USCGC General Greene
{{Other ships|USS General Greene}}
{{use dmy dates|date=February 2014}}
| {{Infobox ship begin}}
{{Infobox ship image | Ship image=USCGC General Greene WSC-140.jpg | Ship caption= USCGC General Greene, 1962 }} {{Infobox ship career | Hide header= | Ship country= United States | Ship flag= {{Shipboxflag|United States|coast guard}} | Ship name= USCGC General Greene (WPC-140/WSC-140) | Ship namesake= Nathanael Greene, American Revolutionary War general"General Greene, 1927", Cutters, Craft & U.S. Coast Guard-Manned Army & Navy Vessels, U.S. Coast Guard Historian's Office | Ship ordered= | Ship awarded= | Ship builder=American Brown Boveri Electric Corporation, Camden, New Jersey | Ship original cost=$90,000 USD | Ship yard number= | Ship way number= | Ship laid down= | Ship launched=14 February 1927 | Ship sponsor= | Ship christened= | Ship completed= | Ship acquired= | Ship commissioned=7 April 1927 | Ship decommissioned=15 November 1968 | Ship in service= | Ship out of service= | Ship renamed= | Ship reclassified= | Ship refit= | Ship struck= | Ship reinstated= | Ship homeport= | Ship identification= | Ship motto= | Ship nickname= | Ship honors= | Ship fate= Sold, 1976 | Ship notes= | Ship badge= }} {{Infobox ship characteristics | Hide header= | Header caption= | Ship type= Patrol boat | Ship displacement= {{Convert|232|LT|t|0|lk=on|abbr=on}} | Ship length= {{Convert|125|ft|m|abbr=on}} | Ship beam= {{Convert|23|ft|6|in|m|abbr=on}} | Ship draft= {{Convert|7|ft|6|in|m|abbr=on}} | Ship propulsion= 2 × 8-cylinder, 268A General Motors 850 hp late 1950s to decommission{{Convert|300|hp|0|abbr=on}} engines | Ship speed=*1945
| Ship range=*{{Convert|3500|nmi|abbr=on}}
| Ship complement= 3 officers, 17 men (1960) | Ship sensors= | Ship EW= | Ship armament=* 1927:
| Ship armor= | Ship aircraft= | Ship aircraft facilities= | Ship notes= }} |
USCGC General Greene (WPC/WSC/WMEC-140), was a {{convert|125|ft|m|abbr=on}} United States Coast Guard {{sclass|Active|patrol boat}}, in commission from 1927 to 1968 and the fourth cutter to bear the name of the famous Revolutionary War general, Nathanael Greene. She served during the Rum Patrol, World War II and into the 1960s performing defense, law enforcement, ice patrol, and search and rescue missions.
Construction and commissioning
The General Greene was built by the American Brown Boveri Electric Corp. of Camden, New Jersey, at a cost of $90,000.{{#tag:ref|Scheina (1982) says $63,173 USD.Scheina (1982), p 45|group=Note}} She was launched on 14 February 1927, and commissioned on 7 April 1927."Record of Movements, Vessels of the United States Coast Guard, 1790–December 31, 1933", U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Transportation, p 428
Patrol duties during the Depression
General Greene had been designed specifically for prohibition enforcement service and assumed Rum Patrol duty 15 May 1927 with a home-port of Boston, Massachusetts Her routine consisted of picketing liquor laden "mother ships" and preventing them from offloading prohibited cargo to smaller contact boats that were used to deliver liquor to shore.Johnson, p 80 On 15 March 1931 she departed Boston bound for St. John's, Newfoundland to join the International Ice Patrol for the first time. At the end of the patrol season she would return to Boston and resume Rum Patrol duties; this pattern would continue through the end of the 1933 Ice Patrol season. With the end of prohibition in 1933, General Greene assumed a more traditional role of a Coast Guard cutter, that of search and rescue, law enforcement, merchant vessel inspection, and defense training.{{#tag:ref|The repeal of Prohibition was accomplished with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment on 5 December 1933.|group=Note}}Canney, p xiii In 1941 she conducted an oceanographic survey off the coast of Newfoundland and while on the survey in May 1941, she was ordered to search for survivors from two British freighters torpedoed off the coast of Greenland. She recovered 39 survivors from the SS Marconi, and observed part of the Royal Navy task force engaging the {{Ship|German battleship|Bismarck||2|up=yes}}.
World War II service
In early 1942 she was re-designated WSC-140, and assigned to search and rescue and convoy escort duties. On 25 May 1942 she engaged a German U-boat with depth charges in a dense fog off Nantucket Shoals while rescuing survivors from the British freighter SS Peisander.
Post-war service
In 1946 she returned to her station at Woods Hole, and from 1947 until her decommissioning in 1968 was based at Gloucester, Massachusetts.
File:USCGC General Greene (WPC-140) aground March 1960.PNG, Massachusetts, sometime between 4 and 8 March 1960. Bulldozers are creating a trough for use in refloating her at high tide.]]While attempting to assist a tug in distress, General Greene was swept ashore on Spring Hill Beach at East Sandwich, Massachusetts, by hurricane-force winds and {{convert|40|ft|adj=on}} waves on 4 March 1960. All hands were rescued and the ship was refloated on 8 March 1960.[https://books.google.com/books?id=tevYlVohh_gC&dq=%22General+Greene%22+Massachusetts+Coast+Guard+Sandwich+March+7+1960&pg=PA114 Mariners Weather Log, Vol. 4, No. 4, United States Weather Bureau, July 1960, p. 114.]{{Cite web| url=http://wreckhunter.net/DataPages/generalgreene-dat.htm |title=General Greene | publisher=Hunting New England Shipwrecks |accessdate=8 February 2021 }}
After her decommissioning, General Greene was transferred to Newburyport, Massachusetts, for use as a museum ship, but she was returned to the Coast Guard in 1976 and sold. In 1979, renamed Belmont and under the flag of Guatemala, she was seized by the Coast Guard for drug smuggling.
Awards
- American Defense Service Medal with "A" device
- American Campaign Medal
- World War II Victory Medal
- National Defense Service Medal with star
See also
Notes
{{reflist|group=Note}}
Citations
{{reflist|}}
References
- {{cite book|last=Canney|first=Donald L.|title=U.S. Coast Guard and Revenue Cutters, 1790–1935|year=1995|publisher=Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland|isbn=978-1-55750-101-1}}
- {{cite journal |last1=Flynn |first1=Jim |last2=Lortz |first2=Ed |last3=Lukas |first3=Holger |title=Answer 39/48 |journal=Warship International |date=March 2018 |volume=LV |issue=January 2018 |pages=23–25 |issn=0043-0374}}
- {{cite book|last=Johnson|first=Robert Irwin|year=1987|title=Guardians of the Sea, History of the United States Coast Guard, 1915 to the Present|publisher=Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland|isbn=978-0-87021-720-3|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/guardiansofseahi00john}}
- {{cite book|last=Scheina|first=Robert L.|year=1982|title=U.S. Coast Guard Cutters & Craft of World War II|publisher=Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland|isbn=978-0-87021-717-3}}
- {{cite book|last=Scheina|first=Robert L.|year=1990|title=U.S. Coast Guard Cutters & Craft, 1946–1990|publisher=Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland|isbn=978-0-87021-719-7}}
=Websites=
- {{cite web|title=General Greene, 1927|url=https://www.history.uscg.mil/Browse-by-Topic/Assets/Water/All/Article/2474896/general-greene-1927-wmec-140/|work=Cutters, Craft & U.S. Coast Guard-Manned Army & Navy Vessels|publisher=U.S. Coast Guard Historian's Office|access-date=3 February 2014|format=asp}}
- {{cite web|title=Record of Movements, Vessels of the United States Coast Guard, 1790–December 31, 1933|publisher=U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Transportation|url=http://www.uscg.mil/history/articles/RecordofMovements.pdf|access-date=3 February 2014}}
{{Active class patrol boat}}
{{1960 shipwrecks}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:General Greene (Wsc-140)}}
Category:Active-class patrol boats
Category:Ships built in Camden, New Jersey
Category:World War II patrol vessels of the United States
Category:Maritime incidents in 1960
Category:Shipwrecks of the Massachusetts coast
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