USCGC Planetree (WAGL/WLB-307) was a Mesquite-class seagoing buoy tender operated by the United States Coast Guard.

While her overall dimensions remained the same over her career, the addition of new equipment raised her displacement to 1,025 tons by the end of her Coast Guard service.

In early December 1943 she was icebreaking in Lake Superior to keep the port of Ashland, Wisconsin open for iron ore shipments.

[3] Once she reached Hawaii, one of her tasks was to deliver updated LORAN equipment to remote stations at Baker, Gardner, and Atafu Islands, which she accomplished in 1945.

[9] The end of World War II in 1945 created intense pressure from conscripted members of the armed forces and their families for rapid demobilization.

For example, on September 23, 1954, she arrived at Angaur, an island in Palau, towing a barge with about 8,000 gallons of diesel fuel for the LORAN station there.

During February and March 1960, Planetree spent seven weeks repairing aids to navigation on Samoa, and Swains, Baker, Jarvis, Howland, and Enderbury Islands.

[16] She rescued the 17-man crew of the Japanese fishing vessel Koryo Maru II which had gone aground on Minto Reef in the Caroline Islands in 1961.

[21] In July 1958 crew from Planetree arrested pacifist and nuclear activist Earle L. Reynolds 65 miles inside a restricted area in the Pacific Proving Grounds.

In particular, U.S. commanders wanted a series of petroleum off-loading buoys to support the movement of fuel ashore from tankers.

[23] Other requests for aids to navigation resulted in the Coast Guard deploying four buoy tenders, including Planetree, on short rotations during the Vietnam war.

During her 1967 Vietnam deployment, Planetree set ship anchorage and mooring buoys off Da Nang and Chu Lai.

[25] Whenever any of the Coast Guard buoy tenders were deployed to the theater they sailed with Vietnamese lighthouse service personnel aboard.

The training they received was deemed sufficient to turn over responsibility for maintaining their own aids to navigation in December 1972, but by then the regime was falling.

The last Coast Guard buoy tender left Vietnamese waters in the spring of 1973 as part of the general withdrawal of U.S.

She received an "austere" renovation, the less comprehensive of the two buoy tender service life extension programs the Coast Guard implemented at that time.

The application off quick-drying cement as temporary patches cut the leaks down to 3 to 5 gallons per hour, which the ship's pumps handled easily.

Planetree hove to until the weather moderated, reducing her speed to just the minimum required to allow her rudder to be effective in steering the ship.

Even at this low speed, the ship began to leak propeller shaft lubricant which threatened her ability to continue steering.

USCGC Douglas Munro responded to Planetree bringing additional lubricant, and the ship made port as the weather moderated.

She sought shelter at Bartlett Cove in Glacier Bay National Park where commercial divers installed a temporary patch.

[33] On April 6, 1989 Planetree was directed to sail for Prince William Sound to assist in the Coast Guard response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

[38] After decommissioning, Planetree was placed in the ready reserve fleet and moored with other mothballed ships at Suisun Bay, California.

The Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2004 sought to donate Planetree to the Jewish Life museum in Sherman Oaks, California.

In 2018 the Maritime Administration contracted with All Star Metals of Brownsville, Texas to recycle Planetree and USCGC Iris.