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SEARCH & RESCUE

U.S. Coast Guard, Lighthouse Service, Revenue Cutter Service
& U. S. Life-Saving Service

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The Coast Guard's "Relief Fleet" on the Mississippi River after the 1927 Flood.

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General Search & Rescue Information

• A list of natural disasters and other events of national significance that the Coast Guard responded to over the course of its history.  Such events include the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the Mississippi River Basin flood of 1927, the 1944 Atlantic hurricane, the Mariel boatlift in 1980, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the events of 9/11/2001, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, among others.

• Search & Rescue Bibliography

• Historic Life-Saving & Coast Guard Small Boat Stations

• Life-Saving Service, Lighthouse Service, Revenue Cutter Service personnel awarded the Gold Life-Saving Medal

• Coast Guardsmen awarded the Coast Guard Medal

• Life-Saving Service & Coast Guard Small Boat personnel who gave their lives in the line of duty

• Search and Rescue, Disaster & Shipwreck Files Held By The Historian's Office

• Coast Guard Search & Rescue Statistics, 1964-2001  [web] [pdf]

• Search and Rescue During World War II
  

Manuals, Regulations & Other Official Publications

• 1934: Instructions For United States Coast Guard Stations

• 1921: Instructions For United States Coast Guard Stations (courtesy of Google Books)

• 1876: Station List from the 1876 USLSS Annual Report

U.S. Life-Saving Service History

• U. S. Life-Saving Service Annual Reports

• U.S. Life-Saving Service: A Bibliography

• A History of the U.S. Life-Saving Service [pdf]

• History of the Life-Saving Service: A Power-Point Presentation

•  Boats and Other Rescue Craft

• Historic Life-boat Stations

• The Evolution of the Life-Saving System of the United States From 1837 to June 30, 1892: An Outline of the Part Taken in its Development by the United States Revenue Marine; written by First Lieutenant Charles Shoemaker, USRM, circa 1892.

• U. S. Life-Saving Service Uniforms

• A Biography of Sumner Increase Kimball, the man responsible for developing the U.S. Life-Saving Service into the world's best lifesavers.

• The Greatest Life-Saver: Joshua James

• What is the origin of the famous motto of the U.S. Life-Saving Service & Coast Guard: "You have to go out but you don't have to come back?"

• A Summary of the Development of Early Motorized Lifeboats for the US Life-Saving Service and Coast Guard, by CDR Tim Dring, USNR (Ret.)

• Report on Life-Saving Ordnance and Appurtenances by Lieutenant D. A. Lyle, Ordnance Department, U.S. Army. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1878).  Provided courtesy of Google Books.  Information concerning the famous "Lyle Gun."

• "Tales from the Keeper's Log": an illustrated article by Debbie Allyn Jett that describes what service in the Life-Saving Service on the Great Lakes during the late 19th Century was like as well as the terrible tragedy that occurred during a rescue by the Point Aux Barques crew on Lake Huron, April 23, 1880, in which six of the seven rescuers were killed in the line of duty, all except their Captain, Keeper Jerome Kiah.

• "Tragedy Off Rogers City: The Loss of Superintendent Joseph Sawyer and Keeper George Feaben, October 20, 1880," an illustrated article by Debbie Allyn Jett about the loss of the Superintendent of the 10th District and the Keeper of Forty Mile Point LSS.

• Station Tillamook (Barview) Keeper Robert Farley's report to the District Superintendent regarding the rescue of the coastal steamer Argo on 26 November 1909 which resulted in the loss of the station's No. 6 surfman, Surfman Henry W. Wickman.

Significant Search & Rescue Cases--Narratives, Reports, Official Documents, and First-Person Accounts

• Hurricane Katrina Rescue & Response Operations

• Rescue Swimmer AST1 Wil Milam describes in his oral history the rescue of the four-man crew of the fishing vessel Illusion from the Bering Sea in February, 2007.
  

• LTJG Mark Molavi, the Command Duty Officer of PACAREA's Command Center, describes the May 2006 F/V Legend SAR case, which involved Coast Guard units, AMVER, the U.S. & Mexican navies.

• Coast Guard Disaster Relief Efforts After the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami

• TWA Fight 800 Recovery Efforts by CWO Patricia Golden

• Egypt Air Flight 990 Recovery Efforts by CWO Patricia Golden

• Mariel, Cuba Boatlift, 1980:

1. Historical Narrative: "Coast Guard Operations During the Cuban Exodus," a history of the 1980 Mariel Boatlift, written by VADM Benedict L. Stabile and Dr. Robert L. Scheina.

2. Official Chronology: "Cuban Boatlift From Mariel, Cuba to Key West, Florida, Chronology from April 21, 1980 to June 30, 1980 with an after summary up to September 28, 1980."

• "The Other Boatlift": Camarioca, Cuba, 1965.

• The Downing of Korean Airline's Flight 007: "USCGC Munro's Part in the Search, Rescue, and Salvage Operations" by BMCS Jack Crowley. 

• BMCM Thomas D. McAdams' Oral History: Master Chief Boatswain's Mate Thomas McAdams describes his illustrious career in the Coast Guard, which spanned the years between 1950 and 1977.  The highly decorated McAdams is something of a legend in the Coast Guard's small boat community and among the fishermen of the Pacific Northwest.  In his remarkable career, which spanned 27 years, BMCM McAdams participated in more than 5,000 rescues and was credited with saving more than 100 lives. Click here for his biography.

• Pages From A Scrapbook: an incredible collection of photos from the scrapbook of BMC-L Ira Lewis, who served at small boat stations on Long Island for over twenty years, from the late-1930s to the late-1950s.  His photos document life at these unheralded stations. 

• Daring rescue: The crew of the Chatham Lifeboat Station save the survivors of the SS Pendleton, February 1952

• "An Amazing Rescue At Sea."  "Man Overboard" during World War II on board the cutter USS Duane, CG, while on convoy duty in the North Atlantic.

• Lieutenant Robert H. Prause, Executive Officer of the lost cutter Escanaba, who developed the "Retriever" rescue technique to save survivors from frigid waters

• A first-hand account of the Coast Guard's response during the Hurricane of 1938 from the last living Coast Guard Surfman, Gerrett Gregory, who served at Station Galloo Island

• Coast Guard relief operations during the 1937 Mississippi River Flood.

• The official report of Revenue Cutter Service First Lieutenant J. F. Hottel, commanding the cutter Tallapoosa, of his cutter's experience during and after the 1916 Gulf Hurricane.

• A first-hand account of the search and rescue case regarding the grounding of the sailing vessel Paramita near Unimak Pass in 1914.  Cutters Unalga and Tahoma responded to the wreck of the Paramita and subsequent mutiny by the vessel's passengers and crew.  Provided courtesy of Dr. R. Montague Whiting.

• Lighthouse, Life-Saving & Revenue Cutter Service response to the 1900 Galveston Hurricane.

• Life-Saving Service response to the 1899 Brazos River Flood in Texas.

• The Overland Expedition-Rescue to Point Barrow, Alaska, 1897-1898 (a narrative history)

• The official Report of The Cruise of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear and the Overland Expedition for the Relief of the Whalers in the Arctic Ocean, From November 27, 1897, to September 13, 1898. Provided courtesy of Google Books (pdf).

• A Photo Gallery for Commodore Ellsworth Bertholf & the Overland Expedition.

• "Tragedy Off Rogers City: The Loss of Superintendent Joseph Sawyer and Keeper George Feaben, October 20, 1880," by Debbie Allyn Jett

•  "In Memorum": an official Canadian commendation to Surfman Mason B. McCune and the crew of Life-Saving Station men who rescued a drowning Canadian boy in the Niagara River.

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Aviation Search-and-Rescue Cases

• A dangerous rescue at sea in 1937 by a Coast Guard seaplane from Air Station Salem.

• "Best Shot": Former Coast Guard airman Gerrett Gregory describes a rescue attempt of a downed Navy pilot by a Coast Guard PBM-5 Mariner from Air Station San Diego.

• Coast Guard Aviation in Vietnam: Combat Rescue and Recovery, an article by John "Bear" Moseley, Coast Guard Aviator 743.  A "pdf" file provided courtesy of the Ancient Order of the Pterodactyl Association.

• Jack Rittichier's 12 May 1968 Vietnam combat rescue flight: in his own words.

• "Out of Gas at 9,000 Feet and Lost in the Bahamas."  AD2 Greg King writes about a SAR case conducted during Hurricane Dorothy in 1977 while serving as a crewman aboard HC-130 CG-1414.

• "Summary of Action" for a SAR case in 1978 when HC-130H CGNR-1500 assisted in the rescue off Alaska of the crew of a ditched Navy P-3C (BuNo. 159892) on 26 October 1978.  A Soviet trawler, the Mys Sinyavin, also participated, making this a unique case of cooperation by the principal antagonists of the Cold War.

• HH-3F "Pelican Tales: The Last of the Coast Guard's Amphibious Aircraft," by CAPT Pete Prindle, USCG (Ret.)

• "27 Hours in the Cold Alaska Sea." AD1 Greg King writes about the rescue of the crew of the fishing vessel Clover Leaf in April, 1980 while serving as an HC-130 crewman based at AIRSTA Kodiak.

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