SANDY HOOK

Photo: National Park Service

Pictured above are the early surfmen of Sandy Hook, a peninsula in central New Jersey, gateway to New York Harbor - and scene of many a shipwreck in the early days of our republic.

Today, it's home to a U.S. Coast Guard station, which traces its roots to a U.S. Life-Saving Service post that opened in 1879. For many years, the Ambrose Lightship marked the busy channel off Sandy Hook. 

The handwritten caption on the photo reads: 

"Wreck of the Edmund J. Phinney Sandy Hook December 14, 1907. driving rain storm wind 70 miles per hour.

"Brin[g]ing the Captain and Mate ashore in the breeches buoy. Showing [USLSS] Captain Woolley and [USLSS] James Moran waist deep in the surf"

Cranking the canon-launched buoy line, surfmen hauled the sailing vessel's entire crew ashore before it broke apart 300 yards off Sandy Hook's North Beach. "The seven crewmen were wet, cold, and dazed, but still alive," according to the National Park Service, which today maintains the area.

ATLANTIC CONVOY DUTY

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard
U.S. Coast Guard Treasury-class cutter Spencer on convoy duty. 

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard
View of convoy from cutter Spencer.

Photo: U.S. Navy
North Atlantic convoy steams through heavy sea in December 1941. Possibly photographed from cargo ship USS Aquila (AK-47). Ship in foreground is a tanker.

U.S. Coast Guard cutters and Navy ships escorted North Atlantic convoys of merchant vessels during World War Two to fend off German U-boats and keep supply lines open.

"HX" merchant convoys originated in Halifax or New York and were bound for ports in the United Kingdom, according to Wikipedia. "ON" convoys originated in the UK bound for North America. 

Often times German U-boats would employ the "wolf pack" tactic, unleashing coordinated attacks on convoys.

For Coast Guard and Navy escorts, the weapon of choice was the underwater depth charge, which unleashed a lethal "hydraulic shock" against the raiders.

Treasury-class cutter Spencer (WPG-36) sank the German submarines U-633 on March 8, 1943 and U-175 on April 17, 1943, according to Wikipedia.

During a 1941 convoy rescue off France, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Modoc (WPG-46) sighted the German battleship Bismarck, which had evaded British forces. A patrol aircraft located the Bismarck, based on Modoc's report, enabling the British fleet to pursue and sink the battlewagon.
"The Modoc’s position reports had been intercepted by the shore-based German naval signals interception service," according to a U.S. Naval Institute account of the incident, and while the Bismarck's commander "knew of the Modoc’s presence, it seems that little or no mention was made" to his officers.

Photo: Wikipedia
British convoy, 1943. 

Photo: U.S. Navy

Cargo ship[ USS Aquila (AK-47) rolling heavily in the North Atlantic, while steaming in convoy, December 1941. A Russian transport is right astern. Photographed from the sky lookout positioning, while leaving Halifax, Nova Scotia.

USS TURNER

Photo: Wikipedia

 USS Turner

Photo: U.S. Navy

Listing to starboard after explosions as Coast Guard cutter stands by 

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

Lieutenant Commander Frank Erickson piloting

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

Erickson in cockpit

The U.S. Coast Guard went to the aid of the crew of the USS Turner by sea and by air after explosions ripped through the destroyer off Sandy Hook, New Jersey during War Two.

The blasts claimed 138 lives on Jan. 3, 1944 and were thought have been caused by the accidental explosion of ammunition - or a U-boat attack. No one knows for sure. Most of the casualties were on the mess deck. It was breakfast time.

Almost immediately, the Coast Guard sent a cutter and a boat from Sandy Hook to the stricken ship. Later, in a first in the world of aviation, the Coast Guard assigned a helicopter to rescue duty - airlifting blood plasma for victims of the disaster.

Here's how it played out:

The Coast Guard lookout at Sandy Hook witnessed the first blast, according to the website ussturner.org, and sounded general quarters, dispatching an 83-foot cutter and a 77-foot launch to the Turner, which was listing to starboard at anchor near Ambrose Light.

"Immediately upon arrival the cutter rescued a man bobbing about on a torn mattress while another clung desperately to the ship's mascot, a little mongrel terrier called `Turn To,'" the website said.  The cutter, meantime, "pushed her bow athwart the burning destroyer and lashed in to receive the stranded seamen." Other ships joined the rescue before the destroyer foundered.

BKR2/c John MacDonald suffered burns in the blast. "The steel inside the ship was red hot and the hatch I tried to get out of was buckled from the explosion," he said in a post on the Turner website. "I kept feeling around for ways to get out and finally felt cold air from the snow outside. "

Once Turner survivors were brought to shore, the medical community turned to Coast Guard aviation for more help.

Lieutenant Commander Frank Erickson, the Coast Guard's very first helicopter pilot, lifted off in a Sikorsky HNS-1 to deliver blood plasma to a New Jersey hospital treating Turner sailors. Departing  from New York's Floyd Bennett Field in high winds, sleet and snow, Erickson flew to Battery Park at the tip of Manhattan where cases of plasma were lashed to the chopper and then pressed onto the hospital.

USS Turner, DD-648, was commissioned less than a year before its loss.

CAPE COD - 1918

Sunken barge 

By Vinny Del Giudice

When World War One arrived on American shores, albeit briefly, the Coast Guard was ready.

Surfmen went to the rescue as German U-boat U-156 landed shells on the beach of Orleans, Massachusetts, on July 21, 1918, and ravaged the coastal tug Perth Amboy - sinking four barges in tow. Orleans is located on the eastern coast of the Cape Cod peninsula.

On the centennial of the attack, Ron Petersen of the Orleans Historical Commission lauded “the bravery and skills of the Coast Guardsmen of Orleans Station 40, who launched a rescue mission under enemy fire.”

Aboard a 26-foot surfboat, they went to the aid of the stricken tug – including a seriously injured crewman - after determining that the people riding on the barges were safely in lifeboats and headed to shore. Doctors credited Surfman William Moore with saving the arm of the stricken crewman, according to the historical commission.

Surfman Reuben Hopkins, in the watchtower of Station No. 40, said: “Perhaps a quarter mile from the tug, I could discern a submarine lying low and broadside to the beach. She was difficult to see because of the haze. I had barely taken all this in when I saw the flash of a gun on the submarine. The shell landed in the water aft of the tug, which by now had come to a dead stop. The tug then took a direct hit to the pilot house.”

The attack on Orleans was the only mounted against the continental U.S. during World War One and the first foreign shelling since the Siege of Fort Texas in 1846, according to Wikipedia. Aircraft from Chatham Naval Air Station dropped bombs on the U-boat in retaliation but they didn't explode. The raider submerged and return to its predatory patrol.

U-156 was credit with sinking 45 ships and inflicting damage on two vessels, Wikipedia said. The tables turned in September 1918, when the U-boat vanished returning to Germany, possibly the victim of a mine.

NEWPORT INCIDENT

Photo: U.S. Navy

German submarine U-53 at Newport, Rhode Island, October 1916

Seven months before the U.S. went to war, another U-boat surprised New England. 

U-53 arrived unannounced at Newport, Rhode Island, on Oct. 7, 1916 and its commanding, Hans Rose, paid a "courtesy" visit to the commandant of the Second Naval District. 

When Newport's harbor master raised the prospect of a quarantine, Rose and crew set sail to avoid internment, according to Wikipedia.

The next day, U-53 sank five ships - flying the flags of the U.K., Norway and the Netherlands - in the vicinity of the Nantucket Lightship.

With America and Germany at war 14 months later, U-53 - Rose still in command - sank the USS Jacob Jones, the first U.S. destroyer lost to enemy action, killing two officers and 64 men, off Cornwall, England, on Dec. 6, 1917.

AMELIA EARHART

Photo: Wikipedia

Amelia Earhart with ill-fated Lockheed Electra

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

 U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Itasca

Photo: Wikipedia

Itascatown settlement on Howland Island

By Vinny Del Giudice

8:43 a.m. - Amelia Earhart to cutter Itasca: "We are on the line 157-337. Will repeat message. We will repeat this on 6210 kilocycles. . . . We are running north and south on line, listening 6210."

8:44 a.m. - Itasca to Earhart: "Heard you OK on 3105 kilocycles. Please stay on 3105 kilocycles. Do not hear you on 6210."

With those words the famed aviator Amelia Earhart and her twin-engine Lockheed Electra vanished approaching Howland Island on a leg of an around-the-world journey on July 2, 1937, based on the radio log of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca.

The cutter had been posted at the remote site in the Pacific Ocean - 1,700 miles southwest of Honolulu - to provide communications and navigational aid for Earhart and co-pilot Fred Noonan, who were were inbound from New Guinea. Itasca also fired up the boilers, puffing "a heavy smoke screen" to visually mark its position, according to a report by the cutter's commanding officer.

Itasca's reception of Earhart's final radio message was "excellent," according to the U.S. Coast Guard Historian's Office, but two hours later "it was assumed the plane was down and the cutter got under way at full speed to search the area."

U.S. naval vessels, including the aircraft carrier Lexington and battleship Colorado, as well as commercial ships joined the search, which continued for two weeks with no sign of wreckage or anything else.

"The plane's transmissions had indicated a flight through cloudy and overcast skies throughout the night and morning, and that dead reckoning distance had been accomplished," the historian's office said. "The plane's signal strength had been high and unchanged during the last hour of transmission, and its line of position had indicated that the dead reckoning had run correct."

Amateur and professional radio operators and listeners from the U.S. to Australia reported hearing Earhart and Noonan after the cutter lost contact. There was never official confirmation. Some of those reports could have been misunderstandings or hoaxes. Despite decades of theories, odds are the strong radio signals imply the aircraft simply crashed on approach and sank into the Pacific.

There was a settlement on Howland Island, as part of the American Equatorial Islands Colonization Project, named "Itascatown" for the Coast Guard cutter, which made regular supply runs. It consisted of a "line of a half-dozen small wood-framed structures and tents," according to Wikipedia.

Earhart planned to refuel there. The Works Progress Administration provided funds for three graded but unpaved runways called Kamakaiwi Field, in honor of a settler, and alternatively WPA Howland Airport. The settlement was abandoned after a Japanese attack at the start of World War Two.      

RANGER DISASTER - 2008

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard
Coast Guardsmen Gregory Crane and Nathan Cramer escort a survivor of the Alaska Ranger from the flight desk of the cutter Munro.

On March 23, 2008, the U.S. Coast Guard rescued crewmembers of the fishing vessel Alaska Ranger, which foundered in the Bering Sea in harsh weather. Forty-two of 47 survived - one of the largest cold water rescue operations in the service's history.

A Coast Guard HH-6o Jayhawk stationed at remote Saint Paul Island, Alaska, and an HH-65 Dolphin from the cutter Douglas Munro hauled in the mariners who abandoned ship about 120 miles off Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands.

The lights went out and the ship lurched astern as the crew launched life raft in the early morning dark, complicating the evacuation.

The magazine Aviation Week & Space Technology, which awarded Coast Guard personnel with a heroism award, said: "The two helicopter crews displayed exceptional risk mitigation and airmanship in fighting time, distance and weather – including snow squalls, a −24°F wind chill, 15 ft seas and 30 kt winds – to rescue survivors."

Investigators suspected structural failure that led to rudder room flooding. The master of the Alaska Ranger was among the dead.

The incident recalls the Feb. 3, 1943, sinking of troop ship SS Dorchester during World War Two. Crewmembers of the cutter Escanaba WPG-77 donned wet suits - a new invention at the time - and rescued 133 men struggling in the frigid Atlantic Ocean.

Photo: Wikipedia

Fishing vessel Alaska Ranger

FIRST COMMENDATION

Auxiliary in early 1940s

The first commendation to the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary (then the Reserve) went to L.F. Bonner, commander, First Flotilla, New Orleans District, according to the Coast Guard Bulletin, June 1940. Bonner rescued four boys on April 21 after a gale capsized their sailboat in Galveston Bay.

'STRANGEST MISSION'

Photo: Private Collection

SS Amazone

On Aug. 24, 1939, the steamship Amazone radioed the U.S. Coast Guard "that a lion was loose on board, and that guns were required," according to the official Coast Guard Bulletin, August 1939.

The ship was off the Delaware Capes with a cargo of zoo animals and changed course to meet a patrol boat sent from Cape May, New Jersey.

"The Coast Guard crew on their arrival, having no means of subduing the beast, shot it," the Bulletin said. The next day's New York Times called it "the strangest mission ever recorded in the annals of the Coast Guard."

TENDERS & TUGS

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

U.S. Coast Guard Cutter CGC Morro Bay WTGB-106 

This is a tribute to our service's intrepid buoy tenders and tugs - the workhorse "Black Hulls."

The cutter fleet of the U.S. Coast Guard features black, white and red hulls demarking a vessel's primary duty assignment. Tenders and tugs - as so noted - are painted black. Longer-distance cutters are white. Icebreakers are red. The Coast Guard's old lightships were also painted red.

The Black Hull tenders, tugs and associated work barges place buoys, handle tower construction, pile driving and extraction, and maintain more than 28,200 aids to navigation (ATONS),  according to the website Professional Mariner. The tugs, meantime, also engage in ice-breaking. The fleet's labor-intensive mission covers the oceans, the Great Lakes and inland waters like the Mississippi River. 

Regardless of color, life-saving trumps all other duty for the entire Coast Guard fleet, and the Black Hulls have performed with distinction in that capacity. In July 1956, for example, the buoy tender Hornbeam W394 helped rescue people from the foundering ocean liner SS Andrea Doria off New England.  

In January 2021, Defense Media Network provided this assessment of the Black Hulls: "As important as these ships are, they are old – with an average age of 55 years – and urgently need to be replaced. The job isn’t getting easier. Traffic has increased; commercial tug and barge units have gotten bigger, and more traffic is being conducted at night, so those lighted navigational aids are even more important."

ASPEN

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

It's a name familiar to Colorado. Aspen passes Golden Gate Bridge as it transits San Francisco Bay on Sept. 17, 2014. Aspen WLB-208 is a seagoing buoy tender. The government has maintained a fleet of tenders dating back to the U.S. Light House Service, which merged with the Coast Guard in 1939. In keeping with Lighthouse Service practice, tenders are name for foliage, according to the Coast Guard Historian's Office.

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

In December 2021, cutter Aspen departed San Francisco for a major overhaul at the U.S. Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore, Maryland. 

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

On the bridge as the cutter Aspen departs San Francisco Bay for Baltimore.


CONIFER

Another name familiar to Colorado is Conifer. The cutter Conifer WLB-301 patrolled in war and peace. The 180-foot seagoing buoy tender and her sister ships were commonly referred to as "one-eighties" - primarily serving as the backbone of the Coast Guard's Aids to Navigation fleet for over 50 years," Wikipedia said. World War Two demanded different tasks. Conifer joined a search or a damaged German U-Boat with Army aircraft in 1944. "The planes located an oil slick, and Conifer depth-charged the area," Wikipedia said. "Additional oil appeared through the day, and the submarine was presumed sunk."


SLEDGE

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

Cutter Sledge WLIC-75303, a 75-foot buoy tender, with barge at work on the Delaware River near Philadelphia on April 19, 2017. Sledge is based in Baltimore.


SMILAX

Photo:  Coast Guard, Wikipedia

Cutter 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.


ELDERBERRY

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

Cutter Elderberry WLI-65401 prepares to set buoys along the Mendenhall Bar, Juneau, Alaska. The 65-foot tender was launched in 1954. On Feb. 1, 1985, Elderberry battled a fire at the Alaska Glacier Seafoods Company cannery in Petersburg. "She was able to knock down the flames sufficiently to land four of her six-man crew on the dock to continue fighting the fire deeper into the building," Wikipedia said. The cutter was awarded a unit citation.


SCIOTO

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

Our Coast Guard sector - Upper Mississippi River - operates a fleet of inland tenders, including cutter Scioto WLR-65504, a 65-foot river buoy tender based in Keokuk, Iowa. 
Our sector's other buoy tenders are based in St. Louis, Omaha, Peoria and Dubuque. In days of old, the river's navigational aids were maintained by the U.S. Lighthouse Service, which merged with the Coast Guard in 1939. Early river tenders were paddlewheels.


BOLLARD

Photo: Wikipedia

Cutter Bollard WYTL-65614 is a 65-foot icebreaking harbor tug that patrols Long Island Sound and operates north to Narragansett Bay. It also performs icebreaking duty on the Connecticut River. Homeport is New Haven.


ALDER

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

In July 2021, cutter Alder WLB-216, a 225-foot seagoing buoy tender, arrived at Coast Guard Yard on Curtis Bay in Baltimore, Maryland, for major maintenance.

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

Launch of cutter Alder in February 2004 at Marinette Marine Corporation at Marinette, Wisconsin. Alder is know as "King of the Waters."


FIR

Cutter Fir WAGL/WLM 212 was the last lighthouse tender built specifically for the U.S. Lighthouse Service, which merged with Coast Guard in 1939. Fir was commissioned Oct. 1, 1940 and served until Oct. 1, 1991, earning the title "Queen of the Fleet" for its longevity. Fir was converted into a museum ship. 


HAWSER

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

As a fog lifts, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Hawser WYTL-65610 sails up the Hudson River north of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, on May 5, 2009. The 65-foot small harbor tug was commissioned in 1963.