Tag Archives: Operation Island Breeze

Coast Guard Mobile Afloat Bases, a historical perspective

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Last week’s post about the USCGC Waesche (WMSL 751) serving as a Forward Afloat Staging Base off Alaska during NORTHCOM’s Exercise Arctic Edge 2025 reminded me of the service’s long-standing tradition of such operations.

It actually predates the Coast Guard itself.

City Point (1895-1913)

Due to the shifting waters near the falls of the Ohio River, the Louisville Lifeboat Station (Lifesaving Station No. 10), put into service in 1881, was afloat.

The Louisville Lifeboat Station

Successful, its 1902 replacement was of the same pattern as was its 1929 steel-hulled successor, and remained in USCG service in 1972. Today, it is preserved as the only surviving floating lifesaving station of the United States Life-Saving Service.

This sets the stage for the more blue water City Point Station.

The original USLSS City Point Station, circa 1896-1913, Nathaniel L. Stebbins photographic collection PC047.02.4110.16294

Dialing it back to 1895 (the USCG was formed in 1916), a U.S. Lifesaving Service station was originally described as a “floating station in Dorchester Bay, Boston Harbor,” was authorized as the region had suffered the loss of forty lives on the water, usually in the summer months, from 1890 to 1894. Congressman Michael J. McEttrick introduced a bill in Congress, which was finally passed, and the station was secured, and it was dubbed the “City Point Station.” 

From the USLSS 1895 Annual Report:

And duly installed, as noted from the service’s 1896 report:

The anchored wooden-hulled station, approximately 100 feet long and 33 feet abeam, was home to a 10-man crew and housed a pair of naphtha-powered launches, a dighny, and a heavy surfboat.

Equipped with a generator, they had electric wiring and a large searchlight and signal lights up top.

An innovative feature was an early well deck or “harbor room” in the stern.

As further detailed by The Toomey-Rankin History of South Boston, circa 1901:

An appropriation of $7,000 was made for the construction of the station itself, and in a short time the strange craft was growing under the hands of workmen at Palmer’s shipyard at Noank, Conn., and for 50 days the work progressed, at the end of which time the station was completed, and towed from Noank, Conn., to Boston, and on its arrival Sunday, August 3, 1896, was moored to Loring’s wharf to await fitting out.

It is needless to say that the station, being an innovation, attracted much attention. Visitors saw it as it is today, except for the doors, which were afterward cut on each side of the harbor room. Its form is that of a huge flat iron, the forward end, or bow, coming to a point, while the rear or stern is cut off short. It is 100 feet long,33 feet beam, 6 feet deep, and draws about two feet of water, and is a double-deck affair, the upper deck being about 15 feet above the waterline.

The feature of the station is the harbor at the stern, or what might be called the main entrance to the station. This harbor in which the two naphtha launches of the station are kept, is formed by having an opening 30 feet long and 17 feet wide, cut from the stern directly into the center of the station, leaving on three sides about eight feet of deck room, while the entire harbor is sheltered by the upper deck, which extends to the end of the station.

From the harbor, or launch room, a hallway extends the entire length of the station, off of which are several rooms; on the left is the kitchen, dining room and the crew’s quarters, and on the right the captain’s office, his bed room and the store room, the space at the bow being devoted to the windlass and anchors with which the station is held in position.

Leading from this hallway on the right is a small flight of stairs to the upper deck, and in addition to this are the two other flights, leading from the harbor room, one on the port and one on the starboard side. The upper deck is completely clear with the exception of a lookout, which sets about 30 feet from the bow in the center of the deck, with a flight of steps leading to it. It is surrounded by a railing and is connected with the launch room and the captain’s room by speaking tubes.

Rising from the deck is a flagpole, upon which the national emblem is displayed during the day and a lantern at night. At the stern, on huge davits, hangs the heavy surf boat, in a position to be lowered at an instant’s notice. Davits on the port and starboard sides hold smaller boats. In the harbor are the launches, one of which is 28 feet, with a speed of ten knots, and the other 25 feet in length, with a speed of eight knots.

Towed into position each April/May and then towed back to its winter berth near Chelsea Bridge in October/November, the station was manned by the same crew for the duration of the summer with no relief. The 10 men consisted of a station captain and nine surfmen (one of whom was also paid as a cook), with three of the latter on duty round the clock.

Completed too late to get much practical use in 1896, its first full season deployed was in 1897, where its crew helped 115 small craft in distress and rescued 23 persons, who were taken back to the station for care.

1898 saw 19 persons rescued, 129 persons rendered assistance, and 58 boats saved.

The year 1899 set a new record of 33 persons saved and 183 assisted while coming to the rescue of 97 boats, the latter valued at $63,285, or nine times the initial outlay to build the station.

From a period Roland Libbey article on City Point in the Boston Globe

From a period Roland Libbey article on City Point in the Boston Globe

City Point had its naphtha-powered launches replaced by steam launches in 1900 and was extensively rebuilt in 1913 “to replace a structure that is old and unsuited to present-day needs.”

She would be joined by other bases in the 1920s.

A half dozen floating bases during Prohibition

Speaking of which…

In 1924, with the “Rum War” afoot and the now USCG with a serious need to push assets further offshore to intercept bootleggers speeding out to usually British or Canadian-flagged “blacks” (so named as they ran at night sans flags or lights) anchored just off the three-mile limit on “Rum Row,” the service acquired five new floating bases– Argus, Colfax, Moccasin, Pickering, and Wayanda.

Four of these new bases (Argus, Colfax, Pickering, and Wayanda) were concrete boats originally commissioned for the Army Quartermaster Service for troop and supply transport between Army bases along the coast. The Army had built 16 such flat-bottomed vessels, powered by twin gasoline (!) engines, then quickly disposed of them.

The Army QM Corps concrete riverboats, Colonel J. E. Sawyer and Major Archibald Butt, at a dock in New Bern, North Carolina, in 1920. 

The other two, the reconstructed City Point and the new Moccasin, had wooden hulls. All but City Point had propulsion plants.

U.S. Coast Guard, City Point station, Boston, by Leslie Jones, Boston Globe

U.S. Coast Guard, City Point station, Boston, circa 1916-1939 by Leslie Jones, Boston Globe

U.S. Coast Guard, City Point station, Boston, by Leslie Jones, Boston Globe

U.S. Coast Guard, City Point station, Boston, by Leslie Jones, Boston Globe

All had extensive cabin structures topside and served as moored motherships for the service’s 36 and 38-foot picket boats, much closer to Rum Row than the coastal bases.

The 38-foot cabin picket boat. USCG Photo

The Boston-based City Point of the era was a wooden-hulled floating platform that was rebuilt in 1913 at Greenport, New York, and was 109′ 6″ by 33′ by 3′ 6″.

Colfax was the former Army QM vessel General Rufus Ingalls and was 150 feet long, 28 feet wide, and 13 feet deep.

Argus was originally the concrete-hulled Army QM vessel Major E. Pickett. Her dimensions were: 128′ 5″ x 28′ x 12′. Commissioned as Argus on 1 December 1924 at Rockaway Inlet, New York, and was moved to New London, Connecticut, in May of 1925, she was the flagship of the Coast Guard Destroyer Force.

Pickering was the former Army QM Brigadier General O. A. Allison, and was a concrete boat built to the same plan as Major E. Pickett/Argus in 1921 for the War Department. After her acquisition by the Coast Guard, she was stationed at Atlantic City, New Jersey, as of October 1924.

Wayanda was the former Army vessel Colonel William H. Baldwin, a 128-foot ‘crete boat like Pickering and Argus. She was purchased on 21 October 1924 from the John W. Sullivan Company in New York.  She was stationed at Greenport, New York, as of 26 November 1924.

Moccasin was the former wooden-hulled Liberator, 102′ 6″ by 47’9″ by 10′, that was built in 1921 at Lybeck, Florida.  She was purchased from Gibbs Gas Engineering Company on August 20, 1924, and commissioned on November 17, 1924. She served in Miami, Florida.

With Prohibition winding down, the Coast Guard started ridding itself of these floating bases by the late 1920s, and only the concrete Baldwin/Wayanda and the wooden-hulled City Point II outlived the Volstead Act.

Wayanda was last listed in Coast Guard records in 1934, while the second City Point only disappeared from the list of USCG stations after the 1939 season.

In the meantime, the cutter Yocana served as a mothership to clusters of picket boats during the 1937 floods on the Mississippi.

A dozen Coast Guard picket boats muster beside the former CGC Yocona on the Mississippi River during the Great Ohio, Mississippi River Valley Flood of 1937. U.S. Coast Guard photo. Yocona was a 182-foot Kankakee-class stern paddle wheelers built for the Coast Guard in 1919 and stationed at Vicksburg. Click to big up

Other examples

Of course, the service’s large blue water cutters have filled the role of offshore mothership several times since then, with its CGRON3 in Vietnam clocking in to feed, bunk, and refuel both USCG 83-foot patrol boats and Navy Brown water assets such as PBRs and PCFs, as well as the sustained offshore surveillance of Grenada in 1983-84 (Operation Island Breeze).

Point class refueling from USCGC Dallas in Vietnam 2

More recent mothership ops have been seen with the long-distance deployment of FRCs to the Persian Gulf in 2022 and in response to 2017’s Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.

FFH Group & Surveillance Force Grenada, 1983-84

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As a wrap of our coverage of the 40th anniversary of the 1983 invasion of Grenada, we take a look at the unique surface action group that arrived to assist in the peacekeeping phase of the operation, which ran roughly through November and December when the last U.S. combat troops were withdrawn– that of hydrofoils operating with a frigate mothership.

Mid-November 1983 found the newly commissioned Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate USS Aubrey Fitch (FFG-34), along with the two equally new Pegasus-class hydrofoil patrol boats, USS Aquila (PHM-4) and Taurus (PHM-3) in Guantanamo Bay “for the purpose of testing the feasibility of operating those types of ships in the same task organization.”

As noted by Fitch’s DANFS entry, she assumed tactical control of the hydrofoils and jetted over to Grenada:

Demands incident to the continuing American presence in Grenada, however, overtook the experiment and sent Aubrey Fitch and her two consorts south to the tiny republic. Duty in the waters adjacent to Grenada lasted until mid-December when the warship returned to Mayport.

All three were eligible for the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for Urgent Fury.

Aquila and Taurus would return to their homeport at Key West on 16 December and spend the rest of their career in unsung law enforcement support work in the Caribbean and off Central America, being decommissioned as a class in 1993 with their sisters and disposed of in 1996.

Fitch lasted a little longer. Decommissioned on 12 December 1997, the frigate was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 31 May 1999 and sold for scrap shortly after.

Sadly, there are no photos I can find of Fitch and her two ‘foils operating together in Cuba-Grenada Oct-Dec 1983, which is tragic, but drink in these were taken of the ships separately early in their careers.

USS AUBREY FITCH (FFG 34) underway 1982 Bath trials DN-SC-85-04417

USS AUBREY FITCH (FFG 34) underway 1982 Bath trials DN-SC-85-04399

USS AUBREY FITCH (FFG 34) underway 1982 Bath trials DN-SC-85-04401

hydrofoils USS AQUILA (PHM 4), front, and USS GEMINI (PHM 6), center, lie tied up in port with a third PHM. The Coast Guard surface effect ship (SES) cutter USCGC SHEARWATER (WSES 3) is in the background. NARA photo

Hydrofoil patrol combatant missile ship USS TAURUS (PHM 3) race by. Navy hydrofoils are regularly used on Joint Task Force 4 drug interdiction missions.

DN-ST-90-09381 The patrol combatant missile hydrofoils USS HERCULES (PHM 2) and USS TAURUS (PHM 3) maneuver off of Key West, Florida.

Seattle pegasus class hydrofoil USS Taurus (PHM-3) during her acceptance trials

USS Hercules (PHM-2) and Taurus (PHM-3) 1983

Cue USCG

As for what happened from a maritime perspective after Fitch and her PHMs returned home, the answer is that the Coast Guard took over the task of policing Grenada’s waters for the next year, and it should be pointed out that two HC-130s and the 378-foot Hamilton-class cutter USCGC Chase (WHEC 718), which was deployed from 23 Oct – 21 Nov 1983, served during the shooting-part of Urgent Fury, earning the deploying units the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for their service.

The follow-on Operation Island Breeze USCG Grenada Getaway response was a WWII-era 180-foot Balsam (Iris) class buoy tender that served as the mothership for three rotating 95-foot cutters drawn from the Florida-based Seventh Coast Guard District, allowing the small boat crews to get some showers and better food as well as mechanical support from the tender’s extensive onboard workshop.

On 8 December 1983, the Cape-class patrol cutters Cape Gull (WPB-95304), Cape Fox (WPB-95316), Cape Shoalwater (WPB 95324), and the tender Sagebrush (WLB-399) arrived off of the island of Grenada to replace U.S. Navy surface forces conducting surveillance operations after the U.S. invasion of the island earlier that year.

Commissioned on 1 April 1944, Sagebrush spent most of her service life home-ported in San Juan, Puerto Rico, earning four USCG Unit Commendations before she was decommissioned on 26 April 1988.

USCGC Cape Fox (WPB 95316) celebrating Christmas 1983 off Grenada 1983.

Note the two mounted M2 .50 cals, rare for Capes in the 1980s, as well as the Christmas tree on deck.

The Capes used three crews, Green, Blue, and Red, rotating out every 30 days, and used backpack HF radio sets borrowed from the Army to communicate with the forces ashore. Support shoreside for the roughly 100-man force came from two 20-foot containers in port converted into shops.

For air support, they had HC-130Hs out of Clearwater fly over occasionally, taking off and recovering at CGAS Borinquen, as well as a weekly logistics run.

They would remain on station until 3 February 1984 when replaced by a similar group, a task that would run through the end of the year.

The WPB/WLB force was rotated out roughly every three months in 1984 and saw the buoy tender USCGC Mesquite (WLB 305), her sister USCGC Gentian (WLB 290), and the 140-foot icebreaker (!) Mobile Bay (WTGB 103) which sailed from Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. Meanwhile, the number of WPBs was cut from three to two. 

The sum, as detailed by ADM James S. Gracey, USCG:

After a few days, the Navy figured out that patrolling around the island to keep people from coming on or going off, additional people coming on or other people from escaping, wasn’t working very well with Navy PCs or whatever they were using, whereas our smaller patrol boats would do the job very well. So we took over. We were there long after everybody else had gone home doing this operation and other things that the Coast Guard always does when we are someplace. That was Grenada.

A lasting legacy of the USCG in Grenada was the reformation of the Grenadian Coast Guard, an organization that endures today, with a little help from its northern neighbor.

Grenada at 40: The Eastern Caribbean Peace Force

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The green light to intervention in Grenada, besides the fact that 50 American diplomats and 600 American medical students were caught in the crossfire of the country’s latest military coup, was that the acting head of the eight-member OECS, Prime Minister Eugenia Charles of Dominica, asked the U.S. to intervene in Grenada. Her request was made on behalf of seven members—Dominica, Montserrat, St. Lucia, St. Kitts-Nevis, St. Vincent, the Grenadines, and the twin-island nation of Antigua and Barbuda. This request was endorsed by Commonwealth member Grenada’s figurehead governor-general, Paul Scoon, who represented the queen on the island but was under house arrest at the time and had no voice in the Marxist government.

While a mixed task group of Delta-augmented Rangers, SEAL-augmented Marines, and a brigade of the 82nd Airborne did the ground fighting from 25-29 October, a smaller light battalion-sized follow-on force drawn from the OECS, dubbed the Eastern Caribbean Peace Force, arrived to provide a constabualry force on Grenada for the next 23 months.

Prime Minister Seaga promised a reinforced infantry company from Jamaica and Prime Minister Adams a reinforced infantry platoon from Barbados. At the same time, the other prime ministers–Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and St. Kitts and Nevis– contributed detachments from their police forces. Antigua and Barbuda later chipped in an infantry squad.

Until that time, the forces had never worked together although they did share a mix of Commonwealth (British) kit including some WWII-vintage helmets, Pattern 58 web gear, and inch-pattern FN FAL L1A1 variants– which at least used 7.62 NATO, the latter about the only thing the Americans could support.

Consisting of 353 troops from allied Caribbean nations, the force was under the command of Colonel Rudyard Lewis, who began his military career in 1951 when he enlisted as a cadet in the old Barbados Regiment and, after graduating from Sandhurst in 1962 and 15 years of service with the Jamaica Defence Force, became Chief of Staff of the Barbados Defence Force in 1980.

The U.S. accepted transport and supply ownership of the ECPF from the get-go, with the USAF flying the contingents to the island via C-130s and the Navy covering their immediate logistics needs (such as food, helmets, flak vests, boots, and some field radios), a task that later fell to the Army.

Eastern Caribbean Defense Force members arrive in Grenada. Note the British WWII-era Mk III/IV “turtle” helmet on the Barbados trooper in the front of the column, wearing green fatigues, the garrison belts and red-striped trousers of the assorted constables complete with Pattern 58 webbing, and the general armament consisting of the L1A1. NARA df-st-84-09830

Barbados troops with their distinctive OD fatigues and berets. Note the blue brassards on their uniforms, marking them as members of the “police” oriented ECPF. At some point shortly after arrival, the force was given American M1 steel pot helmets and Jungle boots from USMC stocks, which the trooper in the foreground can be seen wearing. Note the DPM-clad Jamaicans in the center background. NARA dn-sn-85-02056

While it was envisioned that the Carribean peacekeepers would, at the most, guard arrested Cuban nationals/surrendered Grenadian POWs until they were repatriated or paroled– a task they took over from 2nd Battalion, 75th Rangers on the afternoon of 24 October just after they landed– they were also used in a limited role in supporting JTF 123’s stalled attack on St. George’s on 25 October.

Cubans are guarded by a member of the Eastern Caribbean Defense Force as they sit in a holding area waiting for their removal from the island during Operation URGENT FURY. Judging from the web gear and uniform, this appears to be a member of the Barbados detachment and the date is sometime between 24-28 October. NARA df-st-84-09823

Members of the Eastern Caribbean Defense Force board a US Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter at Point Salines Airfield during the multiservice, multinational Operation URGENT FURY. Note the American jungle boots, L1A1s, and assorted green utilities and black berets– marking these troops as members of the Barbados detachment. NARA DF-SN-84-10813

Barbados members of the Eastern Caribbean Defense Force participating in Operation URGENT FURY. Note the M1 steel pots, Pattern 58 gear, and L1A1s, NARA DN-SN-85-02035

DPM-clad Jamaican Defense Force Members of the Eastern Caribbean Defense Force board a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter during Operation URGENT FURY. Note the newly supplied American jungle boots and M1 helmets, complete with EDRL covers, likely drawn right from USMC stocks. NARA DF-ST-84-09935

A Barbados member of the Eastern Caribbean Defense Force participating in Operation URGENT FURY. He is armed with a 7.62 mm L1A1 and sports several new additions to his kit including an M69 flak vest, a pair of Zeiss Hensoldt military binos, and some jungle boots. His pants, rather than the fatigues they arrived in, seem to be Navy dungarees. NARA DN-SN-84-12051

Barbados Caribbean Peacekeeping Force members with their L1A1s, fatigues, and black berets, next to some JDF members in DPM. At first the American concern on the ground was the similarity the BDF uniforms had to Cuban regulars and they soon added lots of Marine kit to their wardrobe. NARA DN-SN-85-02057

The CMH’s history of the subject, The Rucksack War, notes, “The American officers who worked with the Caribbean Peacekeeping Force generally gave high marks to the soldiers from Jamaica and Barbados.”

The 2nd Ranger’s S-4 shop, led by Capt. Jose G. Ventura, also found the Jamaican and Barbadan troops to have a particular skill set.

From The Rucksack War:

Captain Ventura’s first thought after relinquishing the detainees was to obtain a share of the captured vehicles for the 2d Battalion. Some of the members of the Caribbean Peacekeeping Force, he noted, were quite adept at jump-starting trucks. One of them helped him start a number of vehicles that he wanted—two water trucks full of potable water and a big Soviet dump truck that could be used for hauling supplies.

By the 27th, the Barbados platoon of the ECPF was detailed to protect the residence of Governor General Sir Paul Scoon, who was the de facto government on the island at the time.

By the late afternoon of the 28th, the peacekeepers handed over the POW compound to the recently flown-in 118th Military Police Company of the XVIII Airborne Corps and switched to general policing and internal security roles. After that, the ECPF would report to Scoon directly.

Members of the Eastern Caribbean Defense Force in front of the police building during Operation URGENT FURY. Note the lightly equipped Jamaican Defense Force members in the center, clad in British DPM pattern uniforms, while four Barbados detachment members are to the left, including one on a radiotelephone. Note the different beret colors (green for the JDF, black for the BDF) and shared blue brassards. 

When the last U.S. combat unit on Grenada– 2d Battalion, 505th Infantry– left the island on 12 December– B. Gen. Jeffrey M. Farris (Citadel ’59) turned over command of the Urgent Fury operation (then renamed Operation Island Breeze) to the ECPF. 

Together with a 250-man group of XVIII Corps technical advisers and some British police trainers, they would rebuild the Royal Grenadian Police Force and stand guard during the 1984 presidential election on the island.

The mission completed, the last 60 soldiers from the XVIII Airborne Corps departed Grenada on 11 June 1985 and the final members of the ECPF left at the end of that September.

Brigadier Rudyard Lewis, GCM, CVO, ED, JP, received the Gold Crown of Merit from Barbados in 1983. In March 1989 he was honoured by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, being made Commander of the Victorian Order. He retired in 1999, capping 48 years in service.

The ECPF led to the creation of the Barbados-based Regional Security System, with most of the same member nations. They just observed the group’s 40th anniversary, and conduct a yearly Unity Exercise (UNEX) in addition to frequently activating the system’s Response Mechanism “to assist and support our Member States in the event of any occurrence of damage or threat to life,” usually in mutual humanitarian and constabulary support after hurricanes and tropical storms. They also share research, intelligence, advisory, technical, and administrative support among the member states.