Rare Back Bay Dolphin
The Harrison County (Mississippi) Library System’s Local History and Genealogy Department recently posted this great snapshot from the Joe Scholtes Collection, showing the old U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Biloxi.
Formed in 1934, USCGAS Biloxi was built on the City’s 18-acre Point Cadet Park, which was (and still is) located on Biloxi’s eastern edge with direct access to Biloxi’s Back Bay. Soon, Public Works Administration funds of some $290,000 went towards a 120×100 ft. (12,000 square foot) steel-framed, asbestos-sided hangar with offices and maintenance shops along each side, a seaplane ramp, a radio station (“NOX”), E-shaped barracks, mess hall, garage, and crash boat dock which was completed in 1938. The peacetime complement, to support three aircraft, was about 10 officers and 35 enlisted.
By early 1935, even while the barracks and facility were still being built, the station’s first amphibian aircraft, two Grumman JF-2 Ducks (#163 and #164) and a single Douglas RD-4 Dolphin (#132) had arrived and were in operation. While JF-2s were fairly common, with hundreds operated by the Navy, the USCG had only acquired 14 of them prior to the war. Likewise, the RD-4 was even rarer, with just 58 Dolphins built, and just 10 of those acquired by the Coast Guard.
Coast Guard Douglas RD-4 “Alloth” (V132) taxiing off the Coast Guard Air Station Biloxi, Mississippi. USCG photo
The example shown in the above image of Point Cadet, #132, was named “Alloth” by the Coast Guard and soon transferred (as V127) to Hartford, Connecticut in 1939, dating both of the above images as between 1935-39.
The above image is from 1941. In the far back of the hangar pictured above is a twin-engine PH-2 Hall Aluminum Flying Boat, either V-166 or V-170. Next to it is the single-engine JF-2 Grumman Amphibian V-143. A brand new twin-engine JFR-2 Grumman Amphibian, V-184, pokes its nose into the sunshine.
Biloxi Coast Guard Air Station would become the Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum. The structure was destroyed in Katrina
A stylized 1940s postcard made from composite photographs showing two J2F Ducks, three airborne J4F-1 Widgeons, and an RD-4 Dolphin at USCG Air Sta Biloxi at Point Cadet. After 1966, the old hangar was used by the city for concerts and festivals until it was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina
By WWII, Biloxi was squarely in the war, with six USCG-operated Vought-Sikorsky OS2U-3 Kingfisher floatplanes joined by another half dozen Curtiss SO3C-3 Seamew floatplanes which would be very active in ASW work against German U-boats operating in the Gulf and SAR. They would work in pairs with the radar-equipped Seamew acting as the hunter while a Kingfisher, armed with two 325-pound bombs, would be the killer.
In all, from 1942 into 1943, no less than 24 German U-boats patrolled the Gulf of Mexico– the American Sea– sinking 56 Allied vessels of which 39 are in the coastal waters of Florida, Louisiana, and Texas.
By the end of the conflict, the Kingfishers and Seamews had been replaced by longer-ranged J4F-1s, JRFs, and PBY-5As and the base grew to over 300 personnel. U-166, the only German submarine lost in the Gulf, was unsuccessfully attacked by a USCG J4F-1 Widgeon amphibian (#V212) out of Biloxi
Post-war atrophy and shifting needs of the service saw the closure of the base in 1947, with the PBY operations shifting to nearby Keesler AFB, and the old airplane hanger and barracks which would be used by elements of the Mississippi Army National Guard, later become International Plaza then Point Cadet Plaza.
Meanwhile, the Keeseler Coast Guard seaplane detachment was disbanded in 1966, and replaced by helicopter facilities in New Orleans and Mobile.
Point Cadet returned to the City and the hangar was used for events and festivals while the old barracks housed the Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum (MSIM) which was established in 1986. This persisted until Hurricane Katrina in 2005 when both were swept into Back Bay via a 30-foot storm surge.
Since then, Point Cadet has been rebuilt to include a new MSIM and a multi-use outdoor recreational facility– but the old stepped seawall, which used to support the seaplane ramp, is still there.
Plus, the MSIM has the old bell tower from the circa 1930s USCG barracks as well as images and relics from the base on display.
