The 28th biennial RIMPAC, the world’s largest maritime warfare exercise, wrapped up last Friday. In all, some 26 nations sent 38 ships, four submarines, more than 170 aircraft, more than 30 unmanned systems, and 25,000 personnel to take part in the six-week exercise that stretched across the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California.
There were two SINKEXs, the first of which was the recently-retired OHP-class frigate ex-USS Rodney M. Davis (FFG 60) sent to the bottom in waters more than 15,000 feet deep and over 50 nautical miles North of Kauai. From the sea, U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Chaffee (DDG 90) shot her Mark 45 5-inch gun. Units from Australia, Canada, Malaysia, and the U.S. participated in the sinking exercise “to gain proficiency in tactics, targeting, and live firing against a surface target at sea.”
The second of which was the old gator ex-USS Denver (LPD 9), sent down almost on top of Davis. From the land, the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force and U.S. Army shot Type 12 surface-to-ship missiles and practice rockets. From the air, U.S. Navy F/A-18F Super Hornets assigned to Fighter Attack Squadron 41 shot a long-range anti-ship missile. U.S. Army AH-64 Apache helicopters shot air-to-ground Hellfire missiles, rockets, and 30mm guns. U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18C/D Hornets assigned to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 232, Marine Air-Ground Task Force 7, fired an air-launched cruise missile, air-to-surface anti-radiation missiles, an air-to-ground anti-radiation missile, and joint direct attack munitions.
Coasties for the layup
Of note, the Coast Guard, stretching its legs via the service’s new and long-ranging frigate-sized (4,600t, 418-feet oal) Ingalls-built Legend-class national security cutters, contributing to the largest Coast Guard participation in the history of RIMPAC. This included the NSC cutter Midgett (WMSL-757) and the new 154-foot Fast Response Cutter William Hart (WPC 1134), the Pacific Dive Locker (who took part in port clearance operations with members of the ROK Navy), and Maritime Safety and Security Team Honolulu (who did survey work in the port in support of clearing).
Importantly, although her largest currently embarked weapon is a 57mm Bofors, Midgett has long-range sensors (a 3D TRS-16 AN/SPS-75 air search radar with an instrumented range of up to 250 km plus a AN/SPS-79 surface search set) and logged “at least nine constructive kills” during RIMPAC’s war at sea phase of RIMPAC, feeding targeting information to other assets via Link 16, an underrated force multiplier.
Midgett also embarked Navy MH-60Rs off and on during the exercise, something you can be sure of seeing during a real live shooting war. This is reportedly the first time the platform has operated from a cutter during RIMPAC
The Marines at Schofield Barracks have used FRCs in the past to set up commo nodes afloat, a task that it is super easy to imagine these shallow draft littoral vessels performing in time of crisis around scattered West Pac atolls. This worked with a mesh between the USCG’s Rescue 21 C4ISR system and an embarked Marine SATCOM team.
Marines and the @U.S. Coast Guard establish communications aboard USCGC William Hart (WPC 1134) during Large Scale Exercise 2021, at U.S. Coast Guard Base Honolulu. LSE 2021 is a live, virtual, and constructive exercise employing integrated command and control, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and sensors across the joint force to expand battlefield awareness, share targeting data, and conduct long-range precision strikes in support of naval operations in a contested and distributed maritime environment.
While the Commonwealth has a ton of reserve force installations (Fort Buchanan, Fort Allen, Campamento Santiago, Isla Verde training area, Punta Borinquen tracking station) that host the 8,700-strong Puerto Rico Army and Air Guard as well as reserve tenant activities from across DOD, there is little visible active military presence in Puerto Rico. After all, NAS Isla Grande closed in 1971, Ramey Air Force Base shut down in 1973, the Navy’s SOSUS facility at Ramey shuttered in 1976, and the famed “Rosey Roads” Naval Station wound down in the early 2000s following protests,
However, the Coast Guard maintains an extensive operation in the PR.
Coast Guard Puerto Rico’s Sector San Juan encompasses a 1.3 million square nautical miles area of responsibility throughout the Eastern Caribbean. The Sector includes two of the busiest ports in the nation, which receive over three million visitors and 11,000 vessel arrivals annually, including almost 1,600 cruise ships.
The Sector comprises more than 500 Active Duty and Reserve Sector personnel in 13 subordinate units, including seven fast response cutters, a Marine Safety Detachment, two Resident Inspection Offices, an Aids to Navigation Team, and a Tactical/Pursuit Station with two Boat Force Detachments.
Puerto Rico has an impressive squadron of seven new 154-foot Sentinel-class Fast Response Cutters, all received in the past seven years:
USCGC Richard Dixon (WPC-1113), a new FRC, one of seven deployed in Puerto Rico
Richard Dixon (WPC-1113)
Heriberto Hernandez (WPC-1114)
Joseph Napier (WPC-1115)
Winslow W. Griesser (WPC-1116)
Donald Horsley (WPC-1117)
Joseph Tezanos (WPC-1118)
Joseph Doyle (WPC-1133)
And they have been very busy earning snowflakes for large narco busts at sea.
Coast Guard artist Robert Selby recently compiled a triptych of the Sector, entitled, “Guardians of the Puerto Rican Coast,” after shipping out on one of the FRCs.
Sector San Juan operations are supported by Coast Guard Base San Juan and Coast Guard Air Station Borinquen, one of three major air stations in the Coast Guard’s Seventh District.
Coast Guard Air Station Borinquen operates from part of the old Ramsay AFB reservation and runs four MH60T Jayhawks– which replaced smaller MH65 Dolphins last year– while also supporting a variety of forward-deployed aircraft.
All told, the air station is home to 170 enlisted personnel, 35 officers, and 150 civilians.
You know I gotta signal boost M1903s still on the front lines. As the last one was assembled in 1945, it always gives me a grin when I see one still at work, even if it is as a “bucket gun.”
Bonus as the receiver is the 110-foot Island-class patrol boat USCGC Tybee (WPB-1330) which, commissioned in 1989, only has a couple of seasons left in her before she shuffles off to some Third World partner for a second career under a different flag.
22 July 2022. Petty Officer 3rd Class Vincent Isaiah Pangelinan, a Gunner’s Mate aboard Coast Guard Cutter Seneca, fires the messenger line to pass the towing line to CGC Tybee during a towing evolution off the coast of Massachusetts. A messenger line is used to assist in heaving the mooring to the shore or to another ship. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Kyle Miller) VRIN 220722-G-ZZ999-001
Dubbed either self-propelled semi-submersibles (SPSS) or low-profile vessels (LPVs), “narco subs” have gone from being a unicorn type of thing discussed only in Clive Cussler books to the real deal, especially when it comes to the Eastern Pacific, where they seem to be the vessel of choice running coke from South America to transshipment points in Central America.
Since they first started popping up in 2006, these craft have become an almost weekly thing in the past few years. The USCG and SOUTHCOM assets stopped almost 40 such boats in 2019, this number continued into 2020 where, across four days in mid-May Southcom stopped three narco submarines in the same week (remember the “Alto su barco” incident?), and showed no sign of stopping if you look at the typical patrols done by cutters throughout 2021-22.
Almost every recent EastPac patrol by the Coast Guard (or Fourth Fleet with a USCG LEDET aboard) shows off images of an LPV stopped with a gleaming white cutter in the background.
USCGC Northland (WMEC 904) interdicts a low-profile vessel in the Eastern Pacific Ocean in August 2021. The Northland crew returned to Portsmouth Monday, following an 80-day patrol in the Eastern Pacific Ocean in support of the Coast Guard Eleventh District and Joint Interagency Task Force South. (U.S. Coast Guard photo)
This translates into a whole series of art produced as part of the U.S. Coast Guard Art Collection in the past few years on the subject:
The Reliance-class U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Steadfast (WMEC 623, ex WPC-623) returned to homeport last week following a 55-day/11,000-mile counter-narcotics deployment to the Eastern Pacific Ocean. The 54-year-old 210-foot medium endurance cutter and crew conducted law enforcement and search-and-rescue operations in international waters off Central America from Mexico to Costa Rica.
With an embarked MH-65E Dolphin helicopter and aviation detachment from Air Station Port Angeles, Washington, and with additional crew members from the Tactical Law Enforcement Team Pacific, Electronics Support Detachment Detroit, Coast Guard Base Galveston, and three U.S. Coast Guard Academy cadets, she got some amazing photo-ex shots while underway.
The crew aboard U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Steadfast (WMEC-623) stands in formation on the ship’s flight deck while underway off the coast of Central America on Memorial Day, 2022. An embarked MH-65 Dolphin helicopter detachment crew from Air Station Port Angeles hovered overhead for the photo in recognition of the day of remembrance. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Seaman Brad O’Brien)
Note that the awnings typically rigged on such patrols to shelter picked-up migrants and smuggling suspects, shield the cutter’s Mk38 25mm gun, which replaced her old 3″/50 in 1994. The 210-foot cutter has a pair of M2 .50 cals on her bridge wings that cover both her decks and for use in boardings. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Seaman Brad O’Brien)
The class is capable of operating HH-60 and HH-65-sized helicopters albeit without the ability to do in-depth maintenance as they have no hangar. Note the LSO box under the smack. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Seaman Brad O’Brien)
As noted by the USCG, on her latest deployment:
The crew of the Steadfast also worked with Mexican law enforcement assets on two occasions, to locate, track, and interdict fast-moving drug smuggling vessels, resulting in the seizure of 2,747 kilograms of cocaine by Mexican authorities, valued at $109 million.
While transiting South of Mexico, Steadfast’s bridge team sighted a disabled and adrift open-hull vessel with two Mexican adult males waving life jackets. Steadfast approached the vessel to investigate and determine the nature of distress. The imperiled mariners stated that they were fishermen who had been adrift for 23 days after their vessel had been beset by weather. Steadfast embarked both persons, provided meals and medical care, and returned them safely back to Mexico.
Steadfast is a Reliance Class cutter that has been homeported in Astoria since 1994. Previously, Steadfast was homeported in St. Petersburg, Florida where she earned the nickname “El Tiburon Blanco,” (“White Shark”) from drug smugglers for her notoriety in counter-narcotics operations in the Florida Straits and the Caribbean Sea.
All in all, not too bad looking for a ship that launched in 1967.
U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Steadfast side-launched at the American Shipbuilding Company, Lorain 1967
We’ve covered the USCG’s new Offshore Patrol Cutter program at length.
OPC Characteristics: •Length: 360 feet •Beam: 54 feet •Draft: 17 feet •Sustained Speed: 22 Plus knots •Range: 8500 Plus nautical miles •Endurance: 60 Days
The main armament is a Mk 110 57mm gun forward with a MK 38 Mod 3 25mm gun over the stern HH60-sized hangar, and four M2 .50 cal mounts.
I say replace the Mk38 with a C-RAM, shoehorn a towed sonar, ASW tubes, an 8-pack Mk41 VLS crammed with Sea Sparrows, and eight NSSMs aboard and call it a day. The Mexicans do the same loadout with the new Reformador-class frigates on a hull the same size, so why not us?
The first flight of 11 OPCs has been awarded to Eastern Shipbuilding Group, Inc. (ESG) and they have four– class leader USCGC Argus (WMSM 915), followed by USCGC Chase (WMSM 916), USCGC Ingham (WMSM 917) and USCGC Rush (WMSM 918)— in various stages of completion already at their Nelson Street facility in Panama City.
Well, the Coast Guard, in an effort to get all 25+ of these hulls completed ASAP to replace both the elderly 1960s-era 210-foot Reliance and aging 1980s-era 270-foot Bear-class cutters, announced on Thursday that a second yard, Austal in Mobile, Alabama, would get to work on the second flight of 11 OPCs, a contract estimated at being worth $3 billion smackers (which is a deal these days for 11 American frigate-sized OPVs).
The announcement via USCG HQ, Washington:
WASHINGTON – The Coast Guard awarded a fixed-price incentive (firm target) contract to Austal USA of Mobile, Ala. to produce up to 11 offshore patrol cutters (OPCs). The initial award is valued at $208.26 million and supports detail design and long lead-time material for the fifth OPC, with options for production of up to 11 OPCs in total. The contract has a potential value of up to $3.33 billion if all options are exercised.
In 2019, the Coast Guard revised the OPC acquisition strategy to mitigate emergent cost and schedule risk by establishing a new, full and open competition for OPCs five and through 15, designated as Stage 2 of the overall program. Informed by industry feedback received through a robust engagement strategy, the Coast Guard released a request for proposal Jan. 29, 2021, for OPC Stage 2 detail design and production. The Coast Guard’s requirements for OPC Stage 2 detail design and production were developed to maintain commonality with earlier OPCs in critical areas such as the hull and propulsion systems, but provide flexibility to propose and implement new design elements that benefit lifecycle cost, production and operational efficiency and performance.
“The offshore patrol cutter is absolutely vital to Coast Guard mission excellence as we recapitalize our legacy medium endurance cutters, some of which are more than 50 years old,” said Adm. Linda Fagan, commandant of the Coast Guard. “The OPCs are the ships our crews need to protect our national security, maritime safety and economic prosperity. I look forward to the new cutters joining our fleet.”
The 25-ship OPC program of record complements the capabilities of the service’s national security cutters, fast response cutters and polar security cutters as an essential element of the Department of Homeland Security’s layered maritime security strategy. The OPC will meet the service’s long-term need for cutters capable of deploying independently or as part of task groups and is essential to stopping smugglers at sea, interdicting undocumented non-citizens, rescuing mariners, enforcing fisheries laws, responding to disasters and protecting ports.
Austal, of course, is the joint Australian-American operation that has built the controversial Independence-class of littoral combat ships and Spearhead-class expeditionary fast transport ships, all notably with composite hulls. The OPCs will be the company’s first steel-hulled warships.
That has caused some heartburn with Florida Congresscritters.
From U.S. Rep. Neal Dunn, R-Fla-2:
The Coast Guard made a mistake in its Offshore Patrol Cutter stage II decision. Eastern Shipbuilding is known for quality products and the Coast Guard knows this. I am very concerned the foreign company awarded the contract lacks experience in building steel vessels. This will ultimately cost taxpayers more money, and further delay these ships from entering service to protect our nation’s shores. My office will work to push the Coast Guard to reconsider this decision.
I will continue to fight for more economic opportunity for the people of Florida’s Second Congressional District.
Just some snaps taken while kayaking around Gulfport harbor down on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
The above shows the replica Ship Island Lighthouse at Jones Park built in 2011 after the original which was lost to a fire in 1972 (and a replica made by the SeaBees had been lost to Katrina). To the left are the gleaming white 87-foot Bollinger-built Maritime Protector-class cutters USCGC Moray (WPB-87331) and USCGC Tiger Shark (WPB-87359) next to CG Sta Gulfport, where you can see the nose of two 45-foot RB-Ms poking out from the boathouse. You can see Customs “Blue Lighting” interceptors to the far left.
A close-up of USCGC Moray (WPB-87331) and USCGC Tiger Shark (WPB-87359). The “color of the boathouse” in Gulfport is rust, btw.
Also buzzing around for the past couple of weeks, no doubt on summer camp, have been a number of USCG Transportable Port Security Boats, surely of the Kiln-based PSU 308. As noted by the USCG, “TPSBs serve to assist in anti-terrorism force protection and shore-side security capable of supporting port and waterway security anywhere the military operates.”
In a move illustrating the shoe-string kinds of ops the Coast Guard has to pull off, the recently decommissioned 110-foot Island-class patrol boat USCGC Cuttyhunk (WPB 1322), which was just removed from active duty after 34 hard years, mostly in the Pacific Northwest, still has an ounce of life to give.
Cutter Cuttyhunk, paying off. Note her forward 25mm gun has been removed
Instead of heading off to different assignments, the crew of “The Pest of the West” sailed their old boat to Ketchikan, Alaska. There, they have taken possession of the sidelined classmate USCGC Anacapa (WPB-1335), which was previously stationed in Petersburg, Alaska.
Commissioned 13 January 1990, Anacapa is actually just a little older than Cuttyhunk but is in apparently better material condition– except for the engines. So with that, the crew of Cuttyhunk, along with dockside help, are turning the 2,100~ bolts required to remove the two diesels (both mains and generators) of both ships, and doing a transplant, moving Cuttyhunk’s old suite to the hollowed-out Anacapa. It seems the best way to get some spare Paxman Valenta 16-CM RP-200Ms is to take them from an old cutter.
After that, Anacapa will be shifting homeports to Port Angeles to continue to serve the Pacific Northwest, with Cuttyhunk’s old crew, engines, and generators, until further relieved.
Maybe the 17th Coast Guard District will spring for new oil for the engines, although since it’s going back to the 13th District in Washington, odds are Cuttyhunk had to bring that up to Alaska as well.
Nordisk Pressefoto via the M/S Museet for Søfart- Danish maritime museum. Photo: 2012:0397
Above we see a beautiful period photo of the Danish skoleskibetDanmark with a bone in her teeth, the tall ship’s canvas fully rigged and speeding her along, 18 white clouds mastering the sea. Just seven years old when she was caught up in WWII, she would find a new home and wartime use in Allied waters while the Germans occupied her country.
A tremastet fuldrigger in Danish parlance, the big three-master went 212 feet overall from her stern to the tip of her bowsprit and 188 feet at the waterline, with a displacement of 790 BT. Her mainmast towered 127 feet high. Constructed of riveted steel with 10 watertight bulkheads, she was designed in the late 1920s to be a more modern replacement for the lost schoolship København, whose saga we have covered in the past.
Laid down at Nakskov Skibsværft, part of the Danish East Asian Company (Det Østasiatiske Kompagni or just ØK), a giant shipping and trade concern that at one point was Scandinavia’s largest commercial enterprise, while Danmark was a civil vessel, many of her officers and crew were on the Royal Danish Navy’s reserve list and many of her cadets would serve in the fleet as well.
Skoleskibet DANMARK under konstruktion på Nakskov Skibsværft.
She was christened on 17 December 1932 by one Ms. Hannah Lock.
Young Ms. Lock was striking, and likely the daughter of a company official. The company’s bread and butter were both passenger and freight lines between the Danish capital, Bangkok, and the Far East, so it was no doubt an exotic and glitzy affair.
Due to low tide, she was not officially launched until two days later.
Skoleskibet DANMARK søsættes 19. December 1932. På grund af lavvande blev skibet først søsat to dage efter dåben.
On her maiden voyage, photographed from the schoolship Georg Stages.
Picture from Danmark’s Capt. Svend Aage Saugmann’s photo album shows Danmark at Ponta Delgada in the Azores on 27 February 1936. 2013:0126
The Drumbeat of War
In the summer of 1939, with Europe a tinderbox, the Danish government had pledged to send the country’s largest naval warship, the 295-foot coast defense cruiser Niels Juel, to participate in the World’s Fair in New York. However, as misgivings set in, it was agreed that Danmark would make the trip instead, complete with a mixed group of naval and mariner cadets.
Arriving in New York in August, Danmark’s cadets were hosted by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia to a Yankees baseball game as part of the general festivities. Once Germany invaded Poland, followed by the Soviets, then Britain and France joined a growing world war, Danmark was ordered to remain in U.S. waters until things cooled down. With that, she cruised to Annapolis, spent the Christmas 1939 holiday in Puerto Rico, and then arrived in Jacksonville, Florida in early April 1940. There, they met with Danish Ambassador Henrik Kauffmann, who announced the ship was returning home after her nine-month American exile.
The school ship Danmark lying in St. John’s River near Jacksonville, Florida, during early World War II. Note her neutrality markings. 723:63
Danmark in U.S. waters, December 1939 FHM-205097
With Poland long since occupied and divided between Berlin and Moscow, and the latter ceasing hostilities with Finland, coupled with the quiet “Phony War” between Britain/France and Germany, things were expected to calm down.
Well, you know what happened next.
WAR!
On 9 April 1940, the Germans rolled into Denmark without a declaration of war, ostensibly a peaceful occupation to keep the British from invading. The German invasion, launched at 0400 that morning, was a walkover of sorts and by 0800 the word had come down from Copenhagen to the units in the field to stand down and just let it happen. Of course, the Danes would stand up a serious resistance organization later in the occupation, as well as field viable “Free Danish” forces operating from Britain, but for the time being, the country was a German puppet state.
Ambassador Kauffmann, however, decided to cancel Danmark’s return home and kept the ship in Florida.
Anchored off the Coast Guard station in Jacksonville, Danmark became a ship without a country. The Danish Embassy in Washington arranged for a monthly stipend of $10 for the crew, but Danmark had no other support. On the morning of April 10, Capt. Knud Hansen was greeted on the pier by a group of Jacksonville citizens and two large trucks. They brought 17 tons of food and supplies. Hansen did not turn them away, although there was no space on board for all of it. Each morning thereafter, women brought cookies, pies, and men brought tobacco and other items. Even an anonymous shipment of summer uniforms arrived, much to the crew’s delight.
The Danmark had become a foreign vessel lying idle in American waters. It had remained in Jacksonville from early April 1940 until late 1941, or nearly 20 months. Many of the ship’s Danish cadets decided to transfer to the Merchant Marine and 14 of them would die serving Allied forces. Ten of Danmark’s original crew remained aboard, including Hansen and First Mate Knud Langevad.
With a long history of using tall ships to train new sailors, VADM Russell Waesche, Commandant of the Coast Guard, visited occupied Denmark in the summer of 1940 and began talks with the Danes to purchase the vessel as a training ship. The negotiations dragged on throughout the next year, with the U.S. government offering about half what the ship was worth, and the White House balking at even that amount.
Then, the morning after Pearl Harbor, with the U.S. firmly in the fight and no longer “The Great Neutral,” Hansen fired off a telegram to Waesche’s office.
In view of the latest days’ developments, the cadets, officers, and captain of the Danish Government Training Vessel Danmark unanimously place themselves and the ship at the disposal of the United States government, to serve in any capacity the United States government sees fit in our joint fight for victory and liberty.
With the offer accepted, she was rented for $1 per year, paid via silver coin to the Danish Embassy, then was escorted to the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, still with her crew under control, and commissioned on 12 May 1942– 80 years ago this week– as USCGC Danmark (WIX-283). Her remaining professional crew would be in USCG service for the duration, accepting ranks in the USCGR.
In a nod to her “rented” status, she flew the Dannebrog and U.S. ensigns simultaneously.
The Red White and Blue on her mast
Under sail while in USCG service, with a U.S. ensign flapping above her mast. Note the bluejackets in cracker jacks on deck. Photo by Kevin Bechen. Via the M/S Museet for Sofart. 2017:0214
Danmark in USCG service, USCG photo
Danmark in U.S. Port WWII. Note her Neptune figurehead. Photo by Kevin Bechen. Via the M/S Museet for Sofart. 2017:0209
From the USCG H’s O:
Each month, new Coast Guard cadets embarked Danmark for training. The Danish officers had many challenges before them–everything that a Danish cadet learned in six years, plus what he learned to qualify as a Danish navy officer, had to be taught the American cadets in four months. No American officers served aboard and, to avoid attack by U-boats, the tall ship never sailed beyond Martha’s Vineyard or the southern tip of Manhattan.
Dubbed the “Dirty D,” cadets scrubbed the Danmark at least three times a day with rainy days devoted to cleaning out lifeboats and sanding oars. The wheelhouse was varnished frequently. It was lights out at midnight when the ship’s generator shut off. If the last liberty boat returned late to the Danmark, the cadets had to undress, sling out hammocks and climb into the hammocks in total darkness.
USCG Furling Sail, 4.11.1942 Ellis Island. Danmark possibly 026-g-056-040-001
Cadets in Rigging, 3.24.1943 Coast Guard likely Danmark 026-g-001-036-001
Going Aloft, 4.15.1942 Coast Guard likely Danmark 026-g-056-041-001
CG Cadets on DANMARK
An immigrant of sorts helping her adopted country, appropriately enough, she often called at Ellis Island.
During the war, the station was a USCG training base, schooling new Coasties who would go on to man Navy ships around the globe.
From 1939 to 1946, the United States Coast Guard occupied Ellis Island and established a training station that served 60,000 enlisted men and 3,000 officers. They utilized many buildings on the island. For example, the Baggage and Dormitory Building served as a drill room, armory, boatsman storeroom, carpenter’s shop, and machine shop. The Kitchen and Laundry Building was utilized as a kitchen and bakeshop. Lastly, the New Immigration Building provided dormitories for the men. After their time at Ellis, the enlisted men and officers were largely responsible for manning transports, destroyer escorts, cutters, and submarine chasers during World War II.
In all, over 5,000 Americans were trained directly on Danmark during the war, including 2,800 who would go on to receive their butter bars in assorted U.S. maritime services.
A delegation of Danish naval cadets from the ship would carry Denmark’s flag during the NYC United Nations victory parade in May 1945.
Danish Cadets from the training ship Danmark march VE Parade NYC May 1945 FHM-205108
Finally, with the world at peace again, on the birthday of Danish King Christian X, 26 September 1945, the Stars and Stripes were hauled down and the Dannebrog shifted to the top again.
U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Danmark (WIX-283) USCGC Danmark in September 1945 just before her return to the Danes
On 13 November, Danmark finally headed home again.
Besides the Danmark, over 5,000 Danish merchant sailors manned over 800,000 tons of shipping for the Allies, many never to be seen again.
Epilogue
Since returning home, Danmark has continued her service over the past 75 years.
Post-war, probably 1946 during her Pacific cruise, looks like the Marin highlands in the distance under the Golden Gate (thanks Alex! & Steve) Note she has a U.S. flag on top and is trailing her Dannebrog. Photo by Kevin Bechen. Via the M/S Museet for Sofart. 2017:0216
Photograph from 1947 by Kronborg, photographed from the north, with the school ship Danmark and Georg Stage. The photo was taken in connection with the saga film “The White Sail.” Donated by Carl-Johan Nienstædt. Via the M/S Museet for Sofart. 2016:0050
1947 linjedåb Line Crossing ceremony on Danmark
Ivar’s with Danmark Sailing Vessel via SPHS 1946 Seattle
School ship Danmark is at sway and a scheduled boat is passed from Centrumlinjen M / S SUNDPILEN. By Karl Johan Gustav Jensen. M/S Museet for Sofart. 2003:0119
Kiel Tall Ships event: Segelschulschiff DAR POMORZA (poln.), davor Segelschulschiff EAGLE (amerik.). Jenseits der Brücke mit Lichterkette über die Toppen Segelschulschiff GLORIA (kolumbian.), davor im Dunklen Segelschulschiff DANMARK (dän.), ganz vorn Segelschulschiff GORCH FOCK.
HMS Eagle (R05) passes a sailing ship Danmark in Plymouth Sound, 1970
Danish Air Force SAAB RF-35 Draken overflies the schoolship Danmark, summer 1991. The aircraft “Lisbon 725” (named after the Royal Danish Air Force’s ESK 725 radio callsign), had been painted in that stunning color without official permission to celebrate the unit’s 40th anniversary. Command allowed ESK 725 to retain the livery, with some code and national insignia modification, for the rest of the year as the unit was retiring its Drakens anyway and would be disbanded in December 1992.
Danmark is, naturally, remembered in maritime art.
“Coast Guard’s Seagoing School, 9.29.1943 Danmark” by Hunter Wood 026-g-022-040-001
Painting by James E. Mitchell, showing the ship during the Bicentennial “The Tall Ships Race” on the Hudson River on July 4, 1976.
She still carries the same Neptune figurehead.
Danmark’s Neptune figurehead, July 2017. By Per Paulsen. M/S Museet for Sofart. 2017:0283
As well as a marker celebrating her service abroad with the USCG.
Memorial plaque with thanks from U.S. Coast Guard January 1942- September 1946, July 2017. By Per Paulsen. M/S Museet for Sofart.
She has returned to her home-away-from-home numerous times, a regular fixture in New York, Boston, Baltimore, and New London over the decades.
The barque USCGC Eagle (ex-SSS Horst Wessel) was in service with the USCG in 1954, sailing along Danmark off the East Coast.
Skoleskibet DANMARK under bugsering i New York Havn, 1974.
Today, as part of Besøg MARTEC, the Danish Maritime and Polytechnic University College in Frederikshavn, Danmarkis still busy.
She just completed her regular 5-year inspection and certification and looks great for having 90 years on her hull.
Skoleskibet Danmark drydock May 2022
Every summer she takes aboard 80 new cadets along with a 16-strong cadre of professional crew and instructors, and they head out, covering subjects both new and old in the familiar ways that WWII Coasties would recognize.
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