Old Weather Forum

https://www.history.uscg.mil/research/chronology/

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, 26 July 26, 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."

https://www.history.uscg.mil/research/chronology/

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.

https://www.history.uscg.mil/research/chronology/

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.

2014 — CGC Mellon returned to its homeport of Seattle, Washington, after an 86-day patrol of the Bering Sea that covered nearly 15,000 miles. Mellon departed Seattle May 10, 2014 to conduct SAR and fisheries missions throughout the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea. Those efforts included 41 law enforcement boardings and more than 100 hours aboard commercial fishing vessels. While patrolling the Aleutian Islands, the crew came to the aid of a fishing vessel crew following an engine-room fire. The cutter’s damage control team performed a thorough post-fire analysis and eliminated or isolated damaged engine-room wiring to mitigate the risk of the fire re-igniting. In an evolution that took more than 15 hours, the Coast Guardsmen escorted the fishing vessel safely to Dutch Harbor, Alaska. The crew also participated in community relations events while taking time in port to resupply the cutter. During a port call to Unalaska Island, Alaska, the crew helped with landscaping and painting at the Holy Ascension Russian Orthodox Church, a national historic site.

https://www.history.uscg.mil/research/chronology/

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.

https://www.history.uscg.mil/research/chronology/

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.

2014 — CGC Waesche returned to port at Coast Guard Base Honolulu after spending three weeks at sea participating in Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2014 exercises. During the exercises Waesche demonstrated the Coast Guard's unique capabilities and partnership with Department of Defense entities and international partners along the Pacific Rim by serving as the Combined Task Force 175 commander. While in this role, Waesche led vessels from China, Brunei, Mexico, France, and the U.S., through numerous multinational exercises including ship handling, boarding exercises, replenishment at sea, and a live-fire gunnery exercise.

https://www.history.uscg.mil/research/chronology/

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.

https://www.history.uscg.mil/research/chronology/

1910 — Alaska was designated as a separate lighthouse district, with a district office and depot established at Ketchikan for directing operations.

https://www.history.uscg.mil/research/chronology/

1812 — The Revenue Cutter Commodore Barry, a 98-ton schooner pierced for six guns under the command of Captain Daniel Elliott, along with the U.S. privateer Madison, were captured by boarding parties from the British vessels HMS Maidstone, Spartan, and Plumper "while lying in Little River," Maine after what the New York Evening Post noted was a "severe contest, in which a number of the English were said to be killed." All but three of the crews of both escaped into the nearby woods. The three cuttermen who were captured, though, became the first prisoners-of-war in Coast Guard history. They were: Daniel Marshall, Charles Woodward, and William Babson of the Commodore Barry. The British destroyed the Madison but apparently utilized Commodore Barry as a tender.

https://www.history.uscg.mil/research/chronology/

1790 — President George Washington signed the "Tariff Act," a bill Congress passed that had been written and submitted by Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. The bill authorized Hamilton's to build ten cutters to protect the new nation's revenue (Stat. L. 145, 175). Alternately known as the system of cutters, Revenue Service, and Revenue-Marine this service would officially be named the Revenue Cutter Service (12 Stat. L., 639) in 1863. The cutters were placed under the control of the Treasury Department. This date marks the officially recognized birthday of the Coast Guard.

1854 Congress appropriated $12,500 for purchase of boats for life-saving purposes at a number of designated ports on the Great Lakes.

1894 Facilities of marine hospitals were extended to keepers and crews of the Life-Saving Service.



The Long Blue Line: Coast Guard Day edition

Coast Guard Day – Seeing the Completed Jigsaw Puzzle Picture - Part 1
Coast Guard Day – Completing Jigsaw Puzzle Picture - Part 2

https://www.history.uscg.mil/research/chronology/

1878 — The last true sailing cutter built for the Revenue Service, Chase (Salmon P. Chase) was completed at the shipyard of Thomas Brown of Philadelphia. Barque-rigged, Chase displaced 142 tons and served as a cadet practice vessel for nearly 30 years before being decommissioned and transferred to the U.S. Public Health Service.

1918 — The first American lightship to be sunk by enemy action, Lightship No. 71, was lost on the Diamond Shoals station. LS 71 had reported by radio the presence of a German submarine that had sunk a passing freighter and that message was intercepted by the U-104, which then located the lightship and, after giving the crew opportunity to abandon ship in life boats, sank it by surface gunfire. The lightship's crew reached shore without injury.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St ... al_(LV-71)

https://www.history.uscg.mil/research/chronology/

1882 — An Act of Congress (22 Stat. L., 301, 309) required all parties owning, occupying, or operating bridges over any navigable river to maintain at their own expense, from sunset to sunrise, throughout the year, such lights as may be required by the Lighthouse Service.

1942 — The landings at Tulagi and Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands commenced. This first Allied invasion in the Pacific proved to be a critical battle. Coast Guard manned transports, including the USS Hunter Liggett, participated in the invasion. Many of the landing craft were crewed by Coast Guardsmen. A Coast Guard officer, LCDR Dwight H. Dexter, and 25 Coast Guardsmen went ashore from the Liggett with their landing craft to set up a naval operating base on Lunga Point. Signalman 1/c Douglas Munro, later killed at Guadalcanal, was a member of Dexter's command.

1958 — A collision of the merchant tankers Golfoil and Graham in heavy fog in the entrance to Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island set fire to both vessels. U.S. Coast Guard, Navy, and commercial units fought the fires for three days, searched for missing crewmen, and assisted in directing traffic through the area. The CGC Laurel directed the on-scene operations.

https://www.history.uscg.mil/research/chronology/

1942 — The Coast Guard-manned attack transport USS Hunter Liggett rescued the survivors of the heavy cruisers USS Vincennes, Astoria, and Quincy and the Australian cruiser HMAS Canberra that had been sunk the preceding night by Imperial Japanese Navy warships during the Battle of Savo Island. The night battle, also known as the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, was one of the worst defeats ever suffered by the U.S. Navy.

1950 — Congress enacted Public Law 679, which charged the Coast Guard with the function of port security.

https://www.history.uscg.mil/research/chronology/

1812 — The Revenue Cutter Louisiana capsized and sank at her home port of New Orleans during a hurricane. All hands were lost except for her master.

https://www.history.uscg.mil/research/chronology/

1982 — Coast Guard vessels escorted the nation's first Trident submarine, USS Ohio, into its home port at Naval Submarine Base Bangor, providing security for the sub's transit. Coast Guard units guided the sub past a Soviet spy ship and 400 anti-nuclear protesters.

1984 — CGC Munro departed Honolulu for Tokyo, Japan to take part in a bilateral meeting between the Coast Guard and the Japanese Maritime Safety Agency. While en route, the cutter conducted a Hawaiian Island and Western Pacific Fisheries Enforcement Patrol – the first of its type ever conducted in the western Pacific by a 378-foot cutter.