(left) USS Ingham on convoy duty in Wo rld Ular II. In wartime, the p resident ordered that the Coast Guard be placed under the op erational control ofthe US Navy. A ll Coast Guard ships remained Coast Guard assets and were maintained by Coast Guard crews. In WWII, the ships' names were changed to reflect this change in status (i.e. USCGC Ingham changed to USS Ingham). Rhode Island's Representative Clairborne PeLL had served in the Coast Guard in WWII and was frustrated that Coast Guard vessels had to lose most of their identities. H e introduced and got p assed legislation that Coast Guard vessels would retain their identities when merged with the navy in wartime. Therefo re, in Vietnam, the Coast Guard's 82 -footers and other Coast Guard vessels operated under the US Navy but maintained the "US CG C" in their names and, in the case ofthe large cutters, retained the identifjing color scheme ofwhite hulls and the orange-red racing stripe.
days ro round up some, bur nor all, of rhe missing ships. Twenry-rwo were nor found and had ro proceed independently ro po re. On rhe way, one was rorpedoed and sank wirh all hands. l ngham's nexr escort du cy involved her in whar Admiral Doenirz described as "rhe hardesr fo ughr convoy barde of rhe war." The sixry-ship convoy lefr New Yo rk on 24 January 1943. Two escons sanka U-boat and captured its crew on 4 February, but despite this success, rwo more U-boats moved in and sank rwo of th e freighcers. Ingham, her so nar heavily damaged from the recent storm, with destroyers Babbitt and Schenck, was ordered ro reinforce. Before they arrived, U-boat ace Baron Siegfried von Forstener, commanding U-402, moved in and, in less than rwo hours, sank six convoy ships. His sixrh vicrim was rhe troopship H enry R. Mallory with 498 crewm en and mili ra ry perso nnel o n board. M allory had been srraggling as tern of rhe convoy and was no t zigzagging. After she was hit, rhe captain failed ro send a distress m essage or send up flares, and as a result, it was six hours before anyone knew she had been sunk. The cutter Bibb cam e across a lifeboat loaded with survivo rs, learned they were from the Ma!Lory, and informed the escort group co mmander. Th e commander o rdered Ingham ro sweep as rern of the convoy ro look for survivo rs. After passing through wreckage from ano ther of U -402's victims, Ingham found herself in 28
a sea of bodies from the Mallory, most of them dead. With Ingham screening, Bibb commenced recove ring those that were still alive. The escort group commander ordered Bibb to halt recovery and rejoin the convoy at besr speed, bur Co mmander Rainey, Bibb's commanding offi cer, replied, "Th e sea is alive wirh m en and we have ro go gee chem." In all, Bibb rescued 202 Mallory survivors. l ngham's rwo boars rescued seven m en from a lifeboat and fifreen mo re from capsized rafts and wreckage. When men in the water were too incapacitated to help themselves, volunteers fromlngham climbeddown cargo nets strung over th e cutter's side and passed lines around survivo rs in the water. After a few minutes in the icy wate rs, the rescuers' hands were so frozen th ey co uld do nothing and had robe hauled up o n deck. In summ ary, this o ne co nvoy had been attacked by rwenry-o ne U- boats-three U boarswere sunk, fo ur were heavily damaged, and only three penetrated the screen . The U-boatssank eleven convoy ships; mo re than 400 m en lost their lives. Fo r his successful attacks against this and a previous convoy, Forstener was award ed Ge rmany's highest honor, the Iron C ross. The las t N orth Atlantic convoy batde Ingham rook part in was th e biggest convoy barde of rhe wa r. Two co nvoys, a slow one with sixry ships and a fast one with fifcy ships, sailed eastbound fro m New York within three days of each other. The Ger-
m ans intercepted and decoded messages, which gave them the convoy routes. Admiral Doenirz ordered rhirry-seven U -boars to form patrol lines to intercept the convoys. Because of bad weather, the convoys passed through the patrol lin es underecred , bur a U -boat returning ro base sighted and repo rted the fas r co nvoy and the barde was on. Ingham and Babbitt were o rdered fro m Iceland to rein fo rce rhe escort groups. U -boats located both convoys and sank rwen ry- rwo ships. O ne of the las t to go was the Ma tthew Luckenbach, which had left her station and raced ahead of the co nvoy. Ingham sighted rhe plume of a torpedo explosion alo ngs ide the frei ghter, sped ro her position and rescued the entire crew and armed guard. The Luckenbach stayed afloat, and one of l ngham's officers volunteered to go aboard with a few men and bring her to port. Fortunately, the captain said no- the next day ano ther ro rpedo arrack sank the Luckenbach. In a peri od of three days, 42 U-boars had attacked the rwo convoys and sank 22 m erchant ships. More than 470 men (including U-boar crewmen) lost their lives . Admiral Doenirz called it "[t]he grearesr success that we had so fa r scored against a convoy." The Allies we re afraid that it was rhe end of rhe co nvoy sys tem, but actually it was the turning point in the Barde of the Atl anti c. With jeep carriers, more long-range bombers, new destroyer escorts,
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