The USCGC Eagle. America's 'Tall Ship'. Beautiful, isn't she? A steel- hulled, three masted Barque; her fore masts are rigged square, her aftermast is rigged fore and aft. She is nearly 300 ft. long and displaces just over 1,800 tons. Her home port is New London, CT and she is a training ship, used to train future officers of the U.S. Coast Guard in the ways of seamanship. She is the only steel hulled sailing vessel commissioned in the US (Government owned). She is the seventh US Navy or Coast Guard vessel to bear the name Eagle in a line that reaches back to 1792.
Even her launch was 'big deal'; far more so than most military vessels. As usual, there were politicians there but in this case, the highest ranking politicians rather than the more usual local sort; in fact, Rudolph Hess gave the speech and even Adolph Hitler was in attendance.
Wait.... what? Why was Hitler attending the launch of a US ship? Well, it wasn't a US ship then, it was German. The USCGC Eagle was built in 1936 by Bloom and Voss shipbuilder of Hamburg, Germany, and christened the Segelschulschiff (SSS)
Horst Wessel, after the Nazi martyr of the same name. She was built to be used as a training ship for the Kreigsmarine and her home port was Kiel, Germany. She was even fitted with anti- aircraft guns and is actually credited with shooting down 3 Soviet aircraft.... and one German aircraft (yeah, that was a little oppsie but I digress.....).
So how did a Nazi vessel used to train German naval personal end up as a US Coast Guard Cutter, painted white with the CG's red sash across the bow? Easy- she was a war prize. At the end of WWII, when everybody 'squared up' regarding what went where as payment for what cost who, the US got the Horst Wessel as part of the reparation package. A little paint, a little refitting (got rid of those pesky flak guns, etc.), a new crew (after the German crew and her new American crew sailed her, through a hurricane (!!), to the US from Bremerhaven) and viola! American has herself her very own Tall Ship in June, 1946!
The world is a funny place, ain't it? I wonder if there is any German graffiti left in any of the bathroom stalls....
Brian