Manhasset, 1942
WAG-276
ex-Wilton
An inlet of Long Island Sound on the coast of Long Island, New York.
Builder: Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Sparrows Point, Maryland
Length: 245'
Beam: 40' 2"
Draft: 16' 8"
Displacement: 3,170-tons
Cost: $
Commissioned: 1923 (commercial); 2 January 1942 (USN); 8 August 1942 (USCG)
Decommissioned: 15 October 1945
Disposition: Sold
Machinery: Hooven, Owens, Rentschler Company triple-expansion steam engine; 2 Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp. single-ended Scotch boilers; 190 psi; 1,300 SHP; single propeller.
Performance & Endurance:
Max: 11.5 knots
Cruising: 9.0 knots; 15,000 mile range
Complement: 150
Armament: 2 x 4"/50; 4 x 20mm/80 (single); 4 x "Y" guns;
Electronics: SF radar; QCL-8 sonar
History:
The Manhasset was originally built by Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation of Sparrows Point, Maryland, in 1923 as the merchant vessel Wilton. She was acquired by the Maritime Commission from her owner, Eastern Steamship Lines, Inc., in 1941 and transferred under time charter to the Navy on 2 January 1942. She was then renamed Manhasset and reclassified from YAG-8 to AG-47 on 30 May 1942.
She was converted for use as a weather patrol ship by Sullivan Drydock and Repair Corporation of Brooklyn, New York and loaned to the U.S. Coast Guard and commissioned on 8 August 1942 under the command of LCDR P. L. Stinson, USCG. With specialized meteorological instruments, Manhasset joined the weather patrol in the North Atlantic to gather vital weather information used in compiling forecasts for Allied European operations against the Axis. She braved the dangers of stormy seas and the menace of German U-boats while operating her assigned and isolated patrol areas out of Argentia and Boston. She averaged about one patrol a month, usually about three weeks long. She also patrolled and searched for German submarines. On 19 November 1942 she was disabled on station and had to be towed to Boston by the Wandank.
While cruising midway between Flemish Cap and Cape Farewell, Greenland, she depth charged a suspected U-boat, with no positive results, on 27 April 1943. The following week Convoy ON-5 steamed through her patrol station, and on 5 May 1943 she provided support during one of the most savage convoy battles of World War II. The slow 43-ship convoy was attacked by U-boats between late 4 May and early 6 May. Although the convoy lost 13 ships during the hazardous passage from the United Kingdom to New York, escorts sank five submarines and repulsed the remainder. Never again did German submarines attack in such force. Manhasset patrolled near the British merchant ship Dolius, torpedoed and abandoned earlier in the day but still afloat, she made sound contact with a submarine late in the afternoon. She made six vigorous depth charge attacks and sighted first a periscope wake followed by an oil slick. However, she sighted no wreckage and broke off attack to guard the torpedoed ship after more than two hours of searching. Manhasset contained her weather station patrols during the rest of the war. The Navy permanently transferred her to the Coast Guard 22 October 1943, and her name was struck from the Navy list 30 October 1943.
She was decommissioned on 15 October 1945 and was sold on 16 October 1946.
Sources:
Cutter History File. USCG Historian's Office, USCG HQ, Washington, D.C.
Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Washington, DC: USGPO.
Robert Scheina. U.S. Coast Guard Cutters & Craft of World War II. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1982