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WWII USCG GOOD CONDUCT MEDAL TO A PEARL HARBOR VETERAN CGC TANEY


KASTAUFFER
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I have collected US Navy Good Conduct Medals to Pearl Harbor survivors for quite a while, but have not had the opportunity to acquire one to a Coast Guard Veteran. I haven't validated yet that Johnson was on the USCGC TANEY on 12/7/41 , but the probability is HIGH since this medal was issued in 1942 to him while on the Taney. The Taney was positioned in Honolulu Harbor during the attack.

 

From Wikipedia:

 

The message: "Air Raid, Pearl Harbor. This is no drill" came at 07:55 on 7 December, as Japanese planes swept overhead in an attempt to cripple the Pacific Fleet. Taney, moored alongside Pier 6, Honolulu harbor, manned her anti-aircraft guns swiftly when word of the surprise attack reached her simultaneously. As no Japanese attacks were directed at Honolulu harbor, the Coast Guard cutter was only given the opportunity to fire at stray aircraft which happened to venture into her vicinity. She was firing upon unidentified aircraft as late as noon, indicating that the eager Coast Guardsmen were probably shooting at American planes—not Japanese. Coast Guardsmen from the Taney were ordered to take up defensive positions around Aloha Tower and protect it from being occupied.

 

Taney patrolled the waters off Honolulu for the remainder of 1941 and into 1942, conducting many depth charge attacks on suspected submarines in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack. During this time, the ship received the classification WPG-37. On 22 January 1942, the cutter departed Honolulu in company with USAT Barbara Olson, and arrived at Canton Island on 28 January. After sending a working party ashore to unload supplies, Taney screened Barbara Olson offshore until 7 February, when both ships got underway to evacuate the American colony on Enderbury Island. Embarking the four colonists at 10:15 that day, Taney shelled the island and destroyed its buildings to prevent them from being used by Japanese forces. Taney subsequently escorted her merchantman consort to Jarvis Island, where she evacuated the four Interior Department colonists and burned all structures to the ground before departing. Reaching Palmyra Atoll on 12 February, the ships remained there until the 15 February, before Taney headed back for the Hawaiian Islands, arriving at Honolulu on 5 March. She made another voyage to Palmyra Island later that spring and when heading back to Hawaii, she received orders to search for survivors in the waters around Midway Island after the Battle of Midway, including a stop at the island itself.

 

Taney operated locally out of Honolulu into 1943 before sailing for Boston late that winter. Prior to heading for the east coast, the ship received a re-gunning at Mare Island, being fitted with four single-mount, 5-inch guns, making her the only ship in her class with this modification. After making port at Boston on 14 March 1944, Taney soon shifted south to Hampton Roads, where she arrived on 31 March. Early in April, she departed Norfolk as a unit of Task Force 66 (TF 66) as convoy guide for convoy UGS-38. The passage across the Atlantic proved uneventful, as the convoy made landfall off the Azores on 13 April.

 

Some 35 minutes after sunset on 20 April, however, the convoy was spotted and tracked by the Germans, who launched a three-pronged attack with Junkers Ju 88 and Heinkel He 111 medium bombers. Each flew very low, using the shoreline as a background, thus confusing the search radar of the Allied ships. The first wave struck from dead ahead, torpedoing SS Paul Hamilton and SS Samite. The former, which had been carrying both a load of ammunition and hundreds of Army Air Force personnel, blew up in a shattering explosion—killing all 504 men on board.

 

The second wave of German torpedo planes hit the SS Stephen F. Austin and SS Royal Star. During this melee, two torpedoes churned past Taney close aboard. The third wave mortally wounded USS Lansdale(DD-426), which later sank. All of the damaged vessels—save Paul Hamilton and Lansdale—reached Bizerte, Tunisia, on 21 April. Taney later departed Bizerte with homeward-bound convoy GUS-38 and arrived at New York on 21 May.

 

Taney participated in two more round-trip convoy escort missions, with convoys UGS/GUS-45 and UGS/GUS-52. Detached as a unit of TF 66 on 9 October 1944, she sailed for the Boston Navy Yard soon thereafter for extensive yard work to convert her to an amphibious command ship. During this metamorphosis, Taney—classified as WAGC-37—was fitted with accommodations for an embarked flag officer and his staff, as well as with increased communications and radar facilities. Her main battery also underwent change: she now sported two open-mount 5-inch guns, as well as 40- and 20-millimeter antiaircraft guns. With the work completed in early January 1945, Taney departed Boston on 19 January, bound for Norfolk, Virginia.

She conducted shakedown and training in her new configuration before departing the east coast and sailing, via the Panama Canal and San Diego, to Hawaii. Arriving at Pearl Harbor on 22 February 1945, she soon embarked Rear Admiral Calvin H. Cobb and later underwent various minor repairs. New communications equipment was also installed before the ship departed the Hawaiian Islands for the Marshalls on 10 March.

 

Taney proceeded independently via Eniwetok and arrived at Ulithi on 23 March, remaining there until 7 April. Joining Task Group 51.8 (TG 51.8), the amphibious command ship proceeded to Okinawa and arrived off the Hagushi beaches amidst air raid alerts on 11 April. During one raid, her antiaircraft gunners scored at least three hits on a Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" bomber which crossed the ship's bow 1,200 yards (1,100 m) away, and later during her first day at Okinawa experienced four more "red alerts". The ship briefly shifted to Kerama Retto from 13 to 15 April before returning to Hagushi on the latter date.

 

By the end of May, Taney had gone to general quarters 119 times, with the crew remaining at battle stations for up to nine hours at a stretch. During this period off Okinawa in April and May, Taney downed foursuicide planes and assisted in numerous other "kills". The command ship also conducted combat information center duties, maintaining complete radar and air coverage, receiving and evaluating information on both friendly and enemy activities. On one occasion, Taney's duties took her close inshore close enough to even receive fire close aboard from a Japanese shore battery.

 

Suicide air attacks by the Japanese continued throughout June, although most were intercepted by combat air patrol (CAP) fighters and downed before they could reach their targets. Such raids took place on 18 out of 30 days that month. On 25 June, at 01:20, a float seaplane passed near Taney, provoking return fire from the command ship and batteries ashore which combined to splash the intruder. During this month-long period, at least 288 enemy planes attacked the ships in Taney's vicinity, and at least 96 of these were destroyed.

 

As if the Japanese menace alone were not enough, in mid-July a typhoon forced the ships at Hagushi to take evasive action. Taney led a convoy eastward on 19 July and returned the next day when the storm passed. She performed the same duties again on 1 August when she led a convoy to sea on typhoon-evasion operations. The ship returned to its anchorage on 3 August.

 

The end of the war found Taney still off Okinawa. On 16 August, she got underway to support USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) as three Japanese planes were detected approaching from the northeast. One crashed 30 miles (48 km) to the north, and two splashed into the sea shortly thereafter. On 25 August, TG 95.5 was dissolved, and Rear Admiral Cobb, who had been embarked during the Okinawa campaign, hauled down his flag and departed.

 

Taney soon proceeded to Japan, where she took part in the occupation of Wakayama, anchoring off the port city on 11 September and sending a working party ashore the next day. While anchored there, Taney weathered a typhoon on 17 September. She was, in fact, one of the few ships which stayed at her berth during the storm, her ground tackle holding well in the sticky clay bottom.

 

Departing Wakayama on 14 October, Taney returned to the west coast of the United States, via Midway, and arrived at San Francisco on 29 October. Moving on for the east coast, Taney transited the Panama Canal and later arrived at her ultimate destination, Charleston, South Carolina, on 29 November. During the ensuing period of conversion, the Coast Guard vessel was reconfigured as a patrol cutter. She now sported a main battery of a single-mount, 5-inch gun, a hedgehog, a twin 40-millimeter mount, and two 20-millimeter guns, in addition to depth charge tracks and projectors and was reclassified once again as WPG-37.

 

The Taney still survives in Baltimore

 

2134699_orig.png

 

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You can get his record from the NPRC, and that should confirm it. Having one to a Coast Guard vet of Pearl Harbor would be superb!!!

 

It's interesting too that the bar on it is blank!

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Wharfmaster

Nice Coast Guard group.

 

I have a GCM group to a Coastie that has one engraved and two blank bars. It would appear they stopped engraving many if not most of them during and perhaps after WW2.

 

 

W

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Nice-? Heck- that is a pinnacle group there. The only thing that would top that would be a Good Conduct Medal of Purple Heart to a member of the CGC TAMPA.

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I posted one on the forum a while back that was to a crew member of the CGC Walnut, WAGL 252 which was based at Pearl, and was in the harbor at Midway on Dec 7th. Unfortunately the recipient was not on her at that time. My Navy GC recipient served on the sub tenders Savanna and Argonne, I believe they were both at Pearl, but again after the recipient had left.

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