USCGC ''Itasca'' was a Lake-class cutter of the

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mult ...

launched on 16 November 1929 and commissioned 12 July 1930. It acted as "picket ship" supporting Amelia Earhart's 1937 world flight attempt.

Career

In USCG service, ''Itasca'' performed

Bering Sea The Bering Sea (, ; rus, Бе́рингово мо́ре, r=Béringovo móre) is a marginal sea of the Northern Pacific Ocean. It forms, along with the Bering Strait, the divide between the two largest landmasses on Earth: Eurasia and The Ameri ...

patrols. In 1934 it was used to settle the first wave of colonists that were involved in the

American Equatorial Islands Colonization Project The American Equatorial Islands Colonization Project was a plan initiated in 1935 by the U.S. Department of Commerce to place citizens of the United States on uninhabited Howland, Baker and Jarvis islands in the central Pacific Ocean so that we ...

. It is most remembered as the "

picket ship A radar picket is a radar-equipped station, ship, submarine, aircraft, or vehicle used to increase the radar detection range around a nation or military (including naval) force to protect it from surprise attack, typically air attack, or from cr ...

" that would provide

air navigation The basic principles of air navigation are identical to general navigation, which includes the process of planning, recording, and controlling the movement of a craft from one place to another. Successful air navigation involves piloting an air ...

and

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

links for

Amelia Earhart Amelia Mary Earhart ( , born July 24, 1897; disappeared July 2, 1937; declared dead January 5, 1939) was an American aviation pioneer and writer. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many oth ...

when she made her 1937 attempt to fly around the world. ''Itasca'', stationed at

Howland Island Howland Island () is an uninhabited coral island located just north of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean, about southwest of Honolulu. The island lies almost halfway between Hawaii and Australia and is an unorganized, unincorporated ter ...

, tried to keep in radio contact with her but radio reception was intermittent. On 2 July 1937 ''Itasca'' received the last transmission from Earhart's aircraft and after receiving no further messages she assumed that the aircraft had gone into the ocean. ''Itasca'' immediately headed to the area of the last radio transmission and started search operations northward of Howland Island. ''Itasca'' and other Navy and Coast Guard vessels continued the search operation in the area until 16 July when the search was called off. ''Itasca'' was decommissioned on

lend lease Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States (), was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and other Allied nations with food, oil, ...

to the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

where she received a name change, becoming HMS ''Gorleston'' (Y92) after the

East Anglian East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, kingdom of the Kingdom of East Anglia, East Angles, ...

port of

Gorleston Gorleston-on-Sea (), known colloquially as Gorleston, is a town in the Borough of Great Yarmouth, in Norfolk, England, to the south of Great Yarmouth. Situated at the mouth of the River Yare it was a port town at the time of the Domesday Book ...

on 30 May 1941. ''Gorleston'' was equipped with Type 286M Radar after arrival in England; and was assigned to the 40th Escort Group escorting trade convoys between England and

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierra ...

with sister ships and , Lend-Lease destroyer and Sloop-of-war, sloop . After escorting convoys OS 4, SL 87, OS 10, SL 93, OS 12, SL 95, OS 17, SL 100, OS 22, SL 106, OS 28, SL 112, OS 34 and SL 118 on this eastern

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

route, ''Gorleston'' made a trip to

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

escorting convoys DS 33 and SD 33, and escorted convoys KMF 3, MKF 3, KMF 5, MKF 5, KMF 7 and MKF 7 between England and the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...

in support of

Operation Torch Operation Torch (8 November 1942 – Run for Tunis, 16 November 1942) was an Allies of World War II, Allied invasion of French North Africa during the Second World War. Torch was a compromise operation that met the British objective of secu ...

.Mason, Lt Cdr Geoffrey B., RN (Rtd)
"HMS 'Gorleston'."
''naval-history.net,'' 2005. Retrieved: 2 September 2011. ''Gorleston'' was then assigned to the 42nd Escort Group with sister ship , s and , and sloops and escorting tanker convoys UC 1 and CU 1. ''Gorleston'' then resumed escorting eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean convoys until refit in

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

in December 1943. After refit, ''Gorleston'' escorted eastern Mediterranean convoys from March 1944 until assigned to the

Kilindini Kilindini Harbour is a large, natural deep-water inlet extending inland from Mombasa, Kenya. It is at its deepest center, although the controlling depth is the outer channel in the port approaches with a dredged depth of . It serves as the harbo ...

Escort Force in August 1944. ''Gorleston'' escorted

Arabian Sea The Arabian Sea ( ar, اَلْبَحرْ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Bahr al-ˁArabī) is a region of the northern Indian Ocean bounded on the north by Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by the Gulf of Aden, Guardafui Channel ...

convoys until transferred to

Colombo Colombo ( ; si, කොළඹ, translit=Koḷam̆ba, ; ta, கொழும்பு, translit=Koḻumpu, ) is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. According to the Brookings Institution, Colombo me ...

in June 1945. ''Gorleston'' spent the remainder of the war escorting

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line between ...

convoys in support of

Operation Zipper During World War II, Operation Zipper was a British plan to capture either Port Swettenham or Port Dickson, Malaya, as staging areas for the recapture of Singapore in Operation Mailfist. However, due to the end of the war in the Pacific, it wa ...

. ''Gorleston'' was returned to the United States on 23 April 1946 and redesignated USCGC ''Itasca'' until scrapped in 1950.USCGC ''Itasca'' (1930), U.S. Coast Guard Historian's Office.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * Lenton, H.T. and J. J. Colledge. ''British and Dominion Warships of World War II''. London: Ian Allan, 1973, First edition 1964. . * Long, Elgen M. and Marie K. ''Amelia Earhart: The Mystery Solved''. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999. . * Lovell, Mary S. ''The Sound of Wings''. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989. . * Pellegrino, Anne Holtgren. ''World Flight: The Amelia Trail''. Ames, Iowa: The Iowa State University Press, 1971. . * ''The Radio Amateur's Handbook''. West Hartford, Connecticut: American Radio Relay League, 1945. No ISBN. * Safford, Laurance F. with Warren, Cameron A. and Payne, Robert R.'' Earhart's Flight into Yesterday: The Facts Without the Fiction'', McLean, Virginia: Paladwr Press, 2003. .

External links

U.S. Coast Guard Historian's Office
{{DEFAULTSORT:Itasca (1929) Lake-class cutters Ships built in Alameda, California 1929 ships

World War II sloops of the United Kingdom

Career

See also

References

Citations

Bibliography

External links