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U. S. COAST GUARD AUXILIARY AND TEMPORARY RESERVE
154th
ANNIVERSARY OF
THE
U. S.
COAST
GUARD —AUG. 4,. 1790-1944 |
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Friday 4 August 1944 will mark the l54th anniversary of the founding of the United States Revenue Cutter Service, which later became, known as the United States Coast Guard.
As
a whole, the men of the Coast Guard are far too busy fighting in
practically every corner of the globe to hardly pause to celebrate the
birthday of their
Service.
Appropriate steps are being taken to observe the anniversary by the
various Public Relations Offices in the country. Newspapers and radio will
bring the occasion to the attention of the public in all parts of the
nation.
Boston is foregoing the mammoth celebration of the past two
years
on the Charles River Esplanade. Instead all efforts were turned toward
an Invasion Show at the same location on the Fourth of July in conjunction
with the Fifth War Loan.
The
nearly three years since Pearl Harbor have brought the name of the Coast
Guard to the American public as never before: starting with the capture of
the armed Norwegian fisherman
Busko off
Greenland in 1941 and the presence of the cutlet Taney
at Pearl Harbor on the morning of 7 December 1941
as well
as
the
Modoc
sitting in
a grandstand seat (unintentionally, of course
as
we were not then at war)
at
the “kill” of
the
Bismark
of
the German Grand Fleet by British
naval
forces.
Shortly
after Pearl Harbor, the surf stations were stripped of their best Surfmen
who later appeared
as the spearhead of the invasion forces in the South Pacific. What
those men did and how well they did the job
has
been recorded time and again in the columns of the press of the
nation.
Battle
honors and citations became the routine rather than
the unusual on Coast Guard uniforms in the South’ west Pacific. Others
found heroes’
graves
in the steaming jungles of Guadalcanal and the coral-ribbed
waters off
the
Solomons.
Men
and boys who had joined the Coast Guard, hoping for a soft touch for
the
duration, found themselves in one of the fightingest outfits afloat
or ashore. The name has mislead them as it
has
most of the public in the past. Day after day and month after month the list of invasions grew: Doug Munro’s name blazed in the press and he took his place in
death, amongst the
nation’s heroes with his dying query. “Did They Get Off?” in
reference to
a
group of Marines he had been evacuating from a hot corner
of
a Pacific atoll.
The
Icarus
the Spencer and the
Duane, and
the Campbell
smashed out at the
Nazi wolf packs in the Atlantic.
Ships
were lost and members of their crews answered the last muster. The Hamilton,
Escanaba Natsek and Muskeget were lost in the North Atlantic,
the Acacia in southern waters.Navy ships manned in part
by Coast Guardsmen in the Pacific were lost. More recently, Coast
Guard-manned DEs have gone down as the result of enemy action.
Coast
Guard men and ships ranged from European waters to Greenland, Attu, Kiska
and the Pacific. The Carolines, the Marianas, Tarawa, and other Pacific
battles became synonomous with the name of the service. Some, jokingly,
called the Coast Guard the nation’s secret weapon: so far-reaching and
effective was it’s battle actions. |
 The commissioning of the first Coast Guard Cutter, the Massachusetts,” at which time Hopely Yeaton of New Hampshire assumed command and became the first Master to be commissioned in the United States. This event opened the way for a long line of cutters which have written history in six wars as well as in the years of peace. |
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June
6, 1944 found the waters of the English Channel off the Normandy coast
churned white with
the beat of propellers of Coast Guard invasion craft. Everything
from
the
transports to supply ships and cutters: the 83-footers and the
specialized invasion craft of she “Alphabet Fleet.”
What
happened that day and how well the
Coast
Guard carried out its assigned duties was heralded by the war
correspondents of the American press and does not need repetition here.
This
is not the Coast Guard’s first war; far from it; history lists
a
total of six, starting with
the
War of 1812.
Hopely
Yraton. the Coast Guard’s fist commissioned officer and
master
of the first cutter, the Massachusetts, may well look down on his successors in arms over the
span of 154 years with pride for they have upheld the best traditions of the service which he established.
Several
times the men of the Coast Guard have taken on combat duty in addition
to the mercy work of peacetime as exemplified by the Midgett family of
life savers on Cape Hatteras.
The War of 1 81 2 saw
the
original Icarus take the first enemy prisoners off the
East coast while the Jefferson took the first prize of the war in the British brig
Patriot.
The
Mexican War saw a fleet of Coast Guard Cutters assigned to General
Zachary Taylor who used them
as transports and supply ships in this campaign, the
Jackson
being
the first assigned, followed by the
Spence,
Legar, McLane, Ewing, Woodbury, Van Buren and
Forward.
The
Harriet Lane
was with
Commodore Stringham’s squadron off Hatteras Inlet when the attack was
made on two Confederate forts.
High winds and seas came up after 300 of 800 troops
aboard three transports had shoved off for shore. The transports
were driven offshore and the (Continued on page 2)
Unfortunately there is no page 2 available. We were lucky to have found this page.
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