GLACIER USCG
Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 4:51 pm
Built as an icebreaker by Ingalls Shipbuilding Corp., Pascagoula, Miss. For the U.S. Navy.
03 August 1953 laid down.
27 August 1954 launched under the name GLACIER (AGB-4), named after Glacier Bay in Alaska, christened by Mrs. Roscoe F.Good.
Displacement 8.650 tons, dim. 94.5 x 22.6 x 8.8m.
Powered diesel electric by ten Fairbank Morse diesels connected to two electric motors, 21.000 hp., speed 17.6 knots. Twin screws.
Range 25.000 miles.
Could break ice of 4 foot by a speed of 3 miles.
Armament 2 – 5 inch guns.
Crew 339.
27 May 1955 commissioned in command of Comdr. E.H.Mater. Homeport Boston, Mass.
Her maiden voyage was in Operation “Deep Freeze” in preparation for the International Geophysical Year, she was the flagship of the Antarctic explorer Admiral Richard E. Byrd, during that voyage to the Antarctic.
December 1955 she had her first encounter with the ice when after breaking through the Ross Ice Pack, she carved out an ice harbour in Kainan Bay to permit the offloading cargo ships at the site for Little America V.
GLACIER subsequently continued 400 miles west to break ice into an offloading site for the establishment of the Naval Air Facility at McMurdo Sound. In March 1956 an exploratory voyage around the Weddell Sea was completed; the icebreaker surveyed Vincennes Bay in Wilkes Land and made the first landing in history on the Princess Martha and Princess Astrid coast. GLACIER returned to Boston, her homeport on 6 May 1956 after these accomplishments.
The GLACIER returned to McMurdo Sound 28 October 1956 as spearhead for Deep Freeze II, having made the earliest seasonal penetration in history through the dangerous ice belt. After supply deliveries there and at Little America, she led seven other Navy ships from New Zealand through the ice pack to the two Antarctic basis sites. In January 1957 she led two cargo ships into Vincennes Bay where the last of the seven American bases for the International Geophysical Year was to be constructed. GLACIER departed Wilkes Station 17 February for the United States via Melbourne with the termination of the operations.
During the Deep Freeze III and the IGY of 1957-58, GLACIER participated as a launching platform for extensive “rockoon” tests during which balloon-lifted rockets gained information useful to the “Explorer” space satellite program. In addition, the icebreaker continued her usual ice clearing and escort duties and conducted oceanographic studies in the Ross Sea.
The summer of 1958 found GLACIER at the opposite end of the earth as she escorted ships participating in “Operation Sunec” for the resupply of North Pole radar and weather stations. By November of that year, however she was again near the South Pole at McMurdo Sound, and after supplying the base steamed to Little America V to begin deactivation of that station. Subsequently, while operating in the Terra Nova Bay on the coast of Victoria Land, she discovered two previously unknown islands and what was possible the largest Emperor penguin rookery in the Antarctic, home of over 50.000 of the large birds. GLACIER came to the assistance of the Belgian expedition ship POLARHAV near Breid Bay, halfway around the Antarctic continent from the Ross Sea area.
Fifth of the Navy’s Antarctic support operations, “Deep Freeze 60” (for the season 1959-60) took the ship once more to McMurdo and on a tour of exploration into the Bellingshausen Sea. Oceanographic and cartographic studies were discontinued in late February 1960 when GLACIER steamed to assist Argentine icebreaker GENERAL SAN MARTIN and Danish cargo ship KISTA DAN. With these missions accomplished, GLACIER sailed for Boston via Rio de Janeiro, and while at that port provided emergency assistance to flooded areas in Brazil, finally sailing for Boston 17 April 1960.
The GLACIER departed Boston 13 October 1960 on her sixth Antarctic voyage and reached Lyttelton, New Zealand on 21 November to unload cargo. Most of December was spent in breaking a 21-mile channel through McMurdo Sound to open the way for the thin-hulled supply ships. Following a return voyage to Wellington, N.Z. for repairs and to receive the Navy Unit Commendation for the Bellingshausen achievement of the preceding expedition, she again entered the ice-choked Amundsen and Bellingshausen Seas on a voyage of exploration and discovery. Oceanographic work continued until March 1961 when she sailed for Boston arriving 27 April.
Underway again 08 October 1961 for “Deep Freeze 62”, she loaded cargo at Lyttelton, N.Z. in early November and encountered the Ross Sea ice pack 13 November, reaching McMurdo Sound by the end of the month. After repair at Wellington, GLACIER returned to McMurdo and pressed on to the site of Little America V for cartographic studies. She returned to New Zealand 06 March 1962 and subsequently put in at Boston 05 May after steaming 36.000 miles.
The GLACIER sailed again from Boston 17 September for “Deep FREEZE 63” entering the pack ice 06 November and reaching the edge of the fast bay ice of McMurdo Sound a week later. The thickness of the ice necessitated repairs at Wellington, N.Z. by 31 December 1962, GLACIER was again churning through McMurdo Sound enroute to McMurdo Station. She continued operations off McMurdo Station through 1965. One of her many duties was to keep the channel open for supply ships. On 29 December 1965, ATKA (AGB-3) and BURTON ISLAND (AGB-1) assisted her in pushing an iceberg out of the shipping lane. After further participation in her 11th “Operation Deepfreeze” GLACIER returned to her home port, Boston, Mass, in late spring of 1966.
On 1 July 1966 GLACIER was struck from the Navy List after transfer to the Coast Guard on 30 June 1966.
1966 The national responsibility for icebreaking operations was transferred from the US navy to US Coast Guard and the GLACIER was transferred to the Coast Guard, her hull painted white, homeport changed from Boston to Long Beach, CA.
She continued service in the Antarctic and Arctic waters.
1972 Her hull was painted again red.
1973 She made her deepest penetration in the Weddell Sea.
1976 A crewmember was electrocuted; it was her first fatality in 21 years at sea.
1981 She made her first voyage with female crewmembers, 2 officers and 17 enlisted.
May 1985 her homeport changed to Portland, OR.
07 June 1987 decommissioned, and on 30 October 2000 President Clinton signed a bill, transferring CLACIER to the Clacier Society.
Altogether she made 29 voyages to the Antarctic and 10 voyages to the Arctic regions, steaming a total of 944.050 miles.
At present (2007) she is anchored in Suisan Bay, San Francisco near the town of Benicia.
The stamp is designed by Howard Koslow and features a view of a nunatak, a rock poking through an icefield, near the US Palmer station on Anvers Island, Antarctica. Richard Harrington bases the design on a photograph in a 1976 publication, titled “The Antarctic”. The GLACIER was added after postal officials decided that the original design was somewhat lifeless. The stamp is a composite design and not based on a photograph or actual observation of the ship in that location.
USA 1991 50c sgA2587, scottC130
Source: Mostly copied from Dictionary of American Fighting Ships. http://www.desertanchor.com/glacier/history.htm Watercraft Philately Vol. 39 page 46.