The second USS Abarenda (IX-131) was a storage tanker, one of many miscellaneous-class Navy vessel crewed by the United States Coast Guard during World War II.
The T2 tanker, or T2, was a class of oil tanker constructed and produced in large numbers in the United States during World War II. Only the T3 tankers were larger "navy oilers" of the period. Some 533 T2s were built between 1940 and the end of 1945. They were used to transport fuel oil, diesel fuel, gasoline and sometimes black oil-crude oil. Post war many T2s remained in use; like other hastily built World War II ships pressed into peacetime service, there were safety concerns. As was found during the war, the United States Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation in 1952 stated that in cold weather the ships were prone to metal fatigue cracking, so were "belted" with steel straps. This occurred after two T2s, Pendleton and Fort Mercer, split in two off Cape Cod within hours of each other. Pendleton's sinking is memorialized in the 2016 film The Finest Hours. Engineering inquiries into the problem suggested the cause was poor welding techniques. It was found the steel was not well suited for the new wartime welding construction. The high sulfur content made the steel brittle and prone to metal fatigue at lower temperatures.
SS Atlantic Empress was a Greek oil tanker that in 1979 collided with the oil tanker Aegean Captain in the Caribbean, and eventually sank, having created the fifth largest oil spill on record and the largest ship-based spill having spilled 287,000 metric tonnes of crude oil into the Caribbean Sea. It was built at the Odense Staalskibsværft shipyard in Odense, Denmark, and launched on 16 February 1974.
The history of the United States Coast Guard goes back to the United States Revenue Cutter Service, which was founded on 4 August 1790 as part of the Department of the Treasury. The Revenue Cutter Service and the United States Life-Saving Service were merged to become the Coast Guard per 14 U.S.C. § 1 which states: "The Coast Guard as established January 28, 1915, shall be a military service and a branch of the armed forces of the United States at all times." In 1939 the United States Lighthouse Service was merged into the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard itself was moved to the Department of Transportation in 1967, and on 1 March 2003 it became part of the Department of Homeland Security. However, under 14 U.S.C. § 3 as amended by section 211 of the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2006, upon the declaration of war and when Congress so directs in the declaration, or when the President directs, the Coast Guard operates as a service in the Department of the Navy.
SS V.A. Fogg was a modified T2 tanker built in 1943, as SS Four Lakes. After service in World War II, she was eventually sold into private ownership. She was renamed V.A. Fogg in 1971, shortly before she exploded and sank off Freeport, Texas.
The Chiwawa-class oilers were United States Navy T3 Tanker oilers of the T3-S-A1 design built during World War II at Bethlehem Sparrows Point Shipyard of Sparrows Point, Maryland. The class consisted of five ships, all of which survived the war.
USS Anacostia (AO-94) was a Escambia-class replenishment oiler acquired by the United States Navy for use during World War II. She had the dangerous but necessary task of providing fuel to vessels in combat and non-combat areas. She served in the Pacific Ocean Theater of operations late in the war, and returned home with one battle star.
Coast Guard Motor Lifeboat CG-36500 is a historic, 36-foot lifeboat that is berthed at Rock Harbor in Orleans, Massachusetts. Built in 1946, it is notable for its involvement in the 1952 SS Pendleton rescue, one of the most daring such events recorded in the history of the United States Coast Guard. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005, and now serves as a museum boat.
A rescue lifeboat is a boat rescue craft which is used to attend a vessel in distress, or its survivors, to rescue crew and passengers. It can be hand pulled, sail powered or powered by an engine. Lifeboats may be rigid, inflatable or rigid-inflatable combination-hulled vessels.
SS Pan-Pennsylvania was a Type T3-S-BF1 tanker of the United States, which was sunk by German U-boat U-550 in April 1944.
Esso Brussels was a commercial oil tanker built for the Esso Oil company in 1959. She was involved in a collision in 1973 in which thirteen of her crew perished. She was rebuilt and sailed under various other names until being scrapped in 1985.
The February 1952 nor'easter was a significant winter storm that impacted the New England region of the United States. The storm ranked as Category 1, or "notable", on the Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale. Its rapid intensification resulted in heavy snowfall between February 17 and 18, accumulating to 12 to 30 inches. High winds also affected central and northern New England. The nor'easter is estimated to have caused 42 fatalities. In Maine, over 1,000 travelers became stranded on roadways. Two ships cracked in two offshore New England during the storm.
USCGC Bernard C. Webber (WPC-1101) is the first of the United States Coast Guard's 58 Sentinel-class cutters. Like most of her sister ships, she replaced a 110-foot (34 m) Island-class patrol boat. Bernard C. Webber, and the next five vessels in the class, Richard Etheridge, William Flores, Robert Yered, Margaret Norvell, and Paul Clark, are all based in Miami, Florida.
MV C.O. Stillman was an oil tanker that was built by a German shipyard in 1928 for a Canadian-based shipping company. A Panamanian subsidiary of Esso bought her at the end of 1936 and she was sunk by the German submarine U-68 in the Caribbean on June 4, 1942 about 41 nautical miles (76 km) southwest of Isla de Mona, Puerto Rico.
The Finest Hours is a 2016 American action thriller film directed by Craig Gillespie and produced by Walt Disney Pictures. The screenplay, written by Eric Johnson, Scott Silver, and Paul Tamasy, is based on The Finest Hours: The True Story of the U.S. Coast Guard's Most Daring Sea Rescue by Michael J. Tougias and Casey Sherman. The film stars Chris Pine, Casey Affleck, Ben Foster, Holliday Grainger, John Ortiz, and Eric Bana, and chronicles the historic 1952 United States Coast Guard rescue of the crew of SS Pendleton, after the ship split apart during a nor'easter off the New England coast.
SS Fort Mercer was a Type T2-SE-A1 tanker built by Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., at Chester, Pennsylvania in October 1945. SS Fort Mercer, was built under a Maritime Commission contract and launched on October 2, 1945. With World War II ending on August 15, 1945, Fort Mercer did not serve in the war. Fort Mercer was owned and operated by the Trinidad Corporation of New York.
Daniel Webster Cluff was a United States Coast Guard officer who led one of the U.S. Coast Guard's largest small-boat rescue operations in the midst of a New England winter storm on February 18 through 19, 1952, as Chatham Lifeboat Station's officer-in-charge. Warrant Officer Cluff's expertise in small-boat life-saving operations and confidence in his men's abilities resulted in Coast Guard Motor Lifeboat CG 36500 crew's rescue of thirty-two survivors from the stern section of SS Pendleton "only minutes before it capsized."
Bernard Challen Webber was a United States Coast Guardsman. He was a petty officer assigned to Coast Guard Station Chatham, Massachusetts, where one of his duties was that of coxswain of Coast Guard Motor Lifeboat CG 36500. Webber and his crew of three rescued the crew of the stricken T2 tanker SS Pendleton, which had broken in half during a storm on February 18, 1952 off Cape Cod. Webber maneuvered the 36-foot lifeboat under Pendleton's stern as the tanker's crew, trapped in the stern section, abandoned the wreck of their ship on a Jacob's ladder into the Coast Guard motor lifeboat.
The United States Coast Guard's series of motor lifeboats included a class of 36 foot motor lifeboats. The Coast Guard built the first of version these vessels in 1929, and retired the last active version, in 1987 as they were replaced by the 44 foot Steel Hull Motor Lifeboat. CG 36500 was retired from active service in 1968, and has since been restored and preserved as a floating museum. These vessels are remembered for the daring rescues Coast Guard seamen performed, using them.
Portland, Oregon, United States
