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.