USCGC Triton (WPC-116), a steel-hulled, diesel-powered Thetis-class patrol boat of the United States Coast Guard

United States Coast Guard

The United States Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven U.S. uniformed services. The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission and a federal regulatory agency...

, was the fourth commissioned ship of the United States to be named for Triton, a Greek demigod of the sea who was the son of Poseidon

Poseidon

Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...

 and Amphitrite

Amphitrite

In ancient Greek mythology, Amphitrite was a sea-goddess and wife of Poseidon. Under the influence of the Olympian pantheon, she became merely the consort of Poseidon, and was further diminished by poets to a symbolic representation of the sea...

. She served almost simultaneously with the submarine of the same name

USS Triton (SS-201)

USS Triton , a Tambor-class submarine, was the first submarine and third ship of the United States Navy to be named for Triton. Her keel was down on 5 July 1939 by the Portsmouth Navy Yard. She was launched on 25 March 1940 sponsored by Mrs. Ernest J. King, wife of Rear Admiral King, and...

. The contract for her construction was let on 17 November 1933 to the Marietta Manufacturing Company, Point Pleasant, West Virginia

Point Pleasant, West Virginia

Point Pleasant is a city in Mason County, West Virginia, United States, at the confluence of the Ohio and Kanawha rivers. The population was 4,637 at the 2000 census...

. She was commissioned

Ship commissioning

Ship commissioning is the act or ceremony of placing a ship in active service, and may be regarded as a particular application of the general concepts and practices of project commissioning. The term is most commonly applied to the placing of a warship in active duty with its country's military...

 as "Coast Guard Patrol Boat No. 16" on 20 November 1934 with Lieutenant Commander George C. Carlstedt, USCG, in command.

Assigned to the homeport of Gulfport, Mississippi

Gulfport, Mississippi

Gulfport is the second largest city in Mississippi after the state capital Jackson. It is the larger of the two principal cities of the Gulfport-Biloxi, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Gulfport-Biloxi-Pascagoula, Mississippi Combined Statistical Area. As of the...

, Triton operated in the Gulf of Mexico

Gulf of Mexico

The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...

 from at least 1 January 1935. On 1 July 1941, four months in advance of the directive whereby the United States Coast Guard was transferred from the United States Department of the Treasury

United States Department of the Treasury

The Department of the Treasury is an executive department and the treasury of the United States federal government. It was established by an Act of Congress in 1789 to manage government revenue...

 to the United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

, Triton and five of her sister ships were turned over to the Navy. This action occurred simultaneously with the establishment of the four Sea Frontiers.

Four Thetis-class patrol boats, including Triton, were assigned to the East Coast Sound School, Key West, Florida

Key West, Florida

Key West is a city in Monroe County, Florida, United States. The city encompasses the island of Key West, the part of Stock Island north of U.S. 1 , Sigsbee Park , Fleming Key , and Sunset Key...

, for duty as patrol and training vessels. Their collateral duties included operating under the aegis of Commander, Task Force 6, on Gulf patrol duties. At the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

Attack on Pearl Harbor

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...

, 7 December 1941, Triton was operating out of Key West. In or around February 1942, Triton was classified as a patrol craft and given the hull classification symbol

Hull classification symbol

The United States Navy, United States Coast Guard, and United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration use hull classification symbols to identify their ship types and each individual ship within each type...

 WPC-116.

Although American warships had been actively engaged in patrol and escort missions in the Battle of the Atlantic even before Pearl Harbor, their techniques for combating the dangerous German U-boat

U-boat

U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...

s were, in January and February 1942, still far from adequate. U-boats operating off the eastern seaboard experienced what they called "the happy time," before American convoys could be organized. In some cases, Allied ships would be sunk because they were silhouetted by lights in non-blacked out cities along the shoreline.

Tritons antisubmarine warfare (ASW) training missions were conducted along with local patrol and escort duties out of Key West from 1941 into 1945. She had her first brush with what she presumed to be an enemy submarine on 21 February 1942. On that day, she made one attack but without success. Over the next few days, upon occasion joined by and , Triton conducted more attacks but did not make any strikes.

On 9 June 1942, when reported an enemy submarine on the surface in her vicinity, Triton directed Thetis to make the search. Triton, meanwhile, contacted the submarine R-10

USS R-10 (SS-87)

USS R-10 was an R-class coastal and harbor defense submarine of the United States Navy. Her keel was laid down on 21 March 1918 by the Fore River Shipbuilding Company in Quincy, Massachusetts. She was launched 28 June 1919 sponsored by Mrs. Philip C. Ransom, and commissioned on 20 August 1919,...

 which had been conducting exercises with the patrol vessels in that same area. When took over the job of escorting R-10 back to Key West, Florida, Triton joined Thetis in search of the submarine. Eventually, PC-518 and Noa

USS Noa (DD-343)

The first USS Noa was a Clemson-class destroyer in the United States Navy following World War I. She was named for Loveman Noa.-History:...

 joined the hunt. Triton attacked with depth charge

Depth charge

A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare weapon intended to destroy or cripple a target submarine by the shock of exploding near it. Most use explosives and a fuze set to go off at a preselected depth in the ocean. Depth charges can be dropped by either surface ships, patrol aircraft, or from...

s but, after a further search, concluded that the target was probably a tidal rip in the Gulf Stream, not a submarine.

Tritons next recorded ASW operation came soon thereafter, during the concentrated search and destroy mission mounted to find the U-boat which torpedoed the American steamer on the night of 10 June. The hunt, which involved radar-equipped United States Army Air Forces

United States Army Air Forces

The United States Army Air Forces was the military aviation arm of the United States of America during and immediately after World War II, and the direct predecessor of the United States Air Force....

 B-18 Bolo

B-18 Bolo

The Douglas B-18 Bolo was a United States Army Air Corps and Royal Canadian Air Force bomber of the late 1930s and early 1940s. The Bolo was built by Douglas Aircraft Company and based on its DC-2 and was developed to replace the Martin B-10....

 bombers, three destroyer

Destroyer

In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...

s, several PCs, and Triton and Thetis, took three days. On 12 June, in an area well known for false contacts, Triton attacked what she thought to be a submarine but later evaluated to be otherwise. Later that day, although not picking up propeller noises, the contact seemed strong to Tritons sonar operator, and the ship attacked. Again, the result was the same -- negative.

The next day, however, was different. Thetis picked up U-157

German submarine U-157 (1941)

German submarine U-157 was a Type IXC U-boat of the German Kriegsmarine during World War II. The submarine was laid down on 21 October 1940 at the AG Weser yard at Bremen, launched on 5 June 1941, and commissioned on 15 September 1941 under the command of Korvettenkapitän Wolf Henne...

 trying to escape the "dragnet" and destroyed her in a single depth charge

Depth charge

A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare weapon intended to destroy or cripple a target submarine by the shock of exploding near it. Most use explosives and a fuze set to go off at a preselected depth in the ocean. Depth charges can be dropped by either surface ships, patrol aircraft, or from...

 attack. That patrol craft recovered two pairs of leather submariner's pants and a tube of lubricant marked "made in Düsseldorf." There were no survivors. Triton took part in further attacks, along with the other ships of the hunter-killer group based on Key West; but, by that point, the enemy submersible had already been killed.

Triton remained with the Sound School, apparently, into 1945. On 10 February, while was engaged in "Robot Bomb Patrol," she picked up what she evaluated as a submarine contact. She and Triton, also in the vicinity, then conducted attacks but found no evidence that a kill had been made.

Triton apparently remained in the Gulf of Mexico region for the remainder of her active service in the Coast Guard. Reverting to Treasury Department control after the end of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Triton was reclassified from WPC-116 to WMEC-116 (Medium Endurance Cutter) sometime in 1966. Her post-war duty station was at Corpus Christi, Texas

Corpus Christi, Texas

Corpus Christi is a coastal city in the South Texas region of the U.S. state of Texas. The county seat of Nueces County, it also extends into Aransas, Kleberg, and San Patricio counties. The MSA population in 2008 was 416,376. The population was 305,215 at the 2010 census making it the...

, until 1967. She was sold as government surplus and converted into a twin-deck passenger excursion vessel for Circle Line Sightseeing in New York City. Her two Winton 158-6 direct-drive diesels were replaced with two quad sets of four GM 6-71 diesels per shaft. Her electrical system was converted to AC with two 60 kW generators each powered by a GM 6-71. She has been a passenger excursion vessel named Circle Line XVII since 1973 and is still running as of Fall, 2007.