YEATON, 1927
WSC / WMEC-156
CLASS: Active Class Patrol Boat
BUILDER: American Brown Boveri Electric Corp., Camden, NJ
COMMISSIONED: 10 May 1927
LAUNCHED: 2 May 1927
DECOMMISSIONED: 18 July 1969 and sold 16 July 1970.
DISPLACEMENT: 232 tons
PROPULSION: Two 6-cylinder, 300 hp engines
LENGTH: 125 feet
BEAM: 23 feet, 6 inches
DRAFT: 7 feet, 6 inches
COMPLEMENT: 3 officers, 17 men
ARMAMENT: 1 3"/27 (1927); in WWII two dc racks were added
Class History:
This class of vessels was one of the most useful and long-lasting in Coast Guard service with 16 cutters still in use in the 1960’s. The last to be decommissioned from active service was the Morris in 1970; the last in actual service was the Cuyahoga, which sank after an accidental collision in 1978. They were designed for trailing the "mother ships" along the outer line of patrol during Prohibition. They were constructed at a cost of $63,173 each. They gained a reputation for durability that was only enhanced by their re-engining in the late 1930’s; their original 6-cylinder diesels were replaced by significantly more powerful 8-cylinder units that used the original engine beds and gave the vessels 3 additional knots. All served in World War II, but two, the Jackson and Bedloe, were lost in a storm in 1944. Ten were refitted as buoy tenders during the war and reverted to patrol work afterward.
Cutter History:
USCGC Yeaton--a 125-foot steel-hulled, diesel-powered Coast Guard cutter--was completed in 1927 at Camden, N.J., by the American Brown Boveri Electric Corp. She was commissioned into Coast Guard service soon thereafter. She initially served at Norfolk Va., in 1928 and successively at St. Petersburg, Fla., from 1929 to 1931; at Pascagoula, Miss., in 1932 and 1933; back at St. Petersburg in 1934; at Gulfport, Miss., from 1935 to 1938; at Stapleton, N.Y., in 1939; and at Gallups Island, Mass., in 1940. When the Coast Guard came under Navy control in 1941, Yeaton most probably operated on patrol duties. No records of the ship's wartime service have been found, however, leaving one only to conjecture. Sometime in 1942, the ship was classified as a patrol craft and given the hull number WPC-156.
After World War II, Yeaton resumed operation with the Coast Guard, out of New, London, Conn. In the 1960's, the Coast Guard reclassified the ship as a medium endurance cutter (WMEC) and gave her the identification WMEC--156.
Yeaton was decommissioned and laid up in 1970.
Sources:
Cutter History File, Coast Guard Historian's Office.
Donald Canney. U.S. Coast Guard and Revenue Cutters, 1790-1935. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995.
Robert Scheina. U.S. Coast Guard Cutters & Craft of World War II. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1982.
Robert Scheina. U.S. Coast Guard Cutters & Craft, 1946-1990. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990.
U.S. Coast Guard. Record of Movements: Vessels of the United States Coast Guard: 1790 - December 31, 1933. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1934; 1989 (reprint).