Always Ready, Always Remembered: Honoring the Coast Guard on its Birthday
On August 4, 2020, the United States Coast Guard celebrates its 230th anniversary of its founding. To commemorate the branch’s birthday, Tales from the Navy Log will highlight a few of the many Stories of Service from Coast Guard veterans memorialized within the Navy Log.
Coast Guard vessels, called cutters, are recognizable across the globe. Their distinct color and diagonal striping on their bows make the vessels of the Coast Guard identifiable from afar as symbols of protection and assistance.
The Revenue Cutter Service is honored today as the spiritual precursor of the modern-day Coast Guard. Their logo, which includes their motto of Semper Paratus (which translates to “Always Ready” from Latin), is still immortalized by the Coast Guard today.
The Coast Guard can trace its long history back to Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, who was seeking a unique federal agency that could enforce tariff and trade laws and combat smuggling in America’s waterways. On August 4, 1790, the first Congress authorized Hamilton to construct ten vessels to carry out these exact purposes. This early coastal force was ultimately named the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service. Its essential goal—to regulate shipping in American waters (including the Great Lakes) under the guidance of the Treasury Department—remained the same throughout its early years. This early history also means that this nascent service, which would ultimately become the Coast Guard, was one of the oldest organizations of the federal government and, until the United States Navy was officially established in 1798, was at one point the nation’s only armed service afloat.
About this same time, Congress authorized the Treasury Department to create the U.S. Lighthouse Establishment, which was tasked with constructing and maintaining lighthouses and related nautical markers and navigation aids up and down America’s coasts. The goal of this effort was to protect and assist trade and the mariners that conducted it to ensure that these navigational routes were properly constructed and maintained. Through the mid-19th century, Congress began to direct the Revenue Cutter Service to begin to watch for and assist mariners in distress and eventually even appropriated funds for shore-based assistance. A new separate organization—the U.S. Lifesaving Service—was given primary responsibility to establish, man, and maintain the stations responsible for conducting these rescues at sea. The Life Saving Service, still primarily focused on assisting distressed merchant mariners, was still under the jurisdiction of the Treasury Department to protect trade in American waters. By this time, the role of the Revenue Cutter Service had expanded to that of a “floating police force,” charged with defending, maintaining, and assisting America’s maritime trade and recreation. In 1915, Congress merged the Revenue Cutter Service and the Life Saving Service into a new organization meant to carry out the missions of both: the U.S. Coast Guard. In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt also ordered the transfer of the Lighthouse Service to the Coast Guard, further expanding the jurisdiction of the newly reorganized agency. These new roles only grew in the following decades, when Congress transferred merchant marine licensing, merchant vessel safety regulations, and the administration of bridges over navigable waterways under its jurisdiction. Although originally separated, each of these early maritime services shouldered an essential mission of the Coast Guard’s modern coastal authority, demonstrating these values at the heart of American maritime tradition. Today, under one united service organization that now falls under the Department of Homeland Security, the Coast Guard protects the personal safety and security of the American people, oversees maritime transportation and infrastructure, defends the nation’s natural and economic resources, facilitates scientific research and development, and secures the territorial and legal authority of the nation through its unique role as a military, law enforcement, humanitarian, regulatory, and diplomatic force at sea and on land. Its mission—Semper Paratus, which means “Always Ready” in Latin—serves as a testament to the branch’s long-standing devotion to serve and protect Americans and their interests at home and abroad whenever called to do so. The distinctive white hulls of Coast Guard vessels, carrying the unique slash-stripes on the bows, are instantly recognized.
The crew of the USCGC Tampa pose for a photo on the deck of their cutter. This entire crew was lost when the Tampa was torpedoed by a German U-boat, the largest loss of Coast Guard personnel in World War I.
As a branch of the military, America’s time at war was understandably formative for the Coast Guard’s place in America’s Sea Service traditions. To that end, World War I was the first conflict within which the modern Coast Guard served; its duties in this conflict played a defining role for the force understanding its expanded place in support of a nation at war. While still charged with enforcing the rules and regulations of nautical navigation and trade on America’s coast, World War I challenged the Coast Guard to defend the nation’s shipping from sabotage and enemy action. The tremendous increase of armaments and munitions shipments to Europe for the war effort required the Coast Guard increase oversight in the transport of goods so they arrived safely and could withstand enemy hostility. This task was made increasingly difficult as German submarines (U-boats) targeted American war shipping. To combat this threat, six U.S. Coast Guard cutters left the United States to join naval forces in European waters to patrol and defend American shipping routes abroad. These cutters, along with others patrolling American waters, conducted escort missions for Allied ships navigating treacherous routes at risk of enemy attack and rescued distressed mariners who had just suffered an enemy attack. One of these cutters, the Tampa, was torpedoed by a German U-boat on September 26, 1918, just off the coast of England after completing an escort mission. The Tampa sank, taking all 131 souls onboard down with it. Among those lost were four U.S. Navy sailors, sixteen Royal Navy sailors, and 111 Coast Guard personnel, including Irving Alexander Slicklen and William James Williams Jr., both of whom are memorialized in the Navy Log. By the end of World War I, nearly 9,000 Coast Guard men and women participated in the war. In all, Coast Guard personnel earned two Distinguished Service Medals, eight Gold Life-Saving Medals, almost a dozen foreign honors, and nearly fifty Navy Cross Medals.
The Coast Guard LCI(L)-85 is battered by enemy fire as she approaches Omaha Beach on D-Day to evacuate the troops she is transporting to an awaiting transport. This role was just one of several that the Coast Guard performed on D-Day alone. The “85” sank shortly after this photograph was taken—one of four Coast Guard LCIs destroyed that day.
World War II was a much larger scale conflict for the United States, and the Coat Guard had a monumental role to play in this fight. Before the nation ever entered the war, the Navy and Coast Guard established “Neutrality Patrols” aimed to report warring foreign ships in American waters that might threaten the nation’s initial position to avoid involvement in the war. Coast Guard vessels were tasked with increased port security duties, and the Coast Guard received greater oversight of merchant vessel safety. In November 1941, as America’s involvement in the global war seemed right around the corner, the Coast Guard was temporarily transferred to the Department of the Navy, officially intertwining the two forces in service to the nation through the conflict that would soon be upon them. Once America entered the war, the Coast Guard reestablished its escort duties into a more organized convoy system, within which armed Navy and Coast Guard vessels escorted Allied ships at sea to defend them from enemy submarine attacks. Abroad, Coast Guard vessels and crews landed amphibious troops, supplies, and equipment across the Pacific and European theaters, including in large-scale battles like those on Guadalcanal and Normandy, putting Coast Guard personnel onto the dangerous front lines of the war. The Coast Guard’s role in search and rescue took on a greater scope and urgency, now tasked with recovering the many victims of naval battles as well as pilots and aircrews brought down in the water due to enemy action or mechanical failures. World War II was the first conflict that saw the use of Long-Range Aids to Navigation (LORAN) stations, which allowed Coast Guard personnel to more effectively manage large-scale navigation and coordination of maritime activities within certain areas of water, an essential task for coordinating operations and resupply efforts within a theater. Coast Guard crews also worked diligently to defend the American coasts from enemy action. Throughout the entirety of World War II, the Coast Guard performed these and a variety of other support duties that were essential to achieving Allied victory. Although the Coast Guard’s service during the war is sometimes overlooked in history books, the meritorious service of Coast Guard veterans in World War II was crucial, not only in achieving mission success, but also in defending the lives of countless American and Allied lives in a myriad of ways. The Coast Guard’s wartime role in World War II also solidified the branch’s wartime service missions and responsibilities, each of which only expanded after the war.
Tales from the Navy Log would like to highlight a few Coast Guard members that served during World War II, each of which depicts an important aspect of the branch’s wartime roles. The first is the only Coast Guardsman to receive the Medal of Honor in World War II: Signalman First Class Douglas Albert Munro. On September 27, 1942, Munro was in charge of a detachment of ten boats landing Marines on the landing beaches of Guadalcanal. After landing his Marines, Munro was heading back to a previously assigned location when the officer in charge informed him that the conditions on the beach were different from what was anticipated. Munro volunteered to return to head the boats tasked with evacuating the Marines, which required him to bring the boats ashore under heavy enemy fire. As the last Marines evacuated, Munro brought his own boats into a position to shield the retreating Marines. In this maneuver, Munro was fatally wounded as he protected the men he was assisting. Munro’s alleged last words were “Did they get off?” as he learned that his actions had succeeded in defending the men leaving the shores. His remaining crew completed his mission by clearing all friendly troops from the beach. Munro’s selfless gallantry, outstanding leadership, and unwavering devotion to duty posthumously earned him the Medal of Honor. Munro’s full citation can be found within his Navy Log.
The Navy Memorial also had the chance to speak with ENS Carrol George about his Coast Guard service during the war. A 1945 graduate of the Coast Guard Academy, George served aboard the USCGC Taney in the final stages of the war. George remembers running convoy duty to North Africa before serving in the Battle of Okinawa. During the battle, George’s cutter had to endure kamikaze attacks off the coast of Okinawa and he recalls the physical and emotional effects these attacks had on his comrades. Make sure to listen to his remarkable stories, which have been memorialized in the Navy Memorial Interview Archive:
Part One Memories of the Coast Guard Academy Class of 1945
Part Three Working on Missile Systems During the Cold War
Part Two Service on the USCGC Taney WPG 37 and the Battle of Okinawa
During the war, all military branches enlisted women into reserve forces designed to support the missions of each. In the Coast Guard, women joined the Coast Guard Women’s Reserve, more popularly known as the SPARs, an abbreviation of the Coast Guard’s Latin and translated motto. On November 23, 1942, Congress approved creating the SPARs, whose members were to fill stateside shore duties while the men in the Coast Guard were able to serve elsewhere. The women who became SPARs received military training, drilling, rank, and uniforms as enlisted personnel, and many earned commissions as officers and found leadership roles in the service. SPARs filled a wide variety of billets across the continental United States and in Alaska and Hawaii throughout the war, serving as yeomen, radio operators, drivers, cooks, pharmacist’s mates, mechanics, coxswains, air control tower operators, medical assistants, parachute riggers, and even staff at LORAN stations. After the war, the SPARs were demobilized, much to the dismay of the SPARs themselves. The Women’s Reserve was reestablished in 1949, but it would take many more years for women to be integrated more fully into the Coast Guard. That said, the women of the SPARs serve as a testament to the devotion of women in uniform within the Coast Guard, and the pioneering steps and devoted wartime service of the SPARs of World War II were instrumental in paving the way for other women to serve in a more integrated Coast Guard.
The Navy Memorial had the distinct opportunity to interview one of these SPARs, CAPT Vivian Jean Reese Harned, who offered incredible insight about her wartime service. A schoolteacher before the war who welcomed the opportunity to serve her country and see the world, she also recalls some of the challenges she faced during her time in uniform. Make sure to check out her interview below:
Part One Deciding to Join the Coast Guard and the SPARS in 1943
Part Three Service at the 3rd Coast Guard District and Becoming an Officer in the Coast Guard
Part Two Memories of the 3rd Coast Guard District in New York City During World War Two
Part Four Working for the Department of the Army and the State Department Around the Globe During the Cold War
The final World War II Coast Guard veteran we would like to highlight is LT Thomas James Eugene Crotty. “Jimmy” Crotty graduated from the Coast Guard Academy in 1934 and served several years aboard Coast Guard cutters across the country. In April 1941, he received orders to attend the Navy’s Mine Warfare School in Yorktown, Virginia and, upon graduation, was assigned to the Navy Minesweeper USS Quail as her Executive Officer and sent to the Philippines. While the Quail diffused mines in Manila Bay, her crew also resisted the invading Japanese forces, who were invading the Philippines just days after their attacks on Pearl Harbor. After several weeks in combat, Crotty and his crew had to move ashore and fight alongside the Marines serving on the island desperately resisting the incoming Japanese troops. When the remaining American defenders on the Philippines surrendered on May 6, 1942, to the Japanese invaders, Crotty became the first Coast Guard prisoner of war since the War of 1812. In Japanese captivity, Crotty was imprisoned at the Cabanatuan prison camp and endured harsh treatment from his captors. Crotty’s fellow POWs remembered his continued optimism under these horrific circumstances. However, this lightheartedness slowly dwindled when he contracted diphtheria while in a camp that lacked proper medicine and health services to treat. On July 19, 1942, Crotty died in Japanese captivity. He was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star for his meritorious service, along with the Prisoner of War Medal. Make sure to check out LT Crotty’s incredible Stories of Service that are recorded in his Navy Log.
The Coast Guard did not halt its ocean patrols after the Korean War. These cutters are conducting a patrol from the Philippines to South Vietnam in 1965 to hunt for any enemy vessels that may cause a threat to American ships in the area.
Last week, the Tales from the Navy Log discussed some of the involvement that the Coast Guard had in the Korean War, but we wanted to expand upon this role here as well. Prior to the outbreak of hostilities, the Coast Guard played a critical role in training the fledgling South Korean navy, which would play a vital role in the upcoming conflict. With the outbreak of hostilities, the Coast Guard assumed a wartime role distinct from the U.S. Navy. Whereas during the two world wars, when the Coast Guard’s vessels and personnel were integrated and transferred into the U.S. Navy in most cases, the Korean War was the first global conflict within with the Coast Guard expanded its normal peacetime roles of navigational aid and maritime security as an independent branch in support of the war effort on its own. This expanded wartime role demanded that Coast Guard personnel take the lead in port security, maritime safety, provide navigational and weather aids to military vessels, patrol ocean stations in war zones, and conduct search and rescue missions within war zones. Each of these newly expanded wartime roles became paramount for the Coast Guard’s modern role in war and firmly established the force as an essential branch in the nation’s defense. The Coast Guard’s expanded wartime roles were similarly employed in conflicts following the Korean War continued through the Vietnam War and later conflicts in the Middle East.
Today, on the Coast Guard’s birthday, the Navy Log does not only want to commemorate the service of Coast Guardsmen who served during wartime, but also that of Coast Guardsmen who served in peace. Peacetime missions have seen the Coast Guard participating in Operation Deep Freeze in the Antarctic, for example. The branch operates ice breakers, carrying out icebreaking services in the Great Lakes, Alaskan waters, as well as in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. The Coast Guard has responded in kind to natural disasters across the nation and has combatted smuggling and drug trafficking taking place near American waterways. The Coast Guard’s mission does not end just because the nation is at peace, and these instances name but a few of the many duties the Coast Guard performs around the clock for the nation.
The very embodiment of this fact can be seen in the service of VADM Sally Brice O’Hara. Over her long career in the Coast Guard from 1975 to 2012, O’Hara served at a number of duty stations across the country, from Cape May to Honolulu. She also served as the 27th Vice-Commandant of the Coast Guard, only the second woman to serve in this position. The Navy Memorial had the privilege to interview her to discuss a few of the memories that stand out to her throughout her career with surface operations. She also recalls her experiences as a woman in the Coast Guard still facing barriers within the branch, and what serving within this environment and fighting against these barriers meant to her over time. Make sure to listen to VADM O’Hara’s interview below:
The Pea Island Life-Saving crew stand in front of their station in 1896. Throughout their service, the all-black crew ensured that the area near their station was monitored and those in distress in the area received proper care. Had it not been for the advocacy of RADM Rochon, these brave man tragically may not have ever received the recognition for their service that they deserve.
Another incredible Coast Guard Story of Service is that of RADM Stephen W. Rochon, who served from 1970 to 2007. During the Vietnam War, Rochon was about to be drafted while he was attending college, but he enlisted in the Coast Guard before he was drafted so that he could choose his branch. His first duty station was onboard the USCGC White Bush in the Pacific servicing buoys placed at sea to aid navigation. After completing one enlistment, Rochon attended officer candidate school in Yorktown, Virginia, and then served at several duty stations across the nation and globe, ultimately becoming a Rear Admiral. During his time in uniform, Rochon discovered archival materials detailing the service of an all-black crew of the Pea Island Lifesaving Station off the coast of North Carolina. He devoted significant efforts to raise awareness for the heroic service of these mariners, which included a daring rescue in 1896 near the Outer Banks. Rochon’s efforts in advocacy and education resulted in the posthumous awarding of the Gold Lifesaving Medal to the crew of the station. Perhaps the most prestigious of his duty stations was his time in the White House; he served as a Chief Usher in the White House under the Bush and Obama Administrations. Rochon was the first African American to serve as White House Chief Usher.
The Navy Memorial Interview Archive features an interview of RADM Rochon. This interview was actually conducted by students working with the Navy Memorial’s Student Interview Program. This incredible partnership between the Navy Memorial and schools across the country allows students to conduct oral history interviews with local veterans and active duty personnel to record and preserve the stories of the past for future generations. To learn more about this initiative, make sure to check out its page on the Navy Memorial website. Make sure to check out his remarkable story:
Part One Joining the USCG and Boot Camp at Alameda California
Part Three Advancing in the United States Coast Guard
Part Five Assignments as an Officer in Los Angeles, Cleveland, Washington D.C., and Senior Service School
Part Seven Reflections on Becoming a Rear Admiral and the Flag Corps
Part Nine Coast Guard Leadership Commands Across the Globe
Part Eleven Reflections on His Service at the White House and Having a Passion for History
Part Thirteen Transitioning from the Bush Administration to the Obama Administration
Part Two Service on the USCGC White Bush in 1973
Part Four Becoming an Officer in the USCG
Part Six Coordinating Coast Guard Efforts to Clean up the MV Westchester Oil Spill
Part Eight Service Memories in the Coast Guard and Hurricane Katrina
Part Ten Service as the Director of the Executive Residence and White House Chief Usher and the Bush Administration
Part Twelve Reflections of Leadership and the Pea Island Life Savers
Part Fourteen Twelve Memories of the Obama White House
