Wreck of USCGC Bedloe (WSC-128)

 Second World War 1939-1945, military, shipwreck, United States Coast Guard

Laid down in 1926 at the American Brown Boveri Electric Group in Camden, NJ, USCGC Antietam commissioned into US Coast Guard service in July 1927 and promptly joined the effort to combat smugglers and bootleggers of the US East Coast. Based out of USCG Station Boston as a member of the 1st US Coast Guard District, the Antietam performed her counter-smuggling duties through the end of prohibition after which she assumed the traditional Coast Guard mission of search and rescue, fisheries patrols and maritime law enforcement along the Eastern Seaboard.

Transferred to USCG Station Milwaukee in 1935, Antietam operated in the Great Lakes through 1940 when gathering war clouds and her advancing age brought her to Hoboken, NJ where she was given a comprehensive overhaul which included new engines, increased armament and upgrades to her onboard systems. Placed into the operational control of the US Navy following the outbreak of the Second World War, the Antietam was assigned to the Eastern Sea Frontier out of Stapleton, Staten Island where she was outfitted for war, which included the addition of substantial anti-surface armaments and anti-submarine gear like hydrophones and depth charge racks. Assigned the highly dangerous duty of convoy escorts and patrol ships in waters which in 1942 were infested with German U-Boats, the Antietam provided protection to countless ships transiting to and from the European and Pacific theatres, rescued shipwrecked sailors, assisted damaged and disabled vessels and hunted enemy submarines for two long years of near-constant operations.

Renamed USCGC Bedloe in 1943 to free her name up for a US Navy Aircraft Carrier under construction, ship and crew were stationed at Morehead City in early September 1944, Bedloe joined her sistership USCGC Jackson on September 14th, 1944 as they steamed to assist the torpedoed Liberty Ship SS George Ade off Cape Hatteras. Informed enroute that the cargo ship was under tow by the US Navy Tug USS Escape (ATR-6), both Cutters began to encounter rapidly deteriorating weather conditions and mounting seas as they neared their rendezvous point and began their escort of the disabled ship. Making painfully slow progress in the mounting seas, the crew’s aboard both Cutters could do little but watch as the towline between the Escape and George Ade parted over and over as the convoy passed over the treacherous Diamond Shoals in the early evening.

Struggling to maintain their position in the formation as stronger winds, larger seas and heavy rain squalls lashed the four ships, the Bedloe and Jackson soon lost visual contact with each other and their charges as darkness fell over the area. The presence of enemy Submarines in the area forced all ships to maintain strict radio silence as they proceeded Northward towards Norfolk, which did little to help the radar-less Cutters from maintaining their positions relative to the Escape and her tow, and within an hour of sunset both ships and crews were resolved to weather the storm rather than continue their escort.

Aboard Bedloe, the increasingly large following seas began to damage her depth charge racks and Stern fittings, which forced her Captain to heave-to in an attempt to better ride the seas and avoid the nearby shoreline and shoals. While she attempted her course change, Bedloe was struck by four enormous waves in quick succession; the first rolling the ship to beam ends and the subsequent for smashing down on top of the ship as she attempted to right herself. Capsized in the furious seas and no longer rolling back to an even keel, Bedloe’s Captain ordered the ship abandoned as she quickly began to flounder, but the speed of her sinking and orders for radio silence prevented her rapidly escaping crew from sending out a distress call before she rolled over and sank at this location.

Though all 38 crewmen aboard the Bedloe managed to get clear of the ship before she went down, 26 men did not survive the subsequent 51 hours spent clinging to liferafts in the storm-tossed seas before being rescued by a combination of surface and aircraft. Only upon reaching shore did the surviving crew of the Bedloe learn that their sistership and her crew had met a similar fate thirty miles North in what is now known as the Great Hurricane of 1944. Today, the wreck of the USCGC Bedloe lies on her Port side in 140ft of water roughly 21 miles south of Oregon Inlet and is frequently visited by recreational divers.

www.uscg.mil/history/webcutters/Bedloe1927.asp
www.obxdive.com/2007pics/Bedloepics.htm