USCGC Manning

USRC ''Manning'' was a revenue cutter of the United States Revenue Cutter Service that served from 1898 to 1930, and saw service in the U.S. Navy in the Spanish–American War and World War I.

Construction

Designed as a cruising cutter for Bering Sea service, ''Manning'' was built by Atlantic Works, East Boston, Massachusetts, for the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service. She was accepted by Captain R.M Clark for the Revenue Cutter Service on 11 August 1897. She commissioned on 8 January 1898 and was assigned cruising grounds along the New England coast. Her lines were those of ancestral clipper cutters, but with a plumb bow instead of the more graceful clipper stem. She was powered by a 2,181 horsepower triple expansion steam engine and utilized a coal fired high pressure boiler which allowed a top speed of 17 knots.Evans, pp 158–159Larzelere, p 33 The hull was of composite construction with frames placed at two foot intervals with 3/8 inch steel plate and sheathed from her bottom to two feet above the waterline with five inch thick Oregon fir planks. Below the waterline ''Manning'' was sheathed in copper and had eleven watertight bulkheads. The composite design was thought at the time better to weather the ice conditions of the Bering Sea.King, p 80 As tensions mounted before the Spanish–American War was declared, she carried a single bow torpedo tube.Johnson, pp 11–12 ''Manning'' and the cutters built during the same time, USRC ''Gresham'', USRC ''McCulloch'', USRC ''Algonquin'', and were the last cruising cutters rigged for sail and carried the first electric generators installed on cutters. As a group, they were suitable for scouting, for rendering assistance, and for cruising at moderately long range. So successful was the design that these cutters furnished the general pattern for cutter construction for the ensuing 20 years.

History

Spanish–American War

''Manning'' served during the Spanish–American War with the U.S. Navy during the period 24 March 1898 to 17 August 1898, while based out of Norfolk, Virginia, as a coastal patrol vessel. This period included a four-month war deployment, from May 1898 through August 1898, on blockade and escort duty off Cuba.Larzelere, p 34 On 12 May 1898, she joined the armed yacht and the unarmored cruiser USS ''Dolphin'' first in landing, then in providing naval gunfire support for the evacuation of a force of U.S. Army soldiers at Cabañas, Cuba.

Bering Sea Patrol

After the cessation of hostilities with Spain, ''Manning'' returned to the operational control of the Revenue Cutter Service. Her patrol duties took her along both the East Coast from Boston to Key West and included a patrol to Cuba and Puerto Rico. On 2 January 1900 ''Manning'' was ordered report to San Francisco by way of the Straits of Magellan for duties with the Bering Sea Patrol. During the years of 1900 through 1916 she patrolled the Bering Sea enforcing sealing treaties to prevent pelagic sealing and performing search and rescue duties, missing only the years 1904, 1906 and 1908.Record of Movements, p 361 On her first Bering Sea cruise in 1900, ''Manning'' conducted hydrographic surveys as well as sealing patrols. She also rescued the passengers of the stranded barkentine ''Leslie D'', which was wrecked on Nunivak Island.Strobridge and Noble, p 124 On 6 September 1903, ''Manning'' delivered 38 passengers and eight crew members of the schooner ''Abbie M. Deering'' – which was wrecked on Baby Island in northwestern Akutan Pass on 4 September 1903 – safely to Unalaska.Strobridge and Noble, p 126 Later the same day, the crew was called upon by Captain Michael Healy of the USRC ''Thetis'' to assist in fighting a fire on the American ship ''St. Francis'' on the opposite side of the wharf from ''Thetis''.Strobridge and Noble, p 127 In 1904 she performed patrol duties along the West Coast. During the 1905 Bering Sea cruise, the crew of ''Manning'' distributed boxes of clothing to natives of Attu and Atka that were provided by the Women's National Relief Association and during a second trip delivered more boxes of clothes donated by a Seattle, Washington hardware store to a warehouse at Dutch Harbor so that other cutters on the patrol could deliver them to other settlements.Strobridge and Noble, p 106 On 13 December 1905 ''Manning'' was assigned patrol duties in Hawaii where she remained until 8 May 1907 when she departed for the Bering Sea. Patrol work was cut short during the 1907 season when ''Manning'' struck an uncharted rock in Prince William Sound