What's New on the Historian's Office Website?
- World War II Action: The Coast Guard vs. the Japanese Empire, a PowerPoint presentation covering the Coast Guard's role in the Pacific Theater Campaign written and produced by Assistant Historian Chris Havern.
- We've added the recording LT Jack Rittichier made shortly before his death in combat about the rescues he carried out while stationed with the Air Force's rescue service in Vietnam. We've also added the videotaped oral histories of some of the heroes of the Coast Guard's response to Hurricane Katrina, including CWO Lewald who commanded CGC Pamlico.
- We recently received, courtesy of HMC James T. Flynn, Jr., USNR (Ret.), the historian of the Coast Guard Tug Association, scanned photos of some of the myriad of patrol craft that served on the arduous Greenland Patrol in World War II. We've added those photos to the cutter histories of each: Aklak, Alatok, Amarok, Arluk, Arvek, Atak, EM Reed, EM Messick, EM Northumberland, Kodiak, Nogak, & Tampa! Thanks Jim!
- U.S. Coast Guard: Our History of Reorganization; a Power Point Presentation created by then-RADM Jody Breckenridge, 9 December 2008.
- "Realignment 1987: The New Structure and How We Got There," a Commandant's Bulletin article (#13-87, 26 June 1987) on the development of a new support and management functions by RADM Marshall E. Gilbert, then-Chief, Coast Guard Office of Research and Development
- "Cosmic Air": a pictorial history of the Coast Guard's efforts to resupply the far-flung chain of LORAN stations in the Pacific via Coast Guard aircraft.
- Courtesy of noted author and small boat expert CDR Tim Dring, USNR (Ret.), we've added plans for all of the important small boats & craft ever used by the Lifesaving Service and Coast Guard as well as various utility craft and Aids to Navigation boats as well. We've also added his article on the development of early motorized lifeboats for the USLSS & USCG!
- We've added more of the oral history of Vice Admiral Joseph Stika -- including material on his heroic actions during the explosion and fire at the T.A. Gillespie shell-loading plant at Morgan, New Jersey, in October 1918 for which he was awarded the Navy Cross.
- We've added an illustrated biography of FN Heriberto S. Hernandez, who was killed in action during the Vietnam War.
- We received numerous World War II photos of the Cutter Cyane on patrol in Alaskan waters from the grandson of crewman Delmer Lloyd Waltemate.
- We've updated the historical information and added photography to the histories of the first tender named Acacia -- the only U.S. buoy-lighthouse tender ever lost to enemy action; her follow-on, the 180-foot WLB Acacia -- now a museum ship on the Great Lakes; & we've also added information on the dangerous 1971 "Deep Freeze" deployment of the icebreaker Staten Island provided by a crewman who took part in the expedition.
- "Chicago's Christmas Ship": an article by Ms. Debbie Allyn Jett about the CGC Mackinaw's historic role as the Windy City's "Christmas Ship".
- A biography of Lieutenant Robert H. Prause, Executive Officer of the lost cutter Escanaba, who developed the famous "Retriever" method of rescuing survivors from freezing water which was first used during the famous rescue of the survivors of the torpedoed troop transport Dorchester off Iceland during World War II.
- We've added photography and information to the Revenue Cutter Forward's history, including details of her anti-smuggling activities in the Gulf of Mexico on the eve of the Spanish-American War as well as information about her officers and crew, including the nicknames the enlisted personnel gave to each of the officers (and one of those officers later became Commandant!)
- We've added histories and lists of keepers to many of the Michigan lighthouses in our lighthouse history section courtesy of Marie Vincent & Melissa Buckler, volunteers from the Chesapeake Chapter of the U.S. Lighthouse Society, thanks!
- The first list of stations of the Life-Saving Service as published in the 1876 Annual Report--the list includes the names of all of the Keepers of these historic stations! We've added a few photos to the Station Ocean City (Maryland) page too!
- We've added a pdf of the 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) courtesy of Google Books. This publication contains Information concerning the famous "Lyle Gun."
- We've added photography to the Westwind's official history.
- We've added lists of commanding officers/officers-in-charge to the official histories of the cutters Courageous, Durable, Gentian, Mariposa, Point Franklin, Sorrel & Yocona.
- The Atlantic Area Historian Dr. William Thiesen submitted a number of biographies, including the first Hispanic-American graduate of the Coast Guard Academy Paul Powers Perez (Class of 1945); World War II hero and Hispanic-American Coast Guardsman Joseph Tezanos who served aboard USS LST-20 and the Joseph Dickman, and Captain Henry Hemingway who commanded the cutter Snohomish during the Gold Lifesaving Medal rescue of the crew of a sinking merchant ship in 1923.
- We've posted a series of articles on the Lighthouse, Life-Saving & Revenue Cutter Service response to the 1900 Galveston Hurricane by LANTAREA Historian Dr. William Thiesen.
- We've added photography to LST-785's official history showing her in action in the Pacific Theatre.
- An illustrated history of Coast Guard destroyers during Prohibition, by Historian Christopher Havern. During Prohibition the Coast Guard found itself with not enough hulls to guard the entire coast and so acquired 31 former Navy destroyers, including some dating from pre-World War I, to augment quickly the Coast Guard's fleet.
- Historian Chris Havern also gives us a rather interesting look at a different kind of "boarding" the Coast Guard conducted while in Vietnamese waters during that conflict 40 years ago.
- SPAR Lillian Vasilas' oral history: in it she describes her career in the Coast Guard during World War II, including basic training at West Palm Beach, service as a driver and then as a radio operator in the Washington, D.C. area
- An illustrated memoir from Coast Guard Radioman James Brown, who was also an artist, describes his service during World War II. Read about what it was like and also view his drawings which depicted camp life all over the Pacific Theatre.
- We've received scans of photos from World War II of LST-20 in the Pacific, including Iwo Jima, from the daughter of LST-20 crewman F1c Denny Miller, USCGR.
- "The El Estero Fire and How the US Coast Guard Helped Save New York Harbor"; an article on the 1943 disaster in New York harbor that could have destroyed much of the city, by William H. Thiesen as published in Sea History 126 (Spring 2009), pp. 16-19.
- "Revenue Cutter Service Gunboat E. A. Stevens: The Stevens Family's Civil War Experiment in Modern Naval Technology"; an article on the unique RCS gunboat Naugatuck/E.A. Stevens, by William H. Thiesen as published in Nautical Research Journal 54, No. 3 (Fall 2009), pp. 141-154.
- An illustrated biographical page for BMCM Robert E. Hammond, a pioneering African-American Coast Guard veteran who served aboard the famous USS Sea Cloud and went on to a distinguished and path-breaking career.
- 19th Century West Coast Lighthouse Gallery: a series of photographs dating from 1871 of some of the West Coast's most famous lighthouses taken by the noted English photographer Eadweard Muybridge.
- A great new resource: the transcribed and illustrated "Seaman's Journals" of Captain Leonard S. Grant, a pilot with the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service & U.S. Coast Survey. Read in his own words what it was like to sail & steam along the east coast aboard the cutters Woodbury, McCulloch, Dallas & the Survey Schooner Benjamin Pierce from 1860-1877.
-
Seaman 2/c John Cullen's
oral history: Cullen was the Coast Guardsman on beach
patrol on Long Island when he came across a team of Nazi
saboteurs who had just landed from a U-boat. Read about what
happened next in this historic encounter far from the conflict in
Europe!
- We've added a new research guide that list archives, libraries, museums, etc. around the country that have research materials on or related to Coast Guard History.
Last Modified 3/15/2010