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.
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