The "Maggie" was rammed amidships and sunk by the SS Marguerite Le Hand, a brand new type C-3 cargo vessel on its maiden voyage.  The Magnolia had just cleared the sea buoy in the Gulf of Mexico preparing to enter Mobile Bay.  The time was 2328 hours, 24 August 1945.

The Magnolia and the Marguerite Le Hand had exchanged one blast of the whistle signaling for a port to port passing when the Marguerite Le Hand came hard aport.  The Magnolia went hard astarboard in an attempt to avoid collision and was rammed amidships, the bow of the Marguerite Le Hand slicing deep into her port side.  Almost immediately, the Marguerite Le Hand reversed its engine and backed out, leaving a gaping hole in the Magnolia's hull nearly to the keel.  Having virtually no watertight compartments, the Gulf of Mexico poured in and the Magnolia sank in less than two minutes.

Fifty-nine crew members survived primarily because the night was exceptionally hot.  The ship had practically no ventilation into the lower crew quarters, so the majority of the men had gone topside to sleep wherever they-could find a level spot.  One man was lost in the sinking.

The Magnolia was unable to launch life boats.  She carried a 26 ft. motor launch and a 26 ft. pulling boat, plus several life rafts.  The pulling boat was smashed when someone on the Marguerite Le Hand released a 15 ton slide-mounted life raft onto the' Magnolia at almost the moment of the ramming impact.  Most-crew members did not have time to don life jackets and had to spend several hours treading water to stay alive.

The Marguerite Le Hand launched several life boats, searching for and picking up survivors.  The Magnolia used a very thick bunker IC' fuel oil and the majority of survivors were coated with it.  Many of us swallowed quantities of the foul stuff requiring hospital treatment after being landed in Mobile.

Built in 1904 at Baltimore, MD, for the US Light House Service, the Magnolia was 173 feet long with twin reciprocating steam engines driving twin screws.  The Coast Guard inherited the Light House Service and the Magnolia in 1939., Part of the "Flower Fleet" of ships, she performed the hard dirty job of maintaining aids to navigation of all types, from lighthouses to buoys.

Shortly after the collision many of the Magnolia's crew went to Norfolk, Virginia, to man the CGC Salvia, WAGL-400 (then relatively new 180 ft. buoy tender), bringing her to Mobile to replace the Magnolia.
 
Albeit, while the Magnolia was not sunk by enemy action, it was the last major Coast Guard ship sunk during World War II and as the survivors would attest, the water was deep, oily, very wet....the night very long waiting to be rescued.

As an 18 year old S 1/C (QM) with 18 months service, I was the youngest crew member on board the Magnolia when she was rammed and sunk on 24 August 1945 during the final days of World War II.  Following the Magnolia incident, I went into Coast Guard Aviation serving another three years as an Aviation Machinist Mate.