The USS Edisto (AGB-2) was a Wind-class icebreaker in the service of the United States Navy and was later transferred to the United States Coast Guard as USCGC Edisto (WAGB-284). She was named after Edisto Island, South Carolina. The island is named after the Native American Edisto Band who inhabited the island and the surrounding area. Currently (2011) there is a namesake cutter USCGC Edisto (WPB-1313). The newer Edisto is a 110-foot Island-class patrol boat and is stationed at San Diego, California.
In December 1958, Edisto departed for Operation DEEP FREEZE IV. Her work in the Antarctic this time was in support of the International Geophysical Year. From April 16–26, 1959, while en route home, she stopped in Montevideo, Uruguay, which was experiencing disastrous floods. The crew labored many long hours in flood relief work, rescuing 227 persons by helicopter, thereby receiving the personal thanks of the president of Uruguay on their departure.[6]
Her next Antarctic trip came during the winter (Antarctic summer) of 1960-1961 as a member of Operation DEEP FREEZE 61. While operating far south of New Zealand in an attempt to salvage a naval vessel that had broken loose from its moorings, Edisto encountered what was probably the worst storm of her career. With tons of ice loading her topside down, she staggered to regain stability at the end of each long, agonizing roll. Before the storm had blown itself out, Edisto had lost most of her rigging and her starboard propeller.
As a unit of the task force for Operation DEEP FREEZE 63 in 1962-1963, she spent 131 consecutive days in the ice. During this time, her crew witnessed the breakup of RADM Richard Evelyn Byrd"s Little America III, built in 1940-1941. Instead of going south for the 1963-1964 season in the Antarctic, Edisto entered the Boston Naval Shipyard for an overhaul. Then, on June 15, 1964, she departed Boston, Massachusetts for military resupply operations in the Arctic. While on this cruise, Edisto used Prince Christian Sound instead of rounding Cape Farewell, Greenland probably making her the first US naval vessel to transit this sound since the USCGC Northland (WPG-49) in 1941. Before returning to Boston, Massachusetts in early October 1964, she picked up some scientists in Iceland and proceeded to the waters between Greenland and Spitsbergen, Norway to carry out an oceanographic survey.
On December 10, 1964, Edisto departed for the Antarctic as a unit of the task force for Operation DEEP FREEZE 65 on an assignment unprecedented in icebreaker history. She had the responsibility for constructing the new Palmer Station for marine biological studies on Anvers Island off the Antarctic Peninsula. No sooner had she accomplished this assignment and returned to Boston, Massachusetts, than Edisto was ordered to sail on a polar rescue mission. Drifting south was the Ice Island Arlis II, with 20 scientists on board waiting to be evacuated before the island broke up underneath them. Departing Boston, Massachusetts on April 6, 1965, after a stay of only five days, she battled some of the thickest and hardest ice ever encountered by an American icebreaker to moor alongside Ice Island Arlis II and to effect the evacuation of the men and equipment.
During the summer of 1965, Edisto again sailed to the Arctic in support of the northern defense outposts and for oceanographic survey work. Before her return to Boston, Massachusetts in early October 1965, a message informed her that she would be the first of the United States Navy icebreakers turned over to the United States Coast Guard under the transfer agreement signed between the United States Department of the Treasury and United States Department of the Navy. As Edisto sailed south, U.S. Coast Guard officers boarded who would command the vessel following the turnover.
USS EDISTO LYTTLETON 1957