Builder: New Jersey Shipbuilding Company, Barber, New Jersey
Commissioned: 28 February 1944
Decommissioned: 26 March 1946
Disposition: Sold on 12 December 1946. Her ultimate fate remains unknown.
Length: 158' 6" oa
Beam: 23' 3"
Draft: 2' 8" (forward), 5' 3" (aft -- beaching condition)
Displacement: 216 tons (light); 234 tons (beaching condition); 389 tons (full load)
Propulsion: 8 x GM diesels; twin shafts (4 diesels per shaft); 1,600 hp; twin variable-pitch propellers
Range: 4,000 @ 12 knots
Top Speed: 15.5 knots
Complement: 3 officers, 21 enlisted
Troops: 188
Cargo capacity: 75 tons
Initial armament: 4 x 20mm (single-mount): 1 forward, 1 amidships, 2 aft; 2 x .50 caliber; 2" plastic splinter armor on gun shields, conning tower, and pilot house.
Coast Guard Commanding Officers
LTJG Henry E. Brubaker, USCGR
History: Flotilla 35, Group 104, Division 207
The USS LCI(L)-562 was built at the New Jersey Shipbuilding Company of Barber, New Jersey, and was first commissioned on 28 February 1944, being in command first of LTJG Sidney N. Ruffin, USNR with a full Navy crew. While manned with her Navy crew the 562 saw duty at Pozzuole, Italy, from 6 June to 31 July 1944 when with British officers aboard she was convoy commodore of a convoy of 14 British LCTs and supervised all unloading in that area. She carried assault troops to the beaches near Marseilles, France from August 15th to the 31st, and moved prisoners and injured to Marseilles. Another contingent of French troops was landed at the Bay of Tropez from Oran on 6 September 1944. On 11 December 1944, she proceeded to England and thence to Portsmouth, Virginia and Lambert's Point, Norfolk, Virginia.
On 10 January 1945, she was commissioned as a Coast Guard vessel and on January 16th all naval officers and enlisted personnel were replaced by Coast Guard officers and enlisted personnel. Two days later she was underway to San Diego, California, via Key West and the Canal Zone to report to Commander LCI(L) Flotilla 35, with whom she trained there until 20 April 1945. On that date she departed for Guam, via Pearl Harbor and Eniwetok, arriving at Guam on 26 May 1945. She was on Air Sea Rescue duty under command of Commander, Task Unit 94.7.1 at Guam until 27 July 1945, when she proceeded to Eniwetok to perform ferry boat duties for the Port Director there. On 17 September 1945, she proceeded to Kusaie in the Carolines, returning to Eniwetok on the 23rd. On the 29th she proceeded to Majuro, Marshall Islands with the LCI(L)-319 to load 123 passengers for transportation to Parry Island, Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands, disembarking them there on October 6th. On October 25th, she proceeded to Guam for duty, proceeding to Saipan with two other LCI(L)s on November 1st, and returning to Guam on the 14th. On the 5th she loaded 65 U. S. Army personnel for transportation to Iwo Jima, Volcano Islands and beached there on November 9th. Here on the 9th she embarked 89 passengers for Saipan arriving there on the 12th. On the 14th she proceeded to Guam arriving there next day and on the 26th of November 1945 departed Guam for home.
She arrived at San Diego, via Pearl Harbor on 24 December 1945, and at Long Beach on 5 February 1946. Here she was decommissioned on 26 March 1946.
The LCI(L)-562 earned one battle star for her service in World War II.
Sources
LCI(L) file, Coast Guard Historian's Office.
United States Coast Guard. The Coast Guard At War. V. Transports and Escorts. Vol. 2. Washington: Public Information Division, Historical Section, U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters, May 1, 1949, pp. 117-130.