Beaumont (PG-60)
1942-1946
A city in southeastern Texas about 75 miles east of Houston on the banks of the Neches River, and the seat of government for Jefferson County.
(PG-60: displacement 1,434 (full load); length 226'0"; beam 34'1"; draft 12'8" (mean) (full load); speed 15.5 knots; complement 110; armament 2 3-inch, 6 .50-caliber machine guns, 2 depth charge projectors, 2 depth charge tracks)
The steel-hulled twin-screw yacht Reveler--completed in 1930 at Kiel, Germany, by Krupp Germaniawerft , originally for Russell Alexander Alger, Jr.,, vice president of the Packard Motor Car Co.-- was renamed Chalena when acquired in 1931 by Charles E. F. McCann, son-in-law of entrepreneur Fred W. Woolworth. Leon Mandel acquired the vessel in 1939, and renamed the yacht Carola in honor of his wife.
Aquired by the Navy on 23 January 1942, Carola was renamed Beaumont on 27 January 1942, classified as a gunboat and designated PG-60. Converted to naval service by the Gibbs Gas Engine Co., Jacksonville, Fla.; she was commissioned on 22 June 1942, Lt. Cmdr. John M. Cox, Jr., D-V(G), USNR, in command.
After fitting out, Beaumont proceeded to Miami, Fla., arriving on 22 July 1942 to begin her shakedown. Upon the conclusion of that period of training, she got underway for Key West on the 29th, arriving there the following day. With orders to escort motor vessels to Caribbean ports via the Yucatan Channel, and then proceed to the Canal Zone and report to Commander, Panama Sea Frontier, for further routing, Beaumont sailed on 2 August. Parting company with her charges soon thereafter having seen them safely to that point on 5 August, she proceeded on to Panama, reaching her destination on 8 August
After transiting the Panama Canal, Beaumont stood out of Balboa harbor on 16 August 1942, bound for Oahu, T.H.. Assigned to the Hawaiian Sea Frontier, the gunboat reached her new base, Pearl Harbor, on 2 September. For the next three years, Beaumont operated from Pearl on weather station duty, alternating, sometimes with gunboat San Bernardino (PG-59), on stations designated only by the letters “B”, “C”, and “D,” operating between Midway and her home port, collecting meteorological data in support of the Pacific Fleet’s weather service.
The cessation of hostilities found her still supplying information to the weather forecasters, and she remained on that duty through the autumn of 1945. Ultimately, she sailed from Pearl Harbor on 5 November 1945, and reached San Francisco on Armistice Day, 11 November 1945, having been directed to report to Commander, Western Sea Frontier, and then Commandant, Twelfth Naval District, for disposal. She was decommissioned at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, Calif., on 19 February 1946.
Designated on 12 March 1946 “to be disposed of,” Beaumont was struck from the Naval Register on 28 March 1946, and ultimately delivered to the Maritime Commission’s War Shipping Administration on 20 February 1947. Placed in the Reserve Fleet at Suisun Bay, Calif.,"for security custody only," the ship was acquired in 1949 by the Elpetal Corp., beinhg given that name (Elpetal) by the new owners, and taken to Bath, Maine, for reconditioning by Bath Iron Works. Maris Embiricos, a Greek businessman, purchased Elpetal in1957.
Australian empresario Robert Stigwood acquired the yacht in 1983, renaming her Jezebel.. Subsequently, philanthropist J. Paul Getty, Jr., bought the well-traveled vessel, renaming her Talitha G., in 1993, and she underwent a major overhaul at Plymouth, England; after Getty's death in 2003, she was renamed Talitha, and as of this writing [2021] she is owned by Mark Harris Getty.
Robert J. Cressman
Updated, 27 October 2021
