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USS Tornado (PC 14)

USS TORNADO was the 14^th and final CYCLONE - class patrol coastal boat. From November 2001 on, the CYCLONE - class ships were temporarily operated under US Coast Guard control for homeland defense. On October 1, 2004, the TORNADO was decommissioned and officially transfered to the US Coast Guard where she was recommissioned as USCGC TORNADO (WPC 14). The TORNADO was re-transfered to the Navy on September 30, 2011.

On February 18, USS TORNADO held a decommissioning ceremony at Naval Station Mayport, Fla. On March 4, 2021, the TORNADO was officially decommissioned and stricken from the Navy list. She is now awaiting a possible foreign military sale.

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS TORNADO. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.

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USS TORNADO History:

The CYCLONE-class patrol coastal ship USS TORNADO was ordered on August 14, 1997, as the fourteenth and final unit of the class, built by Bollinger Machine Shop & Shipyard at Lockport, Louisiana. She was designed as a slightly lengthened and heavier variant of her sisters, with a hull about 179 feet long and a displacement of roughly 335–387 tons, and she was the only ship in the class to incorporate signature-reduction shaping features in her superstructure and mast design.

Her keel was laid on August 25, 1998, and she was launched on June 7, 1999, entering the water at Bollinger's yard on Bayou Lafourche. After fitting out and sea trials, she was delivered to the Navy on March 13, 2000. TORNADO was commissioned into active service as a United States Navy warship on June 24, 2000, at Norfolk, Virginia, joining the CYCLONE-class as the newest and last member of the patrol coastal force. Following commissioning, TORNADO joined the Atlantic Fleet's CYCLONE-class contingent based at Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, Virginia, with a primary mission of coastal patrol, interdiction surveillance, and support to naval special operations forces.

Like the other patrol coastal ships, she operated with a small crew of just over 30 sailors and was armed with 25 mm chain guns, .50-caliber machine guns, automatic grenade launchers, and shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, optimized for high-speed operations in confined coastal waters. During her initial period of service in 2000-2001, TORNADO completed the usual shakedown and workup cycle in the western Atlantic, proving her machinery and weapons and integrating with the patrol coastal squadron and special operations users before entering full operational status.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 rapidly reshaped the employment of the CYCLONE-class. From November 2001 onward, the entire class, including TORNADO, was temporarily operated under U.S. Coast Guard control for homeland defense missions while remaining Navy ships. In January 2002, TORNADO began what the Navy later described as her maiden deployment: an independent Maritime Homeland Security (MHLS) deployment to Coast Guard District Seven (covering much of the southeastern United States) in direct support of Operation NOBLE EAGLE, the domestic security operation established after 9/11. Embarking a Coast Guard Tactical Law Enforcement Team, she conducted intensive patrols in approaches to major ports and along key sea lanes. Over the course of this deployment, she carried out 26 escorts of ballistic-missile submarines, one escort of an aircraft carrier, six escorts of cruise liners, 16 boardings of merchant vessels under NOBLE EAGLE authority, and 138 merchant-ship challenges to develop maritime domain awareness.

In parallel, TORNADO provided security patrols in support of two space-shuttle launches from Florida's Atlantic coast and for the Fort Lauderdale Annual Sea and Air Show, demonstrating how the small patrol coastal ships were being used to provide close-in security for nationally prominent events and critical infrastructure.

In the summer of 2002, TORNADO's employment broadened further. She took part in the largest Naval Special Warfare operational readiness exercise conducted up to that time, working in a special operations context alongside other units while providing a fast, shallow-draft platform for insertion, extraction, and fire support.

During the same period, she conducted familiarization operations with representatives of the Philippine Navy, using the patrol coastal platform to demonstrate tactics and capabilities to a partner navy, and she temporarily served as a school ship at the Surface Warfare Officers School in Newport, Rhode Island, supporting officer training in small-craft operations.

One of TORNADO's most distinctive early milestones came in August 2002, when she made a highly visible homeland-security port visit to Richmond, Virginia. On August 28, 2002, she became the first Navy ship in nearly two decades to transit the entire James River to the port of Richmond, mooring at the Intermediate Terminal for a public visit. This transit underscored the ship's ability to operate far upriver in confined waters, a capability valued for both security patrols and engagement with inland communities. Later, Navy and Navy League accounts note that TORNADO's Richmond visit entered local records as a notable event in the city's naval connections.

During the fall of 2002, TORNADO conducted further maritime homeland-security patrols under Coast Guard operational control, this time in Coast Guard Districts One and Five, covering the northeastern seaboard. In these patrols, she took part in Operations NEPTUNE SHIELD, GUARDING LIBERTY, and LIBERTY SHIELD, a sequence of coordinated post-9/11 maritime security operations focused on protecting major ports, energy infrastructure, and critical shipping lanes along the Atlantic coast.

In October 2002, as the Navy reorganized the Atlantic Fleet patrol coastal force, TORNADO and the other Atlantic PCs transitioned from assignment under Naval Special Warfare to the surface warfare chain of command, joining Commander, Amphibious Group Two and beginning to follow the standard Inter-Deployment Training Cycle under Commander, Naval Surface Force Atlantic. In connection with this transition, TORNADO underwent her first dry-docking maintenance period at NORTHSHIPCO and Colonna's Shipyard in the Norfolk area, becoming the first patrol coastal to complete a full surface-force maintenance and training cycle under the new regime.

Through 2003 and into 2004, TORNADO continued to perform MHLS missions along the U.S. East and Gulf coasts, including repeat visits to Richmond - contemporary commentary in U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings noted that her port call in August 2004 was the second in three years - and ongoing participation in post-9/11 homeland-security operations in partnership with the Coast Guard.

During this same period, she earned Command Excellence Awards in all warfare areas and a Type Commander (TYCOM) Safety Award, indicating consistently high performance in engineering, combat systems, navigation, and safety inspections.

As part of a broader decision to use the CYCLONE-class more directly in Coast Guard roles, TORNADO was selected for transfer to the U.S. Coast Guard in 2004. She was decommissioned from Navy service and officially transferred on September 29-October 1, 2004, becoming USCGC TORNADO (WPC 14) and entering "commission special" status before her formal Coast Guard commissioning.

On December 6, 2004, she was formally commissioned at Pascagoula, Mississippi, in a ceremony attended by the Coast Guard commandant and local officials, and assigned to Coast Guard District Eight with her homeport at Naval Station Pascagoula. In Coast Guard service, TORNADO performed a mix of maritime security, search-and-rescue, migrant-interdiction, and counter-narcotics duties in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean, often under the operational umbrella of Joint Interagency Task Force South. Over her Coast Guard and later Navy counter-drug patrols, she contributed to the disruption of more than 35,000 kilograms of cocaine and almost 4,000 pounds of marijuana, keeping hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of illicit drugs out of the United States market.

In 2011, the Coast Guard returned TORNADO to the Navy. She was retransferred on September 30, 2011 and subsequently recommissioned as USS TORNADO on December 6, 2011, once again joining the Atlantic Fleet patrol coastal force. Initially, she operated again from Little Creek under Patrol Coastal Squadron One (PCRON 1), the squadron responsible for the Atlantic-based Cyclone-class ships. Her missions during this period focused on training and maritime homeland security along the U.S. East Coast, now in a post-Iraq-surge environment where many of the class's sister ships were forward-deployed to Bahrain while TORNADO and a few others remained stateside.

As the Navy rebalanced its patrol coastal presence, three Atlantic-based PCs - USS SHAMAL (PC 13), USS ZEPHYR (PC 8), and USS TORNADO - were selected for basing at Naval Station Mayport, Florida, to support U.S. Fourth Fleet and homeland-security missions. Local reporting in 2013 described SHAMAL as the first of the trio to arrive in Mayport, soon followed by TORNADO and ZEPHYR, completing their homeport shift from Virginia. From this point onward, TORNADO's operational focus centered on the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and approaches to the southeastern United States, frequently working with embarked Coast Guard law-enforcement detachments.

Around the mid-2010s, TORNADO underwent a significant planned maintenance availability at the General Dynamics NASSCO shipyard facility in Mayport. A 2015 yard publication describes her dry-docking planned maintenance availability moving into its final phase, with reinstallation of propulsion equipment and application of new hull coatings, reflecting the periodic heavy maintenance needed to keep the aging CYCLONE-class hulls in service. By this stage in her life, the Navy and industry were dealing with fatigue and age-related issues in the class, and periodic deep overhauls were important for extending their operational usefulness.

By January 2018, TORNADO had acquired a series of distinctive technical distinctions within the fleet. She was, according to official Navy documentation and open sources, the only remaining CYCLONE-class ship still fitted with the original Mk 38 25 mm Mod 1 gun system instead of the newer stabilized Mod 2 installations, and in fact she was then believed to be the only remaining U.S. Navy warship of any type still operating the Mod 1 system. In addition, Navy sources emphasized that TORNADO retained the original CYCLONE-class concept of an all crew-served weapons fit, which, apart from the historic frigate USS CONSTITUTION, made her the last active U.S. Navy warship whose armament consisted entirely of crew-served weapons rather than remotely operated or fully automated mounts.

In October 2018, TORNADO took part in Maryland Fleet Week and Air Show Baltimore, a major public-outreach and port-visit event in the Chesapeake region. She moored in Baltimore alongside larger units such as the dock landing ship USS OAK HILL (LSD 51), the littoral combat ship USS MILWAUKEE (LCS 5), the expeditionary fast transport USNS CITY OF BISMARCK (T-EPF 9), and the Coast Guard training barque USCGC EAGLE, as well as allied warships including the British frigate HMS MONMOUTH and Canadian patrol vessel HMCS MONCTON. Photographs from the event show TORNADO opening for public tours along Baltimore's Inner Harbor, using her distinctive angular superstructure to illustrate the evolution of small-combatant design to visitors.

In early 2019, TORNADO shifted from high-visibility public events back to deployed operations in the U.S. Fourth Fleet area of responsibility. In late February 2019, she called at Naval Air Station Key West, Florida, en route south to support Joint Interagency Task Force South's counter-drug mission in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, with Key West serving as a last U.S. port and logistic stop before entering more distant patrol areas. During this deployment, she operated with an embarked Coast Guard Tactical Law Enforcement Detachment and other U.S. and partner-nation units to detect and interdict drug-trafficking vessels. Contemporary reporting, summarizing Coast Guard cutter BOUTWELL's and other units' cases, attributed two significant interdictions - seizing roughly 6,100 pounds of marijuana and 660 pounds of cocaine - to missions in which TORNADO and a Coast Guard law-enforcement team played key roles, highlighting the ship's relevance in small-ship, high-tempo counter-drug work.

Shortly after this counter-drug deployment, TORNADO took on a ceremonial and public-engagement role again. In May 2019, she participated in Fleet Week New York, mooring at the United States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York, where she served as a visiting fleet unit and opened for tours by midshipmen, alumni, and the public. Her presence alongside larger amphibious and auxiliary ships offered a contrast between small patrol craft and larger combatant and support vessels, and gave the Academy community exposure to modern coastal-patrol operations. After Fleet Week, TORNADO returned to Mayport to resume her normal training and security rotations.

In 2020, as the United States increased its emphasis on counter-narcotics operations in the Western Hemisphere, TORNADO undertook one of the most demanding and consequential patrols of her career. She deployed from Mayport in early 2020 for a 68-day counter-drug patrol in the U.S. Fourth Fleet area of responsibility, again operating under Joint Interagency Task Force South. On May 13, 2020, she returned to Mayport at the end of this deployment, having contributed to the disruption of more than 35,000 kilograms of cocaine and almost 4,000 pounds of marijuana during the patrol.

The deployment involved operations in both the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific and included two transits of the Panama Canal, as TORNADO shifted between ocean basins to pursue smuggling routes along Central America's coasts. Throughout the cruise, she operated with an embarked Coast Guard law-enforcement team and adapted to the emerging COVID-19 pandemic, implementing health-protection measures while maintaining sustained presence at sea, a point emphasized by U.S. Fourth Fleet leadership in their public assessments of the deployment. Imagery from September 16, 2020 shows TORNADO in the Pacific conducting man-overboard drills while still deployed in support of Fourth Fleet and JIATF South, illustrating the routine seamanship training that accompanied her operational missions.

By early 2021, the Navy had decided to retire the remaining U.S.-based CYCLONE-class ships as newer platforms and unmanned systems took over many of their roles. TORNADO, along with USS ZEPHYR and USS SHAMAL, was slated for decommissioning at Naval Station Mayport. Official Navy announcements in February 2021 noted that separate decommissioning ceremonies would be held for the three ships on February 16, 17, and 18, with TORNADO's ceremony taking place on February 18, 2021, honoring her service as a maritime homeland-security and counter-drug platform.

The ship was formally decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on March 4, 2021, ending her period of commissioned Navy service. Shortly thereafter she was towed to the Philadelphia Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility awaiting possible transfer to a foreign navy under the Foreign Military Sales program.

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USS TORNADO Image Gallery:

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning during an open ship event during Fleet Week Maryland at Baltimore, Md., on October 8, 2018.

The photo below was taken by Michael Jenning and shows the decommissioned TORNADO laid up at Philadelphia, Penn., on May 27, 2022.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show ex-TORNADO laid up at Philadelphia, Penn., on May 26, 2023 alongside her sisterships ex-ZEPHYR (PC 8) and ex-SHAMAL (PC 13).

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