USCGC Papaw

USCGC Papaw (WLB-308) was a sea-going buoy tender whose design is based on the pre-World War II United States Lighthouse Service Tenders. The original design was modified to provide an armored cutter capable of wartime missions in addition to her primary mission of Aids to Navigation. Papaw was built in 1943 by the Marine Iron and Shipbuilding Company of Duluth, Minnesota. Commissioned 12 October 1943, she was assigned the home port of San Francisco, California. Papaw saw extensive duty during World War II establishing aids to navigation systems for the newly captured islands in the Pacific. After the war Papaw's home port was moved to Astoria, Oregon. In June 1949, Papaw was shifted to the warm waters of Miami, Florida where she assumed responsibility for the aids to navigation in the Florida Keys and the Caribbean. In 1954, Papaw was moved, this time to Charleston, South Carolina under the command of RJ Papp who would later become Commandant of the Coast Guard alongside William Jennings which the VA is named after. There she maintained buoys, shore stations, and towers. In October 1989 Papaw entered the Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) at the Coast Guard Yard in Curtis Bay, Maryland. She arrived at her new home port of Galveston, Texas on June 18, 1991. Papaw services approximately 150 aids to navigation from Brownsville, Texas to Calcasieu, Louisiana.