CUTTER TAMPA

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard Historian's Office

A few of the crew. Benjamin Nash Daniels, center with hat, was one of 130 fatalities aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Tampa. 

It sank in three minutes, accounting for the deadliest single U.S. naval loss of World War One.

On Sept. 26, 1918, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Tampa was sailing alone through Bristol Channel off Wales after escorting its 19th convoy of the war when disaster struck.

Tampa was bound for the Welsh port of Milford Haven to load up on coal when a torpedo fired by German submarine UB-91 exploded amidships. The 16-year-old cutter foundered in just 180 seconds with the loss of all 130 souls, including 111 Coast Guardsmen. 

According to the submarine's log, UB-91 sighted Tampa, dove and maneuvered into an attack position, firing a single torpedo out of its stern tube at 8:15 p.m. local time, Wikipedia said.  

A radio operator aboard the convoy's flagship reported  "the shock of an underwater explosion," alerting other vessels to the sinking.

UB-91, which was also credited with sinking three merchant vessels, was surrendered to the British about two weeks after the Armistice in November 1918. UB-91 had been launched just months earlier.

Before the war, Tampa - formerly known as Revenue Cutter Miami - was been assigned to the International Ice Patrol, which tracked ice flows in the North Atlantic in the aftermath of the 1912 Titanic disaster. 


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COMDTNOTE 5700
SUBJ: 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LOSS OF USS TAMPA

1. September 26, 2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the loss of USS TAMPA during World War I. TAMPA was one of six Coast Guard cutters serving overseas on convoy duty during the war. Also serving were the cutters SENECA, OSSIPEE, ALCONQUIN, MANNING and YAMACRAW. During TAMPA’s service in a foreign combat zone, she successfully escorted 18 convoys between Gibraltar and Great Britain all under the command of CAPT Charles Satterlee.

2. On that fateful day 100 years ago, after escorting her 19th convoy safely from Gibraltar to Great Britain, TAMPA, low on coal, detached and proceeded independently to Milford Haven, Wales. At 8:15 p.m. local time, the Imperial German Navy submarine UB-91 sighted TAMPA and fired a single torpedo that hit and destroyed the cutter. TAMPA went down with all hands in less than three minutes. 

3. Committed to the depths of the ocean were one hundred and thirty souls, including one hundred and eleven Coast Guardsmen, four U.S. Navy sailors who were part of TAMPA’s crew, 10 Royal Navy personnel and five British Admiralty dockworkers who were aboard as passengers. 

4. Those lost aboard TAMPA were not the only Coast Guardsmen. Eleven Coast Guardsmen from USS SENECA perished while attempting to save a torpedoed British tanker off the coast of France. Eleven others died while on duty at sea or ashore and 59 more perished due to disease. Those Coast Guardsmen, and their Navy shipmates, many serving so far from home, gave all that they had to give to their country. 

5. The Coast Guard will honor TAMPA and her loss at a commemorative memorial ceremony held at Coast Guard Headquarters on September 26, 2018. During this solemn occasion and on this special day, we ask that you remember those who have given the ultimate sacrifice, thereby keeping us safe and helping to preserve our liberty. 

6. For more information on TAMPA and the Coast Guard’s role during World War I, please visit the Historian’s Office website at:
https://www.history.uscg.mil/Commemorations/World-War-I/. 

7. RDML Melissa Bert, USCG, Director of Governmental and Public Affairs, sends.

8. Internet release authorized.


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SUBJ:  USS TAMPA PURPLE HEART MEDAL CAMPAIGN

1. The U.S. Coast Guard needs your help with locating and contacting descendants of the USS TAMPA, which was tragically sunk during World War I with all hands lost. The Service has yet to present 84 of the outstanding Purple Heart Medals awarded posthumously to the crew. We intend to recognize as many of the descendants as possible this Memorial Day. We need your help to do this.

2. Background:
   A. USS TAMPA, a Coast Guard ship and crew serving under the Department of the Navy, was lost with all hands after being torpedoed by a German U-boat off Wales on 26 September 1918. This tragic loss occurred just weeks before the end of World War I. It was the single largest loss suffered by the Coast Guard during that conflict.
   B. At the time of TAMPA’s loss, the Purple Heart Medal was not in use. In 1942, eligibility was extended to include the Coast Guard, but it was not until 1952 that the awarding of the Purple Heart Medal was made retroactive for actions after 5 April 1917.
However, TAMPA was overlooked until 1999, when a retired Coast Guardsman submitted a proposal to award the Purple Heart to her crew.
   C. In 1999, then-Commandant Admiral James Loy authorized the posthumous awarding of the Purple Heart Medal to the crew of USS TAMPA. Today, over one hundred years after TAMPA was lost and twenty years after the first TAMPA Purple Heart was awarded, the Coast Guard is still attempting to identify those families who have yet to receive their ancestors’ Purple Heart.

3. The purpose of this ALCOAST is to raise awareness of the Purple Heart award program and to continue to identify those families who have yet to receive their ancestors’ medals. You can help.

4. Summary of USS TAMPA Purple Heart Medals awarded:
   A. There were 130 men on TAMPA, including 111 Coast Guardsmen and 4 Navy men.
   B. 26 TAMPA Purple Heart Medals have been claimed since 1999.
   C. 3 TAMPA Purple Heart Medals are presently in progress. 
   D. 84 TAMPA Purple Heart Medals remain unclaimed.

5. The names of the 84 TAMPA crew whose Purple Heart Medals remain unclaimed are listed here: https://www.history.uscg.mil/tampa/

6. To submit applications for TAMPA Purple Heart Medals, please contact Ms. Nora Chidlow, Coast Guard Archivist, at Nora.L.Chidlow@uscg.mil or 202-559-5142. She has served as the primary point of contact between the Coast Guard and many TAMPA descendants, and also with the Medals & Awards branch.

7. To apply for their ancestor’s Purple Heart Medal, descendants are required to provide documentation showing the descendant’s relationship to the TAMPA crew member, such as family trees, pages from family Bibles, birth/death certificates, and/or pages from Ancestry or other genealogical applications. Please expect about 4-6 weeks’ time for processing. 

8. I encourage all members of our Coast Guard family to share this ALCOAST with the widest possible audience. We owe it to our shipmates in USS TAMPA and their descendants to ensure their heroism and sacrifice are recognized and remembered.

9. RDML Melissa Bert, Director of Governmental and Public Affairs, sends.

10. Internet release is authorized.

COASTAL PICKET FORCE

Ernest Hemingway 

By Vinny Del Giudice

They called it a "Hooligan Navy" but they were anything but rowdy and undisciplined. They were patriotic Americans rescuing merchant marines whose ships were torpedoed by U-boats along the heavily traveled Atlantic coast.
 
In the early days of  World War Two, the U.S. Coast Guard and Coast Guard Auxiliary cobbled together an armada of everyday civilian vessels - from cabin cruisers to yachts and even shrimp boats - for security patrols and life-saving missions.

Within months, the rag-tag fleet totaled almost 500 craft, working in long and tiring shifts, fighting seasickness and fatigue, bobbing in all types of weather and waves from the North Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico.

Regular military forces were lean coming out of the Great Depression. A top Navy commander requested "the maximum practicable number of civilian craft that are in any way capable of going to sea" for as long as 48 hours at a time.

Among those to volunteer for seafaring duty was author Ernest Hemingway. So did actor Humphrey Bogart, Boston Pops conductor Arthur Fiedler and the governor of Maine, according to the website Classic Sailboats.

Many of the boats of the Coastal Picket Force, as it was formally known, carried armed active duty Coast Guard personnel.  The government provided shortwave radios, electronics and other equipment, too.

Civilian crews, often at great risk, attended to stricken merchant vessels. Hundreds of vessels and lives were lost to the German attackers, with 1942 one of the bloodiest years of the war in or near Americans waters.

U-boats laid mines at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, gateway to the critical port of Baltimore (and the U.S. Coast Guard Yard, by the way.) The U-123, early in the war, approached New York Harbor and could make out the lights of Manhattan but the close-in coastal waters were too difficult to safely navigate to proceed.

Near Miami, brave Coast Guard Auxiliary members rescued 22 survivors from a torpedoed Mexican tanker, Potrero de Lano, as it belched smoke and flames - leaking volatile petroleum products.

There was also a confirmed Auxiliary contact with German raiders - and it was about as close as a crew - volunteer or active duty - could get.

A disabled U-boat unknowingly surfaced beneath the hull of an Auxiliary patrol off Florida, briefly lifting the vessel, and then puttered off. The Auxiliary craft returned to shore with scrapes and U-boat paint steaks as proof of the bizarre encounter.

No one was hurt - and anything but a fish tale!

Popular Science magazine said of the wartime volunteers: "These men would be greenhorns aboard a battlewagon, but along the lines of their own hobby, many of them are extremely good, and so are their boats."

Many Americans - both men and women - joined the Coast Guard as civilian volunteers to guard America's ports against espionage as well as fire, flooding and theft. The piers and warehouses were full of military hardware and in many cases quite flammable. Even others pitched in to help with administrative tasks. No job was too small.

SMILAX - QUEEN OF FLEET

Photos: U.S. Coast Guard, Wikipedia

USCGC Smilax (WAGL/WLIC-315)  is the "Queen of the Fleet" - the oldest active Coast Guard cutter. Commissioned in 1944, the inland construction tender is based at Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. Smilax is responsible for maintaining 1,226 fixed ATONS as well as 26 bouys throughout the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

SS MIRLO

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SUBJ: 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF MIRLO RESCUE BY KEEPER MIDGETT AND CREW

1. August 16 marks the 100th anniversary of the famous Gold Lifesaving Medal
rescue of SS MIRLO’s crew by the men of Chicamacomico Lifesaving Station.

2. In the afternoon of Friday, August 16, 1918, British tanker SS MIRLO was steaming
through heavy seas north of Cape Hatteras off North Carolina’s Outer Banks. At about
4:30 p.m., a torpedo ripped into her hull shooting-up a column of water seen seven
miles away by the lookout at the Chicamacomico Coast Guard Station in Rodanthe, N.C.
Flames leaped into the sky as her cargo of fuel caught fire.

3. Within minutes of sighting the explosion, Station Keeper John Allen Midgett
mustered his crew and initiated rescue operations. Veteran keeper of the
Chicamacomico Station, Midgett came from a long line of lifesavers. Members of
Midgett’s extended family had served as surfmen for over 40 years. In fact, all
of John’s surfmen were related to him and all but one bore the Midgett name.

4. Midgett’s crew launched the motor surfboat into the breakers within a half-hour
of sighting the MIRLO burst into flames. Motoring out from the surfline seven miles
to the fiery wreck, Midgett spotted the first of MIRLO’s lifeboats and directed its
occupants to row closer to shore to await his arrival for passage through the surf.

5. As Midgett steered his boat close to the wreck he saw through a wall of fire
a capsized lifeboat with six victims clinging to it. He forced his way through
the flames and rescued the men, then motored downwind to search for a third lifeboat.
He found it drifting before the wind so overcrowded with survivors that there was no
room to row. Midgett took the boat in tow while carrying the first six victims and
headed to shore where the first lifeboat remained at anchor. Even though seas were
heavy and darkness had fallen, Midgett and his men skillfully ferried the victims ten
at a time through the heavy surf to the beach where surfmen waited to assist the survivors.

6. Midgett and his five-man boat crew went in harm’s way, braving high seas and a nearly
impenetrable wall of fire, to save 42 British merchant mariners without the loss of a
single surfman. For their heroism, each Chicamacomico man was awarded the Gold Lifesaving Medal and a similar gold medal from the British government. For more information, see the Coast Guard Historian’s Office web page at:
https://www.history.uscg.mil/Commemorations/World-War-I/.

7. One hundred years ago on this day, August 16, Keeper John Midgett and his heroic
crew saved over 40 souls who might otherwise have perished. Next year, the Service
will honor Keeper Midgett by commissioning the newest National Security Cutter,
MIDGETT (WMSL 757), which will continue the legacy currently upheld by CGC JOHN
MIDGETT (WHEC 726).

8. Today, the selfless devotion to duty of Keeper Midgett and the Chicamacomico
crew resonates with the men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard striving to be ready,
relevant and responsive.

9. RDML Melissa Bert, USCG, Director of Governmental and Public Affairs, sends.

10. Internet release authorized.

NATHAN BRUCKENTHAL

USCG Nathan Bruckenthal

Nathan Bruckenthal

Photos: U.S. Coast Guard

In 2018, the U.S. Coast Guard commissioned a Fast Response Cutter named for the first Coast Guardsman killed in action since the Vietnam War.

Nathan Bruckenthal, 25, a petty officer third class, died in the Persian Gulf in 2004. His sister told The Washington Post: “His pride [in the Coast Guard] was tremendous.''

Cutter Nathan Bruckenthal WPC-1128 is a member of the 154-foot Sentinel-class of Coast Guard vessels.

Bruckenthal and two Navy sailors lost their lives in a waterborne attack on an offshore oil terminal - a suicide bombing.

SHIPWRECKS - PART 1

SS MATAAFA

Dramatic photo of U.S. Life-Saving Service boat rescuing crewmembers of the bulk carrier SS Mataafa after it broke apart in Lake Superior near Duluth, Minnesota, in November 1905. Fifteen of 24 survived in a forward cabin. "The poor fellows on the stern end of the boat had little protection. In the engine house they could find no shelter for the waves covered the deck to the height of the rail. They finally climbed up under the shelter of the big smokestack, but wet as they were and with the biting cold they could not long stand the exposure," the Oshkosh Daily Northwestern reported.

SS HARVARD

The U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy responded when the passenger vessel SS Harvard ran aground in fog off Point Arguello, California, on May 30, 1931. Everyone survived.


SS MOHAWK

Early on the night of Jan. 1, 1925, the passenger line SS Mohawk caught fire off New Jersey. The vessel left New York that day for Florida with more than 200 passengers and crew. A distress call brought Coast Guard cutter Kickapoo (WAGL-56) out of Cape May, New Jersey. It arrived before dawn on Jan. 2.  The SOS was received at the Navy's Cape Henlopen Radio Compass Station in Delaware. Passengers were taken about the cutter and commercial tugs to Lewes, Delaware. On Jan. 24, 1935, a replacement vessel also named SS Mohawk sank after a collision with the Norwegian freighter Talisman off Sea Girt, New Jersey, killing 16 passengers and 31 crew.


AFRICAN QUEEN

Photo: U.S. Navy

On Dec. 30, 1958, the Liberian taker African Queen ran aground off Ocean City, Maryland, and broke in two causing a huge oil spill. "Forty-five of the men were air-lifted from the stern of the broken vessel by nine Coast Guard, Navy and Marine Corps helicopters in a coordinated shuttle," The New York Times reported. 


SS FOUNDATION STAR

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

It was Semper Paratus on Sept. 8, 1952. "When SS Foundation Star sent a distress signal that she was in rough seas and in danger of breaking in half, four Coast Guard vessels and three commercial vessels proceed to her assistance and rescued the crew before the ship broke apart and sank," according to the U.S. Coast Guard Historian's Office. The wreck occurred off Charleston, South Carolina. The tanker was built in 1916.


SS OAKLEY L. ALEXANDER

Photo: Gendisasters

On March 3, 1947, shore-based U.S. Coast Guardsmen used a Lyle Gun and breech buoy to evacuate the crew of the collier SS Oakey L. Alexander, which broke apart and ran aground at High Head, Maine, in heavy seas and high winds.


FREIGHTER IOWA

Front page of the Morning Oregonian reporting on the wreck of intercoastal freighter Iowa, which smashed into Peacock Spit in a storm near the entrance to the Columbia River on Jan. 12, 1936, killing the crew of 34. The Coast Guard cutter Onondaga responded to a distress call. "A few moments after we first sighted the wreck, the stack and bridge went over the side," said the cutter's captain, R. Stanley Patch, quoted by The New York Times. Captain Lars Bjelland at the Point Adams Life Station said he suspected the Iowa broke in two. Bjelland said the Fort Stevens Radio Compass Station heard the distress call at 5:35 a.m


ROSENCRANS

San Francisco Call front page on loss of crude oil tanker Rosencrans in a gale. The U.S. Life Saving Service struggled to reach the wreck at Peacock Spit, Oregon, on Jan. 7, 1913. "Life saving crews from Fort Canby and Point Adams put out against the gale," The New York Tribune said. "Big waves broke over the crews in the lifeboats, and it was found impossible to reach the Rosecrans. " Only four of the crew of 35 survived. In 1912, the steamship General Washington went aground at the same place.


SUBMARINE S-19

Photo: Wikipedia

On Jan. 13, 1925, the U.S. Navy submarine S-19 ran aground at Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in a storm that knocked it off course. Coast Guard cutters Tampa and Acushnet and the crews of two lifesaving stations responded. "Heavy seas made it impossible to pass a line to the grounded submarine or to reach her by boat until late in the evening of 14 January, when a party from the Nauset, Massachusetts Coast Guard station succeeded in boarding," according to Wikipedia. "By the morning of 15 January, S-19's crew had been safely brought to shore. After strenuous effort by Navy tugs and the Coast Guard cutters, S-19 was finally freed from the shoal."


CZARINA

It was not the finest hour. On Jan. 12, 1910, the freighter Czarina bound for San Francisco from Coos Bay, Oregon, wrecked in a storm before reaching open ocean. About two dozen people died. Rescue efforts failed and the keeper of the U.S. Life-Saving Service Station was dismissed for incompetence, according to Encyclopedia Oregon. The ship was carrying cement, coal and lumber.


SS CORWIN

Photo: Wikipedia

U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear (front) and steamer SS Corwin in ice field near Nome, Alaska, about 1914. SS Corwin shuttled between Nome and the Seward Peninsula, according to University of Alaska Fairbanks archives.

SS PRINCESS MAY

Photo: Wikipedia

On Aug. 5, 1910, SS Princess May on the rocks at low tide after running aground near the Sentinel lighthouse in Alaska at 10 knots. It was was retrieved and repaired. "The wireless operator, W.R. Keller, did not have time to send out a distress call before the main power was lost," Wikipedia said. "Thinking quickly, he ran down to the engine room, where the incoming water was by then waist deep. Keller rigged an improvised electrical connection with the engine room telegraph battery, and using this was able to send out a wireless distress call before the engine room was completely flooded." 

SS CITY OF FLINT 32

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

U.S. Coast Guard boat crew rows to aid of railroad car ferry SS City of Flint 32, which ran aground on Lake Michigan during the 1940 Armistice Day storm. It was one of the luckier big vessels that day. Three others foundered with the more than 60 lives.


SS PENNSYLVANIA SUN

Photo: Library of Congress

On July 15, 1942, the German U-boat U-571 attacked the tanker SS Pennsylvania Sun off Key West, Florida, setting it ablaze. The Navy destroyer USS Dahlgren DD-187 rescued the survivors. The tanker survived, too! Repairs were completed in 1943 and Pennsylvania Sun served for another 20 years. The U-boat didn't fare that well. Aircraft sank the submarine in the North Atlantic on Jan. 28, 1944.  


SS SANTA ROSA

On July 6, 1911, the costal steamer SS Santa Rosa, bound for San Diego from San Francisco, went aground in fog with 200 passengers and 78 tons of cargo. Four crewmen died attempting to establish a lifeline to shore, according to some news reports. Everyone else survived. The captain was accused of negligence.


CUTTER MOHAWK

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Mohawk was repaired after running aground on Bartlett Reef in  Long Island Sound on May 29, 1916. A little over a year later, Mohawk was struck by the tanker SS Vennacher in Ambrose Channel off Sandy Hook, New Jersey on Oct. 1, 1917 and sank. The crew of 77 survived.

USCG AVIATION

UPDATED DECEMBER 2021

IN THE BEGINNING

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard 

 

FLYING BOAT - 1958

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

It's all hands on deck as a U.S. Coast Guard "Giant Marlin Flying Boat" delivers a stricken seaman to a marine hospital in 1958.

HURRICANE KATRINA - 2005

Photo: Petty Officer 2nd Class Kyle Niemi, USCG

Petty Officer 1st Class Steven Huerta hoists two children into a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.


PELICAN HH-3F

Photo: Wikipedia The U.S. Coast Guard maintained a fleet of aptly-named HH-3F Pelican amphibious helicopters from 1972 to 1994 primarily for search and rescue missions. This chopper is attending a boat fire.

ALASKA - 2018

 

In Alaska, a pair of MH-60 Jayhawk helicopters from U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Sitka hoisted 11 people to safety after a floatplane crashed on a mountain on Prince of Wales Island on July 10, 2018. There were no serious injuries.  “Cases like these exemplify the versatility of our aircrews," said Commander Michael Kahle of Coast Guard Sector Juneau.

Photos: U.S. Coast Guard

:

GULF OF MEXICO - 2020

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

MH-65 helicopter from U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Houston prepares to hoist two stranded mariners from the sailing vessel Rhapsody, which suffered an engine room fire about 288 miles east-southeast of Corpus Christi, Texas, on Jan. 2, 2020.


OFF MASSACHUSETTS - 2017

:

Petty Officer 2nd Class Clinton Laramore hoists injured crewman from fishing boat Orion onto U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod helicopter 50 miles east of Gloucester, Massachusetts, on Aug. 8, 2017.

Photo: Petty Officer 3rd Class Andrew Barresi, USCG

OFF LOUISIANA - 2021

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

A MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew from Coast Guard Sector New Orleans hoisted a patient experiencing stroke-like symptoms from cruise ship Liberty of The Seas about 80 miles south of Grand Isle, Louisiana, on Sept. 13, 2021. The ship bound for Houston was diverted to New Orleans to avoid Tropical Storm Nicholas.


OHIO RIVER FLOOD - 1937

Photo: Willard Library, Evansville Indiana

U. S. Coast Guard crewman watches Coast Guard floatplane landing on Ohio River during catastrophic 1937 flood in Evansville, Indiana.


SWOOPING IN AT SEA

Photo: NASA

Vintage photo of U.S. Coast Guardsman lowered from chopper with rescue gear at sea.


PROHIBITION

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

Semper Paratus. U.S. Coast Guard aviation crew on Rum Patrol during Prohibition. The Coast Guard was at the front line in the battle with liquor smugglers. 

CUTTER COURIER

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard 

The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Courier (WAGR/WTR-410) played a most unusual role during the Cold War.

It was a mobile radio relay platform for the U.S. government's overseas broadcasting network, the Voice of America. Courier's oceangoing VOA programming to the people of the Soviet bloc evaded Russian jamming by shifting position and transmitting patterns. The Red jammers used fixed-site transmitters by and large. A salt water environment also helps improve the strength of radio signals. 

Courier's transmitters were the most powerful installed on a ship, including a 150-kilowatt medium wave unit - a real "blowtorch." To illustrate, that's three times more powerful than the transmitter at today's KOA 850AM Denver, the Voice of the Rockies, as well as AM radio stalwarts like WBBM in Chicago, WLW in Cincinnati and WBBR in New York City.

The unarmed Courier was placed under the auspices of the Coast Guard, instead of the war-focused Navy, in the name of diplomacy, according to Wikipedia, and operated in conjunction with the State Department. When the cutter called on Washington, D.C. on March 4, 1952, President Harry Truman went aboard to broadcast a speech to the peoples of the Soviet Bloc. 

Courier's homeport was Rhodes, Greece.

As for the Voice of America, it debuted in World War Two, directing programing to Nazi-occupied Europe. After the war it beamed its broadcasts to the Soviet Union. In 1949, the Soviets started jamming VOA frequencies with deliberate interference, a practice that continued though the Cold War.

According to Wikipedia, VOA's debut broadcast during World War Two opened with this statement: "Today, and every day from now on, we will be with you from America to talk about the war... The news may be good or bad for us – We will always tell you the truth."

CUTTER ESCANABA

Cutter Escanaba rescuing SS Dorchester survivors

It was U.S. Coast Guard swimmers to the rescue when a German U-boat attacked an Atlantic convoy on Feb. 3, 1943, sinking the packed American troop ship SS Dorchester.

Crew from the Coast Guard cutter Escanaba WPG-77 clad in wet suits secured lines to men struggling in the frigid waves, saving 133.

It was reported to be the first such rescue using wet suits. Life jackets provide little relief against deadly hypothermia.  Along the efforts of other ships in the convoy, which was bound for Greenland, a total of 230 lives were saved. More than 600 were lost.

In an October 1989 interview with the Daily Press on Newport News Virginia, Dorchester survivor James W. "Mac" McAtammey recalled: "The Coast Guardsmen jumped over the side in rubber suits to help survivors get on board. They gave us the clothes off their backs to keep us warm. There was no distinction between officers and enlisted men; we all worked together to get home safely."

The Dorchester sinking is also remembered for the sacrifice of four chaplains who died because they gave up their life jackets to save others. Congress established Four Chaplains Day to honor the men each Feb. 3, anniversary of their loss.

Sadly, on June 13, 1943, Escanaba itself was lost in action. The cutter struck a mine or was hit by a torpedo and sank with the loss of 102 souls, no doubt some of whom participated in the Dorchester rescue.

Launched in 1932, Escanaba patrolled the Great Lakes before going to war. Dorchester was a coastal passenger steamer launched in 1936. Dorchester was torpedoed by German submarine U-233, according to Wikipedia. British warships destroyed U-233 in 1944. In the end, everyone lost something. Such is war.

GREENLAND PATROL

Eastwind in 1944

German prisoners 

Captured German trawler

In November 1944, U.S. Coast Guard cutter Eastwind - a heavily armed icebreaker - and an Army task force captured a clandestine German weather station operating in Greenland during World War Two.

Eastwind also seized the German trawler Externsteine supplying the weather station code-named Edelweiss II.

The cutter was ideal for the Coast Guard's "Greenland Patrol" aimed at protecting the strategic Danish territory and rooting out Nazis. Clandestine weather observations from Greenland aided German forecasting for the Atlantic Ocean.

Launched in June 1944, Eastwind's main battery consisted of two twin-mount 5-inch deck guns. Anti-aircraft weaponry consisted of three quad-mounted Bofors 40 mm anti-aircraft autocannons and six Oerlikon 20 mm auto-cannons. The cutter also carried depth charge projectors and anti-submarine weapons.

"Her hull was of unprecedented strength and structural integrity, with a relatively short length in proportion to the great power developed, a cut away forefoot, rounded bottom, and fore, aft and side heeling tanks," according to Wikipedia.

SADDLE PATROL

UPDATED SEPTEMBER 2021

Photos: U.S. Coast Guard

Three-thousand horses hit the sand and joined the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II to expand coastal security.

“The beach patrols provided a presence that re-assured the American homefront that they were being protected by a vigilant armed force," Chris Havern, a Coast Guard historian, told the Coast Guard Compass, the service's official blog.

The patrols were credited with locating Nazi saboteurs put ashore in New York and Florida, according to Compass.

The horses were acquired from the Army. Training programs were established in Pennsylvania and South Carolina. Coast Guard-trained dogs sometimes accompanied the beach patrols.

At the end of the war, the horses were sold at auction.

CUTTER ICARUS

Coast Guard cutter Icarus

Survivors of U-352 eat lunching

Arriving with survivors at Charleston

Photos: National Archives

The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Icarus WPC-110 sank a German U-boat on May 9, 1942 and rescued the survivors - delivering the first German prisoners of war to the continental U.S. in World War Two.

It happened in "Torpedo Alley" off the coast of Cape Lookout, North Carolina - the only U-boat kill credited to a Coast Guard cutter.

Here's how it unfolded, according to Wikipedia:

"Icarus picked up a contact on sonar, and a torpedo exploded nearby. Icarus anticipated the presumed U-boat's next move and dropped 5 depth charges at the site of the prior torpedo explosion. As sonar picked up a moving target again, Icarus moved to intercept, dropping two more depth charges, apparently hitting their target as bubbles were seen rising to the surface. Passing the spot again, Icarus dropped three more charges.

"Shortly thereafter, U-352 surfaced, and Icarus opened fire with machine guns and prepared for a ramming maneuver. When the U-boat's crew abandoned ship, Icarus ceased fire, releasing one last depth charge over U-352 as it sank beneath the water.

"The only U-boat previously sunk on the East Coast had gone down with all hands, and there were no standing orders concerning the rescue of survivors. Icarus had to call both Norfolk and Charleston before receiving authorization to pick up U-352's survivors.

"Forty minutes after the incident, Icarus picked up 33 of its crew, including U-352's commander, Kapitänleutnant Hellmut Rathke, and delivered them to the Commandant of the 6th Naval District Charleston Navy Yard the next day."