A little over halfway through the forenoon watch on 11 June 1942, the American tanker Hagan was steaming off the northern coast of Cuba, bound for Havana with a cargo of blackstrap molasses. The unescorted vessel steering an undeviating course proved too good a target for Korvettenkapitän Wolf Henne, commanding officer of U-157, to leave unmolested. After two of the submarine’s torpedoes hit home, the Hagan quickly plunged to the bottom, taking 6 of her 44 crew members with her. Word of the sinking drew a quick U.S. response. Army Air Forces B-18 bombers set out in search of the U-boat and were soon joined by ships that included the Coast Guard cutters Thetis and Triton, three submarine chasers, and an odd-looking vessel assigned to the East Coast Sound School at Key West, Florida—the Eagle 27 (PE-27), with 46-year-old Naval Reserve Lieutenant Commander Harold C. Speed in command.
Shortly before the end of the afternoon watch on 13 June, the Triton detected a contact 220 yards off her port bow and stood toward it, dropping seven depth charges that apparently inflicted sufficient damage to cause oil to appear on the surface. The Eagle 27 stood in, but the submarine’s movement, together with the short distance Lieutenant Commander Speed would have had to prosecute an attack, forced him to break off and drop a marker buoy. But he was not about to give up, even after the destroyer Dahlgren (DD-187) failed to make contact.
The boxy, slab-sided patrol craft made a second run and at 1822 managed to drop three depth charges despite excess welding on the 300-pound charge cases that caused them to stick in their tracks. Speed noted with satisfaction the “oil slick and air bubbles [rising] to the surface in increasing intensity.” After she assumed listening-post duty, the Eagle 27 received a message from the Thetis: “Have picked up leather trousers and tube of lubricating grease and small pieces of wood.” While the Navy would credit the Triton with the kill, the Eagle 27—designed during a previous global conflict to sink Imperial German Navy submarines—had done her part to ensure that U-157 would trouble Allied shipping no more.
The “Eagle boats,” as they became known, had been envisioned as filling a gap between the massive numbers of 110-foot wooden-hull submarine chasers and destroyers then emerging from America’s World War I shipyards. Using production-line techniques, prefabricated sections, and a labor force accustomed to building automobiles, not ships, Henry Ford’s Ford Motor Company facilities on the River Rouge in Detroit produced 60 such vessels. The first was the Eagle 1—laid down on 7 May 1918, launched on 11 July 1918, and commissioned on 27 October 1918—and the Eagle 60 was the last. On the same day the armistice was signed, 11 November 1918, the Navy canceled the construction of Eagle 61 through Eagle 112.
During a 14 January 1919 congressional hearing investigating the Eagle program, Nevada Senator Key Pittman queried Admiral David W. Taylor, the Navy’s chief constructor, if there was any immediate peacetime use for the vessels. Taylor responded, “just as there is a use for the a battleship and destroyers there will be a use for these boats . . . crews have to be developed and drilled and prepared for the work of war.” The patrol craft were “very satisfactory sea boats,” the chief constructor added. “I think they can go anywhere the destroyers can go.”
By New Year’s Day 1921, 15 of the Eagles—assigned the “PE” designation in their identification numbers—lay in ordinary (a decommissioned status), at the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Navy Yard while three were in active commissioned status. Six Eagles served at naval air stations from Hampton Roads to Pearl Harbor, and six tended submarines. One, assigned to the Washington Navy Yard, operated out of Quantico, Virginia, and another served at the U.S. Naval Academy. The rest, assigned to seven different naval districts, were used to train naval reservists.
When an earthquake devastated Santa Barbara, California, on 29 June 1925, the Navy Department ordered the commandants of the Eleventh and Twelfth Naval Districts to provide assistance. Consequently, the Eagle 34 (PE-34) and the tug Koka (AT-31) cleared San Diego and arrived later on the 29th with medical personnel and supplies. The Arkansas (BB-33), from the midshipman practice squadron, arrived during the midwatch on 30 June, followed by the McCawley (DD-276) and three more tugs. The Eagle 34, along with the battleship and destroyer, landed bluejackets to patrol the shaken city and keep order. They also established a radio station ashore to facilitate communication. A battalion of Marines from San Diego relieved the sailors on 1 July, and the ships sailed the following day, the citizens of Santa Barbara appreciative of their timely assistance.
By the time the shadows of war began to darken the horizons in Europe and the Far East, the Navy earmarked the remaining Eagles for assignment to naval districts’ local defense organizations. The Eagle 38 (PE-38) was the first to be placed “in reduced commission” on 31 May 1940 at the Puget Sound Navy Yard; the Eagle 19 (PE-19) was next, being placed in reduced commission at Boston on 17 June. Later in 1940 the Eagle 27 (PE-27) went into reduced commission at Boston, the Eagle 32 (PE-32) at Puget Sound, the Eagle 56 (PE-56) at Norfolk, and the Eagle 57 (PE-57) at Seattle. The Eagle 48 (PE-48) and the Eagle 55 (PE-55) rounded out the program, both being placed in full commission on 16 September 1941.
Ironically, the only Eagle to be lost to enemy action proved to be the victim of a U-boat. On the afternoon of 23 April 1945, U-853 torpedoed the Eagle 56 (PE-56), commanded by Naval Reserve Lieutenant James G. Early, south-southeast of Cape Elizabeth, Maine. A massive explosion tore the Eagle 56 in two, the stern section going down in two minutes, the bow about 15 minutes later, taking Lieutenant Early and 47 other men with her. Only Lieutenant (junior grade) John P. Scagnelli, USNR, the engineer officer, and 12 enlisted men survived the sinking to be picked up by the Selfridge (DD-357) about a half-hour later. The destroyer then dropped nine depth charges on a sonar contact but with no visible effect.
The 11 November 1918 armistice impacted the Eagle boat program and slowed development of submarine-detection equipment. But antisubmarine work continued during the interwar years, and the Eagles played a role in its progress by serving as educational platforms. Admiral Taylor had spoken truthfully when he said: “The boats are not handsome. But I think when the Navy becomes used to them, they will look better.”
Eagle 1–class Fabricated Patrol Vessel
Displacement: 615 tons (full load)
Length: 200 feet, 9 inches (overall)
Beam: 25 feet, 6 inches
Draft: 8 feet, 6 inches (full load)
Speed: 18.0 knots (designated)
Armament (original): 2 4-inch/50-caliber rapid-fire guns 1 3-inch/50-caliber antiaircraft gun 1 Y-type depth bomb projector (Eagle 1 to Eagle 7 only) 2 .30-caliber Lewis machine guns
Complement: 73 officers and enlisted men