A college in Brunswick, Maine.
Bowdoin, a two-masted, auxiliary schooner built in 1921 at East Boothbay, Maine, by Hodgdon Brothers, was purchased by the Navy from Mr. Donald B. MacMillan of Provincetown, Mass., on 22 May 1941; designated IX-50; and placed in commission on 16 June 1941, Lt. Comdr. Donald B. Macmillan, USNR (Ret.) in command.
Bowdoin was assigned to the South Greenland Patrol but did not report for duty at Ivigtut. The Greenland patrol existed for two major purposes: to assist in the defense of Greenland and to support the Army in its task of setting up air bases on Greenland as stopover and fueling points for aircraft being ferried to Great Britain. Bowdoin provided services in conjunction with air base site surveys and construction. That assignment lasted about 27 months. During that time, in October 1941, the two portions of the Greenland Patrol, the Northeast and Bowdoin's South, were combined into a single command, the Greenland Patrol, Task Group 24.8 which took its orders directly from the Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet. About two years after that event, on 23 October 1943, the auxiliary schooner was placed in reduced commission. On 16 December 1943, Bowdoin was placed out of commission at Quincy, Mass. Her name was struck from the Navy list on 16 May 1944. She was sold as a hulk on 24 January 1945 through the Maritime Commission's War Shipping Administration, apparently to the Quincy Dry Dock & Yacht Corp., Quincy, Mass.
Raymond A. Mann
15 December 2005
