USAT General Frank M. Coxe

General Frank M. Coxe was a steam ferry which was built for the United States Army to provide transportation services among several military facilities that ring California's San Francisco Bay. The Army port facilities, including the vessels, throughout the bay were under the command of the San Francisco Port of Embarkation from its establishment in May 1932 through World War II and the Korean War.

The 144 ft ship's keel was laid on July 16, 1921, launched March 3, 1922, and delivered December 1, 1922, to the War Department by Charles Ward Engineering Works.[1][2] General Frank M. Coxe and sister-ship USAT General John McE. Hyde were designed and built shortly after World War I to ferry army personnel to island bases in strategic harbors, in answer to the increasing military importance of the Pacific ports.

Prior to the availability of the current system of bridges and highways in San Francisco Bay, mobility on the water was critical. It is estimated that the General Frank M. Coxe carried six million passengers during her military service.[3]

Design and construction

History

Military use

The General Frank M. Coxe was an active military vessel on San Francisco Bay from the 1922 to 1947, being decommissioned and sold for surplus in 1947 after the end of World War II.[4]

Prior to the building of the Golden Gate and Bay bridges in the mid-1930s, ground transportation in the Bay Area was hampered by the Bay and the rivers which bisected the region from San Jose to the Sacramento River Delta. However, this region was heavily populated by the Army personnel who garrisoned and maintained the ring of fortresses and ancillary facilities from Fort Point and Fort Cronkite at the mouth of the Bay, to the Benicia Arsenal at the mouth of the Delta. There were two island fortresses: Fort McDowell (Angel Island) and Alcatraz, with each of these becoming special purpose facilities by the time of the General Frank M. Coxe.

By the 1920s, Angel Island and Alcatraz were considered obsolete as artillery positions, with their purposes supplanted by larger coastal guns and extensive electronic mines as the primary coastal defenses. As aircraft developed, these also became irrelevant. Angel Island developed as a processing center for inductees and recruits, and Alcatraz developed into a maximum security military prison. The General Frank M. Coxe provided a regular service between Fort Mason, on the north coast of the San Francisco peninsula, and Fort McDowell on Angel Island, with periodic stops at Alcatraz. The Alcatraz service continued after the Army relinquished control to the Federal Prison Bureau in the mid-1930s.[10]

Alcatraz prison break

Alcatraz Prison almost lost one of its boarders when John K. Giles, aged 50, a mail robber and four-time convict, stole an army uniform from the prison laundry and jumped aboard the General Frank M. Coxe just before she departed for Angel Island. Although a count of both the soldiers on the Coxe and the prisoners working on the docks alerted the authorities to an escape, an error in communication and forged documents allowed Giles to land at Fort McDowell. However, a discrepancy in his uniform brought him to the attention of an officer, who then recognized his forged documents and arrested him not knowing of the prison break. Giles was returned to Alcatraz to serve-out his sentence.[10] There was some controversy over whether this constituted a successful escape and a recapture, or a foiled plan. Officially, Alcatraz retained its perfect record as "escape proof" until it closed in the mid-1960s, since it was assumed that all other missing prisoners had drowned.

World War II

Fort McDowell, after 1932 a facility of the San Francisco Port of Embarkation, became a critical processing center of the for US troops heading to the Pacific theater of battle with U.S. entry into World War II.[11][12] The early troop processing was substantially divided between Fort McDowell and Fort Mason, and despite the new bridges and highways, ships and ferries were the only connection between the locations. During World War II, the General Frank M. Coxe made as many as eight scheduled trips per day between Fort McDowell and Fort Mason.[13] After activation in May 1942 of Camp Stoneman, the largest troop staging area on the west coast, Fort McDowell continued as a center for processing unassigned enlisted personnel and prisoner of war camp.[12][14] After satisfying the exigencies of the war, Fort McDowell was eventually phased-out after World War II, and was closed as a processing center prior to the Korean War.[15]

References

Pacific Marine Review. The Charles Ward Engineering Works, Charleston, West Virginia 'Official Organ: Pacific American Steamship Association/Shipowners' Association of the Pacific Coast, 1922, retrieved 27 August 2014^

Pacific Marine Review. American Shipbuilding—Deliveries 'Official Organ: Pacific American Steamship Association/Shipowners' Association of the Pacific Coast, 1923, retrieved 27 August 2014^

Angel Island, Branwell Fanning and William Wong, Arcadia Publishing, 2006 ISBN 978-0-7385-4719-0, pg 28^

Aaron Kinney (2007) Steamboat reopens as restaurant, Oakland Tribune, Dec 4, 2007^

Daniel S. Gregory Ships Plans Library, Coll. 34, Mystic Seaport Museum, Inc.^

Location of Charles Ward Engineering Works, US Coast Guard records^

Description of Charles Ward Engineering, West Virginia State Archives.^

U.S. Army ships and Watercraft of World War II by David H. Grover (page 75); Published: Annapolis, Md. by the Naval Institute Press, 1987 (ISBN 0870217666).^

"MOBILE" Battery “M” 60th coast artillery (a.a.) by Lt. Col. E. L. Barr - describes the sinking of the ''General John McE. Hyde''^

Report of the Warden, United States Penitentiary, Alcatraz Island, California. Excerpted from Federal Offenders: 1934-35^

Steven E. Clay. U. S. Army Order Of Battle 1919–1941 Combat Studies Institute Press, 2011, retrieved 8 September 2021^

John Soennichsen. Fort McDowell California State Military Museums, California Military History Online, 10 August 2017, retrieved 8 September 2021^

General Frank M. Coxe (vessel), California History Magazine, Volume 66, page 37, published by California Historical Society^

Danny (LTC (Ret)) Johnson. Camp Stoneman California State Military Museums, California Military History Online, 10 August 2017, retrieved 8 September 2021^

Angel Island Emigration Station, National Park Service. Description of operation and closure of Ft. McDowell.^

Golden Gate Scenic Steamship Line brochure, published 1949.^

Agenda of the San Francisco Port commission, December 17, 2002 - Golden Gate Scenic Steamship Corporation operates the Red & White Fleet.^

General Frank M. Coxe (vessel), California History Magazine Volume 66, page 37 published by California Historical Society^

Aaron Kinney. 1920s steamship ready to reopen as restaurant San Mateo County Times, 2007-12-01^

Site Description - Lease extension documented by county records Feb 9, 2006^

San Mateo Daily Journal June 17, 2014 - Steamship Sherman sets sail: Historic Burlingame ship had become ‘dilapidated,’ mayor says^

country	United States
builder	Charles Ward Engineering Works, Charleston, West Virginia
laid down	16 July 1921
launched	3 March 1922
acquired	delivered 1 December 1922
decommissioned	1947
fate	Sold and became a harbor tour boat and finally a floating restaurant, scrapped 2020

USAT General Frank M. Coxe

Design and construction

History

Military use

Alcatraz prison break

World War II

Post military use

Tour ferry

Restaurant

Fate

References