During the calendar year 1940 the personnel of the United States Coast Guard was increased by national defense appropriations to provide for an average enlisted force for the fiscal year 1940-1941 of about 15,000. Commissioned officers will average about 600, with 750 chief warrant and warrant officers. The Coast Guard Academy has its largest enrollment of close to 300 cadets, while there is a civilian personnel in the Service of approximately 4,000, of whom a large proportion is the personnel of the former Lighthouse Service. All Coast Guard vessels are being equipped on a war time basis, which includes increase of anti-aircraft armament and anti-aircraft range finders, rearrangement of ammunition stowage, fitting of depth charge racks and Y guns, and the installation of under-water sound detection devices.
With a total membership of over 3,000 men, and with about 2,700 boats enrolled and divided into 150 flotillas, the Coast Guard Reserve on October 5 celebrated its first anniversary, on this date in 1939 the Secretary of the Treasury having approved the regulations under which the Reserve was formally established. Created by Act of Congress for the principal purpose of promoting safety at sea through the education of yachtsmen and other small boat operators in the proper handling of their craft, the Coast Guard Reserve movement was instantly accepted by yachtsmen and other owners in possession of small craft. Applications for membership have exceeded the facilities of the Coast Guard and of the various Reserve flotillas.
In line with the national defense program of the nation. Congress appropriated approximately $10,700,000 for the needs of the Coast Guard. The sum is to be expended in the fiscal year 1941. It is estimated that $8,200,000 of the total amount requested of Congress will cover the cost of emergency conversion of Coast Guard vessels for Naval use, and of the installation of effective aircraft ordnance. All work will be done in accordance with specifications furnished by the Navy. The funds will be apportioned as follows; $3,100,000 to cruising cutters; $2,400,000 to coastal patrol boats; $1,000,000 to local patrol boats; $100,000 to tenders; $1,300,000 for ordnance and ordnance equipment; and $330,000 for buoys. Conversion work involves the revision of armament and ammunition stowage arrangements; installation of guns; enlargement of magazines; fitting of depth charge racks and Y guns; installation of underwater sound detection apparatus; and structural changes incident to these installations. Provision also is made for high intensity and signal searchlights and anti-aircraft range finders which are essential for use in connection with the type of aircraft guns to be installed.
Application of the neutrality laws in the existing international situation has resulted in the Coast Guard's establishing its Neutrality Patrol, the duty of which is to prevent any vessel from using United States ports for an unneutral act. Due to the marked decrease and almost total lack of weather data normally furnished the United States Weather Bureau by ships of all nationalities at sea, the Atlantic Weather Patrol was established in February, 1940. Two cutters, equipped as floating weather bureaus, were stationed between the Azores and Bermuda to collect this data. The President's Proclamation of June 27, 1940, gave to the Coast Guard the control of the anchorage and movement of vessels and the supervision of the loading and unloading of explosives and other dangerous cargoes.
In carrying out its functions as the Federal maritime police agency, the Coast Guard rescued 9,249 persons in peril; assisted 32,084 persons on board vessels; cared for 410 persons in distress; assisted vessels and cargoes valued at $88,016,268; boarded and examined papers of 39,450 vessels; and seized 21 vessels. The fines and penalties incurred by vessels reported totaled $235,459. The Coast Guard destroyed 193 derelicts and other obstructions to navigation and recovered property valued at $82,945. It patrolled 481 regattas and marine parades, and examined 2,527 persons for certificates as lifeboatmen.
Other activities of the Coast Guard included: a water-fowl survey for the Biological Survey; transportation of mail where commercial shipping was disrupted; towing vessels of the Maritime Commission; transporting census enumerators to sparsely settled coastal sections of the United States and Alaska; servicing South Pacific Islands for the Department of Interior; cooperating with the Bureau of Fisheries in fishery observations and oceanographic studies in Alaskan waters. (See also METEOROLOGY)
The Coast Guard provided an armed detail to guard approximately 9,299 tons of silver bullion valued at $90,297,200 transported from the Treasury Department in New York to the depository at West Point.
Coast Guard relief forces were dispatched to the aid of communities stricken by the flood of the Susquehanna River during April 1940, and into southern Alabama during the flood there in August 1939. Considerable survey work and planning concerning Coast Guard activities in future floods in the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys were undertaken during the past year.
Although the European war affected the movement and customary routes followed by shipping in the North Atlantic, the Coast Guard carried out during the 1940 season its usual ice observation and ice patrol service. The Service has continued since September 1, 1938 to administer the United States Maritime Service for the U. S. Maritime Commission. The purpose of the Maritime Service is to assist in the maintenance of a trained and efficient merchant marine personnel by providing an adequate training system for seamen who serve aboard American merchant vessels of the Great Lakes or high seas. During the fiscal year 2,185 licensed officers and unlicensed men were regularly enrolled.
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