Old Weather Forum

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

1946 — The U.S. Air-Rescue Agency, an inter-departmental group headed by the Commandant of the Coast Guard and engaged in the study of improved and standardized rescue and search methods, was renamed the Search and Rescue Agency. "Search and Rescue Units of the Coast Guard were at the same time integrated into the peace time organization and the whole developed into a system of constantly alerted communications, coastal lookout, and patrols of institute instant and systematic search and rescue procedure in case of disasters."

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

2014 — CGC Waesche returned to its homeport of Alameda, completing a 14-week deployment that included counter-smuggling patrols, participation in the largest multi-national maritime exercise in the world, and fisheries enforcement operations. Waesche spent the first month of its deployment off the coast of Southern California and Mexico in support of joint inter-agency, counter-drug operations. Working with other Coast Guard assets, Customs and Border patrol (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Mexican navy, the cutter’s crew interdicted more than 10,000 pounds of illegal narcotics and six suspected narco-traffickers. Waesche then shifted their focus to the Central Pacific, where they participated in the multi-national Rim of the Pacific Exercises 2014 (RIMPAC) off the coast of Hawaii. After RIMPAC, the cutter headed to the South Pacific Ocean to conduct Fisheries Enforcement in support of the 14th Coast Guard District, which spans from Hawaii to American Samoa, Guam, and other U.S. possessions in the Pacific. During the patrol, Waesche embarked three fisheries enforcement specialists from partner nations in the Pacific, including Kiribati and the Cook Islands. In addition to fisheries enforcement, the crew of Waesche conducted flight operations with the French navy off the coast of Tahiti, completing a series of hoists and simulated supply-drops with a French AS365 helicopter.

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

1934 — Surfboats and lifeboats from Coast Guard stations Shark River, Squan Beach, Sandy Hook, and others responded to a deadly fire aboard the liner Morro Castle, rescuing 129 survivors. Cutters Tampa and Cahoone also responded. After failing to get the Morro Castle under tow due to the worsening weather, they recovered as many victims from the water as they could. All told over 250 Coast Guardsmen participated in the rescue and recovery effort. Eventually this maritime disaster led to a Senate investigation and subsequent changes in maritime safety regulations.

https://www.history.uscg.mil/Browse-by- ... ampa-1921/
https://www.history.uscg.mil/Browse-by- ... -wmec-131/

Off the New Jersey coast, a fire aboard the passenger liner SS Morro Castle kills 137 people has a decidedly less flattering view of the Coast Guard's contribution.

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

1900 — Second Assistant Engineer Charles S. Root and Seaman James Bierman of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, assigned to USRC Galveston, were awarded Gold Lifesaving Medals for their actions after the 1900 hurricane that destroyed Galveston, Texas. Root voluntarily commanded a boat that went to the assistance of survivors within the city itself, a boat manned by eight other volunteer members of Galveston's crew, including Seaman Bierman. The other members of Root's boat crew were Gunner George Jeffas, Carpenter Jacob Pedersen, Master-At-Arms W. Cormack, Coxswain F. Olsen, Third-Class Oiler W. Gardiner, Oiler W. Idstrom, and Fireman B. Rafailovich. In all they were credited with saving 34 persons "from drowning." They were the first members of the Revenue Cutter Service to receive the prestigious award.

1952 — When SS Foundation Star sent a distress signal that she was in rough seas and in danger of breaking in half, four Coast Guard vessels and three commercial vessels proceed to her assistance and rescued the crew before the ship broke apart and sank.

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

1942 — The Coast Guard-manned weather ship USS Muskeget disappeared without a trace while on weather patrol in the North Atlantic during World War II. Her entire crew of nine officers and 111 enlisted men were lost. After the war, the U.S. Navy determined that she had been torpedoed and sunk with all hands by the German submarine U-755.
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https://www.history.navy.mil/research/h ... keget.html

The Long Blue Line: A Coast Guard scientist, maritime war hero, and polar icebreaker skipper

In the summer of 1943, [Charles Ward] Thomas took command of the Cutter Northland of the Coast Guard’s Greenland Patrol. It was his first command of an ice cutter and it put his warship experience to good use. Under his command, Northland pursued Nazi military personnel manning a clandestine weather station on Sabine Island, captured one German and then navigated the pack ice of Northeast Greenland for months before finding open water. Under Thomas, Northland also established a vital radio direction finding station on the Norway’s Jan Mayen Island, located north of Iceland and 300 miles off Greenland’s eastern coast. This station could locate transmissions from any clandestine weather stations transmitting weather reports to the Nazi high command.

In January 1944, Thomas was assigned to outfit the Coast Guard’s heavily-armed heavy icebreaker Eastwind. After its commissioning, he commanded the Eastwind on the Greenland Patrol in the dramatic chase and capture of the armed German trawler Externsteine along with its crew and personnel of an enemy weather station on North Little Koldeway Island located in Northeast Greenland. Capt. Thomas served as task force commander for the vessels involved in the dramatic capture earning him the Legion of Merit Medal with Combat “V.”

By early 1945, Thomas re-joined the Greenland Patrol and became its commander in August of that year. Detached from that post in November 1946, Thomas next commanded the Coast Guard icebreaker Northwind in Operation “High Jump,” the fourth of Adm. Richard Byrd’s expeditions to the Antarctic and the subject of the Academy Award winning motion picture, “The Secret Land.” Under Thomas, the Northwind spearheaded the expedition, clearing the way through the Ross Sea ice pack for Navy cargo ships. In 1948, in the North Pacific, Thomas commanded Northwind in re-establishing the annual Bering Sea Patrol, which had been discontinued during the war. During this command, he compiled extensive oceanographic reports for the waters of the Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean.

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

1878 — Life-Saving Service Keeper Captain J. O. Doyle, in charge of Life-Saving Station Charlotte, New York, earned a Gold Lifesaving Medal for a rescue he conducted of the crew of the wrecked schooner B. P. Dorr, out of Chicago, Illinois.

2014 — CGC Healy returned to its homeport of Seattle, Washington, after spending 130 days on a science deployment in the Bearing Sea, Chukchi Sea, and Arctic Ocean. During the four-month patrol, the crew aboard Healy conducted three missions to further scientific knowledge and understanding of the Arctic. The first mission, the Study of Under Ice Blooms in the Chukchi Ecosystem, was led by Stanford University personnel with funding from the National Science Foundation. Throughout this phase Healy's crew completed 230 science station evolutions in which the ship stopped to conduct operations, including 14 on-ice deployments. The second scientific mission of the summer was completed by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientists who were studying the Pacific Boundary Current and other oceanographic trends in the Arctic. The third and final science pursuit of the summer was accomplished with a team from the Coast Guard's Research and Development Center. Members from the center brought technologies and equipment to be utilized for oil spill monitoring in the harsh Arctic environment. Tools used to complete mission objectives and testing evaluation consisted of several remotely operated vehicles, a few small unmanned aerial systems, an autonomous underwater vehicle, an unmanned surface vehicle, surface wave instrument float with tracking buoys, oil spill tracking buoys, and an aerostat balloon. Other smaller materials and projects were evaluated for use by the Coast Guard in the Arctic, and all of these tests together yielded a greater understanding of tools to available to respond to an oil spill should an accident occur in the ice at extreme northern latitudes.

2014 — Coast Guard units responded to a flood near Southaven, in northern Mississippi. Desoto County Emergency Management Agency requested Coast Guard assistance and Coast Guard Sector Lower Mississippi River deployed flood response teams to the area. Working alongside Desoto County Search and Rescue and Southaven Fire Department teams, they rescued 30 people and 10 pets.

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

2020 — CGC CAMPBELL was awarded the Arctic Service Medal in honor of their service period of 21 days north of the Arctic Circle, 66°33'N, from 16 August 2020 to 12 September 2020. CAMPBELL was the first WMEC 210'/270' class vessel to be awarded the Arctic Service Medal. CAMPBELL patrolled over 10,000 nautical miles, steaming up to the 72° N Latitude. This achievement marked the CAMPBELL's Arctic deployment for the history books as the crew also navigated through waters unknown to the modern-day Coast Guard. CAMPBELL assisted in crucial scientific research efforts through its Arctic deployment, deploying numerous International Ice Patrol and National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration buoys into regions that have never been sampled before. The crew assisted in critical ice state and sea state research throughout their deployment. CAMPBELL and her crew celebrated their significant accomplishment with the Arctic Service Medal as a job well done. CAMPBELL helped further the Coast Guard's mission of strengthening partnerships and interoperability with their Arctic partners.

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

1716 — The Boston Lighthouse on Little Brewster Island in Boston Harbor, the first lighthouse established in America, was first lit.

1944 — The Great Atlantic Hurricane, a Category 3 hurricane, made landfall at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina; Long Island, New York; and Point Judith, Rhode Island. Cape Henry, Virginia, reported sustained winds at 134 MPH with gusts to 150 MPH. There were 46 civilian deaths and $100 million in damage from Cape Hatteras northward through the Maine coast. Cutters Jackson and Bedloe, and Lightship No. 73 on Vineyard Sound Station, foundered. All 12 of the lightship's crew perished. Only 30 of the 78 crewmen on board the two cutters were saved. Two Navy vessels also foundered. A total of 344 perished at sea.

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

1944 — Coast Guardsmen participated in the invasion and liberation of Morotai Island.

1948 — After making a night-long high-speed run to reach the hurricane-ridden Portuguese schooner Gasper some 300 miles off the southern tip of Newfoundland, CGC Bibb launched two 20-man rubber lifeboats in heavy rain and seas to rescue 40 survivors and 1 dog from the doomed ship.

1958 — A New Jersey Central passenger train plunged into Newark Bay through an open drawbridge, submerging two engines and two coaches. Coast Guard small craft and helicopters assisted in rescuing 43 survivors and recovering 29 bodies.

1982 — For the first time since its introduction to the Coast Guard's aviation fleet, a "new" HU-25A Guardian was used in a search and rescue incident for the Coast Guard. On 15 September 1982 an HU-25A assigned to Coast Guard Aviation Training Center in Mobile located a missing crewman from the pipeline barge Cherokee who had been reported missing late the previous evening. The HU-25A located the missing crewman in the water and directed a nearby vessel, M/V Elsie D, to his location and their crew rescued the missing man who was then returned to his vessel and he was thereafter taken by helicopter to a New Orleans hospital and he was soon released in good condition. A press release noted: "The Coast Guard is buying a fleet of 41 of the HU-25 jets to replace the vintage [Grumman] HU-16 Albatross and the Convair HC-131A Samaritan aircraft. The new planes will be used for search and rescue and for surveillance patrols. The HU-25As mark the entry of the Coast Guard into the jet age, and their use will offer the service a mission capability that was not possible with earlier aircraft."

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

1918 — While on escort-of-convoy duty during World War I, CGC Seneca’s crew attempted to bring the torpedoed British collier Wellington into Brest, France. Eleven of Seneca‘s crew, sent as a boarding party aboard the collier, were lost when Wellington foundered. Coast Guard Coxswain James Osborne was awarded a Gold Lifesaving Medal for his efforts that day.

1988 — Hurricane Gilbert made landfall in Mexico on this date. Coast Guard units assisted in rescue and evacuation operations from September 18-20. During those SAR operations, Coast Guard aircrews lifted 109 victims from flood waters to safety.

1996 — Avondale Industries laid the keel for CGC Healy at New Orleans, Louisiana. Avondale launched the ice-breaking cutter on November 15, 1997 and delivered it to the Coast Guard on November 10, 1999. Healy arrived at its homeport of Seattle, Washington and was placed "In Commission, Active" on August 21, 2000.

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

1932 — CGC Escanaba was launched at the Dafoe Boat and Motor Works in Bay City, Michigan. Escanaba saw extensive service on the Great Lakes prior to World War II and was home-ported in Grand Haven, Michigan. During World War II the cutter was lost in action off Greenland with only two survivors. The cause of the loss has never been determined with certainty.

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

1930 — For the first time in its history the Coast Guard located a clandestine "rummy" radio station by means radio direction-finding equipment it developed for its Prohibition enforcement efforts.

1968 — M/V Johannes Frans, a 634-foot Dutch tanker with a cargo of oil, reported that it was disabled in 10 to 15-foot seas and was taking on water 250 miles northeast of Bermuda. CGC Dallas, which was in the immediate area, received the same report from the subject via flashing light and immediately went to her assistance. The pump provided by Dallas, however, failed to work properly. A Coast Guard aircraft provided four additional pumps by the evening of Sept 19; Dallas reported that the flooding had been stabilized. Three civilian tugs were enroute, with the first due on the 21st. Weather conditions improved enough on the 21st for the master and crew to remain aboard and continue pumping. The tug Foundation Vigilant arrived on scene on the morning of the 21st and took the vessel in tow. The tug Tasman Zee arrived shortly thereafter and provided three pumps. The three ships proceeded to Bermuda. Dallas then proceeded to Ocean Station Echo.

2022 — CGC Midgett (WMSL 757) departed Chennai, India, following the cutter's third international port call during the months-long Western Pacific deployment to the region. Midgett's crew conducted bilateral in-port exchanges sharing expertise and best practices in Coast Guard missions with the Indian Coast Guard while in Chennai, building upon the strong partnership between the two nations.