(1958) United States Coast Guard

8/9/2019 (1958) United States Coast Guard

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COAST GUARD HISTORY

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UNITED STATES COAST GUARDPUBLIC INFORMATION DIVISION, WASHINGTON, D. C. CG-213


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How the firstcutter fleet was launchedThe history of the Coast Guard goesback more than a century and a half tothe beginnings of the United States. TheNation dates from the Declaration of In-dependence, July 4, 1776, but the consti-tutional government we know today didnot start until 1789. That was the yearGeorge Washington was inaugurated asfirst President and that the first Congressconvened in New York, the first capital.The very next year, on August 4, 1790,Congress passed and Washington signeda bill authorizing the construction of "tenboats" for guarding the coast againstsmugglers.

This was the beginning of the CoastGuard. It was known in those first days,however, as the Revenue Marine. Laterit was called the Revenue Cutter Service.Not till 1915 was it given its presentfamous name. But despite name changesit has kept its identity as an organization,and in point of continuous service theCoast Guard is considered the oldest ofthe Nation's seagoing armed forces.

The father of the Coast Guard wasAlexander Hamilton, the first Secretary ofthe Treasury. It was he who asked Con-gress to provide a fleet of armed cuttersto insure the collection of tonnage duesand import duties from vessels enteringUnited States waters.

Smuggling, you must remember, hadbeen a popular activity during the struggleto throw off British "taxation withoutrepresentation." Colonials had consideredevasion of duties imposed by the Parlia-ment overseas an act of patriotismsuchas the Boston Tea Party. Patriots had beensmugglers; smugglers had been patriots.And respectable citizens like John Han-cock and Samuel Adams, both signers ofthe Declaration, engaged in smuggling.By the time the Revolution was over,

smuggling was a habit, and it was Hamil-ton's job to stop it, if the young nationwasn't to go bankrupt. It was easy enoughto show people that the customs duties in-stituted by Congress were taxation ivithrepresentation, but it was not easy to makepeople see smuggling as a crime and smug-glers as criminals. Faced with publicapathy, if not outright sympathy, towardsmuggling, Hamilton decided to resort toa fleet to enforce the customs laws.

Hamilton asked "that there be ten boats,two for the coasts of Massachusetts andNew Hampshire; one for Long IslandSound; one for New York; one for theBay of Delaware; two for the Chesapeake(these of course to ply along the neigh-boring coasts) ; one for North Carolina;one for South Carolina; and one forGeorgia."


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$1,000 per cutterThe "ten boats" were to be cutter

typesthat is, heavy-keeled schoonersthat could carry plenty of sail for speed."Boats of from thirty-six to forty feet keelwill answer the purpose, each . . . armedwith swivels," Hamilton told Congress."The first cost of one of these boats, com-pletely equipped, may be computed at onethousand dollars."The first cutter was the two-masted

Massachusetts, built and launched at New-buryport, Mass., in 1791. Her deck, di-vided into long quarterdeck and deepwaist, measured 50 feet from her Indianfigurehead to her square-cut stern. Thebeam was 17 feet 8 inches; the depth 7feet 3 inches. She "measured" 7OI/2 tof^sand was armed with six swivel guns,which made her the most formidable shipin the cutter fleet. The 51 -ton Scammel,the 50-ton Active and Pickering, the 40-ton Diligence, and the 35-ton Argus.Vigilant, Virginia, and South Carolinahad only four guns apiece. The GeneralGreene, a 30-ton sloop, had but three.

Rum, brandy or whiskyTo sail these ships, Hamilton engaged

crews of "respectable character." For eachcutter. Congress authorized one master,not more than three mates, four mariners,and two boys. The masters received $30 amonth, first mates $20, second mates $16,third mates $14, mariners $8, and boys$4. All received rations, which includedamong other items a "half gill of rum,brandy, or whisky, 1 quart salt, 2 quartsvinegar, 2 pounds soap, 1 pound candles."

In 1799, masters and mates were giventhe titles of captain and first, second,and third lieutenants. These were the

equivalent of the Navy titles lieutenantcommander, lieutenant, lieutenant juniorgrade, and ensign, which came into CoastGuard usage in 1920.

It was Hamilton's idea to give the of-ficers commissions that would "not onlyinduce fit men the more readily to engage,but will attach them to their duty by anicer sense of honor."The first man commissioned "a Master

of a Cutter in the Service of the UnitedStates" was Hopley Yeaton of NewHampshire. On March 21, 1791, he tookthe double oathto support the Consti-tution and detect and prevent fraudsagainst the revenuethat Coast Guard of-ficers still take, and was given commandof the cutter Scan?mel. During the Revo-lution he had fought as Captain JohnBarry's third ofiicer aboard the frigateRaleigh.Two other cutter masters also were

veterans of the Continental NavyJohnFoster 'Williams, who commanded theMassachusetts, and David Porter, whocommanded the Active.

Uniform of the day'What uniforms these earliest Coast

Guardsmen wore we can only guess, be-cause in the beginning the RevenueMarine was loosely organized under theadministration of local collectors of thecustoms and no uniform regulations areknown earlier than those of 1830. Theassumption is that the original cuttercrews dressed much like men of the Revo-lutionary Navy, disbanded in 1785.

Masters probably wore cocked hatsover hair tied up in short queues, blueswallow-tail coats with gold buttons andepaulets, knee breeches and boots. Buttonswere usually arranged in groups of four


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The Revenue Cut+er Pickering, one of the first ten cutters.on lapels, pocket flaps, cuffs, and coatskirts to indicate the rank of sea captain.Other symbols of authority were side armsand a speaking trumpet through whichto call orders to the crew and to hail shipsto stand by for boarding.The mariners (or sailors, as we call

them now) also wore their hair in pigtails,which they tarred for protection againstthe salt water. The traditional broad sail-or's collar was designed to catch drippingsfrom the waterproofed queues. Whenreally dressed up, the mariners sportedhard black hats with flat brims and pill-box crowns, but at sea they more likelywore knitted caps both for warmth and forthe streamlined effect. Short blue jackets

with brass buttons, and trousers that werebell-bottomed so they could be easilyrolled up or worn over boot tops,probably completed the ancient mariner'suniform.However they dressed, one thing sureabout the Revenue Marinersthey musthave been good sailing and fighting men.They made smuggling less profitable andless popular. For their work they weregiven increases in pay and subsistence in1793, and again in 1796. Then between1795 and 1801 the 10 original cutters weregradually replaced with 13 larger shipsthat carried more and heavier guns andbigger crews. The evolution leading tothe great, 20th Century Coast Guard wasfinally underway.


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Cutters versusFrench privateers

-TOR nearly eight years Hamilton's fleetof cutters was the young Nation's onlynavy. The regular Navy was not organizeduntil 1798. At the time, a diplomatic warof nerves France was waging on theUnited States had broken out into anundeclared shooting war at sea. Frenchprivateers, preying on American shipping,seized more than 340 of our ships.During the ensuing hostilities. Congress

ordained in 1799 that "Revenue Cuttersshall, whenever the President of theUnited States shall so direct, cooperatewith the Navy of the United States." OnAugust 4, 1949, Congress put it morestrongly: "The Coast Guard as establishedJanuary 28, 1915, shall be a military serv-ice and a branch of the armed forces ofthe United States at all times. The CoastGuard shall be a service in the TreasuryDepartment, except when operating as aservice in the Navy."

President John Adams, anticipating theact of Congress, had placed the cuttersunder the orders of Benjamin Stoddert,first Secretary of Navy, in 1798. Amongtheir early assignments was patrolling be-tween Nantucket and Cape Henry, andescorting the new frigate Constitution onher maiden cruise. In this period, too,cutters performed the first convoy duty,guarding American merchantmen fromthe privateers.

In 1799, Stoddert ordered four fleets of20 ships to sea against the French raiders.In this force were eight cutters. Of 20French ships captured by the combinedfleets, 16 were taken by cutters. The 187-ton cutter Eagle set something of a recordby capturing five French ships, recaptur-ing seven American ships, and assistingin the capture of 10 others.

The bigger they cameThe Pickering, sister cutter of the Eagle,

fought a notable engagement with theprivateer L'Egypte Conquise on October18, 1799. The Frenchman was fitted outand doubly manned expressly to capturethe Pickering. Against her 14 nine- and 4six-pounders and crew of 250, the cutterhad only 14 four-pounders and 70 men.But after a 9-hour battle, the bigger shiphauled down the Tri-Color and surren-dered. Later, in 1800, the Pickering waslost with all hands in a storm.About this time, cutters began to fly

what we know today as the Coast Guardensign and pennant. In authorizing thesebanners in 1799, Congress ruled: "When-ever any ship or vessel, liable to seizure orexamination, shall not bring to, on beingrequired to do so or on being chased byany cutter or boat, which has displayedthe pendant and ensign prescribed for ves-sels in the Revenue Service, the master


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The Coast Guard ensign.

of such cutter or boat may fire at, or into,such vessel, after such pendant and ensignhas been hoisted and a gun fired by suchcutter as a signal . . ."

Secretary of the Treasury OHver Wol-cott described the ensign and pennant in aletter to his collectors in 1799 as "consist-ing of sixteen perpendicular stripes, alter-nate red and white, the Union of theEnsign to be the Arms of the U. S. in dark

blue on a white field." The stripes stoodfor the States that comprised the Nationat that time. The original 13 States werecommemorated by an arch of 13 blue starsin a white field. The only change in theensign was made in 1927 when the CoastGuard seal of shield and anchors wascentered on the middle of the seventhred stripe. This distinctive emblem onthe ensign had been authorized in 1910.


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Cutters winglory in theWar of 1812

Nine cutters, averaging 125 tons, eachwith 6 to 10 light guns and crews of 15 to30 men, fought in the War of 1812. Thewar was not a week old when the cutter

]effersou captured the Patriot, the firstprize to fall into American hands. Alto-gether, the cutters took 14 enemy ships.The Madison brought in the 300-tonbrig Shamrock, and shortly afterward theschooner W^ade, carrying $20,000 in goldand silver. The Vigilant took the Britishprivateer Dart in a running battle betweenNewport and Block Island.

But Britain was a great sea power andwas able to send strong squadrons intoAmerican waters. Frequently the cutters,seeking contact with the enemy, foundthemselves up against bigger, more heavilyarmed warships.


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\ '.}.On June 12, 1813, under cover of nightand fog, three barges from the British man-of-war Ncirc/ssus tried to, take the 75-toncutter Sz/rveyor by surprise in the YorkRiver, Va. Though outnumbered 50 to 15,the cutter crew wounded seven and killedthree of the enemy before the Surveyorwas captured. British Capt. John Creriewas so impressed by "the determined wayin which her deck was disputed, inch byinch," in hand-to-hand fighting, that hereturned to Capt. William Travis of thecutter "the sword you had so nobly used."Another lively battle ensued when the6-gun cutter Eagle encountered the 18-gun

The cutter Madison, 1813.

brig Dispatch, raiding shipping off LongIsland. The cutter crew ran its shipaground on an island and then draggedher 4-pounders to the top of a bluff wherethey had the drop on the enemy. Whenammunition ran low, five of the crew re-turned to the Eagle for more, but onlythree of them made the round trip. Aboardthe ship, they replaced the ensign that hadbeen shot away. The British fired a wholebroadside at them, and the Americans sal-vaged the small shot that riddled the hull.Back on the bluff, they made cartridges ofbits of cloth and pages from the cutter'slog and fired the shot back at the British.So telling was this fire that the enemy, un-able to land to take the bluff, was forced towithdraw. Later, the cutter was refloated,but as she limped toward port the war-ship returned to the battle and capturedher easily. Incidentally, today's cadets trainaboard a modern Eagle.

^The capture of the French privateerMehifable and her prize Nancy by thecutter Eagle.

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Warringagainstpiracy

and slavery

Interludes of peace between warswere all too brief for the cutters. Nosooner was the War of 1812 brought toa close, in 1815, than they were orderedto sea against pirates and slave ships. Thecutter Active captured a number of priva-teers in Chesapeake Bay between 1816 and1819. The Dallas captured others offSavannah in 1818.

In 1819, the Alabama and Louisiana, ontheir way to stations in the Gulf of Mexico,overtook and easily captured the Mexicanprivateer Bravo, commanded by La Farge,a lieutenant of the notorious pirate JeanLa Fitte. Then the two cutters wiped outPatterson's Town, a pirate den on BretonIsland. This practically ended organizedpiracy in the Gulf, though occasionalraiders came up from the West Indies andCentral and South America. The Louisi-ana, with a United States and a Britishwarship, took five pirate ships in 1822.

500 slaves freedThe Dallas captured a slave ship in

1820, and the Alabama took three slaversin 1822. In all, nearly 500 Negro slaveswere liberated by cutters enforcing thelaw forbidding their importation.

There was more trouble in the wind in1832, when South Carolina "nullified" the

tariff on imports entering through herports. Five cutters were dispatched toCharleston to enforce the collection ofcustoms, and President Andrew Jacksondeclared: "If a single drop of blood shallbe shed in opposition to the laws of theUnited States, I will hang the first manI can lay my hands on upon the first tree Ican reach." Ships arriving with sugar fromHavana anchored under the guns of thecutters and their cargoes were impoundedin Fort Moultrie until the import dutieswere paid. The crisis was ended withHenry Clay's tariff compromise of 1833.In 1836, the Seminole Indians went onthe warpath in Florida and eight cutterswere ordered to the scene. The W^ashing-ton arrived just in time to land menand guns to save Fort Brook after theSeminoles had ambushed and massacredall but one of the soldiers defending thefort. This was the first amphibious land-ing by combined forces in United Stateshistory and anticipated by more than 100years similar operations carried out by theCoast Guard in World War II.The cutters continued cooperation with

the Army and Navy in Florida for two anda half years, blockading rivers, carryingdispatches, transporting troops and am-munition, and providing landing partiesfor the defense of settlements. Whenpeace was finally restored all hands wererewarded with a grant of a quartersquare mile of public land in Florida.

Reorganization, 1843Under Secretary of the Treasury John

Spencer, the Revenue Marine was set upas a bureau within the department alonglines similar to the present Coast Guardestablishment. It had accounting, engi-neering, personnel, operations, intelli-

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gence, and legal branches, and a captainwas detailed to head the bureau.

About the same time, the service beganbuilding cutters with iron hulls and auxili-ary steam power. The first, the Legare,was launched in time to be ordered intoaction in the Mexican War in 1846. TheForward and McLatte aided CommodorePerry in carrying out an amphibious as-sault at the mouth of the Tabasco Riverin 1847. In the operation, however, theMcLane ran aground and had to be pulledoff, which may be why Perry reserved hispraise for the Forward. "I am gratified,"he wrote, "to bear witness to the valuableservices of the Revenue Schooner For-ivard." There was no word for the SteamerMcLane.Ill-starred steamersNot only the McLane but all the first

steam cutters were ill-starred. The B/bb,

like the AicLane, Dallas, and Spencer,equipped with a novel and untried under-water paddle-wheel, began to leak so badlyon her way to Mexico that she had to bebeached. The Polk leaked on launchingand was never used. The Spencer, founddefective, was used as a lightship atHampton Roads. The McLane had hermachinery removed and was convertedinto a lightship in 1848. The Woodburyand Van Biiren, though not steamers, werecondemned as not worth repairs. TheLegare was withdrawn from service be-cause of a dangerous boiler and trans-ferred to the Coast Survey. The Walker,also turned over to the Coast Survey, wasrun down and foundered off Barnegat.Modern engineering officers say that, con-sidering early steamships used sea waterin square-shaped boilers with no safetydevices, it's a wonder they didn't all justblow up.

Tabasco River landings in which the Forward and tAcLane participated.


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On both sidesof the

Civil WarThe side-wheeler Harriet Lane, built in1857 at a cost of $140,000, was the firstsuccessful steam cutter and one of thefamous ships of the Civil War. In thisperiod of divided loyalties a number ofofficers and men resigned to join the Con-federacy, and five cutters in southernwaters were seized for the South. But theHarriet Lane fought under both Stars andStripes and Stars and Bars.

She is also credited with having firedthe first shot of the war in April 1861,on the eve of the bombardment of FortSumter. As part of a force sent to relievethe beleaguered fort, sHe came upon thesouthern steamer Nashville trying to runinto Charleston harbor without showing

her colors. The cutter fired a shot acrossthe steamer's bow, and according to thecutter's captain, "it had the desired effect."

Later, the Harriet Liine participated inthe first Union victory, the capture of FortClark and Fort Hatteras, which were basesfor blockade runners in Hatteras Inlet.Then, transferred to the Navy, she servedas the flagship of Admiral David Porter,whose grandfather had been a master ofone of Hamilton's original ten cutters. AtGalveston she was captured and finishedthe war as a Confederate ship.By November 1864, the cutter fleet con-

sisted of 11 screw propeller steamers, 3side-wheelers, and 14 sailing vessels. Theyhelped enforce the blockade and lent sup-port to the Army and Navy striking intothe- South.The cutter Kangatuck escorted the Mon-

itor when she sailed out into HamptonRoads, March 9, 1862, to do battle withthe Confederate iron-clad Merriniac. Thecutter Aiianii saw action at Willoughby'sPoint, where she landed President Lincolnon Confederate-held soil the day beforethe fall of Norfolk.

The Harrief Lane at sea.


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The Hudson rescuing the Winslow.

A brief war inan era of peace

After the close of the Civil War in1865, the cutters enjoyed a relatively longperiod of peace, interrupted only by theeight-month Spanish-American War in1898. The outbreak of this war found thecutter McCulloch en route to San Franciscovia the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal.At Singapore, she was ordered to joinDewey's forces in the Philippines. Thereshe distinguished herself in the Battle ofManila Bay and afterward raced to HongKong with news of the American victoryso that it could be cabled to the world.The cutter IF/Wow became involved in

a naval battle off Cuba, while helpingcut the Cienfuegos cable, which linkedHavana with the outside world. In anotherbattle at Cardenas, the cutter Hudson

braved deadly fire from Spanish guns totow the crippled Navy torpedo boatWinsloiv from under enemy shore bat-teries and certain destruction.

Altogether, there were 18 cutters in thewar with Spain. Thirteen operated fromEast Coast bases, eight of these blockad-ing Havana with Admiral Sampson's fleet.Four others and the McCulloch were inthe Pacific. Three more were in yards beingfitted for battle when the brief war ended.

In the peaceful periods before and afterthe Spanish war, the Revenue Cutter Serv-ice underwent changes that presaged thetight-knit, efficient, dependable organiza-tion that the Coast Guard is today. Regu-lations of 1871 provided for regularinspection of cutters and for physical andprofessional examination of ofificers. In1876 a system for training cadets to be-come ofificers was instituted. Finally, in1SU5, the Revenue Cutter Service and theLifesaving Service were merged and thenew organization, headed by a captaincommandant, was called the Coast Guard,the name it has borne ever since.

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High cost of victoryin World War I

Plan l, acknowledge. That was thedispatch received by all Coast Guard unitson the morning of April 6, 1917. It meantthat the United States was at war withGermany and that the 15 cruising cutters,200-odd officers, and 5,000 men of theCoast Guard were to go into action withthe Navy. The naval action was almostexclusively undersea warfare and the CoastGuard was in the thick of it, convoyingcargo ships and screening transports.One of the most famous antisubmarine

units of the Atlantic Fleet was Squadron 2,Division 6, composed of the cutters Ossi-pee, Seneca, Yamacraw, Algonquin, Man-ning, and Tafnpa, based at Gibraltar.On April 28, 1918, the Seneca was es-

corting ships toward Gibraltar when at2:45 in the morning the convoy ran intoa pack of three U-boats. The British navalsloop Cowslip was nearly broken in twoby a torpedo. Under the circumstances, theSeneca would have been justified to steamon, looking for the safety of the other shipsand herself. But she stopped three times toput off lifeboats and pick up 81 survivors.

In another of the Seneca's convoys theBritish collier Wellington was torpedoed.She was abandoned but remained afloat.Her crew refused to reboard her, though19 of them relented when 20 of the Sen-eca's men manned her and got up steamfor Brest. Her captain said he couldn't seeothers doing duty that was his. In the nighta gale came up and at 4 a. m. the Welling-ton went down. At daybreak, the Britishdestroyer W^arrington picked up seven sea-12

men and one Coast Guardsman in a lonelifeboat and floating on make-shift raftsanother seven seamen and eight CoastGuardsmen. Eleven of the Seneca's com-plement, including two Navy petty offi-cers, and five of the collier's crew werelost.

"Seldom in the annals of the sea," de-clared the British Admiralty in praise ofthe Seneca, "has there been exhibited suchself-abnegation, such cool courage, andsuch unfailing diligence in the face ofalmost insurmountable difficulties." Ifthat sounds like Winston Churchill, per-haps it is because he was the Admiralty'schief at that time.

Shortly afterward, the cutter Tampa,bound for England after having broughta convoy safely into Gibraltar, disappearedwith a loud explosion. A little wreckageand 2 unidentifiable bodies were the onlytraces ever found of the ship and 111 CoastGuardsmen and 4 Navy men aboard her.It is believed she was hit by a torpedo.

During a fire and explosions at a Mor-gan, N. J., shell-loading plant in 1918,Coast Guardsmen relaid damaged rails sothat a train load of TNT could be saved.An unarmed surfboat answering the dis-

tress call of the tug Perth Amhoy, underfire from a surfaced submarine off NewEngland, apparently was enough to scarethe U-boat off.A tower look-out at the Chicamaco-mico, N. C, Coast Guard Station saw theBritish tanker Mirlo torpedoed 7 miles offshore. The station's motor surfboat madethree trips through burning gasoline andnortheast seas in gathering darkness tosave 36 British seamen.The Coast Guard suffered greater losses,

in proportion to its strength, than any ofthe other United States armed forces inWorld War I.


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World War II port security guard.

In World War IIits manpowerhit the peak

In World War II the Coast Guard hit itspeak strength. It had 802 vessels (over 65feet) of its own, and in addition manned351 Navy and 288 Army craft. Shore sta-

tions increased from 1,096 to 1,774. Andat the end of June 1945, its personnelnumbered 171,168. Of these nearly halfserved on ships. There were only 10,000more men ashore than at sea, many of theshore billets having been taken over by45,000 temporary reservists and 10,000Spars. Killed in action were 572.

Between World Wars the Coast Guardhad grown. This was due in part to pro-hibition, for, though enforcement of thelaws against smuggling liquor was unpop-ular, unpleasant, and dangerous, the CoastGuard had never before enjoyed such

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generous appropriations. Despite retrench-ment after prohibition, the service wasthree times its World War I size in 1940and well equipped to handle events thatforeshadowed our entry into WorldWar II.When the war broke out in Europein September 1939, Coast Guard ships,planes, and stations were ordered to carryout extensive patrols to insure that mer-chant ships in our waters did not violatethe neutrality proclaimed by PresidentRoosevelt. The next summer, the CoastGuard began its port security operationsunder the revived Espionage Act of 1917and the newly enacted Dangerous CargoAct. In March 1941, the Coast Guardtook 28 Italian, 2 German, and 35 Danishships into protective custody and in-terned their crews to prevent scuttling andsabotage. Shortly afterward, ten 250-footcutters were turned over to Britain underlend-lease. At the same time cutter patrolswere operating in Greenland, which wasin the United States' Western Hemispheredefense zone.

Submarine war againOn November 1, 1941, the Coast

Guard was ordered to operate as part ofthe Navy. The next month Pearl Harborwas bombed and we were in the war. Thecutter Taney was in Pearl Harbor whenthe bombs fell.As in World War I, a big part of the

Coast Guard's task was antisubmarinewarfare. Coast Guard cruising cutters andescorts, as well as its sea frontier patrolsand pickets along the coast, helped win theBattle of the Atlantic. These ships de-stroyed 11 U-boats; Coast Guard aircraftsank another. Besides, more than 4,000survivors of torpedoings and other enemyaction were rescued from the Atlantic andMediterranean by Coast Guardsmen.The 165 -foot Icarus blasted a U-boat

to the surface not far off the AtlanticCoast and took its crew prisoners. TheCampbell, after a night-long battle with asubmarine wolf pack, rammed and sankone of them for sure, and probably scoredon the others with her depth charges. The

The Coast Guard cutter Spznczr sinks a German submarine.

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spencer was credited with two subs, andthe Duane for an assist.

But there were losses, too. The Hamil-to77 capsized while in tow after she hadbeen torpedoed off Iceland and had to besunk by gunfire. The Acacia was sunk inthe Caribbean; the Escanaba, Leopold,Muskeget, and Natsek in the Atlantic ; theSerpens in the Pacific. Only two of thecrew survived the Escanaba. Not longbefore, the Escanaba had spent eighthours in sub-infested waters rescuing sur-vivors from a torpedoed transport. Someof her crew went over the side in darknessto tie lines to men who were too weak toclimb aboard.

Another of the spectacular war dutiesof the Coast Guard was manning the land-ing craft that hit the invasion beaches withassault troops. Guadalcanal, Attu, NorthAfrica, Salerno, Anzio, Tarawa, Makin,Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Normandy, South-ern France, Luzon, Guam, Saipan, IwoJima, Okinawathe Coast Guard madeall those stops, and a lot in between. TheCoast Guard's years of experience operat-

ing small boats through the surf made itthe logical organization to train and supplycrews for landing craftfrom the smallestbarges to the giant LST's (landing ship,tanks). Coast Guard crews served also onmany of the big assault transports whichcarried the barges and troops within strik-ing distance of the beachheads.On D-day in Normandy, Coast Guard

83-foot cutters were given special life-saving assignments. Under fire from Ger-man defense guns, they saved 1,468 sur-vivors of sunken landing barges.

Coast Guardsmen distinguished them-selves on other fronts. In September 1941,the cutter Northland swooped down onthe sealer Buskoe and frustrated a Naziattempt to set up a weather station inGreenland, effecting the first naval capturein World War II. Then there was thebeach patrol, guarding 40,000 miles ofshoreline. Beach-pounder John Cullendetected four Nazi saboteurs landing onLong Island from a submarine. Their cap-ture led to apprehension of four otherslanded in Florida.

D-Day in Normandy.


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A Coast Guardsman on ocean station in the North Atlantic prepares to release aweather balloon.

from the Navy in 1946, were reduced totwo.

At the present time, the Coast Guardoperates four ocean stations in the NorthAtlantic and two in the Pacific.What these ocean station vessels mean

for ocean air travel, over and above theweather reports they supply, was demon-strated in October 1947 by the cutterBibb. She was on her ocean station 800miles east of Newfoundland, when theflying boat Bermuda Sky Queen, boundfrom Ireland to Newfoundland, flew overher. A hundred miles beyond, the planehad spent so much of its fuel buckingheadwinds that it would not have beenable to make land. So it turned back and,despite 35-foot waves, landed near theBibb.

A large raft put off from the Bibb madethree round trips, taking passengers fromthe plane to the ship. Returning on thefourth trip, the raft, with 16 personsaboard, began to drift away. A motor surf-boat from the Bibb went after it, but boththe small craft were swamped. Quickly,the Bibb bore down on them and menover the side of the cutter in landing netswhisked the people from the raft and thesurfboat out of reach of the sea. Twenty-two persons spent the night on the planeafter darkness made further rescues im-possible. These were taken off next morn-ing. Four days later, the Bibb steamedinto Boston with 69 survivors. A broomwas lashed to her mast. She had made aclean sweep.

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Huntmg downicebergs is a

chilly job

In 1912, the British liner Titanic, builtat a cost of $7,500,000, left Southamptonfor New York on her maiden crossing ofthe Atlantic. Her passengers and crewnumbered 2,207. Only 690 ever set footsafely on shore again. The remaining1,517 went down with the ship when shestruck an iceberg as she neared New-foundland.

It was after this tragedy that a confer-ence of the principal maritime nations,meeting in London in 1914, decided toinaugurate an International Ice Patrol, thecost to be defrayed in fixed proportions bythe nations benefited. The Coast Guard,however, had actually started ice patrolsin 1913.

Icebergs in the fogThe area patrolled is 45,000 square

miles or about the size of the State of Penn-sylvania. During the ice season, whichruns from February to August, the area is

heavily blanketed with fog and every yearan average of 400 bergs drift southwardtoward the busiest steamer lanes in theworld. Considering the vastness of thearea, the generally poor visibility, and thegreat number of bergs, it is not inconceiv-able that one may occasionally get intothe shipping lanes unobserved, despite themost up-to-date scientific developmentsand detection equipment used by IcePatrol cutters and planes. Yet, in all thetime the Coast Guard has performed thisduty, no ship has been lost through col-lision with an iceberg.

In both World Wars, however, when'submarines were more of a menace thanicebergs. Ice Patrol was suspended so thatcutters could perform more importantescort duty. There was but one major mis-hapin the second war. The British shipSreud Foyne hit a berg in March 1943.Before she sank, 145 persons aboard herwere rescued by Coast Guard and othercraft.

During most of World War II, a de-tachment of Coast Guardsmen experi-enced in Ice Patrol was based at Argen-tia, Newfoundland, to serve as a clearing-house for ice formation. The movementof bergs was reported to them by planesand escorts that encountered ice whileperforming other duties. Finally, regularpatrols were resumed in 1946.

Planes team upwith cutters todetect icebergsin the fog-boundNorth Atlantic.


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They have to goout, don't haveto come back

The modern Coast Guard came intobeing January 28, 1915, with the merger,of the Revenue Cutter Service and theLifesaving Service. It was a logical con-solidation, since both services had workedclosely within the Treasury Departmentfor upwards of a century with but a com-mon aimto protect life and propertyfrom the ravages of the sea. Actually, theLifesaving Service had been establishedwithin the Revenue Marine Division in1871, but seven years later had been madea separate bureau. During the separation,however, cutter officers supervised thedrilling and inspection of lifesaving sta-tion crews.The cutters' concern with maritime

safety dates back to 1831, when the firstwinter cruise was ordered to aid seafarersand ships in distress. Cutters were chargedin 1836 "to aid persons at sea, in distress,

who may be taken aboard," and in 1843 topreserve property found aboard wrecksand to secure the cargoes for the owners.

Humane Society, 1785Lifesaving operations from shore date

from the founding of the MassachusettsHumane Society, a volunteer group, in1785. The society built its first lifeboatstation at Cohasset in 1807. In 1849, acongressional appropriation provided thecollector of customs at Boston with $5,000to buy boathouses and equipment for thesociety. The next year, Congress appro-priated $10,000 to build Government life-boat stations along the New Jersey coastand to provide "surfboats, rockets, carro-nades, and other apparatus for the betterpreservation of life and property fromshipwrecks on the coast."

Surf-cars and cannonOne of the first stations was built at

Spermacetti Cove on Sandy Hook, N. J.,in 1849. It has been preserved as a CoastGuard museum. Inside this structure ofweather-beaten shingles about the size ofa two-car garage are relics of long ago, in-cluding the station's yellowed logbooks.

The Coast Guard's self-righting, nonsinkable motor lifeboat.


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fragments of wrecked ships, early surf-boats, watertight dinghies called surf-carsthat were operated like breeches buoys,and a variety of cannons and projectilesfor shooting lines aboard wrecked ships.

For over five years these early stationswere manned by volunteers, called to-gether like a volunteer fire departmentwhenever there was a shipwreck. In 1854keepers were appointed for the stations atan annual salary of $200. Not till 1871was the Secretary of the Treasury author-ized to employ surfmen to man thestations.

In the 70 years between 1871 and1941, cutters and lifeboat stations rescued203,609 lives and nearly $2,000,000,000in property from shipwreck and flood. Todo this magnificent job, men of the oldservices and the new have had to put tosea in the worst possible weather. "All Iknow is the regulations book says you have

to go out," declared one old timer. ""Itdoesn't say anything about coming back."

Special breed of menUsually, though. Coast Guard crews docome back, their missions accomplished.One of the reasons is that years of expe-

rience in launching small boats throughdangerous surf has developed a special,rugged breed of men. Another reason isthat the equipment is specially developed,too.Take the lifeboats, for example. There

are a number of types, each designed andbuilt by the service for a particular task.There's the 26-foot surfboat that weighsnearly a ton and is propelled by oars. Thesame boat comes in a power model, andboth types arc self-bailing. Then there aretwo models of motor lifeboats, a 36-footerand a 52-footer. These are self-bailing,self-righting, and virtually unsinkable,and they have enclosed, heated com-partments.Newcomers among rescue craft are the

versatile amphibious trucks, or DUKWs,as they are called. These vehicles can do55 miles per hour on paved roads; then,without stopping, partially deflate theirtires for better traction on sand and do12.4 miles per hour across beaches andinto the water where they can make sixmiles per hour. In reversing this process,they can reinflate their tires, again with-out stopping, when they return to thepaved roads.

A breeches buoy is an old butstill workable method of gettingshipwrecked sailors to shore.


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A Cod^t Guard flying boat brings a stricken seaman to a marine hospital.

Aviation extendsa helping hand

Aviation has greatly extended thehelping hand of the Coast Guard. Rescueoperations that were once restricted tocoastal waters because of the limited rangeof earlier equipment, can now be carriedout on the ocean. Giant Marlin fiyingboats can go 1,500 miles from shore, landon the ocean to pick up survivors of anaccident or someone from a ship whoneeds medical attention ashore.

Another type craft that has increased

the Coast Guard's effectiveness as a res-cue agency is the helicopter. The abilityof these aircraft to hover and to take offand land straight up and down makes pos-sible rescue operations in areas that areinaccessible to more conventional typesof air and surface craft.The Coast Guard pioneered in the use

of helicopters and in November 1943 setup a helicopter training base at the CoastGuard Air Station at Floyd Bennett Fieldin New York. A year later, 150 mechanicsand over 100 pilots had been graduatedfrom this special school.

In 1945, a Coast Guard helicopter pen-etrated the snow-covered wastes nearGoose Bay, Labrador, and brought out thecrew of a cracked-up Royal Canadian AirForce plane. The next year a Belgian air-

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liner crashed near Gander, Newfound-land, in wilderness that was inaccessibleexcept to a helicopter. This rescue was acombined operation with the helicopterferrying the 18 survivors to a nearby lakewhere a Coast Guard flying boat tookthem aboard and flew them on the last lapto civilization.The Coast Guard has had a hand in

aviation from the very beginning. Whenthe Wright brothers made their historicfirst flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903, threemembers of the nearby Kill Devil LifeboatStation were on hand. One of themsnapped a picture of the plane while itwas in the air, and after the flight, whena wind flipped the plane over and threat-ened to wreck it, all three grabbed it andhelped secure it safely.

Air group formed, 1916By 1916, the Coast Guard had its own

aviation division, which has grown untiltoday it has nine air stations, three airfacilities, and twelve air detachments.

Since 1938, the Coast Guard has takenspecial measures to protect trans-ocean air-liners in its traditional activities to insuresafety at sea. By 1940, the Coast Guardhad developed an "Outline of Procedure"which provided coordination of safetyoperations by all agencies concerned,maintenance of a ship and plane positioncenter, activation of the Coast Guard'sdistress organization, and transmissionand dissemination of information.

In 1944, an interdepartmental inter-agency Air-Sea Rescue Agency was setup with the Coast Guard Commandant atits head. This agency was primarily en-gaged in research and development ofrescue procedures. Since the war, the workhas been continued by the Coast Guard.

Adoption of the National Search andRescue plan in 1956 reaffirmed the CoastGuard's responsibility in coordination ofrescue operations in the vast maritimeregions.To And the lost, to help the injured, to

save the imperiledthis is the mission ofCoast Guard aviation.

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Helicopterhovers, letsdown life-lift.


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Guideposts thatbring ships home

When the men who venture to sea getinto trouble, the Coast Guard goes outand brings them in. But even when shipsare not in distress, the Coast Guard bringsthem inguiding them past rocks andshoals, through darkness and fog untilthey are at last safe in port. This is doneby means of navigational aidslight-houses, lightships, buoys, fog signals,radio beaconswhich the Coast Guardmaintains. There are over 39,000 aids.About two-thirds of them are buoys. Morethan 500 of them are fully manned light-houses.The first lighthouse in America wasbuilt in 1716 on the site of the latter-day

Boston Light. Before that only bonfiresor blazing barrels of pitch on headlandsguided ships to port at night. Shipwreck-ers would duplicate the crude beacons onlonely stretches of coast to lure ships ontothe beach where they could be looted.

Boston also had one of America'searliest fog signals, a loud cannon whichstarted booming in 1719. The first buoyshad appeared in the Delaware River by1767. The earliest lightship station wasthat at Craney Island in Hampton Roads,Va., where a decked over small boatwas moored in 1820. The first outsidelightship was stationed off Sandy Hookin 1824.

In Colonial times, aids to navigationwere built and maintained by the variouslocalities. The Sandy Hook Light, for ex-ample, was built with the proceeds from alottery and maintained by a tax on vessels

Setting a large radio beacon buoy intoposition.

entering New York harbor. The responsi-bility for aids was taken over by the Fed-eral Government in 1789, when the Light-house Service was established in the Trea-sury Department. The Service was underTreasury's Revenue Marine Bureau(1845-52) and its Lighthouse Board(1852-1910), which passed to Commercein 1903. The Service was a Commercebureau (1910-39) until returned to Trea-sury and the Coast Guard.The tallest light in service is the 191-

foot Cape Charles, Va., tower. The Cape25


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Hatteras Light in North Carohna, threefeet taller, had to be abandoned in 1935because of encroachment by the sea. Butthe highest light, though it has only a 43-foot tower, is perched 422 feet above the"Pacific on Cape Mendicino, Calif. It canbe seen 28 miles away.The toughest job of the aids to naviga-

tion branch of the Coast Guard is main-taining upwards of 23,000 buoys dis-tributed along the inland and coastalwaterways of the United States, Alaska,Hawaii, and the Virgin Islands. They areinspected at regular and frequent inter-vals, and the compressed gas or electricbatteries which supply power to operatetheir lights must be renewed to keep themin proper operation. They must be re-moved from the water periodically forcleaning and painting, repairs or replace-ment of worn and broken parts, and oc-casionally taken out of the water for relo-cation or to permit renewal of the chainand anchors by which they are moored tothe bottom of the sea.

The electronic ageThe operation of lighted aids is a lot

easier now, however, than in the bygonedays when smoky oil lamps had to becleaned and hlled and their wicks kepttrmimed. Some present-day lights and fogsignals are turned on and off by a remoteradio control system called ANRAC (aidsto navigation radio controlled). And thereare other electronic wonders: RACON(radar beacons) which gives distance (upto 120 miles) and bearing of ships andplanes from the beacons; and LORAN(long-range aids to navigation) which pro-vides navigational information to air andsurface craft. Present Loran stations, lo-cated in Greenland, Newfoundland,Alaska, the Philippines, the Caribbean,and remote Pacific islands as well ascontinental United States, form a safetynetwork over the North Atlantic andNorth Pacific. In 1948, Congress author-ized the Coast Guard to expand its Lorannetworks to meet the needs of the armedforces and the maritime and air commerceof the United States.

The Pigeon Point Ligh+house in California.


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Everything underthe midnight sun

i HE first American ship to reach Alaska,after its purchase from Russia in 1867 for$7,200,000, was the cutter Lincoln. Theflag flying from her mast and from cutterssubsequently sent there was for many yearsthe outward symbol of government in thatremote region.More than symbols, though, cutters per-

formed many functions of government.For the Department of Justice they en-forced the law, apprehended criminals,and transported "floating courts." For theNavy Department they gathered militarymtelligence. For the Post Office Depart-ment they carried the mail. For the De-partment of the Interior they carried teach-ers to their posts and checked up on sani-tation, guarded timber and game. For theDepartment of Commerce they made sur-veys of the coast and of regional industries.

Medical and dental care reached isolatedvillages, brought by cutters carrying PublicHealth Service doctors and nurses. Mar-riages were performed by the commandingofficers of cutters. And though todayAlaska has its local Territorial govern-ment, many of the foregoing functions arestill carried out by cutters of the BeringSea Patrol. In addition, they discharge thenormal duties that the Coast Guard per-forms everywhere.One of the notable Alaskan cutters was

the Bear which served 41 years on the Ber-ing Sea Patrol, carried Byrd to the Antarc-tic and still came out fighting in WorldWar II. In the winter of 1897, she volun-teered to go to the aid of whaling shipsfrozen in near Point Barrow. After sailingas far as she could, the Bear sent a rescuegroup mushing nearly 2,000 miles acrossthe ice, driving a herd of 400 reindeerbefore them for food. They set out Decem-ber 17, 1897; they reached the whalersMarch 29, 1898. For 4 months they keptorder and staved off starvation among 500natives and 300 marooned sailors until theBear got through in July.

The cutter Bzat, arctic veteran.


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Among the laws enforced by the CoastGuard in Alaska are those governing seal-ing. At the time of the Purchase m 1867,there were an estimated 5,000,000 seals. Inthe first three years of American rule, hunt-ing was unrestricted in the seal breedinggrounds in the Pribilof Islands. In oneseason 250,000 were killed. In 1870, theGovernment set a limit of 100,000 maleseals a year and leased the hunting rightsin the islands as a monopoly to the AlaskaCommercial Co. for 20 years.

Slaughter on the seaShips that hunted seals at sea, however,

had a free hand. They increased from 16in 1880 to 3-i in 1886 and mo\ed into theBering Sea. Because they took females andany seals they could get their harpoonsinto, there was a sharp falling off in theherd and the United States had to hmitisland hunting to 2 3,000 a year.

The problem of how to keep the sealsfrom becoming extinct was not settleduntil the United States, Great Britain,Russia, and Japan agreed in 1911 to bancommercial sealing in the North Pacificand Bering Sea. For its part, the UnitedStates undertook to hunt seals in the Pribi-lofs and to prorate the proceeds from thesale of pelts among the four treaty powers.Enforcement of the ban on deep-sea seal-ing was assigned to the Coast Guard'sBering Sea Patrol. In 28 years, seals in-creased from 132,279 to 1,872,438, andthe Treasury had 52,324,501 after payingthe other nations their share of the furprofits.

Japan abrogated the pact in 1941. Onlythe United States, Britain, and Russia enjoyits benefits today. And the Bering Sea Pa-trol continues to police not only the sealingtreaty but subsequent agreements and lawscovering halibut, whales, walruses, andalien fishermen.

Eskimos arrive in an oomiak to keep a dental appointnnent aboard the cutter Klamath.

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Merchant marine inspection is one of the Coast Guard's major responsibilities.

Marine safetyis a

responsibility

Marine safety is one of the CoastGuard's major peacetime responsibilities.Through its Merchant Marine Safety pro-gram, the Coast Guard makes its contribu-tion toward safety for American vessels

and the persons they carry. Believing that"An ounce of prevention is worth a poundof cure," the Coast Guard enforces manyFederal laws relating to the safety of ves-sels and carries out periodic inspections tosee that they are observed.

Inspection and certificationThe story of Government inspection and

certification of powered vessels goes backmore than a century to the days of thecountry's first steamboats. In later yearsthis function was carried out by the Bureauof Marine Inspection and Navigation of

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the Department of Commerce. In 1942,for reasons closely related to the war effort,most of the Bureau's function and person-nel were transferred temporarily to theCoast Guard. The transfer was made per-manent in 1946.

Merchant Marine safetyprogramFrom the Service standpoint, "Marine

Inspection," as it soon became known, wasa natural. It was entirely logical that theGovernment agency which already had re-sponsibility for rescue work and safetyafloat should also perform the job of acci-dent prevention by inspection and regula-tion. There was already a large body ofMarine Safety laws on the statute booksand a complete set of Government regula-tions in use by the Bureau when the CoastGuard took over in 1942. But to keepabreast of the times and to insure the ma-rine industry a full voice in its own regu-lation the Coast Guard quickly establisheda Merchant Marine Council. This is a bodyof senior officers and advisors whose prin-cipal job is to evaluate all proposals forchange in regulations affecting the marineindustry.

In administering today's Merchant Ma-rine Safety program, the Coast Guard isclosely associated with nearly every phaseof the life of an American ship from thefirst plans on the drafting board to the finaltrip to the scrap yard. Even on smaller ves-sels which are not subject to inspection, cer-tain laws and regulations requiring safetyequipment, numbering, safety procedures,and manning by qualified crews are ad-ministered and enforced by the CoastGuard.Among the duties which the Coast

Guard must carry out are thorough peri-

odic inspections of the hulls, machineryand equipment of merchant vessels to in-sure seaworthiness and compliance withsafety regulations, the approval of plansprior to construction or conversion of mer-chant vessels, and an extensive first inspec-tion of all new vessels during constructionto make sure they are built in compliancewith the approved plans.

Other dutiesThe jurisdiction of the Coast Guard

extends to ships' personnel. This includesthe licensing and certification of officersand crews, investigation of casualties orpersonnel troubles, and the institution ofdisciplinary action where needed. TheCoast Guard also investigates violationsof navigation laws of the United States,numbers motorboats, supervises the propershipment and discharge of merchant ves-sel crews, and develops and promulgatesnew or revised standards and rules forimproved marine safety for the entirecountry.

In addition to the foregoing navigationlaws, the Coast Guard is responsible forpreventing oil pollution and obstruction ofwaterways, for supervising anchorages,and for patrolling regattas. In wartime, ithas broad port security powers under theEspionage and Dangerous Cargoes Acts.

All of the Coast Guard's duties are im-portant to this Nation's welfare and to themaintenance of a strong and healthy mer-chant marine. They are administered byCoast Guard officers and men in most ofthe principal ports of the United States.Some of these duties are performed byCoast Guard personnel stationed in suchlarge foreign .seaports as London, Yoko-hama, Antwerp, Bremerhaven, Naples,and Athens.

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The Coast Guard Training School in Gro+on, Conn.

Coast Guardsmenare made, not born

The peacetime manpower of the CoastGuard is around 30,000or about a tenthof its World War II strength. The serviceit renders, however, is out of all proportionto its numbers. Look at the duties detailedon the preceding pages. They are many,complex, and scattered widely to distantparts of the globe. Performance of thesestaggering chores by a relatively small.

tight-knit organization is something of amiracle in efficient use of men and equip-ment.

Where every man countsIn the Coast Guard, every man counts.

Every man must be a specialistnot in onejob but several. The only way to get suchmen is to train them. This became apparentlong ago as the service was growing up,having more and more duties assigned toit every year.

Back in 1876, a system was set up forfilling third lieutenant (now ensign) va-cancies from among cadets who had served

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a 2-year training and probationary period.In the summer of 1877, the old schoonerDobbin, refitted as a "school of instruc-tion," sailed from Baltimore with the firstclass of cadetsnine of them. For 41/2months they tacked between the mainlandand Bermuda, and then visited Province-town, Mass., Portland, Maine, and theAzores. In 1878, the 250-ton bark Chasewas built as a cadet ship to replace theDobbif?. When the Chase put into winterquarters at New Bedford, Mass., the schoolwas continued in a sail loft. In the winterof 1900, the Chase was quartered at Arun-del Cove, Curtis Bay, Md., and a two-storywooden school was built there in the serv-ice's repair yard. The school moved toFort Trumbull, New London, Conn., in1910, and finally in 1932 into new build-ings of its own a little farther up theThames River.

Thus evolved the institution now fa-mous as the Coast Guard Academy.Cadets of the Academy represent the

best of America's youth, selected on thebasis of physical and scholastic examina-

tions. The four-year course is essentiallythat of an engineering college, with theaddition of naval and military training inthe cadet battalion ashore and practicecruises afloat. On graduation, the cadetsare commissioned ensigns in the CoastGuard, awarded bachelor of science de-grees and assigned to active duty.

Enlisted men of the Coast Guard alsoare highly trained. Immediately on induc-tion, they are sent to "boot camp," as theCoast Guard's well-equipped primarytraining stations are called, for basic train-ing. Later, they may go to one of themany schools the Coast Guard maintainsfor training petty officers, or they mayclimb up the promotion ladder via the nu-merous correspondence courses of theCoast Guard Institute in Groton, Conn.

In short, the emphasis in the CoastGuard is on brains as well as brawn. Onlythis way is the Coast Guard able to carryout its manifold assignments, true to thetraditions of more than a century and ahalf of service to America.

A cadet Color Guard marches down the parade ground atthe U. S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn.

U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1958 O -46033232


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(1958) United States Coast Guard

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