The USCGC Sweetbrier (WAGL-405/WLB-405) was an Iris-class 180-foot 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.

[citation needed] After commissioning, Sweetbrier sailed to the Coast Guard Yard in Curtis Bay, Maryland to have her armament and sensors installed.

After repairs and loading ammunition at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Sweetbrier sailed for Pearl Harbor, arriving there on 27 February 1945.

Here, an armed boarding party from Sweetbrier searched the decommissioned battleship USS Oregon for Japanese troops that were rumored to be hiding aboard.

[7] In Guam Sweetbrier was engaged in establishing aids to navigation and fleet mooring buoys, but also assisted several vessels that had grounded in Apra Harbor, including LST-846.

The convoy was attacked by a Japanese plane on 6 May 1945 and Sweetbrier fired her 3" gun twice before U.S. aircraft shot down the intruder.

[7][8] Concern about the air raids was heightened by the cargo of 27,400 pounds of dynamite she embarked of 14 May 1945 to support Seabee blasting operations in the area.

This explosive cargo was on board through a number of air raids, including one that hit LST-808 only 500 yards off her port bow.

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

[13] Sweetbrier supported the Coast Guard's search and rescue mission as well, frequently assisting disabled or grounded vessels in the local fishing fleet.

High winds had prevented planes from flying to town for two weeks and 9,000 pounds of holiday mail and packages were loaded into the ship's hold for delivery.

In February 1976, while enroute to her new assignment, one of her sailors was killed at the Navy Fuel Facility pier at San Diego when he fell between the ship and the dock.

Cordova sits on the eastern edge of the supertanker route from the terminus of the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline System in Valdez to the Pacific Ocean.

On 17 January 1980 the tanker Prince William Sound carrying 831,000 barrels of crude oil lost power and began drifting towards shore.

After drifting for 16 hours, Prince William Sound was able to restart her engines and proceed safely, but by that time was only six miles from the rocky shore.

The Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound spilling 10,800,000 US gallons (41,000 m3) of crude oil.

She performed air traffic control, salmon hatchery protection, and safety zone enforcement around the grounded tanker.

[29] The Coast Guard planned for an orderly replacement of its World War II-vintage buoy tenders, retiring the older vessels as new ships were launched.

Bonsu evacuated over 1,300 people, vastly more than she was designed to carry, and made it back to Ghana in two and a half days.

Less than a year later, on 19 March 2004, Bonsu and her sister ship GNS Anzone (ex-USCGC Woodrush) rescued 427 Ghanaians and others from civil unrest in Equatorial Guinea.