Louisiana's Military Heritage:

     Vessels named USS BARATARIA

USS BARATARIA

Two ships of the U.S. Navy have been named BARATARIA after the bay located on the southeast coast of Louisiana near the mouth of the Mississippi River. It was from here that Jean Lafitte and his pirates (known as "Baratarians") operated in the early 19^th century. The first of these vessels sailed under both the Union and Confederate flags. The second served in both the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard.

The First BARATARIA (1857 ~ April 07, 1863):

The little gunboat BARATARIA started life in 1857 as a sternwheel, wooden-hulled packet built in the small Louisiana town after which she was named. In November of 1861, she was enrolled at New Orleans and owned by R. R. Barrow of Terrebonne Parish. At some point in the five months immediately afterward, she was transferred over to Confederate registry.

When New Orleans surrendered to Commodore Farragut without firing a shot on April 27, 1862, many of the Confederate vessels in port were put to the torch to avoid capture by Union troops. BARATARIA, however, escaped the burnings and was taken into custody by the U.S. Army. It is generally accepted that she was converted to an ironclad while part of the Confederate Navy. In April of 1863, one year after her capture, she was cited once as "completely covered with iron one inch thick," yet the recorded repair bill of $409.90 would scarcely cover a partial one-inch shield of mail for a vessel of any appreciable size. Confederate-published documents shed no light on her during this period.

The little sternwheel ironclad was transferred by Lieutenant Colonel A. N. Shipley, U.S. Army, to the Navy and Commodore Farragut's command as of New Year's Day, 1863. From this point on, her name was spelled as BARRATARIA (as compared to BARATARIA in Army records). She reported to the Western Gulf Blockading Squadron with Master F. E. Blanchard in command.

On April 07, 1863, while on reconnaissance in Lake Maurepas, BARRATARIA met disaster at 6:00 a.m. when she struck a snag at the mouth of the Amite River. She soon came under attack by guerillas and proceeded to fight off the Confederates with her two guns, along with rifle fire from Colonel Thomas S. Clark and a company of the 6^th Michigan Volunteers who had been embarked. Amidst the fighting, Acting Ensign James F. Perkins, USN, and his crew were unable to free the ship, even after jettisoning the bow gun and emptying her boiler. Forced to abandon ship, they spiked their remaining gun and set fire to her at sunset to keep her from falling into enemy hands.  All hands escaped in small boats. The magazine blew up soon afterward.  Some reports show that the Union suffered one wounded and two killed in this encounter.

Ship's Statistics

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The Second BARATARIA (August 13, 1944 ~ August 29, 1969):

The seaplane tender USS BARATARIA (AVP-33) was launched on October 02, 1943, by Lake Washington Shipyards in Houghton, Washington. She was sponsored by Mrs. L. J. Stetcher and commissioned on August 13, 1944 with Commander G. S. Coleman in command.

BARATARIA departed Alameda, California on November 22, 1944 and steamed to Ulithi Island in the Caroline Islands chain where, on December 12, she reported to Commander, Aircraft, 7th Fleet. She was assigned to the Philippine Islands and arrived at Lingayen Gulf on January 09, 1945. There she serviced and maintained various seaplane squadrons. She remained in the Philippines until the end of World War II. Between September 02 and December 07, 1945, she served at seaplane bases at Okinawa and in Shanghai, China, and Inchon, Korea.

The tender arrived at Seattle on December 29, 1945 for her pre-inactivation overhaul. She was placed out of commission and in the reserve fleet at Alameda, California on July 24, 1946. In September of 1948, the vessel was placed on loan to the U.S. Coast Guard and was commissioned into service as USCGC BARATARIA (WAVP-381) on January 10, 1949.

BARATARIA was homeported in Portland, Maine from August 01, 1949 to January of 1968. She was used for law enforcement, ocean station, and search and rescue operations in the Atlantic.

BARATARIA won the Commander Eastern Area Gunnery Excellence Award in 1963 and the Military Readiness Award in 1965. She was redesignated a high endurance cutter (WHEC-381) on May 01, 1966. On April 01, 1967, she departed her homeport of Portland, Maine, to join four other cutters as part of U.S. Coast Guard Squadron Three. The squadron was tasked to patrol the coastline of South Vietnam and prevent the infiltration by communist forces attempting to resupply the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese units in the south (Operation Market Time). The cutters arrived in the combat zone in early May of that year.

BARATARIA was assigned to Commander, Cruiser-Destroyer Group, U.S. Seventh Fleet. She and her 163 officers and men became an integral part of this operation. She set a fast pace of effectiveness during her deployment in the waters of Vietnam. Underway eighty-three percent of the time, she cruised over 67,000 miles without a major mechanical or electrical failure. Keeping a close watch on all moving craft in her surveillance area, she inspected or boarded nearly 1,000 steel-hulled vessels, any one of which could have been a trawler trying to sneak supplies to the enemy. The cutter was called upon many times to use her main battery against shore-based enemy troops who were aggressively engaged with allied forces. As evidence of the high state of readiness of BARATARIA's crew is the fact that U.S. Army spotter planes reported all rounds on target, never once falling out of the target area. On one mission, three direct hits were scored on point targets which had been spotted by aircraft. BARATARIA returned to the United States on January 12, 1968, and was reassigned to San Francisco.

BARATARIA resumed law enforcement and search-and-rescue duties, now in the Pacific. On March 24, 1968, she sustained an engineroom explosion off Unimak Island. From May 21-27, 1969, she rescued the crew of the Peruvian ship M/V YAVARI and stood by the stricken vessel some 960 miles southwest of San Francisco. The YAVARI sank before a salvage tug could arrive.

BARATARIA remained homeported in San Francisco until August of 1969 when she was decommissioned.  She was sold for scrap to N.W. Kennedy, Ltd. in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in September of 1970.  BARATARIA received one battle star for her operations during the Lingayen Gulf landing (January 09-18, 1945).

Ship's Statistics

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All information listed above is courtesy of the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Way's Packet Directory (1848-1994), the Encyclopedia of Civil War Shipwrecks, and the U.S. Coast Guard.
 

**Copyright 1997-2008 by Louisiana Naval War Memorial Commission**