Charles W. Harkness's first yachting experiences were on his father's boats Peerless and Twilight. Charles inherited Peerless from his father in 1888.
He later sold her in 1906 and in 1907 took delivery of Agawa. Agawa was launched on 20 September 1906. A 215-foot-long statement in white, she was beauty in motion. She won the Mill Trophy, an award for a long-distance yacht race, in both 1907 and 1909.
There are records of the Agawa making stops in Newport, RI during this time.
What was it like on the steam yachts of that day? This video will give you a feel for that.
The Agawa(Cythera) goes to War!
The converted yacht, ex-USS Cythera(Agawa), held the distinction of serving in both World War I and World War II as an escort and patrol craft. Following its sinking, it is the only instance in American theater where survivors were brought aboard a U-boat and taken to Germany as prisoners of war.
Agawa's owner, Charles Harkness passed away on May 1, 1916, and his wife Mary died shortly after Charles passed on Dec 8, 1916. It is believed that William L. Harkness, whose yacht Gunilda had sunk 5 years earlier in 1911, inherited or purchased the Agawa from Charles and Mary's estate.
When the US entered World War One, the Navy was in fast need of boats that could be used as escort ships to convoy troops and supplies ‘Over There’. Will Harkness volunteered the Agawa for service and on 20 October 1917, the Agawa became the USS Cythera (SP 575). She served for a total of just under 18 months on the Naval List.
Note that Lamon V. Harkness also donated his yacht Wakiva II to the war effort at this time as well. That will be covered in a separate blog entry about Wakiva II. 
The Cythera was scheduled to be returned to her owner on 19 March 1919, unfortunately, Will Harkness passed away on May 10, 1919. So he had little time to enjoy Agawa. In the war she sailed with Patrol Force, Atlantic Fleet, towing small boats to France and then escorting coastal convoys in the Med. Now, Will's widow Edith Hale Harkness would become the owner of the Agawa.
It is unclear what kind of use Agawa got in these intervening years of peacetime. There were no entries to be found of her sailing for pleasure to Newport or on other trips. However, Edith does show a continued membership in the New York Yacht Club as late as 1935. It is possible that the children Willam and Louise were able to use the Agawa. The Dosoris property was still in their possession so this could make sense for the summers.
WWII
When WWII erupted, the Navy found itself in the same old problem as before, being eaten alive by German U-Boats in the Atlantic as well as Japanese ones in the Pacific. Mrs. Harkness leased the now 30+-year-old yacht back to the Navy for $1 on 3 Mar 1942
On her first cruise, leaving Norfolk for Hawaii just a few months after Pearl Harbor, she was encountered by U-402 a Type VIIC German submarine under the command of Kaleu Siegfried von Forstner. Firing a single torpedo (of three fired) the U-boat broke the Cythera in half while she was zigzagging some 115 miles off the North Carolina Coast.
From U-boat.net ” The ship immediately split in two, and the forward half rose steeply out of the water. The ship sank very quickly and at least two of her depth charges that were preset exploded underwater. This information was told to me by one of the two survivors, Mr. James M. Brown, who I located in Maine in 1991. He was on forward lookout at the time of the attack. The other survivor was Charles H. Carter, but I was never able to locate him. He was standing on the bridge next to the Commander when they were attacked. As a side note, Charles H. Carter was at Pearl Harbor aboard the battleship USS Oklahoma (BB 37) that was sunk during the Japanese attack. He survived two attacks within 5 months when the ships he was aboard were sunk – incredible! Shortly after USS Cythera went down, U-402 surfaced and turned on its search light looking at whatever debris was floating in the large oil slick that was all that remained from the ship. Brown and Carter were found clinging to a small raft and were taken aboard as prisoners. They asked to be left back in the water but Von Forstner replied: No, boys, the war´s over for you. Both survivors were covered in oil, and Von Forstner gave his sweater to Mr. Brown. Both were also given some brandy to drink. Brown also spoke fluent German, but I never thought to ask if he revealed that to Von Forstner. He did say, however, that the Chief Engineer on the U-Boat spoke fluent English, so I suppose that´s how they communicated. When Brown asked Von Forstner why they were not machine-gunned in the water, Von Forstner and crew members present expressed shock that the Americans would even think of such a thing. During the return trip to France the Americans were treated well. They were given cigarettes every day and allowed to go topside for fresh air every day. Brown said Von Forstner was a compassionate man who was not signed on to Nazi ideology. He was a professional sailor who came from a family of military background. He was not enthusiastic about war, but he did his job well as a German officer. When the Americans were turned over to the German Army in France there apparently was consternation between the U-Boat crew and the German soldiers, who may have manhandled the POWs. In the almost three-week trip to France, the crew and prisoners formed somewhat of a bond between them; in fact, the Americans even invited the crew to visit them in America after the war. Brown, at least, wound up in a POW camp in Upper Silezia, Poland for the remainder of the war. The camp produced synthetic fuel and held mostly British POWs. Later in the war, the camp was abandoned because of advancing Soviet forces approaching from the east, and the POWs were force-marched toward Moosburg, Germany, to another camp. He was finally liberated in late April 1945 by forward units of Patton´s 3rd Army and made his way back across Europe where he was put in a military hospital for several weeks.”
U-402 herself was sunk on the 13th of October 1943 in the middle of the North Atlantic, in position 48.56N, 29.41W, by an acoustic torpedo (Fido) from TBD Avenger supported by F4F Wildcat aircraft of VC-9 flying from the escort carrier USS Card. Unlike Cythera, she went down with all hands. Fortsner was credited with 15 ships sunk (71,036 tons) and 3 ships damaged (28,682 tons), of which Cythera was both the smallest and the only warship.
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