The USCGC Courier (WAGR/WTR-410) was a cutter in the United States Coast Guard converted from the M/V Coastal Messenger a Maritime Commission Type C1-M-AV1 vessel. M/V Coastal Messenger (1945–1952) Originally launched in 1945 by Froemming Brothers of Milwaukee, Wisconsin as the M/V Coastal Messenger, the ship was to be originally named Doddridge but was changed prior to acceptance by the Maritime Administration. The ship was originally designed as an inter-island shuttle for military and naval cargoes. She was designed to receive cargo from much larger Victory and Liberty ships and then deliver it to U.S. forces on small outlying islands but was actually never used for that purpose due to the end of World War II. In the late-1940s, the M/V Coastal Messenger was operated by both the Standard Fruit & Steamship Company and Grace Line, Inc., primarily along the coasts to northern South America. On a trip to South America she ran aground at La Salina on Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela but was freed after 11 days with extensive, though minor, damage. She was then mothballed with the reserve fleet and transferred to the control of the Department of State in 1952. USCGC Courier WAGR-410 (1952–1964) The United States Coast Guard Cutter Courier was acquired as part of a joint operation between the United States Department of State and the United States Coast Guard to become a mobile transmitting facility for the U.S. Information Agency's "Voice of America" program. In response to an initiative, code-named Operation Vagabond, that was approved by President Harry S. Truman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and announced by the Department of State in April, 1951, the operation was designed to provide a ship-borne radio relay station to transmit Voice of America programs behind the Iron Curtain. Such a vessel could move to any areas of trouble quickly, could serve as a temporary relay station as needed, and permit the use of a station where it was impractical to build a shore station. To ease political sensitivities, it was decided that the Coast Guard should operate the vessels, which in the planning stages were to have been a total of six vessels. Excessive costs kept the operation to a single vessel. Commissioned on February 15, 1952 in Hoboken, New Jersey, Courier's call sign was "Vagabond-Able". For twelve years during the 1950s and 1960s, she served as a portion of the Voice of America radio network