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Lighthouse Serice Photo Archive

USCGC Sunflower (WAGL 247)



Call sign:
Nan - Roger - Xray - Jig

ex-USLHS Sunflower



Call sign (1919):
George - Vice - Rush - Boy

Call sign (1924):
Nan - Unit - Fox - Mike


Sunflower served the Lighthouse Service, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy and Coast Guard

Lighthouse Tender:

  • The second Sunflower was built in 1907 by Pusey and Jones, Wilmington, DE
  • Launched 4 August 1906
  • Delivered 23 March 1907 and commissioned USLHS Sunflower
  • Transferred to the War Department 24 April 1917
  • Acquired by the Navy
  • Returned to the Department of Commerce 1 July 1919
  • Transferred to the Coast Guard in 1939 and designated USCGC Sunflower (WAGL 247)
  • Decommissioned 10 January 1946 at Curtis Bay, MD
  • Sold 19 February 1947
  • Fate unknown.

    Specifications:

  • Displacement 1,246 t.
    1919 - 728 t.
  • Length 173' 7"
  • Length between perpendiculars 163'
  • Beam 31'
  • Draft 15' 6"
    1919 - 15'
  • Speed 12 kts.
  • Complement 1907 - 32
    1918 - 33
    1945 - 42
  • Armament: Two 3"/50 mounts and two machine guns
    World War II - One 20mm mount and two depth charge tracks
  • Propulsion: Two Babcock and Wilcox Scotch type coal-fired water tube boilers, two 450ihp triple expansion steam engines, two shafts
    Converted from coal to oil burning in 1931.
    Click on thumbnail
    for full size image    		 Size Image Description Source
    Sunflower 157k 29 June 1943
    Photo from "U.S. Lighthouse Service Tenders, 1840-1939" by Douglas Peterson. Annapolis: Eastwind Publishing, 2000    		 Robert Hurst
    Commanding Officers
    01LT Thomas S. Ludlum, USNRF1918
    Courtesy Joe Radigan
    View the Sunflower
    DANFS history entry located on the Naval History and Heritage Command website
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    This page created by Joseph M. Radigan and maintained by David Wright
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