Source: NUESTRO MAR  Nº232/30 of "El Mercurio de Valparaíso", January  2003.
Pictures from US Coast Guard Website.

THE UNITED STATES COAST GUARD TRAINING SHIP IS A PRIZE OF WAR
The "Eagle" was the German sailing ship "Horst Wessel", named after a young Nazi.The sailing ship "Horst Wessel", now serving as a U.S. Coast Guard training ship, was launched from the Blohm & Voss shipyards in Hamburg on 12th June 1936. The ceremony was attended by Hitler himself, as she was the first of four sister sailing ships ordered by him for the training of future officers in Germany’s Kriegsmarine.

GERMAN SAILING SHIP
She is a beautiful 90 m. long, 1,800 ton, three-masted, steel hull vessel propelled either by her sails or by her main diesel engine.

The ship was stationed in the Baltic during the Second World War, and although still serving as a training ship, she carried supplies for the troops guarding those shores. Properly armed, her logbook shows that her gunfire was able to shoot down three aircraft which attacked her on different occasions.

During the last days of the German resistance, the "Horst Wessel" headed for the military port of Kiel, but was unable to make arrival there due to the curfew imposed by its authorities. She was forced to wait on the roads for a long time, and was thus saved from the heavy bombing which that night destroyed a large area of the port facilities and caused severe losses among the vessels which were there at the time.

PRIZE OF WAR
After Germany surrendered, the sailing ship ended up in Bremerhaven, where she was received as a prize of war by Commander Gordon McGowan of the United States Coast Guard Service and a small complement of officers and crew members.

The first orders were to refit the ship from the disastrous state she was in and then take her to the U.S.A. McGowan had a tough condition to meet: He had to restore her at Germany’s expense, with the work of the German crew members who had remained on board, and without spending one U.S. government dollar.

As expected, relations between the North American and German seamen were extremely tense at the beginning, but they improved when they all joined in the hard work of refitting the vessel. It was a matter of pride for the Germans to collaborate in the recovery of a vessel which had been the jewel of their Navy. For the Americans she was a real treasure and a testimony of their victory, which would be an addition to Coast Guard history. These factors, working parallel with each other, made it possible to arrive at an atmosphere of good-fellowship including humor due to the language difficulties which continually arose.

The mission they had been entrusted with was a long and very difficult task because the country they were in had been destroyed, and whenever McGowan headed for the address of a specialized manufacturer when seeking naval components or spare parts he would find that the company or workshop building was a pile of rubble. According to chronicles of that time, the problem was solved when they found the dock warehouses where the German transatlantic vessels "Bremen" and "Europe" had operated before the war. There they found a large quantity of spares and components of all types which were very useful to restore the ship to her original category.

THE EAGLES
Amongst the large tasks of refitting there were other minor ones, no less important for that reason. It took a long time to change all the signs in German which had been placed throughout the ship, and were plentiful on the mechanisms and main engine. Symbolic was the removal of the figurehead on the bow which represented a Nazi-style eagle, holding a swastika in its claws. It was replaced by the figure of a white-headed eagle which is the heraldic bird of the United States.

On 15th May 1946, in Bremerhaven, the "Eagle" officially entered the U.S. Coast Guard Service.

The ship had to get round a severe difficulty before sailing. The North American crew members were insufficient to man a sailing ship built to be operated the old-fashioned way, by hand power from sails to anchor. It should be mentioned that forty men were required to heave the anchor alone. This had never been a problem before because the original crew consisted of 220 cadets, 15 sailors and 14 officers. The American crew were far fewer and had no experience whatsoever of sailing maneuvers. Logically, for Commander McGowan crossing the Atlantic seemed a voyage involving great risks. The shrewd usage of a post-war initiative became the solution: The United States had authorized the hiring of German seamen to serve aboard American minesweepers, in the process of clearing the seas of the thousands of mines which had been installed during the war. The German crew of the ex "Horst Wessel" were hired for this purpose and were taken to the United States on board the "Eagle", on a voyage which served for them to pas on their experience to the new crew members.

The sailing ship "Eagle" is today one of the proud traditional possessions of the United States Coast Guard. According to the officers in command of the Service, the quality of the officers trained on board a sailing ship is so high that the cost of maintaining the sailing ship in her present excellent condition is fully justified, and her origin, the circumstances of her being a prize of war, is a matter of pride to the citizens of the United States, who see in this vessel proof of their bravery during the war.