USCG 1 Coast Guard rescue vessel

[aukepalmhof]

The stamp is designed after a photo, which depict the Coast Guard vessel USCG 1 and the Landing Craft Personnel Vehicle (LCVP) 549 tied up alongside the troopship SAMUEL CHASE which is not visible on the stamp.

Was built by the Wheeler Shipyard Incorporation, Brooklyn, NY for the American Coast Guard.
Launched as CG83300.
Displacement 76 ton fully loaded, dim. 83.2 x 16.2 x 5.4ft. (draught maximum)
Powered by two Sterling Viking II engines, 1,200 shp, twin shafts, speed 20.6 knots maximum.
Cruising speed 10 knots.
Range by 10 knots, 475 mile.
Armament: 1 – 1pdr. gun, 2 – 0.30 cal machine gun.
Crew 1 Officer and 13 men.
Building cost 42,450 USA$.
1941 Commissioned and assigned to EASTSEAFRON, stationed in Boston, Mass.

She was used for anti-submarine patrol convoy escort and search and rescue .from 1941 till 1944.
1944 Assigned to the COM12THFLEET stationed in Poole, England.
June 1944 assigned to USCG Rescue Flotilla No1.
Took part in the Normandy landings as USCG-1.
June 1945 assigned to the EASTSEAFRON stationed again in Boston, Mass.
24 April 1961 decommissioned.
07 September 1962 sold.
Fate unknown.

http://www.uscg.mil/history/webcutters/ ... tories.pdf

During the spring of 1944, prior to the onset of Operation Overlord, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the Coast Guard to provide search and rescue craft for the invasion. The Coast Guard had a fleet of 83-foot wooden-hulled patrol craft that were used for coastal patrols in U.S. waters and so the Commander in Chief of the U.S. Fleet, Admiral Ernest King, USN, ordered the Coast Guard to deploy 60 of these cutters to the United Kingdom for service during Operation Neptune/Overlord. Their hull numbers were removed and they were given new designations of 1 to 60, preceded by "USCG", to ease identification issues in the Allied invasion fleet. Each cutter was transported piggy-back on freighters to the U.K. where they were offloaded, formed into "Rescue Flotilla One" based at Poole, England, and modified for service as rescue craft. They earned the nickname "Matchbox Fleet" due to their wooden hulls and two Sterling-Viking gasoline engines -- one incendiary shell hitting a cutter could easily turn it into a "fireball."
They were assigned to each of the invasion areas, with 30 serving off of the British and Canadian sectors and 30 serving off the American sectors. During Operation Neptune/Overlord these cutters and their crews carried out the Coast Guard's time-honored task of saving lives, albeit under enemy fire on a shoreline thousands of miles from home. The cutters of Rescue Flotilla One saved more than 400 men on D-Day alone and by the time the unit was decommissioned in December, 1944, they had saved 1,438 souls.
http://www.uscg.mil/history/webcutters/ ... _Index.asp