drivers, both U.S. Navy and RCAF, the quartet at bat for AIII has a very different flavor.

With no USAF or Navy personnel, it is commanded by a Marine Hornet vet joined by an Italian test pilot, a Coastie and an Army astronaut.

The NASA Artemis III crew poses for an official portrait (from left: CDR Andre Douglas, USCGR; Col. Luca Parmitano, AM; Col. Randy Bresnik, USMC (Ret); Col. Frank Rubio, U.S.Army).

NASA astronaut Randolph “Randy” James Bresnik, Mission Commander, is a 58-year-old retired Marine colonel and Citadel graduate who flew F-18Cs with VMFA-212 on three overseas deployments before seeing combat in OIF with the Vikings of VMFA(AW)-225 and wrapping up his service as ops officer of VMFA-232. In NASA service, he flew on one of the last Shuttle missions (STS-129) and logged 138 days aboard the ISS, catching Soyuz MS-05 up and back for that one.

The Pilot for AIII is ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Salvo Parmitano, a 49-year-old colonel in the Italian Air Force who formerly flew zippy little AMXs before shifting gears to become a test pilot. He’s racked up 366 days in space between two stints on the ISS, both carried back and forth via Soyuz.

Things start to get really interesting with mission specialist CDR Andre Douglas, USCGR.

Douglas is a USCGA grad (regimental commander, class of ’08) who went on to earn advanced engineering degrees from the University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins, and George Washington University. He spent four years on active duty, including as an engineering officer on the old 210-foot Reliance-class USCGC Vigilant (WMEC-617) working out of Florida, then reactivated his commission in the reserve in 2024. A Group 23 class ‘naught, this will be his first time in space, the only “rookie” on the crew.

Douglas, 40, is the only third Coast Guard astronaut since 1996, following in the footsteps of Capt. (ret.) Daniel Burbank and CDR (ret.) Bruce Melnick. Burbank, now a professor of mechanical engineering at the Coast Guard Academy, spent 188 days in space on two Space Shuttle missions and one mission aboard the ISS. Previously, Melnick, a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard, logged over 300 hours in space.

AIII’s fourth member is the very well-traveled Col. Frank Rubio (USMA 1998) of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command. One of just 20 Army astronauts since 1978, Rubio has the American record for the longest single spaceflight, having spent 371 consecutive days aboard the ISS on Expeditions 68 and 69 from September 2022 to September 2023, during which he logged 5,963 orbits of the Earth, traveled more than 157 million miles, and conducted three spacewalks totaling 21 hours and 24 minutes.

Colonel Rubio on the ISS in 2017. Photo 221001-A-D0431-1001

Rubio definitely “walked the walk” before heading to NASA, flying over 1,100 hours in Army aircraft– including more than 600 as a Blackhawk pilot in Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq- before serving as a member of the Black Knights parachute team, a flight surgeon at Redstone Arsenal, and as a battalion surgeon with “The Originals” of the 10th Special Forces Group.

New: Army Space Branch

Of note, the Army recently established its new Space Operations Branch, giving FA40 Space Operations Officers a dedicated “forever home” and, for the first time, joining it with newly created 40D enlisted Tactical Space Operations Specialists.

While FA40s have served the Army since 1999, they previously lacked an enlisted counterpart. The Army previously sheep-dipped enlisted personnel from the Air Defense Artillery, Signal, and Military Intelligence branches to temporarily execute space missions.

U.S. Army Space Branch will continue to use the USAF/USSF Space Operations Badge in Basic, Senior, and Master grades. The badge dates back to 1982 when it was first adopted by the Air Force and has been authorized for Army use since 2006.

The Master Space Badge, seen above Army jump wings.

NASA Looking for Folks for Year-long Simulated Mars/Moon missions

And in further NASA news, the agency is “recruiting research participants for the agency’s next simulated deep space mission. Beginning no earlier than August 2027, research volunteers will spend one year living and working in interplanetary environments at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, operating under isolated conditions expected during crewed missions to the Moon or Red Planet.”

Has the Coast Guard Started its own MSC?

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Well, this dovetails nicely into our conversation the other day about the Navy looking to rent its way out of its fleet oiler crisis.

Seems the Coasties are doing the same thing…

The USCG, which is increasingly being tapped for Navy-adjacent blue water ops far away from any American coastline, is getting its first vessel “contracted in a new initiative using commercial vessels to transport supplies, equipment, and personnel to Coast Guard cutters” operating at sea.

The new (to them) vessel is the blue-hulled Homeland Security Cutter-Ocean (HSC-Ocean), a long-term charter from Louisiana-based Bordelon Marine.

Homeland Security Cutter-Ocean is moored at U.S. Coast Guard Base Miami Beach, Florida, June 26, 2026. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Reese Hindmarsh)

Homeland Security Cutter-Ocean is moored at U.S. Coast Guard Base Miami Beach, Florida, June 26, 2026. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Reese Hindmarsh)

The HSC-Ocean initiative will rapidly deploy this leased commercial asset to augment the Coast Guard’s existing fleet, enhancing the Service’s ability to control, secure, and defend U.S. borders and maritime approaches. The initiative is designed to provide a rapid, adaptable, and effective way to deliver logistics support to high-demand, multi-mission cutters, such as the Fast Response Cutter fleet. By delivering supplies and personnel directly to cutters underway, the vessel will help keep Coast Guard assets on station longer and focused on mission execution.

In short, a rented patrol boat tender with civilian mariners “driving the bus” and embarked Coasties calling the shots.

HSC Ocean started as the M/V Connor Bordelon, a 257-foot/3,285 LT “Ultralight subsea intervention vessel” with a 60-ton AHC crane and 17m USCG/ABS Certified D Value helideck capable of supporting up to an AW189 (8 ton class) aircraft (the Coast Guard’s MH-65 weighs half that).

Connor Bordelon is fairly new, just completed in 2013, is rigged to support diving and multiple ROVs, has a work deck big enough to burn doughnuts on, and has room for 60 berths, including 24 showers and eight stacked laundry units. When it comes to support, she can carry nearly 70,000 gallons of potable water, produce another 3,100 a day via a Neptune system, and carry 122,000 gallons of diesel.

Under the contract, Bordelon Marine will provide a fully crewed commercial vessel operated by civilian mariners, under the direction of a Coast Guard crew. The vessel will transport supplies, equipment, and mission-essential personnel in support of Coast Guard operations. The contractor will be responsible for vessel operations and maintenance, while embarked Coast Guard personnel will coordinate logistics and support mission execution.

Decisively Samudravijaya, or, Starting a New Career at 58

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The ex-USCGC Decisive (WMEC 629), a B-Type Reliance-class 210-foot gunboat/cutter, is now in active service as SLNS Samudravijaya (SLS P 628) in the Sri Lankan Navy. I guess SLS P 629 was already taken or something.

Note she now carries a twin Bofors 40mm L70 mount forward, an upgrade from the MK 38 25mm chain gun she carried for the past 30 years with the USCG, while, arguably, still short of the 3″/50 MK 22 Decisive, which she was commissioned with in 1968.

A simple ship with twin diesel engines and almost zero automation, she joins class member SLNS Samudura (P261)/ex-USCGC Courageous, which has been in service with the force since 2005, and two former 378-foot Hamilton-class cutters transferred in recent years, SLNS Gajabahu (P626)/ex-USCGC Sherman, and SLNS Vijayabahu (P627)/ex-USCGC Munro.

She self-deployed 14,775nm to her new home from the USCG Yard at Curtis Bay, ironically, where she was built in the 1960s.

Once upon a time, she was stationed at CGS Pascagoula, formerly NAVSTA Pascagoula, directly across from Ingalls on Singing River Island– where I was very familiar with the “Swamp Rats” and toured her for an article in Sea Classics— before her final assignment to Pensacola in 2017.

A bit of Decisive remains on the Gulf Coast.

One of Decisive’s 26-foot Mark V Motor Surfboats (MSB), DEC1 is preserved as part of the USCG static display at the Battleship Alabama Park in Mobile.

This circa 1994 MSB MKV replaced one of Decisive’s original 1960s-era wooden-hulled 26-foot Monomoy surfboats and was used aboard while the cutter was stationed at Pascagoula. It was the go-to when having to conduct boardings or rescues in heavy seas.

Dubbed a “bathtub” for obvious reasons, these craft were self-righting and self-bailing. The MSB MKV was built by Ocean Technical Services in Harvey, Louisiana, and used a Cummings 4BT3.9M diesel to push it at 18 knots.

Typically manned by three, it could carry 10 passengers or 15 survivors in a pinch, depending on size.

The exhibit includes not only the surfboat but also a 41-foot UTM, a S-61/HUS-1G/HH-52A Seaguard (1371), and a S-55B/HO4S-2/HH-19G (1258), the latter two sourced from the National Museum of Naval Aviation to honor the nearby CG Aviation Training Center (ATC), which has trained the service’s pilots and aircrew since 1966.

Warship Wednesday 3 June 2026: The Mighty Mud Duck

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Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies from 1833 to 1954, profiling a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger 

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi As Henk says: “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”

Warship Wednesday 3 June 2026: The Mighty Mud Duck

USCG Historians Office

Above we see the 240-foot Tampa-class cruising cutter/gunboat USCGC Modoc (WPG-46) in her circa 1922-1940 peacetime white and buff livery, likely somewhere off North Carolina, her stomping grounds when not on ice patrol.

A hard-charger in an interesting class of cutters, Modoc had several brushes with history during her career and wartime service.

The Tampas

In late 1917, with 47 USCG cutters and 272 boat stations transferred to the Navy’s control under the mobilization plan for the American entry to the Great War, six of the smaller service’s largest cruising cutters on the East Coast– the 205-foot USCGC Algonquin and Manning, Seneca (204 feet), Ossipee (165 feet), Tampa (190 feet), and Yamacraw (191 feet)– had been quickly fitted with extra guns and depth charges and sent overseas to Gibraltar.

The 205-foot USCGC Seneca, among the largest and most capable cutters when the U.S. entered the Great War, spent 1917-19 overseas on convoy escort duty

The six-pack formed Patrol Squadron Two of the Atlantic Fleet Patrol Forces, Sixth Division, and were tasked with escort duties for convoys sailing between England and the Mediterranean. They gave yeoman service, with Tampa tragically lost during the conflict. Seneca alone escorted 30 convoys, accounting for an armada of more than 500 ships.

With that as a forward, on 12 November 1917, the Navy General Board met with USCG Constructor Frederick E. Hunnewell to discuss the smaller service’s future shipbuilding program. It had been decided that the service would begin construction on a new class of larger, more capable cutters. The guidelines favored a 240-foot vessel with decent warfighting characteristics (speed and armament) as well as endurance and seakeeping, with the Navy stressing a 16 knot speed (most of the cutters deployed to Europe pushed 12 knots, maximum) and Board member RADM Charles Badger (USNA 1873) urging “three 5-inch guns centerline, one 3-inch anti-aircraft gun, and two machine guns” as standard armament.

With magazine space for 200 rounds per 5-incher, a 6,000-gallon-per-day evaporator, a five-kilowatt radio, day and night signaling apparatus, a submarine signal receiver, two 30-inch searchlights, an ice machine, and six 30-foot small boats, the estimated cost of six desired new 240-foot cutters so armed would be $700,000 apiece, with the class pushing $4.2 million and change.

However, with the Navy prioritizing its own vessels for construction during the war, the planned half-dozen 240-footers never made it to the schedule before the Coast Guard reverted to the Treasury Department in 1919 upon the outbreak of peace.

Still a program of record, the service whittled the number of hulls down from six to four and pursued novel cost-savings measures and innovations to cover the basics of the circa 1917 mandate, but on a more shoestring T-department budget.

In 1921, Captain Quincy B. Newman, Engineer-in-Chief of the Coast Guard, introduced the first synchro-turbo electric drive on ships in any of the U.S. services on the class leader of the new 240-footers, the USCGC Tampa (WPG-48). The plant consisted of two Babcock & Wilcox, cross-drum type, 200 psi, 750° F superheated boilers transferring to a General Electric 2,040 kVa electric motor driven by a turbogenerator, pushing a single 13-foot four-bladed screw.

At the time, they were the largest and most capable cutters ever to enter service.

A more in-depth dive by Newman, from Marine Engineering and Shipping Age, January 1922:

On trials, Tampa made 16.2 knots against a planned 16. Effective range was 5,500nm at 9 knots, about what a plodding convoy was good for.

Here’s a better look at the plan of these 240s. Note the forward “officers’ country” for the eight members of her wardroom. The berthing for the 81 enlisted was over the engineering spaces.

Robert Scheina notes that:

“The 240-foot cutters followed the traditional cutter hull form, having a plumb bow and counter stern. These features proved particularly undesirable while on the International Ice Patrol. Heavy seas coming up under the counter caused severe shocks. The wardroom in this class was well forward; thus, the deck sloped upward. This feature was known as the ‘Honeywell Hill,’ in honor of the principal architect of the class.

Armament in peacetime would be two unshielded 5″/51 Mark 8 single mounts (new guns for the Coast Guard, only entering Navy service in 1911), a 3/50″ DP gun, a pair of 57mm 6-pounders (loved by the Coast Guard for “shots across the bow”), and a 1-pounder saluting gun. Weight and space were reserved on deck for multiple depth charge racks, while the 6-pounders could be swapped out with additional 3″/50s in time of war.

Modoc’s stern 5″/51 in gunnery practice during the ice season, 27 November 1928. Note the extra deck space for depth charge racks and projectors. NARA 26-G-11-27-28(20)

Another shot of Modoc’s 5″/51

Another shot of Modoc’s 5″/51 in peacetime practice

Note her 3″/50 was on a platform before the bridge:

One of Modoc’s two 6-pounders. Navy Secretary Edwin Denby (far right) and Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon (third from right) aboard the new U.S. Coast Guard cutter Modoc, prior to her first sailing, at the Washington Navy Yard, April 1922, LOC npcc.06082

When it came to peacetime, the typical magazine allowance was 100 5-inch Service rounds, 100 3-inch Service, 110 6-pounder Service, 60 1-pounder Target, and 110 6-pounder Blank charges. Also stored were 20 Torpedo “D” wrecking mines with another 20 TNT booster charges. This went out the window in wartime.

Likewise, with the Coast Guard long keeping the ability to send up to half of a cutter’s 89-man complement ashore to suppress assorted rowdies, bandits, and pirates, as needed, the class had an allowance of 53 “Landing Force Kits” each consisting of a M1903 Springfield rifle with bayonet, scabbard, and belt; a canteen with cup and cover, a haversack, and canvas leggings. For good measure, 25 M1911 pistols with belts and magazines were also included. Other goodies in the small arms locker included two Lewis guns, a single Thompson sub gun, two 22LR rifles and two .22LR pistols for marksmanship training; two .45-70 black powder line throwers, and four 1-inch Very pistols.

Landings, boardings, recoveries, and rescues were accomplished by eight boats: a 27-foot whaleboat, two 26-foot Monomoy surf boats, a 26-foot sailing launch, a 26-foot self-bailing surfboat, a 22-foot motor dinghy, and an 18-foot punt.

All four of the class (Tampa, Haida, Mojave, and Modoc, all named for Native tribes) were built by the short-lived Union Construction Company of Oakland, with Tampa laid down on 27 September 1920 and the last, Modoc, delivered on 14 January 1922.

Tampa class, 1929 Jane’s

240-foot Coast Guard cutters, likely Modoc, Mojave, and Tampa, September 1937 26-G-09-01-37(8)

Which sets the stage for us to…

Meet Modoc

Ordered in 1920 with the rest of her four-member class, the future Modoc was Yard No. 19. Launched  1 October 1921 with a bottle of sparkling cider smashed by a Miss Jean Lemard, Modoc commissioned 14 January 1922.

After completion, she headed via the Panama Canal to join sisters Tampa and Mojave on the East Coast while Haida remained on the West. Modoc’s first homeport was Wilmington, North Carolina, where she augmented and then replaced the old (circa 1899) 188-foot USCGC Seminole, with the latter eventually shuffled off to semi-retirement in the Great Lakes.

She is well remembered in Wilmington, which she called home for much of the next 18 years. She was captured by local photographer Louis T. Moore in her typical dock in front of the Customs House.

US Coast Guard Cutter Modoc in Wilmington, photo courtesy of the Historical Society of the Lower Cape Fear

US Coast Guard Cutter Modoc in Wilmington, photo courtesy of Historical Society of the Lower Cape Fear

Coast Guard Cutters Modoc and McAdoo dock at Wilmington, while the plodding ferryboat, Menantic, plies the waters by Moore

Modoc “defended” the town from faux buccaneers during the Feast of Pirates, which was held during the summers of 1927-29.

McKean Maffitt, secretary of the Feast of Pirates and Wilmington’s city engineer.

She also had some very real LE operations against bootleggers during Prohibition. Of note, the Tar Heel State maintained its own liquor ban from 1909 to 1935.

Modoc’s crew outside of the Customs House in Wilmington with smashed cases of smuggled hooch. Photo by Louis T. Moore

In the Ice

During the April-to-June ice season, when bergs from Greenland calve and drift south into the North Atlantic shipping lanes, Modoc, Tampa, and Mojave alternated 15-day stints on the International Ice Patrol, a service founded just after the loss of the Titanic.

Forward based out of either Boston or Halifax (it changed throughout the decade), these cutters tracked, day by day, the icebergs and field ice, determining their set and drift, then duly reporting their presence and location to the hydrographic office of the Navy while broadcasting the data by radio for protection of shipping. Each season in the 1920s typically tracked 400 large bergs.

It was customary for the cutter on station during the anniversary of the great liner’s loss to hold a ceremony. The skipper read prayers, three volleys were fired, and taps were sounded by the ship’s bugler. One such service aboard Modoc in 1925 was filmed and remains in public archives.

Memorial Service on board April 14 (in the late 1920s?), the Anniversary of the sinking of the S.S. TITANIC after colliding with an iceberg. Modoc was serving with the International Ice Patrol at the time. NH 45947

April 1928 saw Modoc as one of the spotting beacon ships off the Newfoundland for the German transatlantic plane Bremen, attempting a crossing from Dublin to St. John’s.

A modified Junkers W 33 monoplane, Bremen achieved the first successful non-stop airplane flight across the Atlantic Ocean from east (Baldonnel Aerodrome, Ireland) to west (Greenly Island, Quebec) in 36.5 hours, seen at Greenly above. Library and Archives Canada / PA-126212

Lifesaver

While not on Ice Patrol, Modoc performed the standard counter-smuggling, derelict destruction, law enforcement, and SAR that you would expect from a Coast Guard cutter.

She participated in several peacetime “saves.”

In February 1923, Modoc was sent from Wilmington to the lumber schooner Friendship, reported sinking in Oregon Inlet, about 90 miles south of Virginia Beach, and effected a rescue.

In January 1924, she rushed to the site of the Danish freighter Normania, reported foundered off Norfolk, but the steamer’s crew had already been rescued by the closer SS Henry R. Mallory just before their vessel plunged to Davy Jones.

In December 1926, Modoc responded to the sinking of the Coast Guard schooner Lincoln, which was destroyed by fire with a loss of six lives, several miles southwest of Cape Lookout Lightship. Lincoln, a seized rumrunner, was being used to carry oil and gasoline to lightships and stations.

In October 1926, Modoc responded to the de-masted schooner Purnell T. White, which had been caught in the northeaster off Cape Lookout and towed her to port.

January 1928 saw her tow the disabled motor yacht Cutty Sark, owned by Alexander Smith of Chicago and New York, into Charleston.

In January 1929, three barges loaded with lumber from Fernandina, Florida, to Georgetown, South Carolina, broke away from their tug in a storm, and one, the barge Belfast, foundered off Frying Pan Shoals, with Modoc saving her four-man crew.

March 1930 saw Modoc involved in the sweeping search for the missing yawl Nahma, owned by Mr. A. Felix Du Pont, with 12 souls, including his 19-year-old son Richard, aboard. They eventually turned up, but Nahma, Richard, again at the wheel, was lost off Cape Hatteras just two years later, the six aboard rescued by the Army transport Republic. Richard Chichester du Pont would meet his end in 1943, piloting an experimental glider at March Field in California, aged just 32, with a commercial carrier he had founded beforehand, now today’s American Airlines.

In February 1936, Modoc was sent to the aid of the 7,200-barrel Atlantic Refining Company tanker Albert Hill, bound from Philadelphia to Atreco, Texas, for a cargo, 200 miles off the coast of South Carolina. Soon after taking her under tow, the 435-foot Hill suffered an explosion, with the cutter rescuing all but four of her crew. Nonetheless, Hill was pulled into port and eventually returned to service after extensive repair at Robins Dry Dock in New York and was only scrapped in 1947.

In July 1936, Modoc was sent to search for the schooner Dewless, which started that summer’s biennial 635-mile Newport-to-Bermuda race and then promptly vanished. Dewless, owned and skippered by F. William Schnirring of New York, was located safe and sound two days later.

While on the Ice Patrol, in May 1930, the cutter documented an encounter with a white whale.

Boston Navy Yard, 24 June 1934. Top to bottom is USS Farragut (DD-348) to the left, a 250-foot Lake class USCG cutter to the right, a 240-footer, likely either Modoc or Mojave, USS Eagle PE-19, the battlewagons USS Texas (BB-35) and New York (BB-34), the French Sloop D’Entrecasteux, and the venerable frigate USS Constitution. (49629216003)

Not War, but You Can See It from Here…

When the Germans invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, Modoc was steaming off the Virginia Capes, conducting small arms gunnery drills. Ordered to put into Norfolk with leaves canceled and those detached recalled, she soon transferred 24 enlisted, nearly a third of her complement, to bring the large 327-foot USCGC Bibb up to a more warlike footing. The bigger cutter was soon bound for duty with the newly formed U.S. Neutrality Patrol in the North Atlantic.

Even with a reduced crew, Modoc soon was on patrol herself, trailing and identifying passing vessels offshore, exemplified by this entry from 15 November 1939, in the Atlantic.

This continued through 1940, with a break at the Coast Guard Yard in Curtis Bay for a quick refit, and patrols as far south as the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.

Modoc began New Year’s 1941 on patrol in the Florida Straits and in early February, she responded to the distressed 2,512-ton Brazilian freighter SS Mahukona, which disappeared without a trace while sailing from Newport News to Rio.

By April, Modoc was in drydock at Algiers across from New Orleans, prepping for continued North Atlantic service, calling at her traditional home port of Wilmington by the end of the month. Sent from there to the Boston Navy Yard for weapon upgrades, including adding two water-cooled .50 cal machine guns, two depth charge racks and two Y-gun projectors to her stern, she steamed out of Beantown for the Gulf of Maine on 12 May 1941, beginning a North Atlantic patrol off Newfoundland two days later, in doing so relieving cutter Northland (WPG-49), whose mission was to patrol the convoy lanes and pick up survivors of merchantmen sunk by German U-boats.

On the afternoon of Saturday, 24 May 1941, the neutral USCGC Modoc was shadowing British Convoy HX-126 on the lookout for survivors of nine freighters and tankers sunk by Wolfpack West over 20-22 March. Her radiomen overheard British traffic concerning the sinking of the vaunted battlecruiser HMS Hood, sent to the bottom of the Denmark Strait with 1,400 of her crew by the battleship Bismarck that morning.

Soon enough, Modoc’s lookouts reported a mysterious man-of-war on the horizon, followed by a biplane, and three other warships in the distance. It turned out the first ship was Bismarck, the aircraft was a Swordfish torpedo plane from the carrier HMS Victorious, and the three trailing ships were the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the cruisers Suffolk and Norfolk.

Managing to avoid fire from either side, Modoc was able to observe the Sword’s attack on the German battleship and the resulting flak, then slipped back into the mists as the faster ships sped on for their rendezvous with destiny.

Her deck log from that evening:

Still in her peacetime white and buff scheme, the British reportedly thought she was a yacht at first, then almost opened fire on her.

Coast Guard Cutter Modoc (WPC-46) and the German battleship Bismarck by James Flood https://www.jamesaflood.com/uss-modoc-cg-wpg-46/

Following this exciting patrol, Modoc reported for duty with the Navy on 1 June 1941 and was designated flagship of the South Greenland Patrol, serving in the waters of that frozen subcontinent through the rest of the year.

As noted by DANFS:

Transferred to the Navy by Executive Order No. 8929 of 1 November 1941, Modoc joined the Greenland Patrol, whose orders were to do “a little of everything.” This duty involved keeping convoy routes open, breaking and finding leads in ice for the Greenland convoys, escorting the convoys and rescuing survivors from torpedoed ships, constructing and maintaining aids to navigation, and reporting weather conditions. Ships of the patrol were also expected to discover and destroy enemy weather and radio stations in Greenland, continue hydrographic surveys, maintain communications, deliver supplies, and conduct search and rescue operations. All these duties, the Coast Guard performed with exemplary fortitude and faithfulness throughout the war.

War!

With the U.S. officially in the war after Germany declared war on it on 11 December 1941, following Pearl Harbor, Modoc was in Greenland’s waters. Sent back to Norfolk for six weeks of repairs and alterations in early 1942, she returned to Greenland on 26 April, escorting the oiler USS Laramie (AO-16), the latter filled with a vital cargo of gasoline and oil for Army bases on the island.

In May, she escorted the empty Laramie, SS Omaha, and SS Azra back to Boston. Then came subsequent convoy runs from Newfoundland to Greenland and back for the rest of the year, often working with sisters Tampa and Mohawk.

Modoc in WWII Greenland Patrol livery

USCG Modoc or Tampa seen in Greenland, LT JG George R. Boyce in foreground, October 1942, NARA

The Ice Patrol suspended during the war; on 19 March 1943, the massive 14,795-ton whale factory ship Svend Foyn collided with an iceberg 70 miles south of Cape Farewell while sailing with Convoy HX-229A from New York to Liverpool with a cargo of fuel oil. The vessel foundered two days later with the loss of 43 out of the 195 crew and passengers aboard, with the USCGCs Aivik, Algonquin, and Frederick Lee on scene, later joined by Modoc to transfer those plucked from the sea to the latter cutter for transport to St. Johns.

It was an epic rescue.

As related by DANFS

Due to the deep roll of the Modoc, operating without lights in the middle of the night, the taking on of the half-frozen survivors was a difficult feat. Several of her crew distinguished themselves by going down the net and working waist-deep in the icy water to haul half-numb survivors aboard. One man, Leonard W. Campbell (101-707) CBM, almost lost his life in this rescue work. He and two others–John T. Hendrix (200-373) CEM, and William F. Coultas (251-300) Sea1c, were commended, and each of them later received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal. The Svend Foyne finally sank with 24 persons reported trapped aft. When the vessel sank, the Modoc and Algonquin searched the position and heard cries for help, but could not sight any survivors. Nearly four hours later, she took aboard one man who died of heart failure an hour later due to the extreme cold of the water in which he had been immersed for hours.

Modoc steamed into St. Johns with 128 living men from Svend Foyne on 28 March 1943.

Returning to convoy work for the rest of 1943, Modoc joined the CGCs Storis and Comanche in a futile search for survivors of the lost USAT Nevada, which had gone missing in a storm off Greenland on 16 December.

During a stateside refit in 1944, Modoc landed her 5-inchers, Y-gun depth charge throwers, and .50 cals, kept her 3″/50s, added four 20mm Oerlikons, as well as 4 K-gun throwers and two forward Mousetrap ASW devices. She also picked up SF-1 and SC-3 radars and a QCJ-3 sonar. Not bad, given the circumstances.

Modoc, along with the cutters Tampa and Algonquin, spent part of March and April 1945 as ASW cats in the waters off Portland, Maine, chasing the “tame mouse” Italian submarine Goffredo Mameli (T.V. Cesare Buldrini) in exercises.

Remaining a fixture on the Greenland convoy routes the rest of the war, Modoc went to the assistance of the distressed HMT Strathella in February 1944, the steamer Chippewa in November 1945, and RMS Begun in December 1945.

Modoc returned to the Treasury Department in accordance with Executive Order No. 9666 of 28 December 1945.

Modoc 1944-45

She earned one battle star for her WWII service.

But she still had at least one more good sub-arctic rescue in her.

Damaged by heavy seas, the EC2-S-C1 type Liberty ship SS Henry Baldwin, carrying 589 troops, radioed for help (“Developed plate crack in starboard of after-deck. Extremely heavy westerly seas”) on 16 January 1946 from a position about 300 miles southeast of Cape Race, Newfoundland. Modoc, sailing back to the U.S., was ordered at once to her aid, and Baldwin limped into Argentia. After repairs, the freighter continued service for another 24 years.

Afterward, Modoc reported to Boston Navy Yard on 26 January for installation of weather equipment and repairs.

On 26 March 1946, Modoc inaugurated the first post-war International Ice Patrol, using radar and LORAN for the first time in the IIP’s history. Also, for the first time, patrol aircraft were used to assist the cutter– USCG PBY-5As and PB4Y-1s of VP-6CG out of Argentia.

Decommissioned 1 February 1947, just shy of 25 years of service, ex-Modoc was sold to Manuel Velliantis in Honduras.

She was converted for merchant use as a barco bananero (banana boat) and renamed Amalia V. Later registered in Ecuador in 1950 by Tropical Navigation Co., she was renamed Machala, and served as a merchantman until scrapped in 1964

Epilogue

Little exists of the Modoc outside of her logbooks and plans in the National Archives and the occasional relic on the collector market.

The Coast Guard recycled the name Modoc for use on the transferred WWII-era USS Bagaduce (ATA-194), which served as USCGC Modoc (WATA-194/WMEC-194) from 1959 to 1979. That 143-foot vessel saw an active post-military career, serving as a bed and breakfast and as a sea base with the Earthrace Conservation group.

Since the International Ice Patrol has been maintained by the Coast Guard, there has been no berg-related loss of life in the area during the annual season, which now typically counts. The last cutter patrol was by USCGC Spar in 1990, the mission transitioning to aircraft and, by 2016, a combination of aerial and satellite surveillance.

Thanks for reading!

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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So I went to Sail 250 in New Orleans

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Unless you have been under a rock, Sail 250, a tall ship parade joined with U.S. and allied warships, is rolling this summer from New Orleans (last week), to Norfolk/Hampton Roads (June 19 to 23), and thence to Baltimore (25 June to 1 July), NYC (for the July 4 week), and Boston (July 11-16).

The tall ships involved are mostly national training vessels and will eventually grow to 41 ships as diverse as Portugal’s NRP Sagres and Romania’s Mircea, augmented by such classic windjammers as the Elissa, Bowdoin, and Milwaukee’s Denis Sullivan.

The New Orleans leg was admittedly the smallest, with just seven tall ships (USCGC Eagle, Peru’s BAP Union, the Swedish HSwMS Gladan, the Uruguayan Navy’s ROU Capitán Miranda, the Colombian ARC Gloria, Argentine ARA Libertad, and Chilean CNS Esmeralda)

The Navy also sent USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) and Farragut (DDG 99) from Norfolk and Mayport, respectively, while the Coasties sent the 270-foot Bear-class cutter USCGC Mohawk (WMEC 913) up from Key West for tours. These warships were joined by the RN’s West Indies Station Ship, the Batch 2 River-class offshore patrol vessel HMS Trent (P224), and her Dutch counterpart, HNLMS Friesland (P842).

The USCG was also present on the water, providing security along the 12 tour ships, with the 87-footers USCGC Yellowfin (WPB-87319) and Sawfin (WPB-87357), and details surged from MSST Houston, MSST New York, and MSST Kings Bay.

The international tall ships were arrayed in front of the Audubon Aquarium adjacent to the French Quarter and at the end of Canal.

Farragut and Friesland were hidden in the Bywater off the Poland Street Wharf, which the crews probably loved.

Kearsarge and Eagle were in the thick of it, located off the Riverwalk Mall at the Julia Street Wharf.

The Trent, at 297 feet oal and 2,000 tons, was a good mate for Mohawk, some 270-feet and 1,830 tons, with the cutter moored outboard of the Brit. They were tucked under the twin span bridges by the cruise ship terminal.

The crowds were bonkers.

Two different friend groups of ours went for the tall ship cluster by the Aquarium and could only ever get pier-close.

Two other sets of friends went for the mighty Kearsarge, along with several thousand others. One set threw in the soggy (rain and 99 percent humidity, 100-degree “feels like” heat index) towel after two hours in line, while the others only got on LHD-3 after a 3.5-hour wait.

I managed some shots from the Riverwalk of the flattop and her consort, Eagle (ex-Horst Wessel), after the tours ended and the crowds dissipated. As I had worked at Ingalls on her sister USS Boxer (LHD-4) and had gone on sea trials and tiger cruises on the latter back in the day, I was good with just getting that close to Kearsarge and had visited Eagle several times in the past.

We chose to trek on down to the cruise ship terminal and visit Trent and Mohawk, which had no lines, no waiting.

Both ships were filled with courteous professionals, and I must say that Trent, which has been hard used since she entered the hull-strapped RN in August 2020, and has been on the Caribbean “beat” since October 2025, was very well maintained, considering.

The gently larger Trent is all but blocking the Mohawk moored alongside under the spans. Note Mohawk’s white helicopter hangar and stack.

Trent’s stomping ground is the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, and the Turks and Caicos Islands, along with the dozen Commonwealth states in the region, such as the Bahamas, Belize, Jamaica, Trinidad, etc.

Her Marlin-capable flight deck was quite cluttered with 20-foot ISO containers and spare RHIBs. Keep in mind, she can carry a platoon of RM Commandos if needed.

Note the eight “snowflake” seizures credited on her focsle. She notably set a (British) record for the amount of coke seized at sea, bagging 6,995 keys in her 2024 deployment alone.

That 30mm DS30B Mark 2 gun, though. Trent’s main battery, which is gyro-stabilized, has all the FLIR and remote FCS goodies and uses a 30mm Bushmaster cannon capable of reaching out to 5,100m. The new U.S. Mk 38 Mod 4 MGS is very similar, using the same gun with an optional 12.7 mm coaxial to boot.

The SA80 is at the ready on the quarterdeck. After having fired one of these in the past, I can agree with the trope that this is one of the worst bullpups ever made, but it has soldiered on for the past 40 years. As the Brits say with resignation, “it can’t be helped.”

One of Trent’s well-equipped minigun mounts. She formerly carried two, but these were replaced with more practical M2 Brownings and 7.62 GPMGs, carrying four of the former and two of the latter.

Trent’s blue stag on her stack represents the historic River Trent, her namesake. She is at least the seventh HMS Trent on the Admiralty’s lists going back to 1757, with the sixth being a WWII River-class frigate (K243) that went on to serve with the Indian Navy.

Mohawk as seen from Trent with her glad rags flying. Note Trent’s Western Approaches style camouflage, calling back to WWII. 

A rare sight for a 270: her hangar, empty and open.

My advice if attending Sail 250: enjoy the initial sail in from a high vantage point, then pick your vessel and time, keeping crowds in mind.

Enjoy!

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