laststandonzombieisland

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 23 July 2026: Semper Laborantes

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.

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.

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

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).

War!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Thanks for reading!

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

If you like this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO, has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships, you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!