See additional images from Captain Terry Tilton’s article, “Wind Class Icebreakers: Red, White & Gray,” featured in PowerShips magazine. Click on the images for a closer look.
USCGC Glacier (WAGB-4), USCGC Burton Island (WAGB-280), and USCGC Southwind (WAGB-280); three Coast Guard icebreakers participating in Operation Deep Freeze in 1969. – U.S Coast Guard photo.
The U.S. Navy icebreaker USS Burton Island (AGB-l) covered with ice during a winter cruise. – U.S Navy photo.
Operation Deep Freeze 75. Antarctica. The U.S. Coast Guard Icebreaker Burton Island (WAGB 283). Photographed January 6, 1975. – U.S Navy photo.
The U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker USCGC Eastwind (WAGB-279) was one of three icebreakers used by Operation Deep Freeze in the Ross Sea area in 1955-1956. – U.S Navy photo.
Navy Testing Cosmic Radiation at North Geomagnetic Pole. The U.S. Navy icebreaker USS Staten Island (AGB-5) with a group of civilian and naval scientists onboard left Boston, Massachusetts, on July 18, 1953, for the North Geomagnetic Pole. – U.S Navy photo.
The U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker USCGC Northwind (WAG-282) makes her way through the ice in the Antarctic during “Operation Highjump”. – U.S Navy photo.
USCGC Northwind (WAGB-282) during the 1969 Northwest Passage expedition of the supertanker SS Manhattan. – U.S Coast Guard photo.
An elevated port bow view of the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker NORTHWIND (WAGB-282) breaking through ice packs while participating in a joint Denmark-U.S. musk oxen relocation operation.
The U.S. Navy ice breaker USS Burton Island (AGB-1) lies stopped in ice pack enroute to King Island, Bering Straits, during a reconnaissance mission in 1950. – U.S Navy photo.
The new Cutter Mackinaw, docked at its home on the Cheboygan River. Was commissioned on June 10th 2006, replacing the old USCGC Mackinaw (WAGB-83). Eric Rae photo, CC-BY-2.0.
The USCGC Mackinaw (WAGB-83) docked in Mackinaw City MI in 2018. – Thomas Payeur photo, CC-BY-SA-4.0.
The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw take some spray as they pilot the cutter through Owen Sound into Northeast Lake Huron after escorting lakers during Operation Coal Shover, Jan. 29, 2014. Operation Coal Shovel is one of two ice-breaking operations conducted in the Great Lakes. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Lt. David Lieberman)
The Polar Icebreaker USCGC STATEN ISLAND – New York Public Library photo.
The Canadian Coast Guard Ship Louis S. St-Laurent makes an approach to the Coast Guard Cutter Healy in the Arctic Ocean, Sept. 5. The two ships are taking part in a multi-year, multi-agency Arctic survey that will help define the North American continental shelf. – U.S Coast Guard photo.
The bow of the 420-foot US Coast Guard Cutter Healy. Healy’s hull is reinforced with up to 2-inch thick steel plates at critical areas to withstand the impact of breaking ice. – U.S Coast Guard photo. – U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration photo.
USCGC Southwind entering Arthur Harbor, Antarctica, in 1967. – U.S Coast Guard photo.
Icebreaker USS Edisto (AG-89) at Naval Air Station Quonset Point, Rhode Island, June 30, 1947, during her shakedown period. – U.S. Navy photo.
Edisto. – Author’s collection.
Edisto’s builder’s plate. – Author’s collection.
Letters posted from the USS Edisto. – Author’s collection.
Southwind. – Author’s collection.
One and half million-ton iceberg, nicknamed “Moby Dick” recently drifted down McMurdo Sound’s man-made shipping channel in the Antarctic and had to be forcibly ejected by the U.S. Navy icebreaker, USS Atka (AGB-3). – U.S. Navy photo.
The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw pulls ahead of the barge PML 9000 to expose the pools of open water in front of the barge and assess how to continue to break the ice around the barge after it became stuck in the St. Marys River, Dec. 17, 2013.
The crew of Mackinaw freed the barge and both tugs that were escorting it through the St. Marys River.
U.S. Coast Guard photo by Ensign Michael Cooper
USCGC Southwind near port of USCG Base Berkley in 1970, after returning from a 27,000-mile tour of the Arctic. – U.S. Coast Guard photo.
