The USCG Taney: The Last Pearl Harbor Warship Still Afloat

Many an historian has chronicled the December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the devastating effect it had on the United States Navy.

Solemn and sobering memorials now stand where naval battleships - such as the USS Arizona and the USS Oklahoma - were birthed on that peaceful Sunday morning 66 years ago.

Somewhat hidden, however, among the tales of heroism and horror of that infamous day, is the role played by the United States Coast Guard.

In the spring of 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt began transferring Coast Guard vessels into ocean districts controlled by the Navy. By November, Roosevelt had reassigned the entire service to naval control.

Due to their value as escort vessels, the entire fleet of the Coast Guard's 327-foot cutters was transferred a month before the rest of the service.

One such ship remains afloat today: The USCG Cutter Taney, decommissioned and moored in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

The Taney - commissioned in 1936 as the Roger B. Taney and named for the former Secretary of the Treasury and Chief Justice of the United States - arrived in her home port of Honolulu in January of 1937.

The cutter's primary task before World War II was to supply isolated way-stations along the transpacific air routes. The Taney also assisted in the annexing of territory in the South Pacific, having landed colonists and supplies on both the Kanton and Enderbury Islands.

With the expansion of the Japanese Empire and the rising tensions of a world on the brink of war,. the Taney returned to her home port of Honolulu for rearmament. In July of 1941, the Coast Guard cutter was transferred to the Navy and reported for duty with the local defense forces of the 14th Naval District.

As Japanese planes filled the sky over Pearl Harbor on December 7, the Taney lay moored approximately six miles away at pier six in Honolulu Harbor. There were less than a dozen other Coast Guard vessels stationed in Honolulu that day, among which were two 125-foot patrol boats, Reluctance and Tiger, and the buoy-tender Kukui.

The crew of the Taney watched as the first wave of planes devastated the naval anchorage at Pearl, but received no orders to enter the fray. When the second wave of planes appeared, the Taney aimed her three-inch guns at the Japanese formations but the fire had no effect.

At ceremonies marking the 50^th Anniversary of the attack, Pearl Harbor survivor Willis Partridge - an 18-year-old signalman third class at the time - recalled the moments for those in attendance.

"Five Japanese planes came toward us from the west," Partridge recounted. "They looked like they were coming in for a glide-bombing run on our ship or the power plant just to the northeast of Pier 6. Our gun crews fired everything we had at them; we didn't see how any of them got through our barrage."

An article in the October 25, 1991 edition of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin gave credit to the gunfire from the Taney as the reason downtown Honolulu and the nearby Hawaiian Electric Co. plant were not bombed as World War II began.

Chuck Sellentin, a Nebraska native and a 17-year-old fireman onboard the Taney, was a shipmate of Partridge.

" I started cursing because we had been having so many drills," Sellentin remembered, "but another shipmate came running into the engine room screaming that the Oklahoma was sinking and you could see the smoke rising from Pearl Harbor. That's when I knew this was no drill."

In the days following the attack, The Taney conducted constant patrols around Pearl Harbor dropping depth charges on suspected submarine targets. She would perform this duty for the remainder of 1941 and into 1942, and received orders to search for survivors in the waters around Midway Island after the Battle of Midway, including a stop at the island itself.

The Taney went on to serve her country for 50 years and saw action in both the Pacific and Atlantic Theaters during World War II. She also served as command ship for the battle of Okinawa and even particpated in the search for lost aviator Amelia Earhart.

The Taney served as a support ship during both the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and played host to French President Charles DeGaulle in 1960. She has also patrolled the seas protecting fisheries and chasing drug smugglers. In one of its 11 drug seizures in the Caribbean, the Taney seized $140 million worth of marijuana.

This week, in anticipation of a December 7 celebration onboard, more than 50 current members of the U.S. Coast Guard volunteered for cleaning detail on the Taney.

Navy Chaplain Brian Jacobson, a driving force behind the cleanup effort for the commemoration, called the Taney "One of the greatest pieces of history we have in the Coast Guard."

That piece of history is alive in Baltimore's Harbor, moored not far from another famous American warship, The USS Constellation.

The Taney, designated as a National Historic Landmark, is operated by the Baltimore Maritime Museum. She was formally decommissioned on December 7, 1986 and turned over to the city of Baltimore for use as a museum ship. Over her distinguished career the Taney received three battle stars for World War II service and numerous theatre ribbons for service in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.

According to Kristi Betz, a spokeswoman for the Baltimore Maritime Museum, Friday's remembrance ceremony on the ship is free and open to the public. Survivors of Pearl Harbor will share their stories and there will be a 21-gun salute, a playing of taps, and a wreath drop by a Baltimore Police Department helicopter.

The USCG Taney was one of 101 ships stationed near Pearl Harbor on December. 7, 1941, and when she was decommissioned 45 years later she was the last of those 101 ships still in active service. (To honor those who died onboard, the USS Arizona is still designated as "in commission.")

The Taney has sailed through three wars unscathed, and left a lasting legacy to the veterans who sailed with her. And she forever etched the courage and patriotism of the Coast Guard into the history of one of America's most notable - and darkest - days.