"SEATTLE'S OWN" ::::: USCG Cruising Cutter HAIDA

 

USCG HAIDA 
(1921-1951)
Crew Nickname: HAIDA MARU
Click image to enlarge.
"The Cruising Cutter HAIDA 
which the city's residents claimed as "Seattle's Own"
when she was put into service in 1922, was at the 
Puget Sound Bridge & Dredging Co. yard 
to be turned into junk and cut up for scrap metal.
Men who know her say that the Haida, which 
served as a rescue ship with the halibut fleet in Alaska
for years and patrolled the coast through peace and 
war could be made ready for duty again in a week. 
But the CG rated her as obsolete after WW II and sold 
her to the Sundfelt Equipment Co,
which decided to scrap her after attempts to find
 a buyer who could put her to use again met 
with failure. She was towed to Harbor Island
from her postwar berth at the Lake WA. Shipyards.
 Her turbo-electric engine and other equipment 
will be removed and she'll be put to the cutting torch."
from the Seattle-Times 1950. 
Original gelatin-silver photograph dated 1950 / low-res scan
from the archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society.
Photo by John t. Closs.

The Coast Guard successor to the historic Revenue Cutter Service, received a fine new cutter in spring of 1922. Rated as a cruising cutter first class, the USS HAIDA was built at Union Construction Co of Oakland, California on 19 April 1921, at the cost of $775,000. She embarked upon her maiden cruise to the far north the following spring in command of Lt. Commander J.R. Hottel.
        The 1,780-ton steel vessel, with dimensions of 240' x 39' x 16.6' was fitted with a turbo-electric drive and was by far the most modern vessel to enter the service in the North Pacific. After remaining at Nome until after the sailing of the last commercial steamer of the season, the Victoria, the HAIDA took aboard passengers at St. Paul and St. George Islands in the Bering Sea and completed her 20,000-mile cruise at Seattle, after which she proceeded to her winter station at Pt. Townsend.

1947: The 1,957-ton cruising cutter Itasca, after flying the white ensign of the Royal Navy during the late war was returned to the US Coast Guard. After an extensive overhaul on the east coast, she was dispatched to the Pacific Northwest to replace the veteran cutter HAIDA, which was decommissioned and placed in layup on Lake Washington. The Itasca, formerly based on Puget Sound, was assigned to station at Port Angeles.
         Source: H.W. McCurdy's Marine History of the Pacific Northwest. Superior 

1948: Sold.

1951: the HAIDA was scrapped.

Known officers and crew:
R.T. McElligott (1927-1929), Lt. Commander R.C. Sarratt
Commander R.C. Jewell, Rear Admiral Michael J. Ryan, 

Rear Admiral James W. Moreau, Rear Admiral Norman H. Leslie, 

Vice Admiral Donald M. Morrison, Rear Admiral Theodore J. Fabik.