USCGC White Heath in 1960 | |
History | |
---|---|
United States | |
Name | YF-445 |
Builder | Erie Concrete and Steel Supply Company |
Laid down | 4 June 1943 |
Launched | 21 July 1943 |
Commissioned | 9 August 1944 |
Decommissioned | 1946 |
Fate | Transferred to US Coast Guard |
History | |
United States | |
Name | White Heath |
Namesake | White Heath |
Commissioned | 9 August 1947 |
Decommissioned | 31 March 1998 |
Reclassified | WLM-545 |
Identification |
|
Fate | Sold to Tunisia, 1998 |
History | |
Tunisia | |
Name | Turgueness |
Acquired | 1998 |
Homeport | Bizerte |
Identification | Pennant number: A-805 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type |
|
Displacement | 476 t (468 long tons) |
Length | 132 ft 10 in (40.49 m) |
Beam | 30 ft 0 in (9.14 m) |
Draft | 8 ft (2.4 m) |
Installed power | 600 bhp (450 kW) |
Propulsion |
|
Speed | 10.5 kn (19.4 km/h; 12.1 mph) |
Range | 3,200 nmi (5,900 km; 3,700 mi) at 7.5 kn (13.9 km/h; 8.6 mph) |
Complement | 1 warrant officer, 20 crewmen |
USS YF-445 was a U.S. Navy covered lighter built in 1943 for service in World War II. Her most significant action during the war was to supply ships with food and water at the landing beaches of Operation Dragoon, the allied invasion of Southern France in 1944.
After the war, she was decommissioned by the Navy and transferred to the United States Coast Guard. There she became the White-class buoy tender USCGC White Heath (WAGL/WLM-545).
White Heath was decommissioned by the Coast Guard in 1998 and transferred to the Tunisian Navy, which renamed her Turgueness.
During World War II, the U.S. Navy built at least 76 YF-257-class covered lighters. The purpose of this class was to transport cargo to and from deep-draft ocean-going ships to small ports which were too shallow to admit the larger vessels. They were built with ample cargo space in their hold, an open deck to carry larger items, a crane to move cargo on and off the vessel, and with shallow draft allowing them to go where the large ships could not. [1] These design features were all useful in YF-445's later life as a buoy tender.
YF-445 was one of at least twelve YF-257-class lighters built by the Erie Concrete & Steel Supply Company at its Erie, Pennsylvania shipyard. [2] The shipyard was established in June 1941, and had never built a ship when it won its first Navy contract in 1941. [3] [4] Since major shipyards were building combatant and merchant ships, the Navy recruited a new class of emergency shipbuilders, of which Erie Concrete & Steel Supply was one, for less critical auxiliary vessels. While in the fiscal year ended 30 June 1940 only 12 private shipyards were building Navy ships, a year later there were 109. [5] YF-445 was the fourteenth vessel built by the company. [6]
Erie Concrete and Steel Supply built YFs 444-448 under contract NXs156. [1] YF-445 was laid down on 4 June 1943. She was launched on 21 July 1943 and was christened by Mrs. H. McKay Birmingham, the wife of a shipyard worker. [6]
YF-445's hull was constructed of welded steel plates. The ship was 132 feet 10 inches (40.49 m) long, with a beam of 30 feet (9.1 m), [2] and a fully-loaded draft of 8 feet (2.4 m). She displaced 476 tons loaded. [1]
YF-445 had two opposed-piston Fairbanks-Morse Diesel engines built by Union Diesel Engine Company of Oakland, California [7] each of which generated 300 horsepower. These drove two four-bladed propellers which were 48 inches (1.2 m) in diameter. This power plant gave her a maximum speed of 10.5 knots, and a cruising speed of 7.5 knots. Her tanks held 12,500 U.S. gallons (47,000 L) of Diesel fuel, giving her a range of 3,200 nautical miles at cruising speed. [1]
Electrical power aboard was provided by two Cummins 60 Kw generators. [1]
The ship had a single mast and a single boom which were used as a derrick. The main hoist was driven by electric winches which were mounted on her foredeck. [4]
The Navy's specifications for YF-445 and her sisterships included removable mine-laying tracks, allowing the vessel to carry up to 64 Mark VI mines. [4] While it appears that YF-445 was never used in this capacity, her class was sometimes referred to as "mine-layers." [8]
Shortly after her acquisition by the Coast Guard in 1946 or 1947, YF-445 was sent to the Coast Guard Yard in Curtis Bay, Maryland for conversion into a buoy tender. The changes were modest as the ship was well suited to her new role in many respects. Among the changes which were made, were the removal of her machine guns, the opening of ports to improve the habitability of her crew quarters, repainting, and the installation of a more powerful crane. In 1948, her upper deck was extended. [1]
White Heath had neither a bow thruster nor any special hull plating for ice breaking, features of all later types of Coast Guard buoy tenders. [9]
Sometime in the 1960s White Heath's crane system was upgraded. She was equipped with an A-frame mast, and A-frame boom, and hydraulic winches that gave her 10-ton lifting capacity. The winches were moved from the buoy deck to inside the house, giving it 1,000 square feet (93 m2) of working space. [9]
After more than three decades of service, the lack of spare parts for the ship's engines and her obsolete 120-volt DC electrical system [10] caused breakdowns and higher repair costs. [11] White Heath's engines, generators and electrical system were replaced at the Coast Guard Yard. The ship was in the yard between 25 November 1976 [12] and 19 September 1977. [13] White Heath's new main engines were 6-cylinder Caterpillar D-353-E, which produced 330 horsepower each. [9]
From 1948 [14] through at least 1977 the ship was commanded by a warrant officer and had 20 enlisted sailors. [11] By 1993 her complement had grown to 1 warrant officer and 23 enlisted personnel. [15]
On 3 July 1944, YF-445 arrived at the Naval Frontier Base at Staten Island, New York. [16] On 11 July 1944 YF-445 and sistership YF-447 left New York under tow by USS Abnaki. They reached Oran, Algeria on 29 July 1944. [17] On arrival, a crew was recruited and trained, and three 20mm cannons were installed. [18] She was commissioned on 9 August 1944. [14]
YF-445 was assigned to the Alpha Attack Force under Rear Admiral Frank J. Lowry for Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France. [19] In August 1944, she was part of the "Mothership" unit that was anchored 500 yards off Red Beach. [20] She had four 625-cubic foot refrigerators and a potable water distilling plant aboard to supply food and water to the ships supporting the invasion. [21] The ship earned the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal [22] for this service.
On 16 April 1945, YF-445 was detached from 8th Fleet Amphibious Group [23] and reported for duty at Naval Operating Base Palermo, Sicily. [24] While her fighting days were over, the Navy found use for her as a freighter. On 31 August 1945 the ship departed Naples for Palermo with files and office equipment for Commander, U.S. Naval Forces, North African Waters (ComNavNAW). [25] On 8 October 1945 YF-445 reached Palermo from Naples with a cargo of provisions aboard. On 11 October she left for Naples and returned on 17 October with another load of office equipment. She left for Naples again on 18 October and returned on 22 October 1945 with provisions from USS Wakefield. [26]
On 22 November 1945, YF-445, with her crew aboard, was taken in tow by USS Chain at Palermo for the long trip back to the United States. [27] After a stop in Casablanca, the two vessels arrived in Bermuda on 22 December 1945. They left there five days later, on 27 December, for Norfolk, Virginia. [28] [29]
On 9 August 1947 White Heath was commissioned as a Coast Guard cutter. [14] She was given the hull designation WAGL-545, [30] which classed her as an "auxiliary vessel, lighthouse tender." This designation was changed in 1966 to WLM-545 to reflect the service's new classification scheme which regarded White Heath as a "medium or coastal buoy tender." The ship was assigned to the 1st Coast Guard District and homeported in Boston, Massachusetts. She arrived at her station no later than October 1947. [31]
Her primary mission was maintaining buoys and other aids to navigation along the coasts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine. [32] Secondary roles included various public safety missions, law enforcement, and light icebreaking. In her aids-to-navigation work she would haul buoys onto her deck, to clean and paint them, and service their lights. Mooring chains were inspected and replaced, if necessary. Finally, the concrete sinkers that held the buoys in place were inspected for cracks and other damage. [33] Winter ice would damage, sink, and move buoys off-station. White Heath worked through winter and spring to undo this damage. [34]
While the bulk of her time was devoted to maintaining her buoys and the ship, [35] she did participate in a variety of other missions as described below.
The tanker Ventura collided with the trawler Lynn in Boston Harbor on 28 November 1951. Lynn sank immediately with 17 crew aboard. White Heath was dispatched to search for survivors. [36]
The 600-foot long Greek freighter Stamatios Gembiricos was anchored in Boston Harbor on 21 January 1963 when the wind increased to 35 miles per hour. Her anchor began to drag and the drifting vessel threatened Deer Island Light and other ships in the anchorage. Her captain radioed for assistance and White Heath was one of the five ships dispatched to tow the ship away from danger. [37]
In August 1967, the volunteer fire department of Cranberry Isles, Maine bought a new fire truck. Regrettably, there was no ferry large enough to deliver it. White Heath hoisted it onto her buoy deck on the mainland, and hoisted it off again on its new island home. [38]
White Heath's combination of shallow draft and a 10-ton crane made her the Coast Guard's choice for a number of salvage efforts over the course of her career.
On 18 May 1957 a Coast Guard Gruman Albatross crashed during an Armed Forces Day demonstration in Salem Harbor. White Heath recovered the wreck from the bottom of the bay. [39]
Eastern Air Lines Flight 375, a four-engine Lockheed Electra, crashed on take-off at Boston Logan Airport on 4 October 1960. White Heath recovered major portions of the wreckage. [40]
The ship raised a sunken 30-foot Coast Guard crash boat in Salem Harbor in September 1968 after it was involved in several accidents. [41]
White Heath recovered the wreck of a Provincetown-Boston Airlines Cessna 402 that crashed en route to Boston Logan Airport in July 1984. [42]
The Coast Guard offered tours aboard White Heath on several occasions. These included:
During her coast guard service, White Heath earned two Coast Guard Meritorious Unit Commendations, one in 1986 and one in 1990. [47]
White Heath was decommissioned on 31 March 1998. [48] Under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, surplus military equipment could be transferred to other countries through the Excess Defense Articles program to support U.S. foreign policy objectives. White Heath was transferred to the Tunisian Navy through this program on 10 June 1998. [49] [50]
White Heath was renamed Turgueness and given the pennant number A-805. She and the former USCGC White Lupine are now the two-ship Tabarka-class of the Tunisian Navy.
The United States Navy, United States Coast Guard, and United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) use a hull classification symbol to identify their ships by type and by individual ship within a type. The system is analogous to the pennant number system that the Royal Navy and other European and Commonwealth navies use.
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.
USCGC Cactus (WLB-270) was a 180 feet (55 m) seagoing buoy tender (WLB). A Cactus-class vessel, she was built by Marine Ironworks and Shipbuilding Corporation in Duluth, Minnesota. Cactus's preliminary design was completed by the United States Lighthouse Service and the final design was produced by Marine Iron and Shipbuilding Corporation. On 31 March 1941 the keel was laid, she was launched on 25 November 1941 and commissioned on 1 September 1942. The original cost for the hull and machinery was $782,381.
USS Bancroft was a United States Navy steel gunboat in commission from 1893 to 1898 and again from 1902 to 1905. She saw service during the Spanish–American War. After her U.S. Navy career, she was in commission in the United States Revenue Cutter Service from 1907 to 1915 as the revenue cutter USRC Itasca, and in the Revenue Cutter Service's successor service, the United States Coast Guard, as the cutter USCGC Itasca from 1915 to 1922. During her Coast Guard career, she saw service during World War I.
USS Barricade (ACM-3) was a Chimo-class minelayer in the United States Navy during World War II.
The USCGC Evergreen was a Cactus-class seagoing buoy tender operated by the United States Coast Guard. She served in the North Atlantic during World War II and participated in the International Ice Patrol in these waters after the war. She was the first dedicated oceanographic vessel in the Coast Guard's history. She was decommissioned in 1990 and sunk by the US Navy for target practice in 1992.
USS Chain (ARS-20/T-AGOR-17) was a Diver-class rescue and salvage ship commissioned by the U.S. Navy during World War II. Her task was to come to the aid of stricken vessels.
USLHT Azalea was built as a lighthouse tender and performed in that role on the Massachusetts coast from 1891 to 1917 and again from 1919 to 1933. During World War I, she served in the United States Navy as USS Azalea. Between the wars she was a commercial freighter in Chesapeake Bay, and later between Florida and The Bahamas. During World War II, she was reacquired by the U.S. Navy and served as USS Christiana, a seaplane tender which supported advanced bases in The Bahamas. Declared surplus in 1946, she was sold to Banana Supply Company, and spent a decade transporting bananas from the Caribbean to Miami. After 1956 her history is uncertain until she became a half-sunk derelict and was scrapped in Miami in 1965.
The Casco class was a large class of United States Coast Guard cutters in commission from the late 1940s through the late 1980s. They saw service as weather reporting ships in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans until the early 1970s, and some saw combat service during the Vietnam War.
USCGC Tupelo WAGL/WLB-303, was a Cactus (A) Class 180-foot buoy tender vessel built by Zenith Dredge Company of Duluth, Minnesota. Her keel was laid 15 August 1942, launched 28 November 1942 and commissioned on 30 August 1943. She was built as a WAGL and redesignated a WLB in 1965.
USLHT Mangrove was a lighthouse tender in commission in the fleet of the United States Lighthouse Board from December 1897 to April 1898 and from August 1898 to 1910, in the United States Lighthouse Service from 1910 to 1917 and from 1919 to 1939, and in the United States Coast Guard from 1939 to 1941 and in 1946. She also saw commissioned service in the United States Navy as USS Mangrove on three occasions, operating as an armed supply ship from April to August 1898 during the Spanish–American War, during which she fought the last battle of that war; as a patrol vessel from 1917 to 1919 during and in the aftermath of World War I; and as a buoy tender from 1941 to 1946 during and in the aftermath of World War II.
USCGC Ironwood (WAGL-297/WLB-297) is a former Mesquite-class sea-going buoy tender operated by the United States Coast Guard. She served in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War as well as a variety of domestic missions. She currently serves as a seamanship training vessel for Job Corps.
USS YF-339 was an American YF-257-class covered lighter built in 1944 for service in World War II. She was later acquired by the United States Coast Guard and renamed USCGC White Bush (WAGL-542).
USS YF-444 was an American YF-257-class covered lighter built in 1944 for service in World War II. She was later acquired by the United States Coast Guard and renamed USCGC White Sage (WAGL-544).
USS YF-416 was an American YF-257-class covered lighter built in 1943 for service in World War II. She was later acquired by the United States Coast Guard and renamed USCGC White Sumac (WAGL-540).
USS YF-448 was an American YF-257-class covered lighter built in 1943 for service in World War II. She was later acquired by the United States Coast Guard and renamed USCGC White Pine (WAGL-547).
USS YF-446 was an American YF-257-class covered lighter built in 1943 for service in World War II. She was later acquired by the United States Coast Guard and renamed USCGC White Lupine (WAGL-546).
USLHT Arbutus was built as a lighthouse tender for the Massachusetts coast. She served in that role from her launch in 1933 until World War II. In 1939, the Lighthouse Service was merged into the United States Coast Guard and the ship became USCGC Arbutus. During the war she was under United States Navy control. She served as an anti-submarine net-tender at Newport, Rhode Island. After the war she was posted to New York and resumed her buoy tender responsibilities. She was decommissioned in 1967 and sold in 1969.
USLHT Iris was a steel-hulled, steam-powered ship built in Philadelphia in 1897. She began life as an excursion boat for day trips between Boston and Plymouth, Massachusetts as Plymouth. She was purchased by the Lighthouse Board and became a lighthouse tender in 1899. She was transferred to the United States Navy during World War I and became USS Iris. She returned to her duties with the United States Lighthouse Service in 1919. She was sold in 1939 and became a collier and bulk freighter named Big Chief. In 1942, after the American entry into World War II, the ship was requisitioned into military service with the United States Army Corps of Engineers. She was transferred to the Navy for the second time in 1943 and became USS Big Chief (IX-101). Declared surplus after the war, she was sold back into private hands in 1948 and became a fishing boat for the remainder of her career. Her name was changed yet again after a 1954 refit to B. O. Colonna. She was scrapped in 1973.
USLHT Lilac was a steel-hulled steamship built as a lighthouse tender in 1892. During her career in the United States Lighthouse Service her longest assignments were at Portland, Maine, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. During World War I she was transferred to the United States Navy and became USS Lilac.
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