Builder: New Jersey Shipbuilding Company, Barber, New Jersey
Commissioned: 30 March 1944
Decommissioned: 20 March 1946
Disposition: Transferred to the Maritime Commission on 2 February 1948 for disposal.
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 William T. Allen, USCGR
LTJG Seymour L. Treib, USCGR
LTJG Charles A. Rice, USCGR
History: Flotilla 35, Group 104, Division 207
The USS LCI(L)-581 was built by the New Jersey Shipbuilding Company of Barber, New Jersey and was commissioned there on 30 March 1944 with a Navy crew. After shakedown and amphibious training at Solomons Island, Maryland, she arrived at Bizerte on 24 May 1944. Here she was engaged in frequent ferry runs carrying troops between Bizerte, Pozzuoli, Salerno, Anzio, Naples, Civitavecchia and Nisida in Italy. She participated in the assault on Southern France on 15 August 1944, and thereafter made three more trips to Southern France, two from Pozzuoli, Italy and one from Oran, carrying troops. On 24 November 1944 she left Oran for Norfolk.
Arriving at Hampton Roads, Virginia on 11 December 1944, the 581 underwent extensive yard overhaul and repair at Lambert' s Point, Virginia and on 16 January 1945, the Navy crew and officers were relieved by a Coast Guard crew and got underway on January 19th for San Diego, California, via Key West and the Canal Zone where she arrived on February 13th. Here the crew underwent training in the San Nicholas and San Clemente Island areas while the vessel was placed on yard availability at the Naval Repair Base. On April 20th she departed San Diego for Guam, via Pearl Harbor and Eniwetok, arriving at Guam on 26 May 1945. Here the 581 was assigned to Air Sea Rescue patrol off Pati Point, Guam and made its first of many patrols commencing 14 June 1945. Here she took part in several rescues of crashed B-29s and also made regular weather observation reporting by radio each morning . On 11 July 1945, she departed for Eniwetok where she was assigned to the Port Director for inter-atoll ferry and acted as a liberty vessel for float units lying off Runit Island and as a transport from Roi, Kwajalein to Eniwetok carrying personnel bound for discharge points. On 7 November 1945, she made a trip to Wake Island transporting personnel back to Eniwetok and on November 24th she left Eniwetok for home.
She reached San Pedro on 15 December 1945, via Pearl Harbor and San Diego. Here she was decommissioned on 20 March 1946. The LCI(L)-581 earned four battle stars 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.