East Breeze, 1944

Dec. 30, 2020
PRINT | E-MAIL

East Breeze, 1944

WIX; ex-SNS Externsteine; later-USS Callao


Builder: P. Smit Jr. Shipyard, Rotterdam, Holland

Length: 183'

Beam: 30' 10"

Draft: 13' 11"

Displacement: 1,015 tons (fl)

Cost: Captured

Launched: 1944

Commissioned: 1944 (German Navy); 15 October 1944 (USCG prize); 24 January 1945 (USN)

Decommissioned: Turned over to USN in October, 1944

Disposition: 

Machinery: 1 vertical triple-expansion steam engine with 1 Scotch boiler; 750 SHP; single propeller

Complement: 16 

Armament: Assorted German anti-aircraft weaponry


Cutter History:

The German Navy's auxiliary vessel Externsteine was built by the P. Smit Jr. Shipyard in Rotterdam, Holland and entered service in 1944.  She was designed as a modified trawler capable of operations in ice and was to be used for establishing and supplying weather stations in the northern latitudes, especially Greenland.  She had berths for up to 62 men in addition to her 16-man crew. 

She was captured intact by the USCGC Eastwind (USCGC Southwind in support) on 15 October 1944 off the coast of Greenland. Her captors renamed her USCGC East Breeze and a prize crew sailed her to Boston.  On 30 November 1944 she collided with the cutter Travis while en route to Boston.  Once in Boston she was turned over to the U.S. Navy, who commissioned her as the USS Callao on 24 January 1945.


Sources:

Cutter History File.  USCG Historian's Office, USCG HQ, Washington, D.C.

Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.  Washington, DC: USGPO.

Robert Scheina.  U.S. Coast Guard Cutters & Craft of World War II.  Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1982.