1942: Coast Guard, United States

The vast geographic distances of the present world conflict led, during the year 1942, to the Coast Guard's expanding its operations until its personnel and equipment are now spread over virtually every quarter of the globe. The demands of modern warfare have also placed new responsibilities upon the service and entrusted it with new functions. Notable among these during the past year were the landing operations undertaken by the Coast Guard during the American invasions of the Solomon Islands in the southwest Pacific and of Northern Africa. Not only did Coast Guardsmen land the troops and marines involved in each campaign, but also manned transports and assisted in holding beach-heads for the unloading of supplies. The service suffered losses in personnel in both these theatres.

In 1942 the Coast Guard has continued to operate under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Navy, an Executive Order of the President having transferred it from the Treasury Department, of which it is normally a part, on the first of November 1941. However, its own Commandant directs and administers the service under the Chief of Naval Operations.

Special wartime demands upon all of the nation's armed services have necessarily caused Coast Guard vessels and personnel to participate directly in various Naval operations. Cutters of the 327-foot class are almost all used for escort work in convoys, while the smaller sea-going cutters are used, for the most part, as integral parts of the coastwise convoy escorts and anti-submarine patrol operated by the Navy to stop enemy submarine activity in America's coastal waters.

In the latter operations, the airplane has played a role of ever mounting importance. The nine air stations maintained by the Coast Guard, manned by Coast Guard personnel and equipped with the service's own planes, are working in close conjunction with Navy units engaged in anti-submarine patrol. This has necessitated a modification of the role traditionally played by the plane since the introduction of aircraft into the service. Normally, Coast Guard planes are used primarily for observation, searching, and relief of vessels or seamen in distress. Since the outbreak of hostilities, however, they have become an offensive weapon against submarines, and Coast Guard planes are now armed with depth charges. Besides doing coastal patrol in the anti-submarine operations, Coast Guard planes also participated in general convoy escort work, again with units of the Navy.

In view of the increased demands made by war conditions, certain activities and functions of the Coast Guard have, while being retained, undergone considerable change or expansion. These changes and expansions have, in turn, resulted in the introduction of several innovations of an emergency nature. The beach patrol, for example, is still maintained, but to a much greater extent than in peacetime. Surfmen, whose primary role in peacetime was humanitarian in nature, are now armed to deal with any incident involving enemy attempts to land agents on American shores. Horses were introduced in 1942 for use in a mounted patrol. The latter was first organized on a volunteer basis, with patriotic and public-spirited citizens offering their own time and horsemanship abilities to the service's new patrol. However, the advantages of the mounted patrol became increasingly obvious and the unit later became a part of the regular Coast Guard. On many stretches of the coast, the mounted beach patrol has proven exceptionally effective. It is possible for horses to cover much longer stretches of coast than men on foot; horses are suitable for covering terrain which it would be difficult for the latter to patrol completely and impossible for vehicles to cover; and, finally, it has been the experience of the service that mounted patrols have a greater range of vision and therefore of efficiency than foot patrols. At the present time, horses are quite generally used in most of the Naval districts in such coastal patrol work. An arrangement with the Army furnishes the service with horses from the Army Remount Centers.

One of the largest programs of expansion within the Coast Guard has been its tremendously accelerated provisions for Port Security, which involves the protection against fire, sabotage and negligence, criminal or otherwise, of all ports, waterfronts and harbor installations of the United States. In addition to our long coast lines on both the Atlantic and Pacific and on the Gulf of Mexico, this includes the Great Lakes and such important inland waterways as the Mississippi. Men have been trained in highly specialized and intensive schooling at Coast Guard Training Stations for this particular work, and the program as a whole has accounted for a considerable percentage of the service's unprecedented numerical increase in personnel.

Responsibility for the nation's waterfront security was first centralized to some degree in the Coast Guard, with the invoking on the twenty-seventh of June, 1940, of the Espionage Act of 1917. At the former date, under this action, the Secretary of the Treasury, under whom the Coast Guard was then operating, was entrusted with certain definite powers relating to the anchorage and berthing of vessels. To provide for the Coast Guard's becoming part of the Navy in wartime or on Presidential order, an amendment was subsequently made to make such powers transferrable from the Secretary of the Treasury to the Secretary of the Navy. Although there have been amendments to the Anchorage Regulations since then, the need became more and more obvious for an even greater centralization of authority. This need was met by an Executive Order (No. 9074), issued by the President on Feb. 25, 1942. This order gave the Navy primary responsibility for all waterfront security. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox relayed this authority and the attendant responsibility to the Coast Guard in a letter to Admiral King on April 29, 1942, and Admiral King in turn conveyed it to the Commandant of the Coast Guard in his letter of June 13, 1942.

Amplifications of the Port Security program followed rapidly to meet the new responsibility with the greatest effectiveness. Activities of the Port Security are coordinated by Rear Admirals on both the Pacific and the Atlantic coasts. The District Coast Guard Officers supervise the programs within their respective districts, but the several Captains of the Port are the actual enforcing agents. The nation's waterfronts are now doubly guarded. They are guarded from without, on the water side, by hundreds of picket and Reserve boats of the Coast Guard, as well as by 250 fireboats. From within, that is from the land side, they are constantly guarded by patrols who have undergone training for this specific purpose.

The combination of all the new and expanded activities has resulted in a comparable numerical expansion. The Coast Guard's present strength is well over 100,000, as compared to 17,546 men and 1,516 officers in 1941. To relieve the demands made upon the men in the service and to release for duty at sea many able men in shore establishments, an Act was passed by Congress and signed by the President in November 1942, creating the Women's Reserve of the U. S. Coast Guard Reserve, the popular name of which, the SPARS, was derived from the Coast Guard motto: 'Semper Paratus — Always Ready.' The numerical goal of the SPARS is 8,000 officers and enlisted personnel, who will be used only in shore establishments within the continental United States.

The Coast Guard's future role in the war is, of course, subject to developments as they occur, but the service is extremely well geared to assuming whatever new or expanded functions are entrusted to it.

1941: Coast Guard, United States

By the close of 1941 the United States Coast Guard was operating under an accelerated and expanded program as a direct result of several important Acts of Congress, its transfer to the Navy Department and the assumption of additional and special duties of a national defense character. In a round-up of the year's progress the following activities are most noteworthy.

Larger quotas of cadets were assigned to the entrance classes at the Coast Guard Academy, necessitating an expansion of the Academy's teaching staff and physical plant. The authorized number of enlisted personnel was likewise increased and speedier training regimes instituted for these groups.

The building, reconditioning and rearmament of ships at the Coast Guard Yard at Baltimore, required the construction of additional plant facilities and a larger working force. Construction of building-ways and a floating drydock was put under way at the same yard.

Participation was increased in the neutrality patrol and other naval operations in the north Atlantic in addition to the transfers of certain ships and personnel groups for naval duties.

As a national defense measure, a Coast Guard air detachment and a chartered ice-breaker were used to assist the regular ice-breaking vessels to expedite the opening of navigation on the Great Lakes in the spring and to retard its closing in the fall.

A national system of radio direction finder stations, of great benefit to shipping, and previously operated by the Navy, was taken over by the Coast Guard during the year.

The number of officers serving as Captains of the Port was increased and their powers broadened.

The former non-military Coast Guard Reserve was resolved into the present Coast Guard Auxiliary, and in its place a fully militarized Coast Guard Reserve was established as a result of recent legislation.

To offset the ship shortage occasioned by transfers to other services, the Coast Guard speeded up its building program in two ways: — first, by adding ship buildingways to the facilities of its yard at Baltimore; and second, by awarding contracts to private shipyards.

As the duties of the Captains of the Port became heavier, small boats, necessary to their work, were required in increasing number. To fill this need, one contract was awarded early in the year, which, by December, resulted in the commissioning of approximately one new boat a week. Another contract, to provide 100 small boats within three months, was awarded in November. The Coast Guard's production in its own boat building shops practically doubled itself. Under Coast Guard Reserve legislation, a full complement of 270 boats was commissioned; Congress also authorized the outright purchase of 100 small boats in the open market.

Largely through the efforts of the Coast Guard in breaking channels through ice in strategic parts of the Great Lakes, the earliest opening of navigation in forty years took place through the Federal locks at Saulte Ste. Marie, Michigan, on April 13, 1941. These locks, situated as they are at the falls of the St. Mary's River, control the movement of traffic between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. This early opening of navigation on the Lakes aided defense activities by reestablishing the flow of iron ore from the Lake Superior region to the steel mills upon the lower lakes.

The new fully militarized Coast Guard Reserve, established by an Act of Congress, February 1941, has contributed much in additional personnel and small boats to aid the work carried on by the Captains of the Port. Much of this work involves inshore patrol duty aimed toward prevention of sabotage, and the control of ship movements in the large ports, to which Reservists with their small boat experience are found to be well adapted.

Under the law which provides that members of the Coast Guard Auxiliary (a voluntary non-military organization) may offer to the Coast Guard the vessels which they own, the Service has been able to acquire, for temporary use, a fleet of 270 small but serviceable craft suitable for inshore patrol duties. In many cases the owners of these boats are now serving aboard their own craft. Toward the end of the year the Coast Guard Reserve consisted of 217 officers and 1,620 enlisted men, nearly all of whom were on active duty. The non-military Auxiliary had increased to about 5,000 members, owning about 4,500 boats.

An important plan designed to meet emergency conditions in the Mississippi River basin in time of flood or disaster, was worked out during the year. This plan will act as a guide to the personnel of the St. Louis District, and will also serve to acquaint personnel of certain adjoining districts with the kind of cooperation which they may be called upon to afford.

As a result of consolidation with the former Lighthouse Service, increased facilities were placed at the disposal of the Coast Guard to operate a far more effective flood relief plan than any that had previously been tried. Basically, this plan divided the Mississippi valley into definite sectors which serve as administrative units. An action timing plan, defining a zero gauge for river conditions at various points, establishes a height which constitutes zero hour at which positive action begins. Important parts of the plan are instructions for equipping and shipping boats, location of available unloading points, and communications instructions. Comprehensive provisions were made, for the first time, to utilize the service of the men and boats of the Coast Guard Auxiliary.

The Coast Guard continued to carry on during the past year weather patrol work upon the north Atlantic. This service was established in 1940 for the systematic reporting of facts concerning upper and lower atmospheric conditions, as an aid to aircraft in determining flight conditions over the Atlantic. Two stations are maintained; one, about 500 miles east of Bermuda and the other about 500 miles west of the Azores. The meteorological service is conducted by observers from the Weather Bureau, assisted by Coast Guard personnel. Plans are being made to use other vessels, recently acquired, on this weather patrol work, and release the regular cutters for other service.

During 1941 approximately 1,000 navigational aids were added to the 31,000 already functioning. The greatest increase took place in the buoys, beacons, and small automatic lights. A considerable proportion of these new aids was established as a result of the further extension of the Intracoastal Waterway and the deepening of existing channels for vessels of greater draft. Several new radiobeacons have been established at certain lighthouses, and also, they have been placed upon buoys, the latter an innovation of recent years.

Another system of navigational aids, consisting of 22 direction finder stations, originally developed and maintained by the Navy, was turned over to the operation of the Coast Guard during the year. The maintenance of these aids to marine navigation is a peacetime function having an ever greater significance in time of national emergency when the safe and expeditious movement of ships without our harbors and along our coast is of vital importance. Not only is the Coast Guard maintaining the normal system of aids, but these facilities are being rapidly expanded to embrace the American naval bases being established upon foreign territory.

Anticipating its role in the preparedness plan, and the resultant demand for more officers, the Coast Guard expanded the teaching facilities of its Academy, located at New London, Connecticut. New buildings and additions to existing buildings provided the necessary quarters and academic equipment.

An important acquisition to the sea training equipment of the Coast Guard Academy was the gift of the yacht, Atlantic, by her owner, Mr. Gerald B. Lambert, of New York, who is rear commodore of the New York Yacht Club. This famous yacht, a steel schooner, 145 feet long, of 303 gross tons, which was built in 1903 at Shooters Island, New York, came to the Coast Guard without any restrictions but with the hope of the owner that it would be used in the training of future officers. The Atlantic has an outstanding record among all sailing yachts. She made the run from Sandy Hook to the Lizard, under sail, in 12 days, 4 hours, 1 minute, a mark which has never been attained by any other sailing vessel, including the clipper ships.

The acute shortage of adequately trained merchant seamen has effected important changes in the policy of the Maritime Service. This organization, administered by the Coast Guard for the U. S. Maritime Commission as a training service, modified its policy to accommodate larger groups of enrollees.

It became necessary to provide thorough training for large numbers of young men who had no previous seagoing experience, because of the greatly expanded merchant shipbuilding program and number of skilled seamen being drawn into the shipbuilding trades. A probationary training course of six months for these apprentice seamen is now provided, except for those being trained as merchant marine radio operators who require a ten months' course. Upon completion of the probationary course, the present large groups of previously inexperienced enrollees become eligible for the same benefits as provided the regular enrollees.

With six training stations and five training ships, the training capacity of the Maritime Service has been more than doubled during the past year, and now provides training for approximately 1,000 licensed officers and 5,400 unlicensed men a year. It is expected that shortly the facilities will accommodate 1,200 licensed officers and 10,000 unlicensed men per year.

As a result of Executive Order No. 8929, signed by President Roosevelt on Nov. 1, 1941, the United States Coast Guard ceased to function as a part of the Treasury Department, and is now operating as a part of the U. S. Navy. Authority for such transfer in time of war or national emergency has been on the statute books since 1915.

1940: Coast Guard, United States

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.

1939: Coast Guard, United States

The year's activities of the United States Coast Guard dealing with the saving of life and property may be summarized by stating that there were 9,383 instances of lives being saved and vessels assisted, this being 958 more instances than during the previous year; the total value of the vessels assisted, including cargoes, was $63,723,506, and the number of persons on board the vessels assisted was 32,045. There were 10,615 instances of lives being saved or persons being rescued from peril, and an additional 4,858 instances where assistance of one form or another was rendered.

In carrying out its functions as the Federal maritime police agency and its duties of law enforcement, the Coast Guard boarded and examined the papers of 32,055 vessels, and it seized six vessels. The fines and penalties incurred by vessels reported amounted to $470,081. Coast Guard vessels removed or destroyed 266 derelicts; they patrolled 443 marine parades and regattas; and Coast Guard officers examined 3,495 persons for certificates as lifeboat men.

In the hurricane which struck the New Zealand coast in September 1938, the Coast Guard rendered assistance with all equipment available, rescuing, 1,911 persons from positions of peril, and aiding 509 vessels. Emergency radio communication was provided, mail was transported, vessels and automobiles were recovered, and aerial surveys made. Three members of the Service lost their lives incident to rescue activities.

The Coast Guard provided an armed detail for the guarding and supervision of the transfer of approximately 77,000,000 pounds of silver bullion by the Treasury Department from New York City to the depository at West Point, N. Y. Coast Guard cutters maintained the International Ice Patrol on the North Atlantic during the iceberg season, a duty to which they have been assigned since 1913, and while on this duty cooperated with the Weather Bureau in the study of the upper air conditions as a means of promoting greater safety in air navigation.

The present Coast Guard fleet consists of 34 cruising cutters, 125 patrol boats, 52 harbor craft, 86 picket boats, 5 special craft, 64 lighthouse tenders, 28 light vessels and 10 relief light vessels. The aviation wing comprises 10 air stations and 63 planes. The shore establishment includes 197 active Coast Guard stations, 47 inactive stations and 3 houses of refuge. Training facilities include the Coast Guard Academy, 4 Maritime Service Training Stations and the Coast Guard Institute. In addition to these there are the Coast Guard Depot for construction and repair of boats and vessels — radio stations — besides the administrative offices, stores and bases. About 1,700 small boats are attached to the ships and stations of the Service.

Personnel of the Coast Guard includes 530 commissioned officers, 208 cadets, 542 warrant officers, 11,000 enlisted men, 430 civilian employees and 5,500 employees of the former Lighthouse Service, a large number of which will be inducted into the military establishment of the Coast Guard.

Under President Roosevelt's Reorganization Plan No. II, the Lighthouse Service, of the Department of Commerce, was transferred to and consolidated with the United States Coast Guard, in the Treasury Department. This consolidation, made in the interests of efficiency and economy, resulted in the transfer of the system of approximately 30,000 aids to marine navigation, including lighthouses, lightships, radio beacons, fog signals, buoys, and beacons. These aids are maintained upon the sea and lake coasts of the United States, on the navigable rivers of the country, and upon the coasts of all other territory under the jurisdiction of the United States with the exception of the Philippine Islands and the Panama Canal proper. Plans were in progress at the close of the fiscal year providing for a complete integration with the Coast Guard of the personnel of the Lighthouse Service, numbering about 5,200. See also UNITED STATES: National Defense.