1797-Congress passed "An Act providing a Naval Armament," empowered the President to "cause the said revenue cutters to be employed to defend the seacoast and to repel any hostility to their vessels and commerce, within their jurisdiction, having due regard to the duty of said cutters in the protection of the revenue." The act also increased the complements of the cutters from ten men to a number "not exceeding 30 marines and seamen."
1885-The Bureau of Navigation was permanently organized in accordance with the provisions of the Act of Congress of 3 March 1885.
1903-The Lighthouse Service, along with other activities having to do with navigation, was transferred from the Treasury Department to the Department of Commerce and Labor.
1910-Under the Organic Act of 1910, Mr. George R. Putnam and Mr. John S. Conway took office as the first Commissioner of Lighthouses and first Deputy Commissioner of Lighthouses, respectively.
1910-The Lighthouse Board was terminated, its place being take by the newly organized Bureau of Lighthouses.
1918-Congress directed that retired officer personnel may be recalled to active duty during war or national emergency.
1921-A system of longevity increase of pay, after six months’ service for the unappointed members of the crews of Light-house Service vessels, was introduced for the first time as a means of maintaining "a more efficient personnel on these vessels."
1921-The Coast Guard's first air station, located at Morehead City, North Carolina, was closed due to a lack of funding.
1924-An adjustment of the compensation of vessel officers in the Lighthouse Service was made effective in order to bring the pay of these positions more nearly on a level with that of similar Positions in the U .S. Shipping Board, the Lake Carriers Association, and other shipping interests.
1939-Lighthouse Service of Department of Commerce transferred to Coast Guard under President Franklin Roosevelt’s Reorganization Plan No. 11. Under the President’s Reorganization Plan No. 11, made effective this date by Public Resolution No. 20, approved 7 June 1939, it was provided "that the Bureau of Lighthouses in the Department of Commerce and its functions be transferred to and consolidated with and administered as a part of the Coast Guard. This consolidation made in the interest of efficiency and economy, will result in the transfer to and consolidation with the Coast Guard of the system of approximately 30,000 aids to navigation (including light vessels and lighthouses) maintained by the Lighthouse Service on the sea and lake coasts of the United States, on the rivers of the United States, and on the coasts of all other territory under the jurisdiction of the United States with the exception of the Philippine Island and Panama Canal proper." Plans were put into effect, "Providing for a complete integration with the Coast Guard of the personnel of the Lighthouse Service numbering about 5,200, together with the auxiliary organization of 64 buoy tenders, 30 depots, and 17 district offices."
1941-Northeast Greenland Patrol was organized in Boston.
1946-As a final step in the return of the Coast Guard to the Treasury Department from wartime operation under the Navy Department, the Navy directional control of the following Coast Guard functions was terminated: search and rescue functions, maintenance and operation of ocean weather stations and air-sea navigational aids in the Atlantic, continental United States, Alaska, and Pacific east of Pearl Harbor.
1957-CGC Storis, Bramble, and Spar departed Seattle for their traversal of the Northwest Passage. The three arrived in Boston after the successful completion of the mission on 19 September 1957.
1958-The new Atlantic merchant vessel [known by the acronym AMVER] position reporting program was established. It was aimed at encouraging domestic and foreign merchant vessels to send voluntary position reports and navigational data to U.S. Coast Guard shore based radio stations and ocean station vessels. Relayed to a ships' plot center in New York and processed by machine, these data provided updated position information for U.S. Coast Guard rescue coordination centers. The centers could then direct only those vessels which would be of effective aid to craft or persons in distress. This diversion of all merchant ships in a large area became unnecessary.
1991-A 14th Coast Guard District LEDET, all crewmen from the CGC Rush, deployed on board the U.S. Navy's USS Ingersoll, made history when they seized the St. Vincent-registered M/V Lucky Star for carrying 70 tons of hashish; the largest hashish bust in Coast Guard history to date. The team, led by LTJG Mark Eyler, made the bust 600 miles west of Midway Island.
1991-A high personnel retention level led the Commandant, ADM J. William Kime, to begin implementing a high-year tenure program, otherwise known as an "up or out" policy to "improve personnel flow and opportunities for advancement." Two significant points of the program were that they limited enlisted careers to 30 years of active service and established "professional growth points" for paygrades E-4 through E-9, which had to be attained in order to remain on active duty. Up until this time, enlisted members could remain on active duty until age 62--the only U.S. military work force with that option.
1995-The 750-foot Greek-flagged freighter Alexia collided with the 514-foot Singapore-flagged Enif near the mouth of the Mississippi River, 70 miles south of New Orleans. The two ships were joined at the point of collision and drifted through the maze of oil and gas platforms scattered across the area, narrowly missing one by a mere 25 yards. CGC Courageous served as the on-scene commander to coordinate the response. AIRSTA New Orleans launched three helicopters to provide SAR coverage and to evaluate the damage suffered by the foundering vessels. Personnel from MSO New Orleans and the Gulf Strike Team were sent on-scene to deal with the 80,000 gallon fuel-oil spill. CGC White Holly and M/V Secore Osprey provided skimming resources. The freighters were separated successfully, their remaining fuel was lightered off and they made it to Mobile escorted by CGC Point Lobos." entryDate[2] = " 07/02/" + year entryContent[2] = "
1836-In the Revenue Cutter Service, Captain’s pay increased to $1200 per annum, 1st Lieutenant’s to $960, 2nd Lieutenant’s to $860, 3rd Lieutenants to $790.
1937-CGC Itasca, while conducting re-supply operations in the Central Pacific, made the last-known radio contact with Amelia Earhart and her co-pilot Fred Noonan. Itasca later joined the Navy-directed search for the aircraft. The search was finally called off on 17 July with no trace of the aircraft having been found." entryDate[3] = " 07/03/" + year entryContent[3] = "
1905-An Executive Order extended the jurisdiction of the Lighthouse Service to the noncontiguous territory of the American Samoan Island.
1918-Congress passed the Migratory Bird Act-Coast Guard became responsible for the Act's enforcement after the 1936 passage of the "Act to Define Jurisdiction of Coast Guard."
1927- Ensign Charles L. Duke, in command of CG-2327, boarded the rumrunner Greypoint in New York harbor and single-handedly captured the vessel, its 22-man crew, and its cargo of illegal liquor.
1986-The Statue of Liberty Centennial Celebration took place in New York harbor. The Coast Guard was in the "forefront" of the celebration due in part to the base on Governor's Island.
2002-The first of the Coast Guard's Maritime Safety and Security Teams (MSSTs), MSST-91101 was commissioned in Seattle, Washington on 3 July 2002. MSSTs were created in response to the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on 11 September 2001. MSSTs are domestic, mobile units that possess specialized training and capabilities to perform a broad spectrum of port safety and security operations. They were designed to offer operational commanders with a quick response capability that would meet changing threats in the nation's harbors, ports, and internal waterways and to enforce moving and fixed security zones to protect commercial high interest vessels, U.S. Navy high value assets, and critical waterside infrastructure. Twelve MSST units were planned for deployment around the nation." entryDate[4] = " 07/04/" + year entryContent[4] = "
1881-At half past four in the afternoon the lookout at Station No. 11 Eleventh District (Chicago, Illinois), observed a small boat with one man in it capsize on Lake Michigan about a mile south of the station. The life-saving crew put off with all the haste possible to the rescue, but before they could reach the spot the man had been picked up by a passing boat and was safe. They righted the boat, however, and bailed it out and towed it ashore all right.
1979-While on a 10-week cadet cruise CGC Ingham located the 75-foot Honduran fishing trawler Mary Ann about 500 miles southwest of San Juan, Puerto Rico. A boarding team seized the trawler after they discovered 15-tons of marijuana aboard. The Mary Ann first attempted to evade the boarding and actually rammed Ingham, causing some damage to the cutter. The trawler finally hove to after Ingham fired a number of warning shots.
1994-Cutters assigned to Operation Able Manner, which commenced under presidential order on 15 January 1994, rescued 3,247 Haitian migrants from 70 grossly overloaded sailboats in the Windward Passage. They rescued a total of 15,955 during the month of July, 1994." entryDate[5] = " 07/05/" + year entryContent[5] = "
1884-An Act of Congress (23 Stat. L., 118) created a special service known as the Bureau of Navigation, under the Treasury Department, with the duty of supervising the work having to do with the administration of American navigation laws. "The act specifically allotted to the bureau the numbering of vessels and the preparation of the annual list of merchant vessels of the United States."
2000-Coast Guard HH-65A CGNR 6539 rescued 51 persons from a burning oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The aircrew responded to the fire and safely airlifted 15 people to a nearby platform nine miles from the fire. They then evacuated another 36 people to awaiting boats. One of the 6539's crew had landed on the platform to coordinate the rescue. As the helicopter returned to retrieve him, the rig exploded and sent a fireball 100 feet into the air. Unsure whether he survived, the 6539 flew into the thick, black column of smoke and safely rescued him. All four aircrew were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross." entryDate[6] = " 07/06/" + year entryContent[6] = "
1809-Congress authorized the construction of twelve new cutters to enforce President Thomas Jefferson’s embargo.
1942-Coast Guard plane V-166 landed and took aboard 21 survivors of a torpedoed tanker in Gulf of Mexico." entryDate[7] = " 07/07/" + year entryContent[7] = "
1798-Hostilities began in the Quasi-War with France. The Revenue Cutters Pickering, Virginia, Scammel, South Carolina, Governor, Jay, Eagle, General Greene, and Diligence were the first to be placed under Naval orders, comprising about one-third the U .S. Fleet.
1801-Treasury Department circularized collectors looking toward reducing the size of the cutters and their crews.
1838-Under the authority of an Act of Congress passed this date, the President divided the Atlantic coast into six, and the Great Lakes coast into two, lighthouse districts. A naval officer was detailed to each lighthouse district, a revenue cutter or a hired vessel was placed at his disposal, and he was instructed to inspect all aids to navigation, report on their conditions, and recommend future courses of action.
1838-On 7 July 1838 Congress authorized a service "to provide better security of the lives of passengers on board of vessels propelled in whole or in part by steam" under the control of the Justice Department (5 Stat. L., 304). This "service" later became the Steamboat Inspection Service.
1884-Congress directed that cutters be used exclusively for public service and "in no way for private purposes."
1911-Convention signed between United States, Great Britain, Japan and Russia prohibiting taking of fur seals and sea otters in North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea, north of 300 latitude, except for food and clothing.
1939-On this date, "the Lighthouse Bureau went out of existence and its personnel moved themselves and their equipment to Coast Guard Headquarters from the Commerce Department building. Thus did lighthouses return to the Treasury Department from the Department of Commerce." entryDate[8] = " 07/08/" + year entryContent[8] = "
1791-Secretary of Treasury authorized collectors of customs to disburse for cutters and to pay officers as agents of the Secretary." entryDate[9] = " 07/09/" + year entryContent[9] = "
1942-CGC McLane and the Coast Guard-manned patrol craft USS YP-251 reportedly sank the Japanese submarine RO-32 off Sitka, Alaska. However, the Navy Department did not officially credit either vessel with the sinking. The RO-32 was actually stricken from the Japanese Navy rolls in April, 1942 as obsolete and Japanese records indicated that no Japanese submarine was lost or damaged in Alaskan waters on that date.
1943-Coast Guard-manned ships land the first Allied troops in Sicily.
1946-Sixteen Coast Guardsmen were killed when their B-17 transport aircraft crashed into Mount Tom, Massachusetts. These Coast Guardsmen were all returning from duty in Greenland.
1986-A fire broke out at the Bayonne, New Jersey transfer facility. Coast Guard units responded to fight the fire." entryDate[10] = " 07/10/" + year entryContent[10] = "
1820-The Revenue cutter Gallatin captured 19 men illegally recruited for the Columbian privateer Wilson and chased that vessel and her Spanish prize, Santiago, to sea from the harbor at Charleston, South Carolina.
1882-At 5 o’clock in the afternoon, during a violent storm of wind and rain, the steam-yacht John Bueg, of Rochester, New York, having on board a party of twelve excursionists, consisting of two men, two women, and eight children, was driven ashore one mile and a half east of the harbor piers at Charlotte, Lake Ontario, New York. She was discovered by a surfman of Station No. 4, Ninth District, who waded out to her in the surf, carried the children in his arms, and then assisted the women to the shore. The yacht was towed off by a steamer, having sustained slight damage." entryDate[11] = " 07/11/" + year entryContent[11] = "
On 11 July 1798, President John Adams signed the bill that re-established the Marine Corps. The Continental Congress had disbanded the service in April of 1783 at the end of the American Revolution. The Marine Corps, however, recognizes its "official" birthday to be the date that the Second Continental Congress first authorized the establishment of the "Corps of Marines" on 10 November 1775. To add to the confusion of the Corps' actual "historical" birthday, on 1 July 1797 Congress authorized the Revenue cutters to carry, in addition to their regular crew, up to "30 marines." Congress directed the cutters to interdict French privateers operating off the coast during the Quasi-War with France and thought the additional firepower of 30 marines would be needed by the under-manned and under-gunned cutters. It is unknown if any "marines" were enlisted for service with the Revenue cutters during this time.
1804-Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounded Alexander Hamilton in a duel in Weehawken, New Jersey. Hamilton died the following day. Hamilton had been the first Secretary of the Treasury and had founded the Revenue Marine.
1818-The Revenue Cutter Dallas seized and libeled the Venezuelan privateer Cerony off Savannah for having violated the nation's neutrality laws.
1941-Congress reconfirmed the military "status" of the Coast Guard, stating: "The Coast Guard shall be a military service and constitute a branch of the land and naval forces of the United States at all times and shall operate under the Treasury Department in time of peace and operate as part of the Navy, subject to the orders of the Secretary of the Navy, in time of war or when the President shall so direct." (14 U.S.C. 1)
1942-U .S. Maritime Service was transferred back to the War Shipping Administration after being under Coast Guard administration since February 28, 1942." entryDate[12] = " 07/12/" + year entryContent[12] = "
1953-Coast Guard aircraft and surface craft of the Search and Rescue Group at Wake Island joined with a large naval task unit in conducting an intensive search for a Transocean Air Lines DC-6 aircraft last reported about 300 miles east of Wake Island. The scene of the crash was located, and 14 bodies were recovered." entryDate[13] = " 07/13/" + year entryContent[13] = "
2001-CGC Sherman became the second cutter to circumnavigate the globe when she returned to the United States from a six-month deployment to the Arabian Gulf in support of U.N. operations. She conducted 219 queries, 115 boardings, and five diverts. Her crew saved 38 lives, 11 Iraqi smugglers when their vessel sank in a storm off UAE. She towed a 33,000 ton carrier foundering in 50-foot seas off the Cape of Good Hope, saving 22 lives and keeping the ship from running aground at the entrance to Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Her crew also saved 5 Costa Rican fishermen found after they were adrift for 21 days. The Eastwind was the first cutter to circumnavigate the globe on a cruise in 1960-1961." entryDate[14] = " 07/14/" + year entryContent[14] = "
1926-The first radio-beacon established in Alaska, at Cape Spencer, was placed in commission.
1949-U.S. Coast Guardsmen from Point Allerton and Boston Lifeboat Stations figured prominently in one of the largest rescue operations in the history of Boston Harbor Massachusetts when they helped in removing 690 persons from the excursion steamer Nantasket, which had gone aground in a thick fog off Peddock’s Island.
1960-Following the loss of a propeller, which resulted in fuselage damage and an engine fire, a Northwest Airlines DC-7C airliner carrying 58 persons ditched in Philippine waters. During the Coast Guard-coordinated air search in the vicinity of the Polillo Islands, a Coast Guard UF amphibian aircraft sighted four life rafts, landed, and rescued 23 survivors. A U.S. Navy P5M seaplane, meanwhile, rescued 34 others and also recovered from the water the body of the only fatality." entryDate[15] = " 07/15/" + year entryContent[15] = "
1870-Congress directed that the revenue cutters on the northern and northwestern lakes, when commissioned, shall be specially charged with aiding vessels in distress on the lakes.
1870-An Act of Congress (l6 Stat. L., 291, 309) directed the Lighthouse Board to mark all pierheads belonging to the United States situated on the northern and northwestern lakes, as soon as it was notified that the construction or repair of pierheads had been completed.
1972-CGC Absecon was decommissioned and transferred to the South Vietnamese Navy. This was the last of the seven 311-foot Casco-class cutters to be transferred to the South Vietnamese. She was commissioned as the Tham Ngu Lao (HQ-15) on 15 July 1972. She was seized by the North Vietnamese when the South fell in 1975. The North Vietnamese gave her the hull number HQ-1 but did not apparently name her. She was refitted with two or possibly four SS-N-2 launchers. Her current status remains unknown." entryDate[16] = " 07/16/" + year entryContent[16] = "
1946-Pursuant to Executive Order 9083 and Reorganization Plan No. 3 the Bureau of Marine Inspection was abolished and became a permanent part of the Coast Guard." entryDate[17] = " 07/17/" + year entryContent[17] = "
1893-Life-saving Station keeper H .E. Wilcox of Cape Arago Life-saving Station rescued 55 of 56 passengers of SS Emily that was capsizing in a raging sea. Persons were transported from the doomed vessel to the lifeboat via a life raft.
1994-The Polar Sea departed from Victoria, British Columbia on operation Arctic Ocean Section 1994 and became the first U.S. surface vessel to reach the North Pole. She then transited the Arctic Ocean back to her homeport in Seattle, Washington.
1996-TWA Flight 800 crashed off New York with no survivors. Numerous Coast Guard units conduct search and rescue operations and then aided in recovery operations." entryDate[18] = " 07/18/" + year entryContent[18] = "
1818-The Revenue Cutter Active captured the pirate vessel India Libre in the Chesapeake Bay.
1866-Congress authorized officers to search vehicles and persons suspected of concealing contraband.
1928-Clarence Samuels assumed command of Coast Guard Patrol Boat AB-15 on 18 July 1928, thereby becoming the second African-American to command a Coast Guard vessel, the first being Michael Healy." entryDate[19] = " 07/19/" + year entryContent[19] = "
1883-At half past 1 in the afternoon, a boy named Frank Little, eight years old, while playing upon the Government wharf at Sand Beach, Michigan, fell overboard, and would have been drowned but for the assistance of Surfman James McCash, of Sand Beach Station (Tenth District), who hurried to the spot just in time to save him.
2001-The first set of the newly authorized Helicopter Rescue Swimmer insignia, or ‘wings’, were presented to the senior rescue swimmer in the Coast Guard, Master Chief Aviation Survival Technician (AST) Keith Jensen, at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, D.C." entryDate[20] = " 07/20/" + year entryContent[20] = "
1917-An Executive Order extended the jurisdiction of the Lighthouse Service to the non-contiguous territory of the American Virgin Islands.
1942-"The Herald-Tribune of July 20, 1942, carried the following story: A new Coast Guard regiment, made up of tough, hand-picked men, all heavily armed and with the headquarters company mounting machine guns in speedy jeep cars, has been organized for extra protection of the Port of New York, it was announced yesterday. Regimental offices of the commando-like outfit, led by Captain Francis V. Lowden, will be in the Barge Office at the Battery. There will be five battalion headquarters--one each in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island and New Jersey, and a floating one set up a harbor patrol craft. The new contingent for sabotage precaution will be known as the Port Security Regiment . . . The selected men recruited for the Port Security Regiment are being trained in a variety of rough and rigorous combat tactics to fit them for meeting surprise actions. Captain Lowden, on leave from his post as Mayor of Roselle, N.J., has had twenty years of experience in organizing protective services for the port properties of Standard Oil of New Jersey."
2007-The Deployable Operations Group (DOG) was commissioned at Fort McNair, Washington, D.C., under the command of RADM Thomas F. Atkins." entryDate[21] = " 07/21/" + year entryContent[21] = "
1944-The attack and liberation of Guam commenced. Participating vessels included the Coast Guard tender CGC Tupelo and the Coast Guard-manned Navy warships included Cor Caroli, Aquarius, Centaurus, Sterope, Arthur Middleton, LST-24, LST-70, LST-71 and LST-207.
1947-President Truman signed H.R. 3539, which became Public Law No. 209, authorizing the Coast Guard to construct a suitable chapel for religious worship by any denomination, sect or religion at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, CT.
1952-The CGC Mackinac, enroute from New York to Ocean Station ECHO, and the SS Gripsholm, removed 45 of the 49 persons on board the SS Black Gull, which had caught fire in a position south of Block Island, Long Island, New York.
1997-The USS Constitution, "Old Ironsides," set sail in Boston Harbor for the first time in more than a century. Prior to this her Navy crew received training in sailing a square rigger aboard Eagle. The Coast Guard then enforced security and safety zones around the Navy frigate during her brief voyage around the harbor. More than 800 Coast Guard personnel, 10 cutters, three helicopters and 81 small boats were involved in the operation.
1999-Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd., agreed to pay a record $18 million criminal fine and pled guilty to 21 felony counts for dumping oil and hazardous chemicals in U.S. waters and then lying about it to the Coast Guard. The investigation began in October of 1994 when Coast Guard officials noticed an oil slick behind the ship Sovereign of the Seas as it approached San Juan, Puerto Rico. Between the day Coast Guard officials first boarded the ship and when they again boarded it four days later, crewmen had removed a bypass pipe which they had been using to dump hazardous material from the ship." entryDate[22] = " 07/22/" + year entryContent[22] = "
1881-A young man named Joseph Ryan, of Buffalo, New York, while bathing off the lighthouse pier at that place, was seized with cramps and sunk. One of the surfmen belonging to Station No. 5, Ninth District, about a quarter of a mile distant, was on duty at the pier and saw him disappear. Without a moment’s hesitation, he plunged into the water and succeeded in grasping Ryan by the hair and brought him safely to the shore." entryDate[23] = " 07/23/" + year entryContent[23] = "
1836-A band of Seminole Indians attacked and burned the Cape Florida lighthouse.
1947-Congress approved Public Law 219 which provided for the integration of the personnel of the former Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation into the regular military organization of the Coast Guard. This was effected during Fiscal Year 1948, "and the Service thus had a single unified organization to carry forward the correlated duty which prior to 1939 were divided among three different Federal agencies the Coast Guard, Lighthouse Service, and Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation."" entryDate[24] = " 07/24/" + year entryContent[24] = "
1936-CGC Cayuga was ordered to San Sebastian, Spain as the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War necessitated the evacuation of U.S. citizens. While on this deployment the U.S. ambassador to Spain and his staff came on board and the cutter then served as the U.S. embassy in Spain.
1944-The assault on Tinian Island, one of the Marshall Islands. Coast Guard-manned transports that participated included USS Cambria and Cavalier.
1967-The Coast Guard Station at Rochester, New York was notified that a 16-foot sailboat with two youths aboard was overdue from a day’s sail. The weather was reported as: winds to 40 miles per hour in gusts during a thunderstorm, 1-2 foot seas, visibility 2 miles to zero in squalls. A motor lifeboat and a 30ft utility boat commenced a surface search. An aircraft was dispatched to conduct a first light air search. On the third expanded search the boat was located by the aircraft within the search area.
1981-Station Brant Point received a call from the Nantucket Hospital requesting Coast Guard assistance in transporting a patient suffering from a brain tumor. An HU-16 was dispatched to medevac the patient, Mildred "Madaket Millie" Jewett, a long-time friend of the Coast Guard and an honorary CWO4." entryDate[25] = " 07/25/" + year entryContent[25] = "
1947-The Women’s Reserve of the Coast Guard Reserve (SPARS) was disestablished.
1956-The Swedish liner Stockholm collided with the Italian liner Andrea Doria off Nantucket. Coast Guard cutters and aircraft as well as other vessels responded. Andrea Doria sank 10 hours after the collision which resulted in 52 deaths.
1995-A LEDET under the command of LTJG Robert Landolfi out of Mobile first boarded the Panamanian registered fishing vessel Nataly I. The LEDET later seized the Nataly I when the team discovered 24,325 pounds of cocaine hidden on board, making this the largest U.S. maritime seizure of cocaine to date." entryDate[26] = " 07/26/" + year entryContent[26] = "
1886-An Act of Congress (24 Stat. L., 148) authorized an increase in the number of lighthouse districts to 16 within the Lighthouse Establishment.
1846-USRC Woodbury put down a mutiny on board the troop ship Middlesex during the Mexican War.
1948-President Harry Truman ordered the integration of the armed forces of the United States with Executive Order 9981, signed 26 July 1948. By this time the Coast Guard had already opened up all of its rates to all qualified persons regardless of race. The Coast Guard noted "the importance of selecting men for what they are, for what they are capable of doing, and insisting on good conduct, good behavior, and good qualities of leadership for all hands. . .As a matter of policy Negro recruits receive the same consideration as all others."" entryDate[27] = " 07/27/" + year entryContent[27] = "
1793-President ordered full complements for cutters and increased monthly pay to $40 for Captains, $26 for 1st mates, $20 for 2nd mates, and $18 for 3rd mates. Captains to have subsistence of Captain in Army, three mates subsistence of Army Lieutenants and mariner’s subsistence not to exceed $10 per month.
1868-Secretary of Treasury directed by Congress to enforce law prohibiting unauthorized killing of fur seals in Alaska. Also President authorized to regulate traffic in firearms, ammunition and spirituous liquors in Alaska. President assigned the Revenue Marine to police work necessary to enforce.
1957-A Captain of the Port patrol vessel discovered a fire of unknown origin at the Mystic Coal Yard in Boston, MA. The U.S. Coast Guard Base, Boston, immediately rushed the CGC Cactus, 150 Coast Guardsmen, and portable fire-fighting equipment to the scene. While the cutter moved a 450-foot Norwegian freighter away from the flaming dock, the shore party with the assistance of local agencies brought the fire under control. Eight Coast Guardsmen were hospitalized because of the injuries they received while fighting the fire." entryDate[28] = " 07/28/" + year entryContent[28] = "
1884-The Senate approved the appointment of Captain Jarvis Patten as Commissioner of Navigation to direct the work of the organization of the Bureau of Navigation, under the supervision of the Secretary of the Treasury.
1942-Coast Guard J4F Widgeon, CG tail number V-214, piloted by Chief Aviation Pilot Henry White and carrying crewman RM1c Henderson Boggs, attacked a surfaced German submarine off the coast of Louisiana with a single depth charge. After the war, the US Navy credited V-214 with sinking the Nazi sub U-166. White was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and Boggs was awarded the Air Medal. Nevertheless the U-166 was later learned to have been sunk a few days earlier by a Navy patrol vessel. White had actually attacked the U-171, which reported in her war diary as having been attacked by an unidentified aircraft in the very location that White reported attacking a U-boat. The U-171 escaped with no damage.
1944-LTJG Clarence Samuels became the first African-American to command a "major" Coast Guard vessel since Michael Healy and the first to achieve command of a Coast Guard vessel "during wartime" when he assumed command of the Light Vessel No. 115 on 28 July 1944." entryDate[29] = " 07/29/" + year entryContent[29] = "
1898-The Revenue Cutter Bear took 97 survivors of whaling vessels, who had been caught in Arctic ice and rescued by the Overland Expedition, and transported them to San Francisco.
1948-Congress approved Public Law 810 allowing retirement pay at age 60 for reservists with 20 years of service. Some consider this to be the "birth" of the modern Coast Guard Reserve.
1970-The CGC Vigorous became the first 210-foot cutter to cross the Arctic Circle. This took place while she was part of the 1970 Cadet Cruise Squadron. At the time CDR George Wagner, USCG, was the commanding officer.
1997-The MLB-44300, the first 44-foot MLB to enter service, suffered an engine casualty in response to a SAR mission conducted for Station Cape Disappointment. She was retired from duty shortly thereafter." entryDate[30] = " 07/30/" + year entryContent[30] = "
1966-When the Coast Guard Station at Belle Isle, Michigan, received a report of a cabin cruiser afire at a boat dock, patrol boats were dispatched to the scene by radio. Within minutes, they were alongside the burning vessel, spraying water on the fire. The entire cabin cruiser was in flames, since its gas tanks had already blown up. The patrol boats, to minimize the damage to nearby facilities, towed the burning craft out of the marina. When notified that a woman was still on board, two Coast Guardsmen boarded the flaming cruiser and checked the cabin, only to find no one. As it turned out, the woman had already jumped overboard and made her way to shore safely. The fire was eventually brought under control, but not before the expenditure of many gallons of foam." entryDate[31] = " 07/31/" + year entryContent[31] = "
1876-Congress re-established the Revenue Cutter cadet training program after three years suspension and the institution of promotion by examination.
1894-Division of Revenue Cutter Service created with Captain of Revenue Cutter Service as Chief.
1985- The Coast Guard conducted a fleet dedication ceremony for the new 110-foot patrol boats in Lockport, Louisiana." entryDate[32] = " 08/01/" + year entryContent[32] = "
1799-Secretary of Treasury described the ensign and pennant authorized to be flown by revenue cutters as "consisting of 16 perpendicular stripes (one for each state in the Union at that time) alternate red and the Union of the Ensign to be the Arms of the United States in dark blue on a white field."
1910-Alaska was designated as a separate lighthouse district, with a district office and depot established at Ketchikan for directing operations.
1952-The U.S. Coast Guard released a photograph of unidentified aerial phenomena (i.e. a UFO), taken by a 21-year old Coast Guard photographer on 16 July at the Salem Coast Guard Air Station.
1985-The 49-year old cutter Ingham gained the distinction of being the oldest commissioned cutter in service when her sister, the Duane, was decommissioned.
1999-The CGC Hamilton attempted to seize the Russian fishing trawler Gissar in the Bering Sea for fishing in U.S. waters. The Gissar then attempted to return to Russian waters, whereupon a boarding team from the Hamilton boarded the trawler. Soon thereafter, up to 19 other Russian trawlers surrounded the two vessels, thereby prohibiting the Hamilton from taking the Gissar to a U.S. port. The Hamilton's boarding crew was removed from the Gissar and the Gissar was turned over to the Russian Border Guard vessel Antius.
2007-MSD St. Paul responded when the I-35W bridge collapsed in the Twin Cities. The Coast Guard established a security zone around the collapsed bridge and maintained a presence for 20 days. Boat crews from St. Louis, Milwaukee, Two Rivers, Wis., Duluth, Minn., Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., MSST 91106 (New York), Sector Lower Mississippi River, Sector New Orleans, Station Gulfport and Station Aransas assisted during the three weeks following the bridges collapse." entryDate[33] = " 08/02/" + year entryContent[33] = "
1881-At about 8 o’clock in the morning, during a dense fog on Lake Huron, the crew of Station No 2, Tenth District (Point aux Barques, Michigan), heard the signal-whistle of a steamer to the northeast. The sharpness of the sound indicated a call for assistance. The life-saving crew found the steamer City of Concord with the schooner L.L. Lamb in tow, bound to Port Hope. The captain of the steamer stated that he was uncertain of his position on account of the fog and desired to know the bearing and distance to his destination. The keeper provided the information and the two vessels reached Port Hope safely soon afterwards.
1995-The 234-foot gambling ship Club Royale sank 90 miles east of Cape Canaveral, Florida, during Hurricane Erin. An HU-25 Falcon from AIRSTA Miami responded to the distress signal sent out by the vessel's EPIRB, although the usual registration information did not come over the wire as a registered EPIRB. The HU-25 located numerous life rafts and survivors in the area and a HC-130 and two HH-60 Jayhawks from AIRSTA Clearwater were dispatched. The helicopters had been weathering out Erin at Fort Myers Beach. The CGCs Confidence, Baranof, and Point Countess also responded. The helicopters rescued eight of the 11 crewmen. One body was later recovered and the remaining two crewmen were never found." entryDate[34] = " 08/03/" + year entryContent[34] = "
1812-The Revenue Cutter Commodore Barry, a 98-ton schooner pierced for six guns under the command of Captain Daniel Elliott, along with the U.S. privateer Madison, were captured by boarding parties from the British vessels Maidstone, Spartan, and Plumper on 3 August 1812 "while lying in Little River," Maine after what the New York Evening Post noted was a "severe contest, in which a number of the English were said to be killed." The crews of both the cutter and the privateer escaped. The British destroyed the Madison but apparently utilized the Commodore Barry as a tender." entryDate[35] = " 08/04/" + year entryContent[35] = "
1790-Congress authorized the Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton's proposal to build ten cutters to protect the new nation's revenue (Stat. L. 145, 175). Alternately known as the system of cutters, Revenue Service, and Revenue-Marine this service would officially be named the Revenue Cutter Service (12 Stat. L., 639) in 1863. The cutters were placed under the control of the Treasury Department. This date marks the officially recognized birthday of the Coast Guard.
1854-Congress appropriated $12,500 for purchase of boats for life-saving purposes at a number of designated ports on the Great Lakes.
1894-Facilities of marine hospitals extended to keepers and crews of the Life-Saving Service.
1949-Congress approved Public Law 207, which revised, codified and enacted into law title 14 of the United Stated Code. This set forth for the first time a clear, concise statutory statement of the duties and functions of the U.S. Coast Guard. The Act confirmed that the Coast Guard was a branch of the armed forces of the United States, confirmed it in its general functions of marine safety, maritime law enforcement, and military readiness to operate as a service in the Navy upon declaration of war or when the president directs." entryDate[36] = " 08/05/" + year entryContent[36] = "
1889-The U.S. Life-Saving Service issued a circular prescribing an appropriate outfit for the keepers and surfmen. This was the first time that uniforms were required in the Service.
1935-Congress passed the Anti-Smuggling Act, which broadened the jurisdiction of Coast Guard." entryDate[37] = " 08/06/" + year entryContent[37] = "
1878-The last sailing cutter built for the Revenue Service, USRC Chase, was completed on 6 August 1878.
1918-The first American lightship to be sunk by enemy action, Lightship No. 71, was lost on her Diamond Shoals station. LS 71 had reported by radio the presence of a German submarine which had sunk a passing freighter. That message was intercepted by the submarine U-104, which then located the lightship and, after giving the crew opportunity to abandon ship in the boats, LS 71 was sunk by surface gunfire. The lightship's crew took to their lifeboats and reached shore without injury.
1984-CGC Point Divide seized the HMAV Bounty, a replica of the HMS Bounty that was used in the 1984 motion picture "The Bounty," for customs violations.
1997: The CGCs Basswood and Galveston assisted in the rescue of the survivors of the crash of a Korean airliner, Flight 801, in Guam." entryDate[38] = " 08/07/" + year entryContent[38] = "
1789-An Act of Congress (1 Stat. L., 53), only the ninth law passed by the newly-created Congress of the United States and the first one to make any provisions for public works, created the Lighthouse Establishment as an administrative unit of the Federal Government, when it accepted title to, and joined jurisdiction over, the 12 lighthouses then in existence, and provided that "the necessary support, maintenance and repairs of all lighthouses, beacons, buoys and public piers erected, placed, or sunk before the passing of this act, at the entrance of, or within any bay, inlet, harbor, or port of the United States, for rendering the navigation thereof easy and safe, shall be defrayed out of the treasury of the United States." Prior to this time the lighthouses had been paid for, built and administered first by the colonies and then the states.
1882-An Act of Congress (22 Stat. L., 301, 309) required all parties owning, occupying, or operating bridges over any navigable river to maintain at their own expense, from sunset to sunrise, throughout the year, such lights as may be required by the Lighthouse Service.
1927-Horace Alderman, a rumrunner, murdered two Coast Guardsmen and a Secret Service agent after his vessel was stopped by patrol boat CG-249 off the coast of Florida. Alderman was eventually subdued by the remaining crew of CG-249 and arrested. He was later tried, convicted, and hung at Coast Guard Base 10 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
1939-"Suitable observance of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Lighthouse Service was called for by a joint resolution of Congress, signed by the President on May 15, which was known as Public Resolution No. 16. By this resolution the week of August 7, 1939, was designated lighthouse week."
1942-Landings at Tulagi and Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands commenced. This first Allied invasion in the Pacific proved to be a critical battle. Coast Guard manned transports, including the USS Hunter Liggett, participated in the invasion. Many of the landing craft were crewed by Coast Guardsmen. A Coast Guard officer, LCDR Dwight H. Dexter, and 25 Coast Guardsmen went ashore from the Liggett with their landing craft to set up a naval operating base on Lunga Point. Signalman 1/c Douglas Munro, later killed at Guadalcanal, was a member of Dexter's command. The Liggett rescued 686 survivors of the Navy cruisers USS Vincennes, Astoria, and Quincy and the Australian cruiser HMAS Canberra that had been sunk in the Battle of Savo Island on the night of 9 August 1942.
1958-A collision of the merchant tankers Golfoil and Graham in heavy fog in the entrance to Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, set fire to both vessels. U.S. Coast Guard, Navy, and commercial units fought the fires for three days, searched for missing crewmen, and assisted in directing traffic through the area. The CGC Laurel directed the on-scene operations." entryDate[39] = " 08/08/" + year entryContent[39] = "
1950-The Coast Guard commenced screening merchant seaman signing on American vessels on the East and Gulf Coasts where the vessels were foreign bound. Those seamen designated as poor security risks were not permitted to sign on.
1985-The Coast Guard awarded a contract to build the 110-foot Island-Class patrol boats to Bollinger Machine Shop and Shipyard in Lockport, Louisiana after a drawn-out legal battle." entryDate[40] = " 08/09/" + year entryContent[40] = "
1942-The Coast Guard-manned transport USS Hunter Liggett rescued the survivors of three U. S. Navy and one Australian cruisers that had been sunk the preceding night by Imperial Japanese Navy during the Battle of Savo Island. The night battle, also known as the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, was one of the worst defeats ever suffered by the Navy.
1950-Congress enacted Public Law 679, which charged the Coast Guard with the function of port security.
1982-Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger approved the use of Coast Guard law enforcement detachments on board Navy vessels during peace-time. The teams conducted law enforcement boardings from Navy vessels for the first time in history. The first CG TACLET was assigned to the USS Sampson on 11 August 1982." entryDate[41] = " 08/10/" + year entryContent[41] = "
1971-President Richard Nixon signed Federal Boat Safety Act of 1971, considered to be most significant legislation in the long history of federal action in this field. The new act repealed most of the Federal Boating Act of 1958 and amended the Motorboat Act of 1940.
1990-The Military Sealift Command began loading equipment and supplies from the Garden City Port in Savannah, Georgia, to support Allied operations during Operation Desert Shield. Coast Guard units, including reservists called-up specifically for this operation, maintained security zones and ensured the safe loading of the vessels.
1993-Three vessels collided at the entrance to Tampa Bay, Florida. The collision, with an explosion that shook Tampa Bay and shot a fireball hundreds of feet into the air, involved the tug Seafarer, pushing its 546-foot barge Ocean 255, which was laden with 235,000 barrels of petroleum products; the tug Fred Bouchard and its barge, B-155, which carried 122,000 barrels of oil; and the 357-foot Philippine-registered freighter Balsa 37, which was carrying 6,000 metric tons of phosphate material. Small boats from ATON Team St. Petersburg and Stations Cortez, Sand Key and St. Petersburg, CGCs Decisive, Point Steele, Sitkinak and Vise, aircraft from AIRSTA Clearwater and a crew from MSO Tampa responded. More than 300 Coast Guardsmen in total responded to battle the fire, oversee the cleanup, salvage and lightering operations. A Marine Board of Investigation convened to investigate the accident. There were no deaths or major injuries." entryDate[42] = " 08/11/" + year entryContent[42] = "
1817-"The ship Margaret, which sailed on Sunday, August 10, 1817, for Amelia Island with a number of persons on board, supposed to be going out for the purpose of joining the pirates, was brought back by the RC Active, under the command of Revenue Captain John Cahoone, and anchored yesterday morning [ 11 August 1817 ] in the Bay. The cutter fired several shots at the Margaret before she hove to. It is said that she has also munitions of war on board." [ Taken from the New York Gazette / New York Post, dated 12 August 1817.]
1966-CGC Point Welcome was attacked in the pre-dawn hours of 11 August 1966 by U.S. Air Force aircraft while on patrol in the waters near the mouth of the Cua Viet River, about three-quarters of a mile south of the Demilitarized Zone (the 17th Parallel) in South Vietnam. Her commanding officer, LTJG David Brostrom, along with one crewmen, EN2 Jerry Phillips, were killed in this "friendly fire" incident. The Point Welcome's executive officer, LTJG Ross Bell, two other crewmen, GM2 Mark D. McKenney and FA Houston J. Davidson, a Vietnamese liaison officer, LTJG Do Viet Vien, and a freelance journalist, Mr. Timothy J. Page, were wounded. Crewman BMC Richard Patterson saved his cutter and the surviving crew at great risk to himself. He was awarded a Bronze Star with the combat "V" device for his actions.
1974-President Ford signed into law the first bill of his new administration, a measure authorizing the Coast Guard to adopt modernized boiler and pressure safety standards on board merchant ships.
1982-Members of a 7th District TACLET stood bridge watch aboard the USS Sampson, the first time a CG TACLET had served aboard a Navy vessel. The SECDEF approved the use of Coast Guard TACLETs aboard Navy warships only two days earlier." entryDate[43] = " 08/12/" + year entryContent[43] = "
1817-The Revenue Cutter Active captured the pirate ship Margaret in the Chesapeake Bay.
1982-Coast Guard vessels escorted the nation's first Trident submarine, the USS Ohio, into its home port at Naval Submarine Base Bangor, providing security for the sub's transit. Coast Guard units guided the sub past a Soviet spy ship and 400 anti-nuclear protesters.
1984-CGC Munro departed Honolulu for Tokyo, Japan to take part in a bilateral meeting between the Coast Guard and the Japanese Maritime Safety Agency. While en route, the cutter conducted a Hawaiian Island and Western Pacific Fisheries Enforcement Patrol--the first of its type ever conducted in the western Pacific by a 378.
1994-"Team Coast Guard" was created when the the commandant, ADM Robert Kramek, approved recommendations that integrated the reserves into the operation missions and administrative processes of the regular Coast Guard, effectively eliminating the differences between the two service components." entryDate[44] = " 08/13/" + year entryContent[44] = "
1954-Congress passed Public Law 584, resulting in the Coast Guard relinquishing to the Federal Communications Commission the responsibility for issuing safety radiotelegraphy and safety radiotelephony certificates and exemption certificates under the International Convention for Safety of Life at Sea." entryDate[45] = " 08/14/" + year entryContent[45] = "
1848-Congress appropriated $10,000 for life saving stations and apparatus between Sandy Hook and Egg Harbor; the first funds to be expended under supervision of Revenue Marine Service. $5000 appropriated in 1847 for saving life from shore was turned over to collector of customs at Boston to acquire boathouses and equipment on Cape Cod for Massachusetts Human Society. (See March 3, 1847)" entryDate[46] = " 08/15/" + year entryContent[46] = "
1914-At the request of the Secretary of the Department of Commerce, Congress extended the Sponge Fishing Act and directed its enforcement to the Revenue Cutter Service on the request of Secretary of Commerce.
1943-Coast Guardsmen participated in the invasion of Vella La Vella, Solomon Islands.
1944-Coast Guardsmen participated in the invasion of Southern France." entryDate[47] = " 08/16/" + year entryContent[47] = "
1918-Keeper John Allen Midgett and the crew of Station No. 179 at Chicamacomico, North Carolina rescued the crew of the mined British tanker Mirlo. All but 1 of the crew were named Midgett and each received the Gold Lifesaving Medal for their actions in saving the crew amid burning oil and wreckage.
1941-Honolulu Coast Guard District was transferred to Navy.
1999-For the first time weapons were fired from a Coast Guard HITRON helicopter "to execute the interdiction of a maritime drug smuggler."" entryDate[48] = " 08/17/" + year entryContent[48] = "
1898-The America schooner, Decorra, stranded on Black Head, four and a half miles east-northeast of the station, during thick weather. Lifesavers arrived in their surfboat and found that she was leaking fast and in danger of sinking. They went to work at once, manning the pumps and bailing her out with buckets. Finally a tugboat arrived, took her in tow, and beached her safely in Jonesport Harbor.
1929-Horace Alderman, convicted of murdering two Coast Guardsmen and a Secret Service agent in 1927, was hanged at Coast Guard Base 10 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He was the only person ever executed on a Coast Guard base.
1990-At the request of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Transportation and the Commandant of the Coast Guard committed Coast Guard boarding teams to operation Desert Shield. Coast Guardsmen served in the Gulf prior to this commitment, however." entryDate[49] = " 08/18/" + year entryContent[49] = "
1898-James J. Coste, a surfman from the Sullivan's Island Life-Saving Station, drowned in the line of duty during a rescue attempt.
1899-Surfman Rasmus S. Midgett of the Gull Shoal Life-Saving Station in North Carolina single-handedly rescued 10 people from the grounded barkentine Priscilla. Midgett was awarded the Gold Life-Saving Medal for his heroic actions.
1941-Coast Guard charged by Congress with enforcing a law to protect war-lanes in Alaskan waters.
1983-Hurricane Alicia came ashore at Houston, Texas. Coast Guard units responded to calls for assistance." entryDate[50] = " 08/19/" + year entryContent[50] = "
1898-About 8 p.m. the keeper of life-saving station was notified by one of the crew of a quarantine boat that cries for help were heard coming from the channel opposite the station. The crew immediately launched the surfboat and pulled Into the darkness. As they proceeded they heard the cries for help and pulled in their direction until they found a boat capsized and one man clinging to her bottom. They hauled him in and he informed them that he and three others were returning from a hunting trip in the sloop, Jennie, when she capsized in a sudden squall. The other men were rescued by the yawl from the quarantine station. When she capsized the anchor went overboard, securely anchoring her; consequently the keeper decided not to attempt to right her until morning. At daylight the surfmen returned to her, righted and bailed her out.
1994-Operation Able Vigil commenced during a massive influx of Cuban migrants fleeing Cuba. It was the "largest joint peace-time operation" in Coast Guard history, according to then-commandant, ADM Robert Kramek." entryDate[51] = " 08/20/" + year entryContent[51] = "
1898-The American schooner, Rouse Simmons had her cargo shift to starboard, giving her a heavy list and forcing her covering board up so she leaked badly. She was sighted by the station lookout coming around the SE point of North Manitou Island. The surfboat was launched and pulled out to her. She had 4 feet of water in her hold, and was leaking too fast for her crew to keep her afloat much longer. She was anchored on the advise of the keeper and the station crew rigged out her booms to port. The pumps were then manned by all hands, spouts rigged to discharge the water overboard, and after 4 hours of work she was freed and on an even keel.
1984-A fire broke out in a stateroom aboard the 506-foot cruise ship Scandanavian Sea while the vessel was five miles off the Florida coast. The 744 passengers were mustered on the weather decks while the cruise ship's captain headed his vessel towards Port Canaveral. Coast Guardsmen from CGCs Diligence, Reliance and Steadfast; Stations Port Canaveral and Ponce De Leon Inlet; MSO Jacksonville; Group Mayport; the Gulf and Atlantic Strike Teams were ordered to Port Canaveral to help extinguish the blaze while a small boat from Station Port Canaveral got underway to escort the cruise ship to port. Local fire fighters also took part and ultimately over 150 Coast Guardsmen participated. It still took two days to extinguish the fire. One crewman and one passenger were killed and the vessel suffered extensive fire damage." entryDate[52] = " 08/21/" + year entryContent[52] = "
1968-CGC Point Verde reported that she had received a call from the Chevron Oil Company in Venice, Louisiana, reporting that an oil rig, approximately 25 miles east of Grant Isle, Louisiana, had a blowout and was on fire. The exact number of persons on board the rig at this time was unknown. Two Coast Guard helicopters and CGC Point Sal were dispatched. Several private vessels and oil company helicopters were already on the scene. A CG helicopter transported three injured persons to the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital in New Orleans and several oil company helicopters transported persons to other hospitals. The Coast Guard helicopter returned to the scene and along with Point Sal, a 53-footer, and another CG helicopter conducted a search for persons in the water. The number of persons on board was determined to be 33 with 23 definitely accounted for, five confirmed missing, and five reported accounted for, but not confirmed. Two people were known dead with 12 having been hospitalized.
1972-VTS San Francisco went on-line as the nation's first Vessel Traffic Service. Originally called a Vessel Traffic System, the VTS evolved from the experimental San Francisco Harbor Advisory Radar project and became an official Coast Guard function when the Ports and Waterways Safety Act became law in 1972." entryDate[53] = " 08/22/" + year entryContent[53] = "
1816-The cutter Active, under the command of Revenue Captain Steven White and acting under orders of the Collector at Baltimore, took possession of the Spanish brig Servia, recently departed from Baltimore, which was anchored in the Patuxent River. The Servia had been captured by an American privateer and Active was ordered to arrest the Servia and return it to Baltimore for examination.
1898-The America schooner, Vandalin, stranded about four miles north-by-west from the station and the crew went to her assistance. Upon their arrival they found that the schooner's crew had carried out an anchor so they manned the windlass and after one-half hour of hard heaving, succeeded in releasing her. They piloted her into deep water, then returned to station.
1944-The Liberty ship SS Alexander V. Frazer, named for the "first" commandant of the Revenue Cutter Service, was launched.
1994-The Coast Guard icebreaker CGC Polar Sea and the CCCS Louis S. Ste Laurent became the first "North American surface ships" to reach the North Pole. An HH-65A from Aviation Training Center Mobile, detached to the Polar Sea, became the first U.S. (and also Coast Guard) helicopter to reach the pole as well." entryDate[54] = " 08/23/" + year entryContent[54] = "
1820-The Revenue Cutter Louisiana captured four pirate vessels.
1893-"This was the first instance in the history of the United States Light-House Establishment in which a light-ship has foundered at her moorings," reported the Lighthouse Board, when Lightship No. 37 was lost in rough seas at her station at Five Fathom Bank off the entrance to Delaware Bay. Four of her six crew were lost in the tragedy.
1979-The keel of the first of the new 270-foot class medium endurance cutters, the CGC Bear, was laid.
1993-The CGC Yocona hosted the Russian icebreaker Aisberg for the first ever joint Russian-U.S. search and rescue exercise. The exercise was based out of Kodiak and involved three aircraft from Air Station Kodiak, two Russian aircraft, the Aisberg, and the cutters Chase and Ironwood.
1994-A new record for people rescued at sea was set on 23 August 1994 when 3,253 Cubans were saved from dangerously overloaded craft during Operation Able Vigil.
2005-Tropical Depression 12 was first identified by the National Hurricane Center forming 175 miles southeast of Nassau. The storm would become Hurricane Katrina." entryDate[55] = " 08/24/" + year entryContent[55] = "
1912-Congress gave effect to the convention between United States, Great Britain, Japan and Russia prohibiting taking of fur seals and sea otters in the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea by authorizing the President "to cause a guard or patrol to be maintained in the waters frequented by the seal herd or herds of seal otter. " The President tasked the Revenue Cutter Service with carrying out this patrol.
1990-Coast Guard-manned E2C, #3501, assigned to CGAS St. Augustine, crashed during a landing at Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico, killing all four crewmen on board. They were: LT Duane E. Stenbak, LTJG Paul E. Perlt, LT Craig E. Lerner, and AT1 Matthew H. Baker. CGAS St. Augustine was disbanded soon thereafter and the remaining E2Cs were returned to the Navy." entryDate[56] = " 08/25/" + year entryContent[56] = "
1945-CGC Magnolia was rammed amidships on 25 August 1945 by the cargo ship SS Marguerite Lehand off Mobile Bay. She sank in two minutes and one of her crew was killed. The other 49 were rescued. Those survivors cross-decked to the new tender CGC Salvia (WAGL-400) which then took Magnolia's place.
1950-USHS Benevolence collided with SS Mary Luckenbach. CGC Gresham and other vessels responded and rescued 407 persons.
1971-The Secretary of Transportation announced the awarding of a contract to the Lockheed Shipbuilding and Construction Company of Seattle, Washington, "to build the world’s most powerful icebreaker for the US Coast Guard," Polar Star, the first of the Polar-Class icebreaker.
2005-Hurricane Katrina made landfall between Hallandale Beach and Aventura, Florida, as a Category 1 hurricane. Four days later it came ashore again near Empire, Buras and Boothville, Louisiana. The rescue and response effort was one of the largest in Coast Guard history, with 24,135 lives saved and 9,409 evacuations." entryDate[57] = " 08/26/" + year entryContent[57] = "
1896-Fort Niagara, New York-At 1 am the keeper and lookout heard cries of distress on the Canadian side of the river. The station's surfboat was launched in the direction of sound. They found a man in the water clinging to a pole almost exhausted and crying out that he could hold on no longer. He was taken into surfboat and carried to his home.
1992-Hurricane Andrew struck Florida and the Gulf coast states causing extensive damage. Coast Guard units conducted search and rescue, relief, and transport operations." entryDate[58] = " 08/27/" + year entryContent[58] = "
1896-The crew of the Lifesaving Station at Fourth Cliff, Massachusetts, responded to a traffic accident in front of the station. A party of women had been driving by on a horse-drawn buggy when their horse fell, breaking a shaft and the harness. The surfmen repaired the harness and spliced the shaft, "the women being sheltered from the rain in the station until all was ready for them to leave."
1942-CGC Mojave rescued 293 men from the torpedoed transport SS Chatham in the Strait of Belle Isle.
1999-A boarding team from the CGC Munro discovered 172 illegal Chinese migrants aboard the fishing vessel Chih Yung off the coast of Mexico." entryDate[59] = " 08/28/" + year entryContent[59] = "
1916-An Act of Congress (39 Stat. L., 536, 538) provided that "light keepers and assistant light keepers of the Lighthouse Service shall be entitled to medical relief without charge at hospitals and other stations of the Public Health Service under the rules and regulations governing the seamen of the merchant marine."
1919-President Woodrow Wilson signed Executive Order 3160 which returned the Coast Guard to the administrative control of the Treasury Department from the Navy after World War I.
1963-As soon as two U.S. Air Force KC-135 tanker aircraft became reported as overdue at their destination, Homestead Air Force Base, Florida, the U.S. Coast Guard Eastern Area Commander initiated an intensive air search. It lasted through 2 September with as many as 25 U.S. Coast Guard, Air Force, and Navy planes participating. None of the 11 occupants of the two KC-135's were ever found, only wreckage, indicating that there had been a midair collision.
1995-A request from the Commander in Chief of Naval Forces Europe led to the deployment of the CGC Dallas to the Mediterranean. She departed Governors Island on 29 May 1995 and visited ports throughout the Mediterranean and Black Sea, including Istanbul and Samsun in Turkey; Durres, Albania; Varna, Bulgaria; Constanta, Romania; Koper, Slovenia; Taranto, Italy; and Bizerte, Tunisia. The crew trained with naval and coast guard forces in each country. She deployed for a few days with the Sixth Fleet and served as a plane guard for the USS Theodore Roosevelt. The crew was also able to coordinate schedules with six NATO and non-NATO nations to conduct boardings. She returned to the U.S. in August and arrived at Governors Island on 28 August." entryDate[60] = " 08/29/" + year entryContent[60] = "
1916-The Secretary of Treasury authorized to procure three light craft river steamboats, including lifeboats and other necessary lifesaving appliances and equipment for rescuing lives and property and distributing food and clothing to marooned people during Mississippi and Ohio River floods.
1916-Congress authorized Treasury to establish ten Coast Guard air stations but appropriated only $7,000 for an instructor and assistant. Appropriation for their construction and for planes was not made until 1924.
1916-A naval appropriations act (39 Stat. L., 556, 602) provided for the first time the mobilization of the Lighthouse Service in time of war by authorizing the President, "…whenever in his judgment a sufficient national emergency exists, to transfer to the service and jurisdiction of the Navy Department, or of the War Department, such vessels, equipment, stations and personnel of the Lighthouse Service as he may deem to the best interest of the country."
1980-The Coast Guard and the Royal Navy signed a Personnel Exchange Agreement. The first exchange between the two services were helicopter pilots. The pilots were assigned to RNAS Culdrose and CGAIRSTA Miami.
2005-Hurricane Katrina made a second landfall near Empire, Buras and Boothville, Louisiana after first previously striking Southeast Florida on 25 August. The rescue and response effort was one of the largest in Coast Guard history, involving units from every district, saving 24,135 lives and conducting 9,409 evacuations." entryDate[61] = " 08/30/" + year entryContent[61] = "
1852-Congress passed the Steamboat Act which established the Steamboat Inspection Service under the control of the Treasury Department (10 Stat. L., 1852). The Act provided for the appointment, by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, of nine supervising inspectors. These men, experts in the construction and operation of commercial craft, were paid by the Government. They were to meet once a year for the purpose of consultation and the promulgation of regulations governing the administration of the applicable laws, assigned territory being covered by each of them. Local inspectors, acting under the supervising inspectors, were authorized to issue licenses to engineers and pilots of passenger vessels. Inspectors were now on salary, the amount depending on the number of vessels inspected in each district, the source of which was receipts from fees for inspections and licenses.
1872- The Neptune Line steamer Metis sank in 30 minutes off Watch Hill, Rhode Island. Of 104 passengers and 45 crew, only 33 survived. A coasting schooner struck the Metis, which had a full passenger list and cotton cargo bound for New England textile mills. Captain Daniel Larkin (retired light keeper and one of the first Life-Saving Station captains), Captain Jared Crandall (light keeper), and lifeboat crewmen Albert Crandall, Frank Larkin, and Byron Green launched from the Life-Saving station. Boat Captain John Harvey and crewmen Courtland Gavitt, Edward Nash, Eugene Nash, and William Nash saw the collision and launched a fishing seine from the beach. The lifeboat and seine rescued 32. Revenue cutter Moccasin from Stonington, Connecticut, met the boats, took their passengers, and located a survivor. The Moccasin and seine continued to search until dark. Participants were awarded Certificates of Heroism from the Massachusetts Humane Society and gold medals, minted to commemorate the rescue, by Congressional resolution, February 24, 1873. The event signified the growing interaction among the members of the Life-Saving Service, the Lighthouse Service, and the Revenue Cutter Service, a factor that led to the later merger of the three services.
1941-Coast Guard JRF-1 Grumman "Goose" V-184 was sent to Midland, Texas, for a photographic flight in cooperation with the Agricultural Adjustment Administration." entryDate[62] = " 08/31/" + year entryContent[62] = "
1819-The cutters Alabama and Louisiana captured the privateer Bravo in the Gulf of Mexico. The Bravo's master, Jean Le Farges--a lieutenant of Jean Lafitte--was later hanged from the Louisiana's yardarm. The cutters then sailed for Patterson's Town on Breton Island to destroy the notorious pirates' den there.
1852-The Lighthouse Board was created and charged with administering the Lighthouse Service, as the Revenue Cutter Service was again decentralized. The board was comprised of Army and Navy officers, and civilian scientists. Channel marking and light operation acquired scientific precision and engineering. Classical lenses and lateral buoy systems were introduced." entryDate[63] = " 09/01/" + year entryContent[63] = "
1789-An act of Congress provided for the registering and clearing of vessels and the regulation of the coastwise trade, thus laying the foundation of American navigation laws which, until 1912, embodied the marine policy of the United States.
1894-An armed guard of Revenue Cutter Service personnel were placed on the Pribiloff Islands to protect seals.
1938-The Coast Guard assumed responsibility for the Maritime Service.
1939-The armed forces of Nazi Germany invaded Poland, beginning World War II.
1942-On 1 September 1942 Joseph C. Jenkins was given a temporary promotion to warrant officer (Boatswain); becoming the first African-American warrant officer in the Coast Guard.
1942-The Coast Guard transferred responsibility for running the merchant marine training programs to the War Shipping Administration.
1944-CGC Northland captured the crew of a scuttled Nazi supply trawler off Greenland. They had been attempting to establish a weather station on the coast of Greenland.
1977-Bobby C. Wilks became the first African American in the Coast Guard to reach the rank of captain. He was also the first African American Coast Guard aviator (Coast Guard aviator No. 735). He later became the first African American to command a Coast Guard air station.
1983-On 1 September 1983 Korean Airlines Flight 007 (KAL-007) strayed off course into Soviet airspace and was shot down by a Soviet fighter aircraft just west of Sakhalin island. All 269 persons on board were killed, including Congressman Larry P. McDonald from Georgia. CGC Munro, on a diplomatic mission to Tokyo, joined in the international SAR effort but no survivors were found. Munro then assisted in the search for the airliner's black box and recovered debris. The cutter also safely rescued from the sea all four crewmen of a downed LAMPs helicopter from the USS Badger. The Munro received the Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation for her part in the SAR and recovery efforts." entryDate[64] = " 09/02/" + year entryContent[64] = "
1945-Japanese officials signed articles of surrender aboard USS Missouri, officially ending World War II.
1948-CGC Bibb rescued the crew of the Portuguese fishing vessel Gaspar." entryDate[65] = " 09/03/" + year entryContent[65] = "
Nothing reported." entryDate[66] = " 09/04/" + year entryContent[66] = "
1945-The Coast Guard Cutter USCG 83434 became the first and only cutter to host an official surrender ceremony when Imperial Japanese Army Second Lieutenant Kinichi Yamada surrendered the garrison of Aguijan Island on board this Coast Guard 83-footer. Rear Admiral Marshall R. Greer, USN, accepted the surrender for the United States." entryDate[67] = " 09/05/" + year entryContent[67] = "
1939-President Roosevelt proclaimed U.S. neutrality in World War II and ordered the Navy, augmented by Coast Guard cutters, to establish neutrality patrols.
1946-The U.S. Air-Rescue Agency, an inter-departmental group headed by the Commandant of the Coast Guard and engaged on the study of improved and standardized rescue and search methods, was renamed the Search and Rescue Agency. "Search and Rescue Units of the Coast Guard were at the same time integrated into the peace time organization and the whole developed into a system of constantly alerted communications, coastal lookout, and patrols of institute instant and systematic search and rescue procedure in case of disasters."" entryDate[68] = " 09/06/" + year entryContent[68] = "
1966-On 6 September 1966 GM1 Lester K. Gates was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with a combat "V" device for "meritorious service and action against the enemy" while serving on board CGC Point White (WPB-82308) in Vietnam. The Point White attacked and captured a Viet Cong junk while patrolling the Soi Rap River. GM1 Gates was the first enlisted Coast Guardsman to be awarded the Bronze Star since World War II.
1995-Hurricane Luis pounded the Leeward Islands. GANTSEC units responded with relief supplies, SAR, and evacuations. Coast Guard C-130s delivered 125,000 pound of relief supplies to St. Martin. CGC Attu delivered relief supplies to Antigua and Barbuda." entryDate[69] = " 09/07/" + year entryContent[69] = "
1934-Surfboats and lifeboats from Coast Guard stations Shark River, Squan Beach, Sandy Hook and others responded to a deadly fire aboard the liner Morro Castle, rescuing 129 survivors. Cutters Tampa and Cahoone also responded. After failing to get the Morro Castle under tow due to the worsening weather, they recovered as many victims from the water as they could. All told over 250 Coast Guardsmen participated in the rescue and recovery effort. Eventually this maritime disaster led to a Senate investigation and subsequent changes in maritime safety regulations.
1953-When the Panamanian SS Eugenia grounded as a result of the heavy weather generated off Cape Cod by Hurricane Carol, the Cape Cod Lifeboat Station removed 13 survivors by breeches buoy and 4 by the station's DUKW, an amphibious type of surface craft." entryDate[70] = " 09/08/" + year entryContent[70] = "
1952-When SS Foundation Star sent a distress signal that she was in rough seas and in danger of breaking in half, four Coast Guard vessels and three commercial vessels proceed to her assistance and rescued the crew before the ship broke apart and sank.
2000-LCDR Daniel C. Burbank became the second Coast Guard astronaut to fly on a Shuttle mission (he had been selected by NASA for astronaut training in 1996). He flew as a mission specialist on NASA flight STS-106 aboard the space shuttle Atlantis (September 8-20, 2000). During the 12-day mission, the crew successfully prepared the International Space Station for the arrival of the first permanent crew. The five astronauts and two cosmonauts delivered more than 6,600 pounds of supplies and installed batteries, power converters, oxygen generation equipment and a treadmill on the Space Station. Two crewmembers performed a space walk in order to connect power, data and communications cables to the newly arrived Zvesda Service Module and the Space Station. STS-106 orbited the Earth 185 times, and covered 4.9 million miles in 11 days, 19 hours, and 10 minutes." entryDate[71] = " 09/09/" + year entryContent[71] = "
1942-The Coast Guard-manned weather ship USS Muskeget disappeared without a trace while on weather patrol in the North Atlantic. Her entire crew of 9 officers and 111 enlisted men were lost. It was learned after the war that she had been torpedoed and sunk with all hands by the U-755.
1943-The invasion of Salerno, Italy began on this date in 1943. Coast Guard units, including LCI(L) Flotilla 4 (a landing craft force manned and commanded entirely by the Coast Guard) participated." entryDate[72] = " 09/10/" + year entryContent[72] = "
1889-(10-12 September 1889): During this three-day period, the lifesaving crews at Lewes, Henlopen and Rehobeth Beach stations assisted 22 vessels and saved 39 persons by surfboat and 155 by breeches buoy without the loss of a single life.
1981-The CGC Morgenthau, in "Charlie" status in San Francisco while preparing for a yard period, responded to a distress call from the 610-foot M/V Blue Hawk, a cargo vessel carrying about 5,000 automobiles, after she reported a fire aboard while she was over 700 miles southwest of San Diego. Morgenthau was underway within three hours. In the interim, HC-130 CG-1454 was dispatched by AIRSTA Sacremento while COMMSTA Point Reyes directed other merchant ships close to the Blue Hawk to assist. The fire still raged when Morgenthau arrived on scene two days later. The cutter's fire-fighting teams put the fire out and Morgenthau escorted the damaged freighter to San Francisco." entryDate[73] = " 09/11/" + year entryContent[73] = "
1883-Shorty after noon, during the prevalence of a strong northeasterly gale and high sea, the lookout at the Cleveland Station (Ninth District) Lake Erie, saw a yawl break adrift from its moorings and commence driving towards the breakwater. The life-saving crew at once put out in their surfboat and after a hard pull succeeded In reaching the yawl just In time to save it from being dashed to pieces. It was towed into the river and delivered to its owner, whom they notified.
2001-Al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial U.S. aircraft, crashing two into the World Trade Center in New York and one into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The fourth aircraft crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, when passengers on board tried to regain control of the aircraft from the terrorists. The attacks killed over 3,000 innocent civilians. Coast Guard units, including Reservists and Auxiliarists, were among the first military units to respond in order to provide communications, security, evacuation by water and render assistance to those in need. Coast Guardsmen assisted in the search and rescue efforts as well as the cleanup operations after the attacks." entryDate[74] = " 09/12/" + year entryContent[74] = "
1941-After the Danish government in exile asked the U.S. to protect Greenland, the cutter Northland seized the Norwegian sealer Buskoe, with Nazi agents on board trying to establish radio and weather stations in Greenland, in MacKenzie Bay, Greenland. The capture of the Buskoe was the first U.S. naval capture of World War II.
1953-When the 6,000 ton ore carrier SS Maryland grounded off Marquette, Michigan, a Coast Guard helicopter, in the face of driving wind and rain that required the combined efforts of both pilots to hold the controls and stabilize the aircraft, removed 12 crew members safely." entryDate[75] = " 09/13/" + year entryContent[75] = "
1897-The American steamer, Business Point mistook a buoy and stranded on Mouse Island reef, 9 miles northwest of Point Marblehead station. The crew and two tugs attempted to release her, but without success. The master chartered a tug to go to Sandusky for a lighter which arrived about 6 pm. The crew then assisted all night at transferring cargo and at 9 a.m. next day, the steamer backed off." entryDate[76] = " 09/14/" + year entryContent[76] = "
1716-The Boston Lighthouse on Little Brewster Island in Boston Harbor, the first lighthouse established in America, was first lit.
1944-The Great Atlantic Hurricane, a Category 3 hurricane, made landfall at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, Long Island, New York, and Point Judith, Rhode Island. Cape Henry, Virginia, reported sustained winds at 134 MPH with gusts to 150 MPH. There were 46 civilian deaths and $100 million in damage from Cape Hatteras northward through the Maine coast. Cutters Jackson and Bedloe, and Lightship No. 73 on Vineyard Sound Station, foundered. All 12 of the lightship's crew perished. Only 30 of the 78 crewmen aboard the two cutters were saved. Two Navy vessels also foundered. A total of 344 perished at sea.
1989-Sikorsky Aircraft unveiled the replacement for the Sikorsky HH-3F Pelican helicopter: the HH-60J. The Coast Guard planned to purchase 33 of the new helicopters and gave it the moniker "Jayhawk."
1990-The Secretary of Transportation and the Commandant of the Coast Guard authorized the first-ever deployment of a reserve port security unit overseas. PSU 303, staffed by reservists from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was the first of three PSUs deployed. PSU 303 was stationed in Al-Dammam, Saudi Arabia." entryDate[77] = " 09/15/" + year entryContent[77] = "
1944-Coast Guardsmen participated in the invasion of Morotai Island.
1948-After making a night-long high speed run to reach the hurricane-ridden Portuguese schooner Gasper some 300 miles off the southern tip of Newfoundland, USCGC Bibb launched two 20-man rubber lifeboats in heavy rain and seas to rescue 40 survivors and 1 dog from the doomed ship.
1958-A New Jersey Central passenger train plunged into Newark Bay through an open drawbridge, submerging two engines and two coaches. Coast Guard small craft and helicopters assisted in rescuing 43 survivors and recovering 29 bodies.
1995-Hurricane Marilyn made landfall, cutting a path of destruction across the U.S. Virgin Islands. GANTSEC Command Center coordinated the SAR efforts. HH-65As from AIRSTA Borinquen rescued survivors from two vessels that sank during the storm. CGC Escanaba also participated in the SAR operation and then supported the relief efforts in St. Thomas. CGC Vigorous relieved Escanaba on 18 September. The CGC Point Ledge, homeported in St. Thomas, had been washed up on the city's seawall by the heavy storm surge, causing considerable damage. None of her crew were injured, however. Members of LEDET Miami and TACLET members from Miami and San Juan were flown to St. Thomas to help enforce a curfew, provide airport security and help stand watch on the grounded Point Ledge. Coast Guard aircraft also flew overflights to survey the damage and delivered relief supplies. In 10 days the aircraft delivered more than 410,000 pounds of relief supplies and transported 260 federal recovery workers to St. Thomas. MSD St. Thomas supervised all maritime recovery operations, facilitated maritime traffic for a community dependant on maritime commerce, responded to the massive environmental impacts, and were the DoT's representative for the initial standup of the EOC. ANT San Juan and the CGC Laurel were also sent to assist in the cleanup.
2001-Coast Guard units and local agencies responded to a bridge collision on the Intracoastal Waterway after the tug Brown Water V and its four barges struck the Queen Isabella Causeway, the longest bridge in Texas. The collision caused a 240-foot section of the causeway to collapse, spilling 10 cars into the water and killing five persons. Station South Padre Island deployed two 27-foot boats, a 41-foot boat and a 21-footer. Other vessels pulled 13 survivors from the water and transferred them to the Coast Guard craft. The CGC Mallett was later used as a rescue platform to retrieve the submerged vehicles and victims." entryDate[78] = " 09/16/" + year entryContent[78] = "
1918-CGC Seneca’s crew attempted to bring the torpedoed British collier Wellington into Brest, France. Eleven of Seneca‘s crew, sent as a boarding party aboard the collier, were lost when Wellington foundered in a gale on 16 September 1918.
1988-Hurricane Gilbert hit Mexico. Coast Guard units assisted in rescue and evacuation operations on 18-20 of September. Coast Guard aircrews lifted 109 victims from flood waters to safety." entryDate[79] = " 09/17/" + year entryContent[79] = "
1882-At 2: 30 a.m., during the prevalence of a strong southerly gale upon Lake Huron, the schooner, Colonel Hathaway, lying at the wharf at South Harrisville, MI was wrenched from her moorings and driven ashore. The morning was intensely dark and rain fell in torrents, but the schooner drove so far up on the beach that her crew of five men found no difficulty in saving themselves without aid. While drifting in, she collided with the schooner Garibaldi, she too broke adrift and drove ashore. The crew of this vessel, five in number, were equally fortunate in getting ashore without trouble. Word being sent about noon to the life-saving station at Sturgeon Point (No. 5, Tenth District), six or seven miles distant, that two vessels were ashore at South Harrisville, the crew at once repaired to the scene to offer their services. Hathaway’s crew was busily at work stripping the vessel, but requiring no assistance. Finding nothing could be done for her, the life-saving crew went to the aid of Garibaldi. After discharging her cargo of lumber and tan-bark, they pumped her out and assisted in heaving her within reach of the lines of a steam-barge, which then took hold and hauled her afloat. She came off in a leaky condition, but nevertheless reloaded her cargo and proceeded to her port of destination in tow of the steamer which assisted in getting her off.
1999-The CGC Dallas returned to Charleston after an 84-day deployment to the Mediterranean and Black seas. Originally scheduled to go to the Adriatic and Ionian seas in support of NATO forces engaged in Kosovo, the Dallas turned to support the U.S. 6th Fleet after tensions in Kosovo eased. The Dallas also visited several ports not normally seen by Coast Guard crews, including Rota, Spain; Souda Bay, Crete; Haifa, Israel; and Antayla, Turkey.
2004-The Coast Guard made the largest cocaine seizure in its history (to date) when Coast Guard and Navy forces located and seized 30,000 pounds of cocaine aboard the fishing vessel Lina Maria approximately 300 miles southwest of the Galapagos Islands. LEDET 108, embarked aboard the USS Curts, made the seizure. A second Coast Guard and Navy team intercepted the Lina Maria's sister ship, the fishing vessel San Jose, 500 miles west of the Galapagos, and discovered and seized 26,250 pounds of cocaine." entryDate[80] = " 09/18/" + year entryContent[80] = "
1939-President Roosevelt directed the enlistment of 2,000 new Coast Guardsmen and opened two new training stations.
1947-The U.S. Air Force was formed as a separate military service. Happy Birthday Air Force! The Air Force's motto is: "Uno Ab Alto" (One over all).
1989-Hurricane Hugo hit Puerto Rico and eventually made landfall at Charleston, South Carolina, on the 21st. Coast Guard units conducted search and rescue as well as relief operations." entryDate[81] = " 09/19/" + year entryContent[81] = "
1968 M/V Hohannes Frans was taking on water. This 634-foot Dutch tanker with a cargo of oil reported that it was disabled in 10 to 15 foot seas taking on water 250 miles northeast of Bermuda. CGC Dallas which was In the immediate area, received the same report from the subject via flashing light and immediately went to her assistance. The pump provided by Dallas, however, failed to work properly. A Coast Guard aircraft provided four additional pumps by the evening of Sept 19; Dallas reported that the flooding had been stabilized. Three civilian tugs were enroute, with the first due on the 21st. Weather conditions improved enough on the 21st for the master and crew to remain aboard and continue pumping. The tug Foundation Vigilant arrived on scene on the morning of the 21st and took the vessel in tow. The tug Tasman Zee arrived shortly thereafter and provided three pumps. The three ships proceeded to Bermuda. Dallas proceeded to Ocean Station Echo." entryDate[82] = " 09/20/" + year entryContent[82] = "
1944-Coast Guardsmen participated in the invasions of Peleliu and Angaur." entryDate[83] = " 09/21/" + year entryContent[83] = "
1791-Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton authorized an allowance of 9 cents for every ration that Revenue officers did not draw.
1922-Congress authorized officers of the Customs and of the Coast Guard to board and examine vessels, reaffirming authority to seize and secure vessels for security of revenue under act of March 2, 1799.
1938-A hurricane hit the northeast coast, wreaking havoc among the lighthouses and the light keepers there. First assistant keeper Walter B. Eberle of the Whale Rock light was killed when his lighthouse was swept into the sea. The wife of head keeper Arthur A. Small was killed when she was swept away from the Palmer Island Light Station. The keeper of the Prudence Island Light Station's wife and son were drowned when that light station was swept into the sea. Many more stations and depots were severely damaged as well.
1957-The German training barque Pamir with 90 persons on board, including 54 German naval cadets, foundered and sank in extremely rough seas 500 miles west of the Azores. The CGC Absecon, manning Ocean Station DELTA, intercepted the SOS message and immediately proceeded to the scene. Three days later, the cutter and assisting vessels rescued six survivors, but the remaining 84 remained missing. The search continued for seven days, with the Absecon directing on-scene operations of 60 merchant vessels from 13 nations, as well as American and Portugese aircraft.
1987-Coast Guard units responded when two freighters, the Pacbaroness and Atlantic Wing, collided in a dense fog off the coast of Santa Barbara. The Pacbaroness sank, causing a large oil spill. Coast Guard units that responded included: CGCs Conifer & Point Judith; AIRSTAs Los Angeles, Sacramento, & San Francisco; MSO Los Angeles/Long Beach; Pacific Strike Team; MSD Santa Barbara; 11th District (m) and (dpa); Public Affairs Liaison Office and the Public Information Assist Team from Headquarters.
1989-Coast Guard units from New York rescued 61 survivors of U.S. Air Flight 5050 after it skidded off a runway of LaGuardia Airport and into the Rikers Island Channel. Two persons were killed.
1989-Hurricane Hugo made landfall on the continental United States at Charleston, South Carolina. The Coast Guard's emergency command post had to be abandoned when the roof almost blew off. Base Charleston suffered severe damage, as well. Coast Guard units immediately began relief operations. Aircraft were airborne at first light that morning. They conducted SAR, performed medical evacuations, provided emergency communications with stricken areas, and transported relief personnel and equipment. More aircraft were flown in from AIRSTAs Traverse City and Mobile. From their staging area at AIRSTA Savannah, they delivered food and water to hard-hit areas such as McClellanville, SC, where 200 people were isolated and the entire town destroyed." entryDate[84] = " 09/22/" + year entryContent[84] = "
1897-The sloop yacht, Cuyahoga broke adrift from moorings and drifted out 4 1/2 miles NE of the Plum Island, MA station. Surfmen sailed out and brought her back, turning her over to her owner.
1943-Coast Guardsmen participated in the invasion of Finschafen, New Guinea. An Allied invasion fleet, including Coast Guard-manned landing ships, landed Australian troops. Coast Guard-manned ships in the invasion fleet included USSs LST-18, LST-67, LST-168, and LST-204. There were no casualties among the Coast Guard LSTs.
1990-PSU 301 became the second reserve Coast Guard port security unit deployed in support of Operation Desert Shield. PSU 301 was staffed by reservists from Buffalo, New York. They were stationed in Al-Jubayl, Saudi Arabia." entryDate[85] = " 09/23/" + year entryContent[85] = "
1967-Coho Salmon Fishing Disaster-A severe squall through the Frankfort River Platte area of northern Lake Michigan. Twenty-five-foot waves generated by the squall caught off guard an estimated 1,000 small boats fishing for Coho Salmon. Between 150 and 200 boats were beached and many more were either capsize or otherwise in distress. During the next four days Coast Guard aircraft flew 33 sorties for a total of 55 hours. State and Local police provided beach patrols and private individuals also aided in the operation. One of the greatest problems faced by the Coast Guard was the confusion created by the hundreds of people unaccounted for after the storm, most of whom were not in trouble but had just not contacted their friends or family. Each report of a missing person was carefully followed through so that within 4 days it was determined that seven had been recovered and only one person remained unaccounted for. The Coho salmon which attracted the large number of boats to the area remained in season for another 3 weeks. During this time the Coast Guard maintained daily aircraft and small boat patrols of the area." entryDate[86] = " 09/24/" + year entryContent[86] = "
1943-The Coast Guard-manned USS LST-167 and the USS LST-334 with a partial Coast Guard crew landed troops during the invasion of Vella Lavella in the central Solomons despite fierce resistance from the Japanese defenders. Japanese aircraft attacked the invasion fleet, hitting LST-167 with two bombs that killed 10 of her crew and wounded 10. Five crewmen were reported as missing in action. The LST was later salvaged.
1947-The Coast Guard announced that it had virtually completed the return of United States buoys, lights, and other aids to navigation to a peacetime basis.
2002-The Coast Guard announced the award of a $611 million contract for the production, deployment and support of “Rescue 21,” a modernization of the National Distress and Response System. "Rescue 21" was planned to be the nation's primary maritime "911" system for coastal waters of the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, and navigable rivers and lakes within the United States.
2006-Hurricane Rita made landfall just east of Sabine Pass, on the Texas-Louisiana line, as a Category 3 hurricane with top sustained winds of 120 mph. Coast Guard units still in the area from Hurricane Katrina rescue and relief efforts responded, saving138 lives and evacuating 53 people." entryDate[87] = " 09/25/" + year entryContent[87] = "
1916-The beginning of lighthouse work in the United States was commemorated, when a bronze tablet was unveiled at the Boston Light Station on the 200th anniversary of its establishment.
1959-A US Navy P5M seaplane that had ditched off the Oregon coast was located through radio contact by a U.S. Coast Guard UF-1G Albatross aircraft. After sighting 10 survivors in two rafts 110 miles off shore, the Albatross crew directed the CGC Yocona to the scene, where a successful night rescue was made." entryDate[88] = " 09/26/" + year entryContent[88] = "
1918-The Imperial German Navy's submarine UB-91 torpedoed and sank the CGC Tampa (formerly named Miami) which was escorting a convoy bound for Milford Haven, Wales, with all hands. 111 Coast Guardsmen, as well as four U.S. Navy, 11 Royal Navy, and five civilian passengers were killed. The bodies of two of the Coast Guard crew were recovered and buried in a small church yard in Lamphey, Pembrokeshire, Wales, Great Britain. One body was returned to the family in the U.S. after the war while one, who was never identified, is still interred in Lamphey's church yard to this day. Local residents care for the grave.
1942-The CGC Ingham rescued eight survivors from the torpedoed SS Tennessee.
1994-Coast Guard forces departed for Haiti in support of Operation Restore Democracy." entryDate[89] = " 09/27/" + year entryContent[89] = "
1942-Douglas A. Munro, Signalman 1/c, USCG, gave his life evacuating Marines of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, at Matanikau Point, Guadalcanal. President Roosevelt posthumously awarded Munro the Medal of Honor, the only Coast Guardsmen to be awarded this decoration. The medal was given to Douglas Munro's parents, Mr. and Mrs. James Munro of South Cle Elum, Washington, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a ceremony at the White House on Thursday, 27 May 1943. The citation read: "Awarded posthumously to DOUGLAS ALBERT MUNRO, SIGNALMAN FIRST CLASS, U.S. COAST GUARD 'For extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry in action above and beyond the call of duty as Office-in-Charge of a group of Higgins boats, engaged in the evacuation of a Battalion of Marines trapped by enemy Japanese forces at Point Cruz, Guadalcanal, on September 27, 1942. After making preliminary plans for the evacuation of nearly 500 beleaguered Marines, Munro, under constant risk of his life, daringly led five of his small craft toward the shore. As he closed the beach, he signalled [sic] the others to land, and then in order to draw the enemy's fire and protect the heavily loaded boats, he valiantly placed his craft with its two small guns as a shield between the beachhead and the Japanese. When the perilous task of evacuation was nearly completed, Munro was killed by enemy fire, but his crew, two of whom were wounded, carried on until the last boat had loaded and cleared the beach. By his outstanding leadership, expert planning, and dauntless devotion to duty, he and his courageous comrades undoubtedly saved the lives of many who otherwise would have perished. He gallantly gave up his life in defense of his country.'"
1950-For the purpose of alleviating attrition during the Korean War, Executive Order 10164 authorized the Coast Guard, in cases where enlisted personnel did not immediately reenlist in the Coast Guard, to extend enlistments for one year, if the date of expiration of enlistment occurred prior to 9 July 1951. The Coast Guard, however, adopted a policy of permitting the discharge of men upon expiration of enlistment, provided they immediately enlisted in the Coast Guard Reserve." entryDate[90] = " 09/28/" + year entryContent[90] = "
1850-An Act of Congress (9 Stat. L., 500, 504) provided for a systematic coloring and numbering of all buoys for, prior to this time, they had been painted red, white, or black, without any special system. The act "prescribed that buoys should be colored and numbered so that in entering from seaward red buoys with even numbers should be on the starboard or right hand; black buoys with odd numbers on the port or left hand; buoy with red and black horizontal stripes should indicate shoals with channel on either side; and buoys in channel ways should be colored with black and white perpendicular stripes.
1850-An Act of Congress (9 Stat. L., 500, 504) gave legal authority for the first time for the assigning of collectors of customs to lighthouse duty. Section 9 of this act authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to assign to any of the collectors of customs, the superintendence of such lighthouses, beacons, lightships, and buoys as he might deem best. The act also stipulated that no collector of customs whose annual salary exceeded $3, 000 a year should receive any compensation as disbursing officer in the Lighthouse Establishment and, in no case, was the compensation of the collectors of customs for disbursements in the Lighthouse Service to exceed $400.00 In any fiscal year.
1998-An oil spill along the coast of California off San Francisco was traced to the 717-foot Liberian-flagged tanker Command. A Coast Guard boarding team took samples of her cargo and matched it to that found along the coast. A Coast Guard spokesman noted: "This is the first time the Coast Guard has pursued an oil spill investigation into the international arena to the extent of stopping and boarding a vessel on the high seas, with permission of the vessel's flag state."" entryDate[91] = " 09/29/" + year entryContent[91] = "
1898-The American steamer, Toledo with the barge Shawnee in tow, became water-logged 25 miles southwest of the station at Ship Canal, MI. Her crew boarded Shawnee and sailed to the canal. There they engaged the steamer D. F. Rose to tow Toledo in and the surfmen assisted to lay her on the beach near the piers. The keeper then telephoned for a tug and lighter, and upon their arrival all hands set to work until 11 p.m. saving about 1,000 feet of lumber. At this hour the wind came out west and the work had to be abandoned. Toledo broke up and became a total wreck on the 30th.
1986-Coast Guard officials signed the contract papers to acquire the H-60 series helicopter to replace the venerable Sikorsky HH-3F Pelicans.
1994-The crew of Coast Guard LORAN Station Iwo Jima decommissioned their station and turned it over to a crew from the Japanese Maritime Safety Agency. The turnover of all of the Northwest Pacific LORAN chain stations was arranged under a 1992 agreement between the U.S. and Japan." entryDate[92] = " 09/30/" + year entryContent[92] = "
1899-First Navy wireless message was sent via the Lighthouse Service Station at Highlands of Navesink, New Jersey.
1943-CGC E.M. Wilcox foundered off Nags Head, NC. One crewman was lost.
1949-The rank of commodore, established in 1943 as a wartime measure, was terminated by the President under the provisions of an Act of Congress approved 24 July 1941.
1977-The CGC Taney departed Ocean Station "Hotel" on 30 September 1977 when the station was closed and replaced by a buoy. This was the final ocean station patrolled by a Coast Guard cutter.
1994-The crew of Coast Guard LORAN Station Marcus Island decommissioned their station and turned it over to the Japanese Maritime Safety Agency. This was the last station in the Northwest Pacific LORAN chain to be decommissioned and turned over to the Japanese under a 1992 agreement between the U.S. and Japan.
1997-Omega Navigation Station Hawaii ceased operation, coinciding with the end of worldwide Omega transmissions." entryDate[93] = " 10/01/" + year entryContent[93] = "
1926-An airways division, headed by a chief engineer, was set up as a part of the Lighthouse Service, its work covering the examination of airways and emergency landing fields and the erection and maintenance of aids to air navigation.
1943-Coast Guard-manned USS LST-203 was stranded in Southwest Pacific but there were no casualties.
1976-Coast Guard personnel were required to change to the new "Bender Blues" uniforms by this date.
1991-The CGC Storis became the oldest commissioned cutter in the Coast Guard when the CGC Fir was decommissioned. The Storis's crew painted her hull number "38" in gold in recognition of her status.
1996-Operation Frontier Shield commenced. It was the largest counter-narcotics operation in Coast Guard history to date." entryDate[94] = " 10/02/" + year entryContent[94] = "
1789-Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton asked collectors of customs to report on expediency of employing boats for the "security of the revenue against contraband." Hamilton's interest in such vessels led to his request to Congress to fund the construction of 10 such revenue "boats" the following year, leading to the creation of what is now the U.S. Coast Guard." entryDate[95] = " 10/03/" + year entryContent[95] = "
1898-The American barkentine, Wanderinq Jew lost her sails and sprung a leak during the severe hurricane of October 2. Stranded and sunk during the night. 11 miles east by south from station at Sullivans Island, South Carolina. On account of distance and frequent heavy rain squalls, she was not sighted by station lookout until 3:30 pm on the following day. A surfboat was launched and the ship was found abandoned by her crew." entryDate[96] = " 10/04/" + year entryContent[96] = "
1918-There was an explosion at the T.A. Gillespie Company munitions yard in Morgan, New Jersey. Coast Guardsmen from Perth Amboy responded. When fire threatened a trainload of TNT, these men repaired the track and moved the train to safety, thus preventing further disaster. Two Coast Guardsmen were killed in this effort.
1956-Two U.S. Air Force F-89 aircraft crashed in rugged mountain terrain about four miles from Mount Olympus, Washington. For seven days, the Coast Guard directed a highly coordinated search for the lost plane and crews. Finally, aircraft and helicopters from the CG Air Station, Port Angeles, Washington, assisted by aircraft and ground search elements from other services, located and evacuated the two crew members on 5 October. Another walked out on his own to Hoods Canal on 6 October and was picked up by the Coast Guard in Brinnon, Washington after phoning in his location. He then assisted the Coast Guard in locating the crash site. A fourth crewman went down with his aircraft and was killed.
1980-A fire broke out on the Dutch cruise vessel Prinsendam off Ketchikan, Alaska. Coast Guard helicopters and the cutters Boutwell, Mellon, and Woodrush respond in concert with other vessels in the area and rescue all of the passengers and crew without loss of life.
1995-Hurricane Opal hit the Gulf of Mexico and made landfall in Destin, Florida. Coast Guard units provided relief efforts, surveyed damage, and restored aids to navigation. The CGC Kodiak Island contacted the CGC Courgeous and requested assistance. The Kodiak Island was battling 10 to 12-foot waves 100 miles west of Gasparilla, Florida, and experiencing flooding and a loss of steering control due to a hydraulic fluid leak. A HC-130 from AIRSTA Clearwater flew to the scene to provide assistance and the Courageous went to escort the Kodiak Island to Group St. Petersburg." entryDate[97] = " 10/05/" + year entryContent[97] = "
1938-The first members were enrolled in the Coast Guard Reserve.
1943-Patrol Squadron 6 (VP-6 CG) was officially established. This was an all Coast Guard unit. Its home base was at Narsarssuak, Greenland, code name Bluie West-One. It had nine PBY-5As assigned. CDR Donald B. MacDiarmid, USCG, was the first commanding officer. As additional PBYs became available, the units area of operation expanded and detachments were established in Argentia, Newfoundland and Reykjavik, Iceland, furnishing air cover for US Navy and Coast Guard vessels. Hundreds of rescue operations were carried out during the 27 months the squadron was in operation." entryDate[98] = " 10/06/" + year entryContent[98] = "
1881-At daylight the crew of Station No. 1, First District (Carrying Point Cove, West Quoddy Head, Maine), sighted a schooner at anchor some four miles east-southeast of the station. She did not appear to be in distress, and as no signal was made it was supposed she had simply anchored to await the abatement of the winds, which at the time was blowing strong from the northwest. The keeper ordered a close watch on the schooner, in case she should signal for assistance. At 11 a .m. the lookout observed a boat leave her side and attempt to reach land, but the gale was too much for it and the effort had to be abandoned. The boat returned to the schooner. Upon arriving alongside, the keeper found the schooner to be Eclipse, of Eastport, Maine and that she had encountered a heavy squall the afternoon previous. It had split her sails and started her leaking badly. In this condition they had anchored her during the night, about two miles from the land, her crew, three in number, being almost exhausted by their efforts to keep her free. The life-saving crew at once turned to and pumped her out and made temporary repairs on the sails, and then worked her up into a safe harbor.
1990-NASA astronaut and Coast Guard CDR Bruce Melnick made his first space flight when he served as a Mission Specialist aboard the space shuttle Discovery on Space Shuttle Mission STS-41, which flew from 6 to 10 October 1990. Discovery deployed the Ulysses spacecraft for its five-year mission to explore the polar regions of the sun. CDR Melnick was the first Coast Guardsman selected by NASA for astronaut training." entryDate[99] = " 10/07/" + year entryContent[99] = "
1986-An HC-130 from AIRSTA Elizabeth City located the disabled 44-foot Polish sailing vessel Gaudeamus with six Polish citizens aboard about 400 miles east of New York. A motor vessel was on scene with the Gaudeamus when it was found by the HC-130 and remainded there until CGC Taney arrived the next day and took the boat in tow. CGC Cape Henlopen rendezvoused with Taney and took over the tow to Newport, Rhode Island. The Polish Embassy sent the Coast Guard a diplomatic note extending the thanks of the Polish government for the Coast Guard's assistance in this case." entryDate[100] = " 10/08/" + year entryContent[100] = "
1986-Coast Guard units evacuated flood victims from the St. Louis area using punts, helicopters and trucks after the Mississippi and Missouri rivers flooded. In all, 150 Coast Guardsmen participated in the emergency flood relief efforts. Coast Guard units that sent relief teams were: MSO St. Louis; Base St. Louis; CGCs Sumac, Cheyenne and Cimarron. ATON Facility Leavenworth, Kansas; 2nd District office; and AIRSTAs New Orleans and Traverse City.
1847-To reduce the expenditures of the Treasury Department, Secretary of the Treasury Robert J. Walker ordered a reduction of the complements on revenue cutters." entryDate[101] = " 10/09/" + year entryContent[101] = "
1852-The Lighthouse Board, which administered the lighthouse system until 1 July 1910, was organized. "This Board was composed of two officers of the Navy, two officers of the Engineer Corps, and two civilians of high scientific attainments whose services were at the disposal of the President, and an officer of the Navy and of the, Engineers as secretaries. It was empowered under the Secretary of the Treasury to "discharge all the administrative duties" relative to lighthouses and other aids to navigation. The Secretary of the Treasury was president of the Board, and it was authorized to elect a chairman and to divide the coast of the United States into twelve lighthouse districts, to each of which the President was to assign an army or navy officer as lighthouse inspector."
1858-The Secretary of the Treasury appointed a three-man board of U.S. Revenue Marine officers to consider a lifeboat design best adapted for life-saving work.
1945-USS PC-590 (Coast Guard-manned) grounded and sank in typhoon off Okinawa. All hands were rescued.
1993-Crews from seven 8th District units and several civilian vessels joined forces in response to an explosion and fire aboard the 660-foot bulk-liquid carrier OMI Charger near the Houston Ship Channel. She had no fuel aboard when the explosion occurred the night of 9 October. The CGC Point Spencer served as the command platform and personnel and boats from ATON Team Galveston joined the response effort, which included fire-fighting, SAR, and pollution response assistance. The fire was extinguished five hours after the initial explosion. Two of the tanker's crewmen were killed in the blast. Personnel from the Gulf Strike Team arrive on scene on 10 October and determined that the vessel's fuel was still all aboard. It was removed prior to the vessel being towed to port where it was declared a total loss. A joint Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board met to investigate the explosion." entryDate[102] = " 10/10/" + year entryContent[102] = "
1798-Secretary Benjamin Stoddert, first Secretary of the Navy, sent the first instructions to cutters acting in cooperation with the Navy in support of the Quasi-War with France, via the various collectors of customs." entryDate[103] = " 10/11/" + year entryContent[103] = "
1896-The crew of the Pea Island (North Carolina) Life-Saving Station, under the command of Keeper Richard Etheridge, performed one of their finest rescues when they saved the passengers and crew of the schooner E.S. Newman, after that ship ran aground during a hurricane. Pushed before the storm, the ship lost all sails and drifted almost 100 miles before it ran aground about two miles south of the Pea Island Lifesaving Station. Etheridge, a veteran of nearly twenty years, readied his crew. They hitched mules to the beach cart and hurried toward the vessel. Arriving on the scene, they found Captain S. A. Gardiner and eight others clinging to the wreckage. Unable to fire a line because the high water prevented the Lyle Gun’s deployment, Etheridge directed two surfmen to bind themselves together with a line. Grasping another line, the pair moved into the breakers while the remaining surfmen secured the shore end. The two surfmen reached the wreck and tied a line around one of the crewmen. All three were then pulled back through the surf by the crew on the beach. The remaining eight persons were carried to shore in this fashion. After each trip two different surfmen replaced those who had just returned. For their efforts the crew of the Pea Island Life-Saving Station were awarded the Gold Lifesaving Medal in 1996.
1897-Property saved at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. During a severe storm the surf threatened to wash away a fish house, with valuable nets and other gear. Surfmen saved the property and took it to a place of safety. They also assisted lighthouse keeper to remove lenses of beacon to secure place. The lighthouse was in danger of being washed down by the sea." entryDate[104] = " 10/12/" + year entryContent[104] = "
1897-Near Corson Inlet, New Jersey, a man and two women were endangered by the sea sweeping around a their house 1/2 mile from the station. Life-savers answered signal of distress and rescued them in the surfboat." entryDate[105] = " 10/13/" + year entryContent[105] = "
1775-This is the date that the Navy recognizes as it's "official" birthday. The United States Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, which the Continental Congress established on 13 October 1775 by authorizing the procurement, fitting out, manning, and dispatch of two armed vessels to cruise in search of munitions ships supplying the British Army in America. The legislation also established a Naval Committee to supervise the work. All together, the Continental Navy numbered some fifty ships over the course of the war, with approximately twenty warships active at its maximum strength. After the American War for Independence, Congress sold the surviving ships of the Continental Navy and released the seamen and officers. The Constitution of the United States, ratified in 1789, empowered Congress "to provide and maintain a navy." Acting on this authority, Congress ordered the construction and manning of six frigates in 1794, and the War Department administered naval affairs from that year until Congress established the Department of the Navy on 30 April 1798. In 1972, however, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt authorized recognition of 13 October 1775 as the Navy’s birthday
Happy Birthday Navy! There is no official motto for the U.S. Navy. However "Non sibi sed patriae" (Not self but country) is often cited as the Navy's "unofficial" motto.
1883-Between 4 and 5 o’clock in the afternoon, a small sailboat, owned at West Hampton, New York, capsized In crossing the bay with one man on board. Three of the crew of the Petunk Station (Third District) sprang into a skiff, rowed out, rescued the man, and towed the boat ashore.
1988: The first U.S. merchant marine World War II veterans received their Coast Guard issued discharge certificates. Congress gave the merchant mariners veterans' status and tasked the Coast Guard with administering the discharges.
1995: The cutter Ida Lewis was launched, the first of the new 175-foot Keeper class buoy tenders." entryDate[106] = " 10/14/" + year entryContent[106] = "
1801-Secretary of the Treasury Gallatin announced the decision to reduce "Revenue Cutter Establishment" as near as circumstances will permit within its original limits.
1943-CGC E.M. Dow grounded and was abandoned near Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. All hands were saved.
1944-CGCs Eastwind and Southwind captured the Nazi weather and supply vessel Externsteine off the coast of Greenland after a brief fire-fight. There were no casualties. The Coast Guardsmen christened their prize-of-war USS Eastbreeze and placed a prize crew on board. The prize crew was commanded by LT Curtiss Howard and consisted of 36 men, including some from Southwind. After sailing with the Greenland Patrol for three weeks, Eastbreeze sailed on to Boston where the Navy renamed it as USS Callao. The Externsteine/Eastbreeze/Callao was the only enemy surface vessel captured at sea by U.S. naval forces during the war. The Eastwind and Southwind had gone farther north and returned under their own power than any vessel ever before. Finally, this naval battle had taken place farther north than any previous battle, laurels enough for the Greenland Patrol.
1947-CGC Bibb rescued 62 passengers and 7 crew members of the transatlantic flying boat Bermuda Sky Queen in mid-Atlantic in one of the most dramatic rescues undertaken by the Coast Guard in the open ocean.
1961-After US Air Force B-52G [serial number 58-196??] with eight persons aboard was reported overdue and possibly down in the Atlantic Ocean somewhere off Newfoundland, the Coast Guard commander, Eastern Area, coordinated the extensive search that resulted. Participating in it were 79 US Coast Guard, Navy, Air Force, and Canadian aircraft, 5 US Coast Guard cutters, and 2 merchant ships. Despite this search that lasted through 18 October and covered 286,225 square miles, no trace of the missing B-52 or its crew was found." entryDate[107] = " 10/15/" + year entryContent[107] = "
1846-USRC McLane ran aground while attempting to cross the bar of the River Alvarado during the Mexican War.
2001-On October 15, 2001, President George W. Bush announced that a letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle had anthrax in it. This followed a number of other anthrax attacks in Florida and New York. The EPA requested Coast Guard assistance. Members of the Atlantic Strike Team deployed to Washington, D.C., while Gulf Strike Team members were deployed to Florida. Strike team members conducted entries into the affected areas, collected samples, and assisted in the cleanup of those areas. The AST members in Washington coordinated entries into the U.S. Capitol, Hart Senate Building, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Government Printing Office, among others. The GST members took samples and provided decontamination stations at the American Media Inc. headquarters building and post offices in Boca Raton, Florida, the site of the first reported anthrax attack." entryDate[108] = " 10/16/" + year entryContent[108] = "
1790-Contract entered into for the construction of the "first" of the 10 revenue cutters, Massachusetts, at Newburyport, Massachusetts.
1952-A Merchant Marine Detail was established at Yokohama, Japan to handle increased merchant marine problems occurring there as a result of the Korean Conflict.
1956-CGC Pontchartrain, on Ocean Station November, rescued the passengers and crew of Pan American Clipper Flight 943 after the clipper ditched between Honolulu and San Francisco." entryDate[109] = " 10/17/" + year entryContent[109] = "
1814-The crew of USRC Eagle, which had been driven ashore near Negros Head, New York in an encounter with the British brig HMS Dispatch, dragged the cutter's guns up a bluff in an effort to continue the battle. The New York Evening Post gave an account of what happened next to the out-gunned cutter:
"During the engagement between the Cutter EAGLE and the enemy, the following took place which is worthy of notice. Having expended all the wadding of the four-pounders on the hill, during the warmest of the firing, several of the crew volunteered and went on board the cutter to obtain more. At this moment the masts were shot away, when the brave volunteers erected a flag upon her stern; this was soon shot away, but was immediately replaced by a heroic tar, amidst the cheers of his undaunted comrades, which was returned by a whole broadside from the enemy. When the crew of the Cutter had expended all their large shot and fixed ammunition, they tore up the log book to make cartridges and returned the enemy's small shot which lodged in the hull. The Cutter was armed with only 6 guns, 4 four-pounders and 2 twos with plenty of muskets and about 50 men. The enemy being gone and provisions scarce the volunteers from this city left Captain Lee and his crew and arrived here on Thursday evening the 13th instant, in a sloop from Long Island. . .We have since learned that Captain Lee succeeded in getting off the Cutter and was about to remove her to a place of safety when the enemy returned and took possession of her. She was greatly injured, but it is expected that the enemy will be able to refit her to annoy us in the sound."
1989-An earthquake registering 7.1 on the Richter Scale hit Northern California, killing 67 people. Coast Guard units assisted state and local agencies in rescue and relief operations." entryDate[110] = " 10/18/" + year entryContent[110] = "
1799-USRC Pickering (70 men) captured the French privateer L’Egypte Conquiste (250 men).
1848-Captain Douglas Ottinger, USRM, was designated by the Secretary of the Treasury to supervise the construction of the first Life-Saving Stations and the equipment and boats to be place at them." entryDate[111] = " 10/19/" + year entryContent[111] = "
1881-The sloop Zulu Chief with four passengers and a crew of two men struck the bar off Hog Island Inlet, Virginia at a point about half a mile from the beach. The accident occurred at 11 o’clock am in plain view of the crew of Station No. 9, Fifth District, on Hog Island. They launched the surfboat and went to the sloop’s assistance. She was pounding heavily and lay in a very dangerous position. The life-saving crew went to work without delay and carried out her anchors and succeeded in saving the vessel." entryDate[112] = " 10/20/" + year entryContent[112] = "
1892-After ten years of difficult and costly construction, the St. George Reef Lighthouse, built on a rock lying six miles off the northern coast of California, midway between Capes Mendocino and Bianco, was first lighted.
1920-The Superintendent of the 5th Lighthouse District inspected the aids to navigation "in New River Inlet and Bogue Sound, North Carolina by hydroplane in two hours, which would have required at least four days by other means of travel, owning to the inaccessibility of the aids inspected."
1944-Landings on Leyte, Philippine Islands. Many Coast Guard units participated in the landings, which marked the the fulfillment of General Douglas MacArthur's promise to the Filipino people that he would return to liberate them from the Japanese.
1950-President Harry S. Truman issued an executive order "activating" the Magnuson Act, which had been passed by Congress earlier that month. This act, authorizing the president to invoke the Espionage Act of 1917, tasked the Coast Guard with the port security mission.
1978-The cutter Cuyahoga sank after colliding with M/V Santa Cruz II near the mouth of the Potomac River. Eleven Coast Guard personnel were killed." entryDate[113] = " 10/21/" + year entryContent[113] = "
Nothing reported." entryDate[114] = " 10/22/" + year entryContent[114] = "
1853-The English ship Western World grounded off Spring Lake, New Jersey, during a gale with about 600 persons on board. Everyone was rescued using equipment at the nearby station.
1960-Early in the morning, SS Alcoa Corsair and SS Lorenzo Marcello collided near the mouth of the Mississippi River. Although the Lorenzo Marcello suffered no casualties and proceeded to New Orleans, Alcoa Corsair had 8 fatalities, 9 injured, and 1 missing, besides being forced to beach because of severe damages. A Coast Guard helicopter removed 4 of the critically injured crewmen, while Coast Guard boats and other craft ferried the remaining ones ashore to waiting ambulances.
1962-Shortly after a Northwest Airlines DC-7 with 102 occupants ditched in the waters of Sitka Sound, Alaska, a Coast Guard amphibian sighted five life rafts. All on board survived, although three suffered minor injuries. A Federal Aviation Administration supply boat picked up the survivors, later transferring them to the CGC Sorrel, which took them to Sitka, Alaska." entryDate[115] = " 10/23/" + year entryContent[115] = "
1818-The RC Monroe captured the armed brig Columbia inside the Virginia Capes. Columbia had been "cut out" of a Venezuelan fleet by pirates." entryDate[116] = " 10/24/" + year entryContent[116] = "
Nothing reported." entryDate[117] = " 10/25/" + year entryContent[117] = "
1941-South Greenland Patrol expanded to include 3 cutters of the Northeast Greenland Patrol and form the Greenland Patrol.
1985-CGC Polar Sea arrived home to Seattle after a voyage through the Northwest Passage by way of the Panama Canal, the east coast, and then Greenland, sparking an international incident with Canada. She completed the first solo circumnavigation of the North American continent by a U.S. vessel and the first trip by a Polar-Class icebreaker. She also captured the record for the fastest transit of the historic northern route. She had departed Seattle to begin the voyage on 6 June 1985." entryDate[118] = " 10/26/" + year entryContent[118] = "
Nothing reported." entryDate[119] = " 10/27/" + year entryContent[119] = "
1997-The crew of the CGC Baranof confiscated two .50-caliber sniper rifles, ammunition and other military supplies that were allegedly to be used in an assassination attempt against Cuban President Fidel Castro. Four Cuban exiles were arrested for illegal possession of firearms after the 46-foot La Esperanza was ordered into Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, by the Baranof. There a search of the vessel turned up the weapons. One suspect confessed that the sniper rifles were to be used to assassinate Castro on his arrival on Venezuela's Margarita Island for the Ibero-American Summit Conference. A magistrate in the U.S. District Court in San Juan later dismissed the charge of conspiracy to assassinate Castro but let the charges of illegal importation of firearms and making false statements stand." entryDate[120] = " 10/28/" + year entryContent[120] = "
1919-Congress passed the National Prohibition Enforcement Act, otherwise known as the Volstead Act, on this date. The Volstead Act authorized the enforcement of the 18th Amendment, ratified on 29 January 1919. The Act authorized the Coast Guard to prevent the maritime importation of illegal alcohol. This led to the largest increase in the size and responsibilities of the service to that date.
1943-Choiseul, Treasury Islands landing (Coast Guard-manned LST-71 was in second echelon November 1, 1943).
1991-Thousands of Haitian migrants began fleeing their homeland after the overthrow of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, prompting one of the largest SAR operations in Coast Guard history. Cutters and aircraft from as far north as New England converged on the Windward Passage. In the first 30 days of the operation, Coast Guard forces rescued more than 6,300 men, women, and children who left Haiti in grossly overloaded and unseaworthy vessels. 75 Coast Guard units ultimately took part in the massive SAR operation and by the end of the year over 40,000 Haitian migrants were rescued." entryDate[121] = " 10/29/" + year entryContent[121] = "
1883-At a quarter before 4 o’clock In the morning the two surfmen on patrol from the Plum Island Station (Second District), below Newburyport, Massachusetts, discovered a vessel ashore on the south breaker at the entrance of Newburyport Harbor, about half a mile northeast of the station. A signal was made to her that she was seen and the men hurried to the station and gave the alarm. The boat reached her shortly after 4 o’clock. She was the schooner Forest Maid with a crew of seven men bound on a fishing cruise. While going out over the bar, the wind being light, she had been carried by the strong ebb tide on to the shoal. The first thing done by her crew was to let go an anchor to hold her, but finding she continued to drive farther on they veered away. They were disappointed, for she soon fetched up hard and fast with ninety fathoms of cable out. As the water was still falling nothing could be done until the flood tide. The life-saving crew remained on board and when the tide began to rise at 8 o’clock, commenced operations by heaving in on the cable, The wind freshened considerably while they were at work, raising quite a swell, which caused the schooner to pound heavily. They persevered, however, gaining a little every time she lifted on the seas, so that by 9 o’clock the schooner was safely afloat and on her way back into the harbor, apparently none the worse for the accident." entryDate[122] = " 10/30/" + year entryContent[122] = "
1956-CGC Chincoteague manning Ocean Station Delta in the North Atlantic, received a distress message that the German freighter Helgs Bolten was taking on water and wished to abandon ship as soon as possible. After reaching the scene some hours later, the cutter found that the high winds and 25-foot seas made it impossible to launch lifeboats. Two inflatable lifeboats, therefore, were passed by shot line to the freighter, and the 33 crewmen aboard were removed to the cutter unharmed. Chincoteague then stood by the drifting vessel for seven days, while commercial tugs made salvage attempts. All of the survivors returned on board the cutter to Norfolk, Virginia, while a tug towed Helg Bolten to the Azores.
1991-CGC Tamaroa attempted to rescue three persons on board the disabled sailing vessel Satori 75 miles south of Martha's Vineyard during a severe winter storm. Tamaroa launched an RHI which was damaged by the tossing Satori as it drew near the crippled sailing vessel. HH-3F CG-1493 hoisted the RHI's crew as well as the three on board Satori to safety. Tamaroa was then diverted to rescue the crew of a downed Air National Guard H-60. See 31 October entry below." entryDate[123] = " 10/31/" + year entryContent[123] = "
1904-Cape Elizabeth, Maine-The morning watch reported a dory adrift 2 miles off the station, and the crew put out in surfboat and towed It to shore.
1984-The tanker Puerto Rican exploded outside of San Francisco Bay. Coast Guard units responded.
1991-During an extremely severe winter storm, CGC Tamaroa rescued four of five Air National Guard crewmen from an H-60 that had ditched south of Long Island due to fuel exhaustion. The Tamaroa had been attempting to rescue three persons off the sailing vessel Satori (as had the ANG H-60) the previous day (see 30 October entry above) when she was diverted to assist the Air National Guard pararescuemen. The fifth pararescueman was never found. The Tamaroa was awarded the Coast Guard Unit Commendation for these rescue attempts and the events were chronicled in the best selling book and movie "The Perfect Storm."
1999-Egypt Air Flight 990 crashed about 60 miles southeast of Nantucket. Coast Guard units, including the CGCs Monomoy, Spencer, Reliance, Bainbridge Island, Juniper, Point Highland, Hammerhead, a HC-130 from Elizabeth City and an HH-60 from Air Station Cape Cod, searched unsuccessfully for any survivors. All 217 persons on board were killed in the crash. Coast Guard units then assisted in the recovery effort." entryDate[124] = " 11/01/" + year entryContent[124] = "
1843-Secretary of Treasury Spencer issued new "Rules and Regulations for the governing of the Revenue Cutter Service" centralizing control of cutters under Revenue Marine Bureau, but leaving superintendence and direction with Collectors of Customs.
1941-President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 8929 transferred the Coast Guard to the Navy Department.
1943-Coast Guard units participated in the landings on Bougainville, Solomon Islands.
1949-Authority to reestablish the Women’s Reserve of the Coast Guard Reserves (SPARS), approved by the President on 4 August 1949, became effective.
1984-The largest marijuana bust to date in West Coast history took place November 1 as the cutter Clover nabbed the 63-foot yacht Arrikis 150 miles southwest of San Diego. The yacht was loaded with 13 tons of marijuana." entryDate[125] = " 11/02/" + year entryContent[125] = "
1820-The Revenue cutter Louisiana captured five pirate vessels during a cruise from Florida to Cuba.
1881-A rowboat with two men and a young girl was going down the Manistee River towards the harbor capsized about a hundred feet abreast of Station No. 5, Eleventh District, Lake Michigan. One of the men swam to the dock and was helped out by the life-saving crew. The remaining man tried to swim with his daughter on his back. She began to struggle violently and dragged him under. The keeper pulled off his outer clothing, swam out, caught the father and daughter as they were sinking for the third time, and succeeded in bringing them to the dock where they were helped up by the rest of the crew." entryDate[126] = " 11/03/" + year entryContent[126] = "
1883-The keeper and crew of the Smith’s Island Station, Virginia (Fifth District), saw a small schooner flying a signal near Isaac Shoal, five miles away from the station. They went out to her and found on board the captain of a sloop that wrecked the night before several miles from land. He had succeeded in swimming to a bar near the beach, where he was picked up by the crew of the schooner. Finding him suffering from exposure they signaled for assistance. The lifesaving crew applied bottles of hot water and resuscitated him. They then landed him in the surfboat and cared for him for six days until he was sent to his home.
1997-The Coast Guard announced plans to disconnect 18 fog signals, including nine along Lake Michigan's eastern shore, leading to a large public outcry that led the service to reconsider its plans." entryDate[127] = " 11/04/" + year entryContent[127] = "
1984: The CGC Northwind seized the P/C Alexi I off Jamaica for carrying 20 tons of marijuana, becoming the first icebreaker to make a narcotics seizure." entryDate[128] = " 11/05/" + year entryContent[128] = "
1897-Rescue from drowning Chicago. Illinois, Lake Michigan. At 9: 30 p.m. the north patrol saw a man run across the driveway and jump into the lake with suicidal intent. The surf knocked him down and was tossing him about when surfmen rushed in and hauled him out.
2001-Six U.S. Navy Cyclone-Class patrol coastal warships were assigned to Operation Noble Eagle on 5 November 2001. This was the first time since World War II that U.S. Navy ships were employed jointly with the U.S. Coast Guard to help protect our nation's coastline, ports and waterways from terrorist attack." entryDate[129] = " 11/06/" + year entryContent[129] = "
1882-At half past 4 in the afternoon the lookout at Station No. 8, Tenth District (Forty Mile Point, Hammond’s Bay Lake Huron) discovered a small boat north of the station about six miles distant, drifting out into the lake apparently unmanageable. Two of the life-saving crew put off in a sailboat. The boat was reached at about dusk, some miles out from the land, with a man and a boy in it. Both were wet and nearly perished with the cold. Their boat was half full of water. They were at once transferred to the rescuing boat and their frail craft was taken in tow to the station.
1984-The Coast Guard accepted operational control from the Navy of the SES-200, a Surface Effect Ship, for five months of operational evaluations." entryDate[130] = " 11/07/" + year entryContent[130] = "
1950-The Coast Guard announced that it would open a limited number of Organized Reserve enlistments to male veterans of other services and to males without previous military service in an effort to bring Coast Guard port security training units up to authorized strength without delay. Heretofore, such enlistments had been offered only to former Coast Guardsmen.
1984-The tank ship Mara Hope suffered a fire in her engine room that quickly got out of control. She had lain idle at the Coastal Marine Shipyard on the Neches River for more than a year but the owners of the Liberian tank ship had crewed the vessel and were working to reactivate the ship when the fire broke out. Coast Guard personnel and a 32-footer from MSO Port Arthur soon arrived on-scene as did a 41-footer from Station Sabine. Local firefighters also assisted. It took almost three days to get the blaze under control. The ship was declared a total loss. There were no serious casualties." entryDate[131] = " 11/08/" + year entryContent[131] = "
1942-Landings made in Vichy-French-held North Africa by Allied forces. Coast Guard-manned vessels participated.
1959-The tanker Amoco Virginia, with a cargo of aviation gasoline, exploded and caught fire at Houston, Texas. US Coast Guard units in the Galveston-Houston area assisted local and Federal agencies in extinguishing the blaze. For 10 more days, Coast Guard air and surface units controlled a dangerous situation by spreading foam to reduce the fire hazard of leaking aviation gas, directing harbor traffic, pumping out the damaged vessel, and moving her to a safe dock.
1979-The crew of Coast Guard LORAN Station St. Paul Island, Alaska, rescued the crew of the Japanese factory fishing vessel Ryuyo Maru NR Two which had run aground near Tolstoi Point on St. Paul Island during a storm. The Coast Guardsmen used a makeshift breeches buoy to effect the rescue of all of the 81 crewmen aboard the fishing vessel." entryDate[132] = " 11/09/" + year entryContent[132] = "
1970-Installation of the Coast Guard’s Control Data Corporation 3300 Computer System at Headquarters was completed on 9 November. A period of system acceptance testing was satisfactorily completed and the computer system was then accepted for use by the Coast Guard." entryDate[133] = " 11/10/" + year entryContent[133] = "
1775-The Second Continental Congress passed a resolution to create a "Corps of Marines." Although they were disbanded in 1783 and were not "re-established" permanently until 11 July 1798, the Marine Corps recognizes 10 November 1775 as their official birthday. Happy Birthday Marine Corps! The Marine Corps' motto is Semper Fidelis (Always Faithful). The Corps takes the commemoration of their birthday seriously: On 21 October 1921, Major Edwin McClellan, Officer-in-Charge, Historical Section, Headquarters Marine Corps, sent a memorandum to Major General Commandant John A. Lejeune, suggesting that the original birthday on 10 November 1775 be declared a Marine Corps holiday to be celebrated throughout the Corps. McClellan further suggested that a dinner be held in Washington to commemorate the event. Guests would include prominent men from the Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Army, and Navy, and descendants of the Revolution. Accordingly, on 1 November 1921, General Lejeune issued Marine Corps Order No. 47, Series 1921. The order summarized the history, mission, and tradition of the Corps, and directed that it be read to every command on 10 November each subsequent year in honor of the birthday of the Marine Corps. To add to the confusion of the Corps' actual "historical" birthday, on 1 July 1797, Congress authorized the Revenue cutters to carry, in addition to their regular crew, up to "30 marines." Congress directed the cutters to interdict French privateers operating off the coast during the Quasi-War with France and thought the additional firepower of 30 marines would be needed by the under-manned and under-gunned cutters. It is not known if any "marines" were aboard cutters prior to July 1798.
1975-The Great Lakes ore-carrier Edmund Fitzgerald, caught in an unexpected storm on Lake Superior, sank with a loss of all 29 hands." entryDate[134] = " 11/11/" + year entryContent[134] = "
1881-The crew of Life-boat Station No. 14, Eleventh District (Racine, WI) rendered service during the severest storm of the season The life-saving crew noticed several vessels running north for safety under bare poles and two of them made safely into the harbor. Observing this, the master of the schooner Lavinda tried to make the same haven, but the vessel became unmanageable, struck the south pier, immediately became waterlogged, and in five minutes was a wreck. The life-saving crew sprang for the lifeboat and put out to her assistance. They got alongside and managed to run a line from the wrecked vessel to the station tug H. Wetzel, which had steamed out to her relief. The tug soon towed her into the harbor.
1918-The Allied powers signed a cease-fire agreement with Germany at Rethondes, France on November 11, 1918, bringing World War I to a close. Between the wars, November 11 was commemorated as Armistice Day in the United States, Great Britain, and France. After World War II, the holiday was recognized as a day of tribute to veterans of both world wars. Beginning in 1954, the United States designated November 11 as Veterans Day to honor veterans of all U.S. wars. Over 8,000 Coast Guardsmen served during the war and 111 were killed in action with the enemy.
1955-CGC Yocona, when 60 to 70 mph winds and heavy seas with 30 feet swells made it impossible to launch lifeboats some fifty miles off Cape Lookout Oregon, pulled alongside the sinking fishing vessel Ocean Pride, allowing its crew members to jump aboard the cutter to safety." entryDate[135] = " 11/12/" + year entryContent[135] = "
1882-On 11 November the steam-barge H.C. Schnoor struck on the bar off Alcona at 11 o’clock at night about three hundred yards from the shore. A strong southeast gale prevailed at the time, and there was a heavy sea. At 8 o’clock in the morning of the next day (November 12) a team came with the news from Alcona to Station No. 5, Tenth District, (Sturgeon Point), about four miles and a half from the scene of the disaster. After a half-hour for preparation, the keeper was on the road with two teams, one bearing the wreck ordnance and the other the surfboat. An hour later they arrived and launched the surfboat. The surf, however, was so heavy that they failed to get alongside the barge and they were obliged to return. The wreck-gun was then used. The gear, having been set up, the mate was brought ashore by the breeches-buoy. As the crew was obliged to work from a point of land so narrow that they could not spread sufficiently to keep the lines apart, they twisted. The heavy current caused the lee part of the whip-line to foul with the hawser. Before the lines could be cleared, however, the wind changed and beat down the sea. The surfboat was launched and took the captain (who had been on shore at Alcona) and the mate back to the barge. The immediate danger ended with the subsidence of the sea. The life-saving crew returned to the station." entryDate[136] = " 11/13/" + year entryContent[136] = "
1883-At 1 o’clock in the afternoon, the sloop Madge Schults , capsized as she was passing in through Rockaway Inlet, about half a mile distant from the Rockaway Point Station (Third District). The man clung to the bottom of his craft and made signals for help. They were quickly seen by the lookout at the station and the life-saving crew went off in their boat. He was taken from the water and landed on Barren Island.
1944-The Coast Guard-manned frigate USS Rockford, in concert with the Navy minesweeper USS Ardent, attacked and sank the Japanese Navy submarine I-12 mid-way between Hawaii and California. There were no survivors. In sinking I-12, Ardent and Rockford unwittingly avenged the atrocity I-12 had perpetrated on 30 October 1944 when, after sinking the Liberty Ship John A. Johnson, the submarine had rammed and sunk the lifeboats and rafts and its crew then machine-gunned the 70 survivors." entryDate[137] = " 11/14/" + year entryContent[137] = "
1963-CG air-surface rescue craft responded immediately when the freighter Fernview and the tanker Dynafuel collided in Buzzards Bay. While helicopters removed the injured aboard the stricken ships, surface craft extinguished the fires. These Coast Guard units had completed the evacuation of all aboard the disabled vessels before the Dynafuel capsized and sank.
1990-PSU 302, staffed by reservists from Cleveland, Ohio, arrived in the Persian Gulf in support of operation Desert Shield. They were stationed in Bahrain.
1991-An HH-60J Jayhawk from Aviation Training Center Mobile participated in a search and rescue operation off the coast of Alabama, the first such case conducted by an HH-60J, which was just beginning to enter Coast Guard service." entryDate[138] = " 11/15/" + year entryContent[138] = "
1848-Captain Alexander V. Fraser, appointed the first chief of Revenue Marine Bureau in 1843, was detached to proceed around Cape Horn to San Francisco with new brig Lawrence.
1860-The light in the massive stone Minots Ledge Lighthouse, which was built on the original site of the one lost in 1851, was exhibited. Work on the new lighthouse was commenced in 1855 and finished in 1860. "It ranks, by the engineering difficulties surrounding its erection and by the skill and science shown in the details of its construction, among the chief of the great sea-rock lighthouses of the world."
1977-UTB-41332 from Station Cape Disappointment sank in the Columbia River during a night training exercise, killing three Coast Guardsmen: BM3 Greg Morris, BM3 Ray Erb and SN Albin Erickson." entryDate[139] = " 11/16/" + year entryContent[139] = "
1950-A dedication of the monument erected in Arlington National Cemetery on the gravesite of those who lost their lives on the night of 29 January 1945, when USS Serpens was destroyed off Lunga Beach, Guadalcanal. This was the largest single disaster suffered by the Coast Guard in World War II.
1992: The CGC Storis became the cutter with the longest service in the Bering Sea, eclipsing the U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear which had held that distinction since 1929. The Bear was decommissioned in 1929 after serving in the Bering Sea for 44 years and two months." entryDate[140] = " 11/17/" + year entryContent[140] = "
1791-Secretary of Treasury Hamilton fixed value of rations at a "generous" 12 cents per day for each man in Revenue Marine.
1973-The "Largest Icebreaker in the Western World," CGC Polar Star, was launched.
1983-LT Edith Munro, USCGR, Douglas Munro's mother and SPAR veteran, passed away at the age of 88." entryDate[141] = " 11/18/" + year entryContent[141] = "
1953-Heavy rains in the Coquile, Coos, and Willamette River Valleys of western Oregon caused flooding of the lowland areas and isolation of some towns through the blocking of highways by slides and high water, necessitating the evacuation of families and livestock. A Coast Guard relief detail of boats, men, and aircraft participated in relief assistance measures, cooperating with the Red Cross and civil authorities.
1999-The 605-foot Russian freighter Sergo Zakariadze, loaded with a cargo of cement dust, ran aground at the entrance to San Juan harbor, Puerto Rico. Coast Guard Strike Team, MSO San Juan, Greater Antilles Section, among others, responded to the accident." entryDate[142] = " 11/19/" + year entryContent[142] = "
1943-CG Air Station at Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, New York, was designated as helicopter training base.
1984-The Coast Guard accepted the new HH-65A Dolphin helicopter for service." entryDate[143] = " 11/20/" + year entryContent[143] = "
1943-Landings made at Makin and Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands. The Coast Guard-manned assault transport USS Leonard Wood, veteran of the landings made in the Mediterranean, participated. She landed 1,788 officers and men of the 165th Combat Team of the U.S. Army's 27th Division, on Makin Island. Coast Guard-manned LST-20, LST-23, LST-69, LST-169, LST-205, and the USS Arthur Middleton, and the following Navy ships with partial Coast Guard crews: USSs Heywood, Bellatrix, and William P. Biddle, participated in the bloody assault of Tarawa." entryDate[144] = " 11/21/" + year entryContent[144] = "
1970-Two 378-foot cutters, CGC Sherman and Rush combined with USS Endurance to sink a North Vietnamese trawler attempting to smuggle arms into South Vietnam.
1995-The CGC Decisive located and began tracking a 75-foot freighter packed with Haitian migrants 30 miles off the northwest coast of Haiti on 19 November. The cutter followed the freighter for two days as it maneuvered in and out of Cuban territorial seas, refusing to allow a boarding party aboard. Finally, at noon, 21 November, with the CGC Northland having joined the chase, the captain of the freighter allowed a boarding team to come aboard where they discovered 516 migrants. Using small boats from both cutters, the migrants were brought aboard Northland and were repatriated." entryDate[145] = " 11/22/" + year entryContent[145] = "
1906-At the second International Radio Telegraphic Convention, which was held in Berlin, the attendees agreed to adopt the wireless signal "SOS" as the internationally recognized signal for distress at sea. Their thinking was that three dots, three dashes and three dots could not be misinterpreted.
1953-A great boon to ocean navigation for aircraft surface vessels was the completion of four new LORAN stations in the Far East. The stations were built at Mikayo Jima, Ryuku Islands; Bataan and Cantanduanes Islands, Philippines; and Anguar, Palau Island in the Carolinas chain. Now replaced by the more accurate LORAN-C network, these stations on sparsely-populated, remote and typhoon-battered islands.
1993-NATO began enforcing United Nations' Resolutions 713 and 757 that set in place an embargo against the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro). Four Coast Guard LEDETs were deployed to Southern Europe to support the operation and were placed aboard 11 NATO warships." entryDate[146] = " 11/23/" + year entryContent[146] = "
1942-The Coast Guard Women's Reserve, otherwise known as SPARs, was organized.
1970-Simas I. Kudirka, a Soviet fisherman, attempted to defect from his Soviet fishing vessel to the CGC Vigilant, during a meeting between the Soviets and the U.S. on fishing rights. The cutter's commanding officer allowed other Soviet crewmen to board the cutter and forcibly remove him." entryDate[147] = " 11/24/" + year entryContent[147] = "
Nothing reported." entryDate[148] = " 11/25/" + year entryContent[148] = "
1968-M/V Triple Crown foundered off the coast of Southern California with a loss of nine lives while retrieving the anchor and chain of a large offshore drilling rig. At the time of the casualty Triple Crown had eight anchors and 26,000 feet of chain on board, the weight of which caused a low freeboard aft. Three-to five waves washed over the stern and entered a stackhouse door that could not be closed due to the location of one anchor on deck. The engine flooded, the vessel listed to starboard and sank. The Coast Guard investigated.
1999-Elian Gonzalez, a 5-year old Cuban boy, was found on Thanksgiving morning clinging to an inner tube three miles off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He was among three survivors of a boating catastrophe which killed 11 migrants fleeing Cuba. The Coast Guard searched from Islamorada to Boca Raton, using a HU-25 and a HH-65 from Air Station Miami, a HC-130 from Air Station Clearwater, the CGC Maui, and a 41-foot UTB from Station Fort Lauderdale. The child later gained international notoriety when his father, a Cuban citizen, attempted to have him returned to Cuba, a desire that Elian's relatives in the U.S. fought through the U.S. court system all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court ruled in his father's favor and the child was returned to Cuba." entryDate[149] = " 11/26/" + year entryContent[149] = "
1968-While en route from Apia, Western Samoa to Pago Pago, Polynesian Airlines Flight 5WFAA sighted the wreckage of an overturned vessel and reported it to the Federal Aviation Agency Flight Service at Tafuna, American Samoa. CGC Cape Providence, moored at Pago Pago on search and rescue standby, was notified of the sighting. With an assist from the Polynesian airliner, the cutter located the disabled fishing vessel named Main Sun No.2 and found 17 survivors clinging to the overturned hull. Despite the rough seas breaking over the hull, the Cape Providence rescued 13 of the survivors, while 4 more were retrieved from the water by the fishing vessel Chie Hong No.20, which had arrived on scene to assist. Two members of the 19-man crew, however, had been trapped in the engine room on the capsized vessel and had perished.
1996-A Coast Guard HC-130 located a grossly overloaded Haitian freighter off the coast of Haiti. Crewmen from the cutters Dauntless, Chandelier, Monhegan, and Nantucket helped to transfer the largest group of Haitians ever found on a vessel to the CGC Northland. One Haitian died of severe dehydration, the other 581 were repatriated.
1997-Two crewmen died when the Japanese freighter Kuroshima ran aground in a storm near Dutch Harbor. Eighteen other crewmen were rescued by Coast Guardsmen who used a tow rope to haul a life raft to safety. The Coast Guardsmen were from the CGC Midgett that was fortuitously in Dutch Harbor for a mid-patrol break. The freighter was later refloated.
2002-President George W. Bush signed into law a bill that created the Department of Homeland Security, the largest reorganization of the federal government in fifty years. The Coast Guard was one of a number of agencies that transferred to the new Department; the transfer was scheduled to go into effect on 1 March 2003." entryDate[150] = " 11/27/" + year entryContent[150] = "
1883-The schooner Maggie W. Willard with a crew of five men struck on Sea Horse Rock about two miles west of the Crumple Island Station (First District) on the coast of Maine at 1 o’clock in the afternoon. She was discovered by the station crew, who offered assistance. Finding the vessel in a very dangerous position and leaking the crew’s effects were saved and they were taken to the station. All efforts to get the vessel off failed. That night the schooner drove over the reef and sunk in deep water, becoming a total loss." entryDate[151] = " 11/28/" + year entryContent[151] = "
1889-The crew of the Evanston, IL, Life-Saving Station earned the Gold Lifesaving Medal for the rescue of the crew of the steamer Calumet. Most of the crew consisted of students from Northwestern University." entryDate[152] = " 11/29/" + year entryContent[152] = "
1808-Secretary of Treasury Gallatin requested 12 new cutters at a cost of $120,000 to enforce "laws which prohibit exportation and restrain importations" to support the embargo ordered by President Thomas Jefferson. President Jefferson had ordered an embargo against most European imports and exports to protest the harassment of U.S. sailors by warring European powers. The embargo did not work. The United States went to war with England in 1812 but Revenue Cutter Service got the ships.
1877-The first annual report of the U.S. Lifesaving Service was submitted in published form to the Secretary of the Treasury.
1969-The German freighter Nordmeer ran aground on the Thunder Bay Shoal in Lake Huron. Most of her crew safely evacuated to a nearby ship but eight crewmen remained on board to attempt to save their vessel. The weather quickly deteriorated, however, and they radioed for assistance. A Coast Guard helicopter and the icebreaker Mackinaw responded and safely evacuated the eight men while the freighter broke up." entryDate[153] = " 11/30/" + year entryContent[153] = "
1837-Two early complainants on the efficiency of the American lighthouses, E. and G.W. Blunt, publishers of Blunt’s "Coast Pilot," submitted a statement to the Secretary of the Treasury. They argued that "the whole lighthouse system needs revision, a strict superintendence and an entirely different plan of operation."
1920-The Navy minesweeper USS Swan ran aground on Duxbury Beach, MA. Coast Guardsmen from three nearby stations rescued the minesweeper's crew with a breeches buoy. The CGC Androscoggin assisted in the rescue." entryDate[154] = " 12/01/" + year entryContent[154] = "
1844-Captain Alexander Fraser of Revenue Marine Bureau reported to Congress on the failure of the service's first steam cutters Spencer and Legare.
1944-Office of Air-Sea Rescue set up in the Coast Guard. The Secretary of the Navy at the request of the Joint Chiefs of Staff early in 1944 established the Air-Sea Rescue Agency, an inter-department and inter-agency body, for study and improvement of rescue work with the Commandant of Coast Guard as head." entryDate[155] = " 12/02/" + year entryContent[155] = "
1883-The schooner Champion with a crew of two men stranded on Dick’s Flat, Plymouth Harbor, near Duxbury Pier lighthouse, at about 6 am. The shoal where she struck was about three miles west-southwest of the Gurnet Point Station (Second District), and the crew of the station were not sure she was aground until about 10 o’clock. The life-saving crew therefore arrived on board a little before 2 o’clock in the afternoon. They found one of the men, the captain, at the pumps and the other bailing from the hatch. The vessel was leaking badly. The two men on board were wet, cold, and very glad of the assistance of the life-saving crew. The keeper, at the captain’s request, took charge. The pumps were manned while another gang went to work bailing. When she began to right with the incoming tide, they shifted the booms over and canted her the other way, so as to bring the leaky seams out of the water to chinse them with oakum and nail canvas over all to stop the leaks. After doing this and getting most of the water out, they carried out an anchor into the channel, set all sail and by heaving hard on the hawser, they brought her on an even keel. She was hauled off the shoal at about 4 o’clock and got safely under way. As the weather looked bad, the captain concluded to remain in port for the night and accordingly anchored." entryDate[156] = " 12/03/" + year entryContent[156] = "
1852-Georgia grounded in a gale off Bonds, New Jersey with 290 persons on board. The life car was used to save them and all survived.
1883-The schooner Pallas with a crew of three men encountered strong head winds and heavy seas off Cape Cod, MA. About half past 5 in the morning, abreast of Nausett lights, she sprung a leak and became unmanageable. Being close to the breakers, the crew was fearful they would be washed overboard as soon as she struck and took to their boat. Fortunately, they were discovered by the Nausett Station keeper, pulling vigorously to keep away from the surf. The surfboat was launched and the three men rescued. They were brought ashore by the life-saving crew, though not without a thorough drenching because the station boat was nearly swamped on the bar. The schooner meanwhile drifted into the surf, three quarters of a mile north of the station and soon broke up.
1982-MSO St. Louis took charge of the response when the Mississippi, Missouri, and Illinois rivers flooded their banks. In all over 100 Coast Guardsmen took part in the relief efforts that covered an eight-state area.
2001-Coast Guard forces, including the cutters Chandeleur and Farallon as well as aircraft from Air Station Miami and boat crews from Station Miami Beach rescued 185 Haitian migrants from the grossly overloaded 31-foot sailboat Simapvivsetz off Old Rhodes Key, Florida." entryDate[157] = " 12/04/" + year entryContent[157] = "
1989: The cutter Mesquite ran aground near Keweenaw Point in Lake Superior. She was deemed damaged beyond repair and was sunk as an artificial reef. There was no loss of life." entryDate[158] = " 12/05/" + year entryContent[158] = "
1933-The ratification of the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that repealed the 18th Amendment, thereby ending Prohibition, occurred on this date." entryDate[159] = " 12/06/" + year entryContent[159] = "
1917-The French freighter Mont Blanc, loaded with 5,000 tons of high explosives, collided with the Norwegian steamer Imo in the harbor of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The resulting fire detonated the munitions, killing 1,635 people and leveling much of Halifax and its environs. Coast Guardsmen from the CGC Morrill were landed to provide assistance. This disaster led to the creation of captains of the ports for the major U.S. ports. The Coast Guard was tasked with the new duty.
1944-Coast Guardsmen participated in the landings at Ormoc, Philippine Islands.
1946-The number of Coast Guardsmen on active duty had been dropped to 22,156 in order to meet budgetary requirements. Many lifeboat stations had to be placed in a limited caretaker or inactive status and some vessels tied up because they lacked complements .
1953-Coast Guard search and rescue facilities at the Naval Base in Bermuda were instrumental in rescuing four survivors and recovering 17 bodies from the Cuban aircraft Cubana 471, which crashed on take-off from the airport at Kindley Field, Bermuda.
1999-The cutter Munro intercepted the vessel Wing Fung Lung, a vessel loaded with more than 250 Chinese migrants headed for the Guatemala/El Salvador border. After refusing permission to board, the Munro tracked the vessel for three days when lookouts spotted flares over the ship. When the Munro's small boat approached, panicked migrants began jumping into the water. They were pulled to safety and returned to the Wing Fun Lung while boarding parties finally went aboard the crowded vessel. Someone apparently tried to scuttle the vessel and the boarding teams were able to stop the flooding and dewater the engine room. The threat to the Munro crewmen on the vessel was made worse because the migrants had not been fed or had water for more than a day. They were at the point of total rebellion, according to the Munro's boarding team members. Other boarding teams from the CGC Hamilton then arrived and helped to control the situation. The vessel was finally taken into Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala, where the migrants were taken into custody by INS agents. The master of the vessel was arrested." entryDate[160] = " 12/07/" + year entryContent[160] = "
1793-The first Revenue Cutter Service court martial occurred on this date aboard the cutter Massachusetts. The offender, Third Mate Sylvanus Coleman of Nantucket, was summarily dismissed from the service for "speaking disrespectfully of his superior officers in public company. . . .insulting Captain John Foster Williams [the commanding officer] on board, and before company. . . .for keeping bad women on board the cutter in Boston and setting a bad example to the men by ordering them to bring the women on board at night and carrying them ashore in the morning. . . ." and for writing an order in the name of the commanding officer.
1830-President Andrew Jackson announced an ambitious plan to add a large number of lighthouses to the federal system, with a total of 51 more lighthouse keepers. In explanation, he supported the practice of offsetting the costs of keeping aids to navigation on the coasts, lakes and harbors "to render the navigation thereof safe and easy" since "whatever gives facility and security to navigation cheapens imports; and all who consume them are alike interested in whatever produces this effect. The consumer in the most inland State derives the same advantage . . . that he does who lives in a maritime State."
1941-The Imperial Japanese Navy launched a surprise aerial attack on Pearl Harbor and surrounding Army Air Force airfields in Hawaii. Stationed in Honolulu were the 327-foot cutter Taney, the 190-foot buoy tender Kukui, two 125-foot patrol craft, Reliance and Tiger, two 78-foot patrol boats and several smaller craft. At the time of the attack, Taney lay at pier six in Honolulu Harbor, Reliance and the unarmed Kukui both lay at pier four and Tiger was on patrol along the western shore of Oahu. All were performing the normal duties for a peacetime Sunday. Tiger conducted anti-submarine sweeps outside of Pearl Harbor and Taney opened fire on Japanese aircraft that appeared over Honolulu Harbor during the attack.
1968-The cutter White Alder sank after colliding with the M/V Helena near White Castle, Louisiana. Seventeen Coast Guard personnel were killed.
1988-The Coast Guard hosted an international summit between Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, President Ronald Reagan, and President-elect and then-Vice President George H. W. Bush on Governors Island on 7 December 1988 after Gorbachev had addressed the United Nations. In planning his trip to the UN, Gorbachev requested a meeting with Reagan. Reagan was in final weeks of his presidential term and his advisors felt it important that the visit remain low profile, so a large-scale summit or state visit to the White House was not in the cards. Yet, a short and informal meeting between the heads of state and newly elected President George Bush was possible. The White House selected the Coast Guard base at Governors Island as a meeting site since it was a secure military installation in the middle of New York harbor and just minutes away from the United Nations. The leaders met for lunch at the LANTAREA commander's [VADM James Irwin] home. The summit was characterized as "just a luncheon" and the meeting was the last time President Reagan and Gorbachev would meet during Reagan's remaining term." entryDate[161] = " 12/08/" + year entryContent[161] = "
1904-An Executive Order extended the jurisdiction of the Lighthouse Service to the noncontiguous territory of the Midway Islands.
1941-Coast Guardsmen seized all nine Finnish vessels that were currently in U.S. ports and placed them in "protective custody" to "prevent the commission of any acts of sabotage" on orders from the Navy Department. Twenty-four hours later the Coast Guard removed the crews from each of the vessels. This action was ordered soon after the break in diplomatic relations between Great Britain and Finland. The following Finish vessels were seized: SS Olivia, at Boston, Massachusetts; SS Kurikka, SS Jourtanes, and SS Saimaa at New York, New York; SS Advance, at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; SS Aagot and SS Marisa Thorden at Baltimore; SS Aurora, at Newport News, Virginia; and SS Delaware, at Galveston, Texas.
1983-Four cutters arrived off of the island of Grenada to replace U.S. Navy surface forces conducting surveillance operations after the U.S. invaded the island earlier that year. The cutters involved were the Cape Gull, Cape Fox, Cape Shoalwater, and the Sagebrush.
2004-The 738-foot freighter Selendang Ayu grounded and broke in two December 8, 2004, offshore of Spray Cape, Unalaska. A Coast Guard HH-60J crashed after rescuing seven of the freighter's crew; a helicopter from the CGC Alex Haley rescued the survivors, including all of the Coast Guard personnel. The Alex Haley then rescued the remaining crewmen still aboard the freighter. The vessel was carrying soybeans and approximately 470,000 gallons of fuel oil (IFO380), of which roughly 144,000 gallons were removed during lightering operations in January and February of 2005. Click here for more information." entryDate[162] = " 12/09/" + year entryContent[162] = "
1899-A Treasury Order entrusted the Bureau of Navigation "with the duty of examining and disposing of petitions for the remission of fines, penalties, and forfeitures under the laws relating to navigation, vessels, steamboat-inspection, and passengers."
1959-At the request of the Russian Embassy, the crew of a US Coast Guard UF-1 amphibious aircraft removed an ill Russian seaman from the merchant ship Jana in the Bering Sea. The plane, with an interpreter and a doctor aboard, landed in a blinding snow storm at Dutch Harbor, where the patient was transferred to a hospital.
1981-The icebreaker CGC Westwind departed her homeport of Milwaukee for the Caribbean. She was assigned to relieve a high-endurance cutter on a counter-drug patrol.
1996-Two Coast Guard HH-60 helicopters with support from an HC-130, all from AIRSTA Elizabeth City, rescued the seven crewmembers of the 67-year old schooner Alexandria when she went down in a fierce storm 50 miles southwest of Cape Hatteras." entryDate[163] = " 12/10/" + year entryContent[163] = "
1905-"To evaluate its use in lighthouse work, radio equipment was installed experimentally on Nantucket Lightship in August of 1901. On December 10, 1905, while riding out a severe gale, Lightship No. 58 on the Nantucket Shoals Station sprang a serious leak. There being no recognized radio distress signal at that time, the operator could only repeatedly spell out the word "help". Although no reply was received Newport Navy station (radio) intercepted the call and passed it on to the proper authorities. The lightship tender Azalea was dispatched to the assistance of Lightship No. 58, and upon arrival at the scene passed a towline. The long tow to a safe harbor began, but after a few hours it was quite evident that Lightship No. 58 was sinking. Azalea took off her crew of thirteen men only minutes before she sank. This pioneer use of radio had indeed proved Its worth in rescue operations."
1941-Germany and Italy declared war on the United States.
1981-A Coast Guard HH-52A landed on CGC Dependable's flight deck, marking the 5,000th helicopter landing on board the ship. According to AVTRACEN records, this was the most helicopter landings ever recorded aboard a cutter. The landing occurred off Dauphin Island in the Gulf of Mexico.
1993-Secretary of Transportation Andrew H. Card, Jr., awarded the military members of the Coast Guard the Humanitarian Service Medal and the civilian employees the Coast Guard Public Service Commendation for their services during the Haitian migrant crisis from October 1991 through November 1992. During that period, a flotilla of over 27 Coast Guard cutters rescued 35,000 Haitian migrants from hundreds of overcrowded and unseaworthy vessels.
1994-Due to budget constraints and White House efforts to "streamline" government operations, ADM J. William Kime, Commandant, issued an ALCOAST that announced an involuntary performance-based reduction-in-force of the active-duty enlisted work force in an effort to reduce the size of the enlisted force of the service." entryDate[164] = " 12/11/" + year entryContent[164] = "
1881-Six men landed from a boat on Race Point, Cape Cod, and were soon after found, wet, chilled through, and much exhausted, by the patrolman from Station No. 6, Second District. He learned that they were the captain and crew of the Canadian schooner J .A. Hatfield that had been sunk in a collision with an unknown bark the night previous. The patrolman conducted them to the light keeper's dwelling nearby." entryDate[165] = " 12/12/" + year entryContent[165] = "
1876-First examination for Revenue Cutter cadets held in Washington, D.C.
1995-The CGC Munro responded to a mayday from the Greek-registered 798-foot container ship Hyundai Seattle approximately 550 nautical miles south of Adak, Alaska. The freighter reported an engine room fire that left the ship dead in the water. The cutter rescued all 27 crewmen before the freighter sank." entryDate[166] = " 12/13/" + year entryContent[166] = "
Nothing reported." entryDate[167] = " 12/14/" + year entryContent[167] = "
1846-Revenue Captain Alexander Fraser protested in a report to Congress against "unjust imputations" made against the Service for its involvement in the failure of the first steam cutters. He also requested the authority to employ medical aid on cutters and to provide pensions for personnel disabled in service.
1854-Congress authorized appointment of first lifeboat station keepers at $200 per year each and superintendents for Long Island and New Jersey serving under Secretary of Treasury who "may also establish such stations at such lighthouses, as, in his judgment, he shall deem best."
1996: The 735-foot M/V Bright Field collided with the New Orleans Riverwalk, causing substantial damage and injuring over 100 people." entryDate[168] = " 12/15/" + year entryContent[168] = "
1835-The superintendent of the lighthouse system wrote to Winslow Lewis, "I perceive by a Mobile paper which I received this morning that the Mobile Point light has been fitted by you as a revolving light" similar to the nearby Pensacola lighthouse. "I am very sorry that you have don so." Lewis was a contractor who--almost by himself--virtually controlled the administration of the lighthouse system. The incident helped cause a Congressional investigation that ultimately created a modern lighthouse system in this country.
1839-Near Gloucester, Massachusetts, a storm from the southeast caught and dragged ashore or drove to sea over fifty vessels. An eyewitness wrote: "From one of the beach to the other, nothing could be seen but pieces of broken wrecks; planks and spars...ropes and sails...flour, fish, lumber...soaked and broken..." The local fishermen manned two boats, the Custom House boat and the newly launched Revenue Cutter Van Buren and "fearlessly risked their lives for the safety of their fellow creatures" and brought many safely to shore.
1943-Coast Guardsmen participated in the landings made on Arawe Peninsula, New Britain.
1944-Coast Guardsmen participated in the landings made on Mindoro, Philippine Islands.
1976: The Liberian-flagged 644-foot tanker Argo Merchant, with 7.5 million gallons of oil on board, grounded on a shoal 28 miles southeast of Nantucket. Coast Guard helicopters from AIRSTA Cape Cod rescued her 38-man crew. The cutters Sherman and Vigilant responded, along with other vessels, but heavy weather prevented the containment of the spill. The tanker broke in two on 21 December." entryDate[169] = " 12/16/" + year entryContent[169] = "
1831-Secretary of Treasury John McLane ordered Revenue cutters to conduct "winter cruises." The USRC Gallatin became the first cutter "directly authorized by the government to assist mariners in distress."
1960-A United Airlines DC-8 with 83 passengers on board collided with a TWA Super Constellation carrying 42 in the New York City area. Coast Guard helicopters, working with the aircraft of the Army, Navy and New York Police Department, transported the injured passengers from the Constellation's wreck on Staten Island to a nearby hospital. Coast Guard vessels also searched the New York harbor area. The debris they picked up was used by the Civil Aeronautics Board in its determination of the cause of the mishap." entryDate[170] = " 12/17/" + year entryContent[170] = "
1897-The Overland Expedition, consisting of three officers from the Revenue Cutter Service, departed from the cutter Bear off Nunivak Island to rescue 300 whalers trapped in the ice at Point Barrow, Alaska. The rescuers were First Lieutenant D. H. Jarvis, Second Lieutenant E. P. Bertholf (later a commandant), and Surgeon S. J. Call. The rescuers had to travel over 1,000 miles overland to reach the whalers.
1903-Life-Saving Service personnel from Kill Devil Hills Life-Saving Station helped carry materials to the launch site for the first successful heavier-than-air aircraft flight by the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina and then assisted the brothers in their flights that day. The life-savers were John T. Daniels, W.S. Dough and A.D. Etheridge.
1942-CGC Natsek, part of the Greenland Patrol, disappeared in Belle Isle Strait. There were no survivors. It was thought that she capsized due to severe icing.
1942-The Navy credited the CGC Ingham with attacking and sinking the submerged U-boat U-626 south of Greenland.
1951-President Harry Truman presented the Collier Trophy to the Coast Guard, the Department of Defense and the "helicopter industry" in a joint award, citing "outstanding development and use of rotary-winged aircraft for air rescue operations." Coast Guard Commandant VADM Merlin O'Neill accepted the trophy for the Coast Guard." entryDate[171] = " 12/18/" + year entryContent[171] = "
1912-The premier issue of The Lighthouse Service Bulletin (January, 1912), described an incident on board the lighthouse tender Amaranth in connection with a Pintsch gas buoy. According to the documentation: “On the morning of the 18th of December [1910], at the Detroit lighthouse depot, eleventh district, during a pressure test of the B III type Pintsch gas buoy, the buoy blew up, and John A. Dunbar, machinist attached to the tender Amaranth, was killed. The test was made with Pintsch gas at a pressure of 18 atmospheres (approx. 270 pounds), and the buoy exploded as Mr. Dunbar closed the valve, the compressor having been shut down about five minutes before the accident. The top of the buoy separated from the barrel portion of the buoy at or near the weld, taking the cage work with it. The cage carried away the mainmast of the Amaranth and fell to the dock. The cone landed on and broke through the roof of the lamp shop some distance away. The barrel portion of the buoy and counterweight went through the dock. Paragraph: ‘Test of gas buoys and tanks,’ page 34 of the Regulations of the United States Lighthouse Service [sic], provides for the test of buoys by hydrostatic pressure and not by gas or air. The bureau regrets the loss in the line of duty of an efficient and conscientious employee. This is the first buoy accident of this character in the United States Lighthouse Service.”" entryDate[172] = " 12/19/" + year entryContent[172] = "
1881-While the head keeper and six men of his crew were conducting drills away from their Gurnet Point, Massachusetts, Life-Saving Station, the surfman who remained in charge at the station saw a schooner standing inside of Brown’s Island Shoals. He realized that unless the vessel was warned she would go aground. So he rowed out to the schooner in a small boat and piloted her clear. She proved to be the schooner Milton and had mistaken the channel entrance to Plymouth Harbor." entryDate[173] = " 12/20/" + year entryContent[173] = "
1943-CGC Bodega grounded off the Canal Zone. No lives were lost.
1991-On 20 December 1991, the United Nations adopted General Assembly Resolutions (UNGAs) 44-225, 45-197, and 46-215, thereby establishing a worldwide moratorium on all high seas drift net fishing that was to be in effect by 31 December 1992." entryDate[174] = " 12/21/" + year entryContent[174] = "
1936-Ice breaking by the Coast Guard was authorized by Executive Order No. 7521.
1960-The tanker Pine Ridge, with 37 crewmen on board, reported it was breaking in two about 120 miles off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Immediately, the Coast Guard dispatched aircraft and vessels to the scene and alerted nearby US Navy and merchant vessels. After the arrival of a Coast Guard UF-2G amphibian aircraft, the bow section of the Pine Ridge capsized, throwing some members of the crew overboard; the stern section, however, remained afloat and upright. Mountainous seas rebuffed every attempt of the tanker Artemis to rescue the seamen in the water. Life rafts and emergency equipment, meanwhile, were airdropped, and the helicopters from the aircraft carrier Valley Forge successfully removed the 28 survivors from the still floating stern section. Of the bow section and the 9 missing crewmen, only debris and lifejackets were found, despite a widespread air and surface search." entryDate[175] = " 12/22/" + year entryContent[175] = "
1819-The Revenue cutter Dallas seized a vessel laden with lumber that had been unlawfully cut from public land in one of the first recorded instance of a revenue cutter enforcing an environmental law.
1837-Congress authorized President "to cause any suitable number of public vessels, adapted to the purpose, to cruise upon the coast, in the severe portion of the season, and to afford aid to distressed navigators." First statute authorizing activities in the field of maritime safety. Thus interjecting the national government into the field of lifesaving for the first time. Although revenue cutters were specifically mentioned, the performance of this duty was imposed primarily upon the Revenue Marine Service and quickly became one of its major activities." entryDate[176] = " 12/23/" + year entryContent[176] = "
1904-Near Oak Island and Fire Island, New York the American schooner Frank W. McCullough ran aground on Fire Island Bar, 2 miles from the former station and 4 from the latter, at about 9 am. The Oak Island crew reached the vessel at 10:30 am and the Fire Island crew a half hour later. They found her pounding heavily and leaking badly. They manned the pumps and assisted the crew in throwing overboard the cargo of lumber; but on the flood tide the sea began to break over the wreck and the were obliged to give up for fear of being washed overboard. The Fire Island surfboat filled in the seaway and foundered. At midnight the sea moderated and all hands, 14 surfmen and 5 of schooner crew, abandoned the wreck in the Oak Island surfboat and at 2 a.m. reached the shore. The vessel was lost." entryDate[177] = " 12/24/" + year entryContent[177] = "
1955-Being the first rescue unit to reach the flood disaster scene in northern California, a Coast Guard helicopter hoisted 138 persons to safety within 12 hours. The first 58 were made possible because of a light of a small handheld searchlight from positions of peril among chimneys, television antennas, and trees. In all, the Coast Guard assisted Federal, state, and local agencies in saving over 500 persons by helicopters and boats." entryDate[178] = " 12/25/" + year entryContent[178] = "
1944-Palompon, Leyte, Philippine Islands occupied.
1999-Coast Guard helicopters from AIRSTA Barbers Point rescued balloonists Richard Branson, a British billionaire, American millionaire Steve Fossett, and Per Lindstrand when bad weather forced them to ditch their balloon off Hawaii during their attempt to be the first balloonists to circle the globe." entryDate[179] = " 12/26/" + year entryContent[179] = "
1943-Landings at Cape Gloucester was conducted with Coast Guard-manned LST’s 18, 22, 66, 67, 68, 168, 202, 204, and 206. The LST-22 shot down a Japanese "Val" dive bomber while LST-66 was officially credited with downing three enemy aircraft. Two of her crew were killed by near misses. LST-67 brought down one Japanese dive bomber while LST-204 shot down two and the gunners aboard LST-68 claimed another. The LST-202 claimed three enemy planes shot down.
2004-Following a 9.0 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, a massive tsunami and tremors struck Indonesia and southern Thailand on 26th December 2004, killing over 104,000 people in Indonesia and over 5,000 in Thailand. The CGC Munro, deployed as part of Expeditionary Strike Group 5 (ESG-5), along with the other units in the Group, responded. The cutter shuttled more than 80 tons of humanitarian relief supplies from Singapore to the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6), also part of ESG-5, for distribution to the victims of the tsunami. Click here for more information." entryDate[180] = " 12/27/" + year entryContent[180] = "
1968-In October 1968, the United States Air Force requested additional LORAN-C coverage in Southeast Asia and by 27 December 1968 the Coast Guard had received authorization to proceed with the project. This led to the construction of a number of LORAN sites in the area, including South Vietnam, in an operation code-named Tight Reign." entryDate[181] = " 12/28/" + year entryContent[181] = "
1835-The "Dade Battle" occurred when Seminole Indians ambushed and killed Major Francis Langhorne Dade and his Army command while they were on the march on Fort King Road from Fort Brooke to reinforce the troops at Fort King (Ocala). This battle was the immediate cause of the Second Seminole War, a war in which the Revenue Cutter Service played an important role.
1857-The light was first illuminated in the Cape Flattery Lighthouse, located on Tatoosh Island at the entrance to the Straits of Juan de Fuca, Washington. "Because of Indian trouble it was necessary to build a blockhouse on Tatoosh Island before even commencing the construction of the lighthouse. Twenty muskets were stored in the blockhouse, and then the lighthouse work began."
1903-An Executive Order extended the jurisdiction of the Lighthouse Service to the non-contiguous territory of the Hawaiian Islands." entryDate[182] = " 12/29/" + year entryContent[182] = "
1897-Congress prohibited the killing of fur seals in the waters of the North Pacific Ocean.
1903-An Executive Order extended the jurisdiction of the Lighthouse Service to Guantanamo, Cuba.
1999-The 578-foot cargo vessel Violetta caught fire in the Houston ship channel. Twenty-three of her crew were rescued. The CGC Point Spencer spent several days fighting the fire on board the vessel." entryDate[183] = " 12/30/" + year entryContent[183] = "
1876-The British ship Circassian was destroyed off Bridgehampton, Long Island, following a successful rescue of 49 persons on December 11 by the Life-Saving Service. During later salvage operations in a storm the ship drifted out of the sand, resulting in the loss of 28 of its salvage crew including 12 Shinnecock Indians.
1944-Coast Guard-manned USS FS-367 rescued survivors from USS Maripopsa at San Jose, Mindoro, Philippine Islands.
1958-The 590-foot tanker African Queen ran aground and split in two 10 miles off Ocean City, Maryland. Within two hours 15 helicopters from the nearby Coast Guard, Navy and Marine Corps bases evacuated all 47 crewmen successfully. The Coast Guard Rescue Coordination Center at New York coordinated the operations.
1997-The 493-foot freighter Merchant Patriot began taking on water in stormy seas. Coast Guard air assets from AIRSTA Clearwater arrived on scene and, along with Air Force units, rescued the ship's captain and her 27 crewmen. The vessel, however, remained afloat and was later towed to Freeport, Bahamas." entryDate[184] = " 12/31/" + year entryContent[184] = "
1881-At 4 a.m. the patrolman from Station No. 34, Fourth District, New Jersey, discovered a vessel ashore on the south bar at Townsend’s Inlet, NJ about three miles south of the station and a mile offshore. He reported at the station at once and the vessel was boarded by the life-saving crew within an hour and a half. She proved to be the schooner Joseph F. Baker with a crew of eight persons. After endeavoring to work the vessel off with her sails, the keeper made preparations to run an anchor and heave her off. By this time a wrecking vessel came alongside, and her captain arranged with the master of Baker to take his vessel off. The life-saving crew, which had meantime been joined by the keepers of Station 33 and 35, finding they could be of no further service, left the vessel, taking ashore dispatches for the captain. A steamer towed the vessel off the bar.
1952-Sinbad, the canine-mascot of the cutter Campbell during World War II, passed away at his last duty station, the Barnegat Lifeboat Station, at the ripe old age of 15. He served on board the cutter throughout World War II and earned his way into Coast Guard legend with his shipboard and liberty antics. To date he is the most decorated mascot to have ever served in the Coast Guard.
1981-The 14 remaining LORAN-A stations closed down at midnight, ending Loran-A coverage, which began during World War II.
1985-Vice President George Bush paid an official visit to the officers and crew of the CGC Steadfast while the cutter was in Nassau, Bahamas. Accompanied by RADM Richard P. Cueroni, commander, 7th District and various other U.S. and Bahamian officials, the vice president officiated at an awards and wreath-laying ceremony in honor of the National Narcotics Border Interdiction System and the joint U.S. Bahamian operations." if (typeof display == "undefined") { var display = "date" } if (display == "random") { var randomNumber = Math.random() randomNumber *= varLength randomNumber = parseInt(randomNumber) if(isNaN(randomNumber)) randomNumber = 0 else randomNumber %= varLength selectedContent = entryContent[randomNumber] } else { for (x=0; x<(entryContent.length); x++) { tempDate = new Date(entryDate[x]) tempContent = entryContent[x] if ((tempDate <= today) && (tempDate > selectedDate)) { selectedContent = tempContent selectDate = tempDate } } } document.write (selectedContent)