USS Onondaga (1917)

300px
Career (United States)
Name:	USS Onondaga
Namesake:	Lake Onondaga and Onondaga County in New York
Completed:	1898
Acquired:	9 April 1917
Decommissioned:	late 1918
Fate:	Returned to United States Treasury Department for United States Coast Guard service late 1918 after end of World War I; sold for scrapping 1923
Notes:	Served in United States Revenue Cutter Service 1898-1915 and in United States Coast Guard 1915-1917 and 1918-1923
General characteristics
Type:	United States Coast Guard Cutter
Displacement:	1,192 tons
Length:	205 ft 6 in (62.64 m)
Beam:	32 ft 0 in (9.75 m)
Draft:	13 ft 2 in (4.01 m)
Complement:	72
Armament:	4 x 3-inch (76.2-mm) guns

For other ships of the same name, see USS Onondaga.

The second USS Onondaga was a Coast Guard cutter that served in the United States Navy in 1917 and 1918 during World War I.

The United States Revenue Cutter Service cutter USRC Onondaga was built at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1898. Upon the merger of the Revenue Cutter Service with the United States Lifesaving Service to create the United States Coast Guard in 1915, Onondaga became a United States Coast Guard Cutter. Until 1917 she was listed as an independent vessel operating out of Savannah, Georgia. Her assigned cruising district extended from Cape Romain, South Carolina, to Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Transferred to the United States Navy on 9 April 1917 by Executive Order for World War I service, she continued to perform patrol, escort, and rescue operations out of Savannah.

The highlight of her naval service occurred on 20 February 1918, when she rescued the entire crew of the British steamship Veturia after Veturia foundered on Diamond Shoals off the North Carolina coast. For acting in the best tradition of the seagoing services, Captain Frederick C. Billard, USCG, former superintendent of the United States Coast Guard Academy and commanding officer of the cutter, together with the entire crew, received a commendation on 20 May 1918 from the British Admiralty.

At the end of hostilities Onondaga was returned to the United States Department of the Treasury to resume her Coast Guard service. She resumed patrol and rescue operations out of New London, Connecticut, until 1920, at which time she transferred to Baltimore, Maryland. She continued to operate out of Baltimore until 1923, when she decommissioned and was sold for scrap.

References

This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.

External Links

• Photo gallery at navsource.org