The USCGC Escanaba (WPG-77) was a 165 ft (50 m) "A" type United States Coast Guard cutter stationed on the Great Lakes from her commissioning in 1932 until the start of U.S. military involvement in World War II in 1941.

Struck by either a torpedo or mine in the early morning of 13 June 1943, while serving as a convoy escort, Escanaba suffered a fiery explosion and sank within minutes, leaving only two survivors and one body out of her 105-man crew to be found on the surface by rescuers.

She was commissioned on 23 November 1932 in Grand Haven, Michigan, which would be her permanent station and home port until she was redeployed to the East Coast for combat duty in the Second World War.

Escanaba's primary, pre-war missions were ice breaking and search and rescue on the Great Lakes, which caused her to become well known throughout the region and a beloved part of her home port's community.

With the outbreak of war in 1941, Escanaba's home port was shifted to Boston, and she was assigned to the Greenland Patrol, performing escort duty and search and rescue operations in the North Atlantic.

By way of the lines the rescue swimmers tied around those who were having trouble helping themselves, many struggling survivors who--debilitated by the cold--would have otherwise died, were hauled aboard the Escanaba by crewmen on deck.

Ship's doctor Assistant Surgeon Ralph R. Nix of the US Public Health Service also received a letter of commendation for his work saving the lives of the critically chilled survivors.

The entire crew of 13 officers and 92 men was lost to the explosion or to rapid hypothermia in the 39 °F (4 °C) water with the exception of Baldwin and O'Malley, whose survival was attributed to their soaked clothing having frozen their unconscious bodies to floating debris, which prevented them from following their shipmates to the bottom.

As the war wore on, the citizens of Grand Haven managed to raise more than $1,000,000 in bonds to build a new cutter bearing the same name (USCGC Escanaba (WHEC-64)) in order to honor the ill-fated ship and its men.