Daily Chronology: July

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July

Daily Chronology of Coast Guard History

1 July

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 newly created 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 un-appointed 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-The "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's direct control of the following Coast Guard functions was terminated: search and rescue, 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 position reporting program [known by the acronym AMVER] 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 14^th Coast Guard District LEDET, all crewmen from 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.

2 July

1836-Congress authorized pay increases for the officers in the Revenue Cutter Service. Captain's pay increased to $1200 per annum, First Lieutenant's to $960, Second Lieutenant's to $860, and Third Lieutenant's to $790.

1937-CGC Itasca, while conducting re-supply operations in the Central Pacific, made the last-known radio contact with the famed aviatrix 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 or its occupants having been found.

3 July

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 and the 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 Coast Guard's 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. A total of 12 MSST units were planned for deployment around the nation.

4 July

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.

5 July

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-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.

6 July

1809-Congress authorized the construction of twelve new cutters to enforce President Thomas Jefferson’s embargo.

1942-Coast Guard amphibious aircraft V-166 landed in the open ocean and took aboard 21 survivors of a torpedoed tanker in Gulf of Mexico.

7 July

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 of the U .S. Fleet.

1801-In a cost saving measure the Treasury Department sent circulars to the various 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 passed the first legislation "to provide better security of the lives of passengers on board of vessels propelled in whole or in part by steam." (5 Stat.L., 304) The Act specified that the program would be administered by the Justice Department whereby U.S. District court judges were to appoint engineers to inspect merchant steamboats. This Act laid the groundwork for what 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.

8 July

1791- Secretary of the Treasury authorized Collectors of Customs to disburse for cutters and to pay officers as agents of the Secretary.

9 July

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 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-Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily, commenced on this date. Coast Guard-manned ships landed the first Allied troops in the assault, including 24 LCI(L)s of Flotilla 4 under the command of CAPT Miles Imlay and LSTs 326 and 381. Coast Guard-manned attack transports USS Joseph T. Dickman, Leonard Wood, and Samuel Chase also participated.

1946-Sixteen Coast Guardsmen were killed when the B-17 aircraft they were flying as passengers in 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.

10 July

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 shore. The yacht was towed off by a steamer, having sustained slight damage.

11 July

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- The U.S. Maritime Service was transferred back to the War Shipping Administration after being under Coast Guard administration since February 28, 1942.

12 July

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 although there were no survivors.

13 July

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, including 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.)

14 July

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.

15 July

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.

16 July

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.

17 July

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-CGC 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 conducted search and rescue operations and then aided in recovery operations.

18 July

1818-The Revenue Cutter Active captured the pirate vessel India Libre in the Chesapeake Bay.

1866-Congress authorized officers to search vessels 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 Revenue Captain Michael Healy.

19 July

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.

20 July

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 Coast Guard commissioned the newly organized Deployable Operations Group (DOG) at Fort McNair, Washington, D.C., under the command of RADM Thomas F. Atkin.

21 July

1944-The attack and liberation of Guam commenced. Participating vessels included the Coast Guard tender CGC Tupelo and the Coast Guard-manned Navy attack transports and cargo vessels 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.

1952-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-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.

22 July

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.

23 July

1836-Seminole Indians attacked and burned the Cape Florida lighthouse during the Second Seminole War.

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."

1967-CGC Northwind diverted from her Bering Sea Patrol to assist the Canadian Survey Ship Richardson which was beset in the ice off Point Barrow, Alaska. Northwind freed the stricken vessel which was then taken in tow by the Canadian icebreaker CCGS Camsell.

24 July

1936-While on a cadet cruise through European waters CGC Cayuga was ordered to San Sebastian, Spain after 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 Cayuga and the cutter then served as the official U.S. embassy in Spain.

1944-The assault on Tinian Island, one of the Marshall Islands, commenced. Coast Guard-manned attack transports that participated included USS Cambria and Cavalier.

1981-Station Brant Point received a call from the Nantucket Hospital requesting Coast Guard assistance in transporting a patient suffering from a brain tumor. A Coast Guard HU-16 was dispatched to medevac the patient, Mildred "Madaket Millie" Jewett, a long-time friend of the Coast Guard and an honorary CWO4.

25 July

1947-The Women’s Reserve of the Coast Guard Reserve (SPARS) was formally 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, resulting 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 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.

26 July

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- Revenue Cutter 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."

27 July

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-Congress directed the Secretary of the Treasury to enforce the law prohibiting the unauthorized killing of fur seals in Alaska. Also the President was authorized to regulate traffic in firearms, ammunition and spirituous liquors in Alaska. The President assigned the enforcement of those laws to the Revenue Marine, thereby establishing the service's close connection with Alaska.

1957-A Captain of the Port patrol vessel discovered a fire of unknown origin at the Mystic Coal Yard in Boston, MA. The 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.

28 July

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 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 U.S. 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.

29 July

1898-The Revenue Cutter Bear took aboard 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-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. CDR George Wagner was the commanding officer.

1997-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.

30 July

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.

31 July

1876-Congress re-established Revenue Cutter cadet training after three years suspension and instituted promotion by examination.

1894-The Treasury Department created the Division of Revenue Cutter Service with Captain of the Revenue Cutter Service as its Chief.

1985-The Coast Guard conducted a fleet dedication ceremony in Lockport, Louisiana for the new 110-foot "Island Class" patrol boats.

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Last Modified 7/31/2012