USCGC ''Tahoma'' (WPG-80) was a

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 ...

Cutter built by the

Defoe Shipbuilding Company The Defoe Shipbuilding Company was a small ship builder established in 1905 in Bay City, Michigan, United States. It ceased to operate in 1976 after failing to renew its contracts with the United States Navy. The site of the former company is ...

Bay City, Michigan Bay City is a city and county seat of Bay County in the U.S. state of Michigan, located near the base of the Saginaw Bay on Lake Huron. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 34,932, and it is the principal city of the Bay City Metropol ...

. Completed in 1934, the steel-hulled cutter operated on the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...

between 1934 and 1941, attached to the 9th Coast Guard District and homeported at

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

. She was named after the

Tahoma Glacier The Tahoma Glacier is a long glacier mostly on the western flank of Mount Rainier in Washington. It covers and contains of ice. The glacier starts out near the summit of the volcano at over . As the glacier flows west-southwest out of the summi ...

on the western slope of

Mount Rainier Mount Rainier (), indigenously known as Tahoma, Tacoma, Tacobet, or təqʷubəʔ, is a large active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest, located in Mount Rainier National Park about south-southeast of Seattle. With a s ...

in the state of Washington. As the United States moved closed to full participation in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, President Roosevelt issued an

executive order In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of th ...

on 1 November 1941 transferring the Coast Guard from the

United States Treasury Department The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the Treasury, national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an United States federal executive departments, executive department. The departme ...

to the

Navy A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral zone, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and ...

. Accordingly, ''Tahoma'' was sometime thereafter reclassified as a

gunboat A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies. History Pre-steam ...

and designated WPG-80. By July 1942, the former cutter had left the Great Lakes to escort

Allied An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

convoys A convoy is a group of vehicles, typically motor vehicles or ships, traveling together for mutual support and protection. Often, a convoy is organized with armed defensive support and can help maintain cohesion within a unit. It may also be used ...

in the

North 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 and ...

in the vicinity of

Casco Bay, Maine Casco Bay is an inlet of the Gulf of Maine on the southern coast of Maine, New England, United States. Its easternmost approach is Cape Small and its westernmost approach is Two Lights in Cape Elizabeth. The city of Portland sits along its south ...

; Ivigtut, Greenland; St. John's and

Argentia Argentia ( ) is a Canadian commercial seaport and industrial park located in the Town of Placentia, Newfoundland and Labrador. It is situated on the southwest coast of the Avalon Peninsula and defined by a triangular shaped headland which r ...

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

; and

Sydney, Nova Scotia Sydney is a former city and urban community on the east coast of Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, Canada within the Cape Breton Regional Municipality. Sydney was founded in 1785 by the British, was incorporated as a city in 1904, and dissolv ...

; into the spring of 1944. The remainder of her naval service was spent in serving on

weather Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmosphere, the ...

and ice patrol duties between

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

and

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 ...

and plane guard operations in the same waters. In the latter service, she alternated with the Coast Guard cutters ''Frederick Lee'' (''WPC-139''), ''Algonquin'' (''WPG-75''), and ''Mohawk'' (''WPG-78'') into 1945. At the time of the

Japanese surrender The surrender of the Empire of Japan in World War II was announced by Emperor Hirohito on 15 August and formally signed on 2 September 1945, bringing the war's hostilities to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy ...

in mid-August 1945, ''Tahoma'' was at sea on a plane guard station. Released from duty with the Atlantic Fleet on 30 September 1945, ''Tahoma'' was returned to the Coast Guard for a resumption of peacetime service. ''Tahoma'' was decommissioned on 5 June 1953; and stored at Curtis Bay, Maryland. She was sold to Bethlehem Steel Company for scrap on 17 October 1955.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tahoma (WPG-80) Algonquin-class cutters 1934 ships Ships built in Bay City, Michigan