Transferred To The United States Coast Guard
While Willoughby was at Mare Island Navy Yard at Vallejo, California, between December 1945 and June 1946, the United States Coast Guard inspected her for possible Coast Guard service. Barnegat-class ships were very reliable and seaworthy and had good habitability, and the Coast Guard viewed them as ideal for ocean station duty, in which they would perform weather reporting and search and rescue tasks, once they were modified by having a balloon shelter added aft and having oceanographic equipment, an oceanographic winch, and a hydrographic winch installed.
Willoughby was transferred to the Coast Guard at Government Island, Oakland, California, simultaneously with her Navy decommissioning on 26 June 1946. After undergoing conversion for use as a weather-reporting ship, she was commissioned into Coast Guard service as USCGC Gresham (WAVP-387) on 1 December 1947.
During her Coast Guard career, Gresham's primary duty was to serve on weather stations in the Pacific Ocean to gather meteorological data. While on duty in one of these stations, she was required to patrol a 210-square-mile (544-square-kilometer) area for three weeks at a time, leaving the area only when physically relieved by another Coast Guard cutter or in the case of a dire emergency. While on station, she acted as an aircraft check point at the point of no return, a relay point for messages from ships and aircraft, as a source of the latest weather information for passing aircraft, as a floating oceanographic laboratory, and as a search-and-rescue ship for downed aircraft and vessels in distress, and engaged in law enforcement operations. She also served on the Bering Sea Patrol, took part in United States Coast Guard Reserve training cruises, and participated in the U.S. Navy's underway refresher training program to ensure her readiness to support military operations.
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