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The flag is shown here in 1940 waving proudly in the wind from the deck of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter General Greene, which was the 4th Coast Guard named after Revolutionary War hero General Nathaniel Greene. The photo was taken in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Also shown is the historic Nantucket Lightship LV 112.
The USCGC General Green was the 4th Coast Guard cutter to be named after Revolutionary War General Nathaniel Greene. Launched on February 2, 1927 she was commissioned on April 7, 1927 to primarily serve to combat rum runners. In dense fog on May 5, 1942 the USCGC General Greene engaged a German U-Boat with depth charges in the waters off Nantucket Shoals while rescuing survivors from the torpedoed British freighter SS Peisander. She was decommissioned in 1968 sent to Newburyport, Massachusetts to serve as a floating museum, but when financial support waned she was given back to the Coast Guard who then sold the vessel and it was renamed Belmont. Interestingly, the Coast Guard got the vessel back in 1979 when they seized the vessel for drug smuggling.
The Nantucket Lightship LV 112 was built in 1936 and paid for by the White Star Line as a result of the sinking of the Nantucket Shoals Lightship LV 117 which was struck and sunk by the RMS Olympic, the sister ship of the RMS Titanic. During World War II while serving as a patrol vessel off the coast of Portland, Maine she rescued the crew of the USS Eagle after it was sunk by a German U-Boat. In 1989 the Nantucket Lightship LV 112 was declared a National Historic Landmark. The vessel, now close to being fully restored, is owned by the United States Lightship Museum and home-ported in Boston, Massachusetts. In 2012 the Nantucket Lightship LV 112 was designated a National Treasure. Lightships were stationed in areas where it was too expensive or impossible to build a lighthouse.
This story appeared in the
Sep/Oct 2014 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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