The USCG seagoing buoy tender is a type of United States Coast Guard Cutter used to service aids to navigation throughout the waters of the United States and wherever American shipping interests require. The U.S. Coast Guard has maintained a fleet of seagoing buoy tenders dating back to its origins in the U.S. Lighthouse Service (USLHS). These ships originally were designated with the hull classification symbol WAGL, but in 1965 the designation was changed to WLB, which is still used today.
Canonicus (ACM-12) was a Camanche-class auxiliary minelayer in the United States Navy. It was named for Canonicus, a chief of the Narragansett Indians.
The second USS Chimo (ACM-1) was the lead ship of her class of minelayers in the United States Navy during World War II.
The second USS Planter (ACM-2) was a Chimo-class minelayer in the United States Navy during World War II.
USS Barricade (ACM-3) was a Chimo-class minelayer in the United States Navy during World War II.
USS Barbican (ACM-5) was a Chimo-class minelayer in the United States Navy. Barbican was later commissioned in U.S. Coast Guard as USCGC Ivy.
USS Bastion (ACM-6) was a Chimo-class minelayer in the United States Navy during World War II.
USS Obstructor (ACM-7) was a Chimo-class minelayer in the United States Navy during World War II.
USS Picket (ACM–8) was a Chimo-class minelayer of the United States Navy during World War II.
USCGC Yamacraw (WARC-333) was a United States Coast Guard Cable Repair Ship. The ship was built for the Army Mine Planter Service as U. S. Army Mine Planter Maj. Gen. Arthur Murray (MP-9) delivered December 1942. On 2 January 1945 the ship was acquired by the Navy, converted to an Auxiliary Minelayer and commissioned USS Trapper (ACM-9) on 15 March 1945. Trapper was headed to the Pacific when Japan surrendered. After work in Japanese waters the ship headed for San Francisco arriving there 2 May 1946 for transfer to the Coast Guard.
USS Monadnock (ACM-10) was a coastal minelayer in the U.S. Navy, the third vessel named after Mount Monadnock, a solitary mountain (monadnock) of more than 3,100 feet in southern New Hampshire close to the border of Massachusetts. The ship was built as the cargo vessel Cavalier for the Philadelphia and Norfolk Steamship Company by Pusey and Jones Corporation, Wilmington, Delaware in 1938. The Navy purchased the ship 9 June 1941 for wartime use. After decommissioning the ship was sold in June 1947 for commercial use then sold to a Panamanian company in 1949 to be renamed Karukara. In 1952 the ship became Monte de la Esperanza for a company in Bilbao, Spain transporting bananas to the United Kingdom from the Canary Islands for more than 20 years. She was later sold to the Marine Institute of Spain for operation as a hospital ship for more than 10 years serving the fishing fleet of the Canary Islands as Esperanza del Mar until becoming an artificial reef off Spain in 2000.
USS Miantonomah (ACM-13/MMA-13) was built as the US Army Mine Planter USAMP Col. Horace F. Spurgin (MP-14) for the U.S. Army by Marietta Manufacturing Co., Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in 1943. Col. Horace F. Spurgin was christened by Mrs. Barbee Rothgeb. Col. Horace F. Spurgin was transferred from the US Army to the US Navy and commissioned as ACM-13 on 25 January 1950. After decommissioning and sale to commercial interests 17 February 1961, the ship remained in the fishing fleet into the 1990s before becoming part of a breakwater in Tacoma, Washington.
Puritan (ACM-16/MMA-16) was built for the United States Army as U.S. Army Mine Planter (USAMP) Col. Alfred A. Maybach MP-13. The ship was transferred to the United States Navy and classified as an auxiliary minelayer. Puritan was never commissioned and thus never bore the "United States Ship" (USS) prefix showing status as a commissioned ship of the U.S. Navy.
The first Dekanawida (YT-334/YTB-334) was a tug in the United States Navy during World War II.
USAMP Major General Wallace F. Randolph, sometimes also known as MG Wallace F. Randolph, was a 188.2-foot (57.4 m) mine planter built by the Marietta Manufacturing Company, and delivered to the United States Army Mine Planter Service in 1942. The ship was transferred to the U.S. Navy in 1951, placed directly into the Atlantic Reserve Fleet without being commissioned classed as the auxiliary minelayer ACM-15, then reclassified minelayer, auxiliary (MMA) and named MMA-15, and finally given the name Nausett without any active naval service. After being stricken from the Naval Vessel Register, the ship was transferred to different owners, and eventually was scuttled off the coast of Florida as an artificial reef and fish aggregating device. The site is currently known as the Thunderbolt Wreck, and is considered to be an excellent and challenging dive site for advanced divers.
A controlled mine was a circuit fired weapon used in coastal defenses with ancestry going back to 1805 when Robert Fulton termed his underwater explosive device a torpedo:
Robert Fulton invented the word torpedo to describe his underwater explosive device and successfully destroyed a ship in 1805. In the 1840s Samuel Colt began experimenting with underwater mines fired by electric current and in 1842, he blew up an old schooner in the Potomac River from a shore station five miles away.
The U.S. Army Mine Planter Service (AMPS) was an outgrowth of civilian crewed Army mine planter ships dating back to 1904. It was established on July 22, 1918 by War Department Bulletin 43 and placed the Mine Planter Service under the U.S. Army Coast Artillery Corps. Its purview was to install and maintain the underwater minefields that were part of the principal armament of U.S. coastal fortifications, including those at the approaches to the Panama Canal and the defenses of Manila Bay in the Philippines.
Camanche (ACM-11/MMA-11) was the name given in 1945 to the former U.S. Army Mine Planter (USAMP) Brigadier General Royal T. Frank (MP-12) while in naval inactive reserve more than ten years after acquisition of the ship by Navy from the Army in 1944. The ship had previously been classified by the Navy as an Auxiliary Mine Layer (ACM) and then Minelayer, Auxiliary (MMA). The ship was never commissioned by Navy and thus never bore the "USS" prefix.
Mine planter and the earlier "torpedo planter" was a term used for mine warfare ships into the early days of World War I. In later terminology, particularly in the United States, a mine planter was a ship specifically designed to install controlled mines or contact mines in coastal fortifications. This type of ship diverged in both function and design from a ship operating as a naval minelayer. Though the vessel may be seagoing it is not designed to lay large numbers of mines in open sea. A mine planter was designed to place controlled minefields in exact locations so that they might be fired individually or as a group from shore when observers noted a target to be at or near a designated mine's position. The terms and types of specialized ship existed from the 1860s where "torpedoes" were made famous in the American Civil War until the demise of large, fixed coastal fortifications brought on by the changes of World War II.
United States