Posts filed under ‘U.S. Coast Guard’
THE FRIDAY FOTO: May 17, 2024
PICTURE-PERFECT PATROL
(U.S. Coast Guard photo by Tim Cusak, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service) Click on the photo to enlarge the image.
A small boat launched from the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Oliver Henry patrols near a volcanic island in the Northern Mariana Islands on April 23, 2024.
The small (2-kilometer, 1.24-mile)-wide island of Farallon de Pajaros (also known as Uracas) is the northernmost and most active volcano of the Mariana Islands. Its relatively frequent eruptions,dating back to the mid-19th century, earned it the nickname “Lighthouse of the Western Pacific.” It is also part of the Mariana Trench National Marine Sanctuary.
The Oliver Henry is a Sentinel-class fast response cutter (FRC) designed for multiple missions, including drug
and migrant interdiction; ports, waterways and coastal security; fishery patrols; search and rescue; and national defense.
The Oliver Henry is one of three fast response cutters based at Guam, the largest, most populous, and southernmost of the Marianas. The 154-foot-long vessel with a crew of 24, arrived at the northern Pacific island in December 2020 following a nearly 11,000- nautical mile journey from Key West, Florida.
The cutter is named after Oliver T. Henry, Jr., an African American Coast Guardsman who enlisted in 1940 and was the first to break the color barrier of a then-segregated Service, where all black sailors served as mess stewards or cooks. During World War II, Henry served aboard the Cutter Northland, becoming the Coast Guard’s first black machinist mate.
With the help of Lieutenant Commander Carlton Skinner, Northland’s executive officer, Henry was transferred to the engineering division where he blazed a trail for minorities in the military as he climbed from enlisted ranks while serving on 10 different Coast Guard Cutters, finally retiring as a Chief Warrant Officer in 1966.
SHAKO: Celebrating Military Fire Fighters and their Patron Saint
UPON ST. FLORIAN’S DAY
(U.S. Air Force photo by Keith Thornburgh) Click on the photos to enlarge the image.
U.S. Air Force Fire and Emergency Services (FES) firefighters combat a simulated aircraft engine fire during fuselage fire training March 5, 2024, at Arnold Air Force Base in Tennessee It was all part of a live aircraft fire training session running from March 5-7, 2024. A month earlier, Arnold AFB crew took part in three days of structural fire training.
With ammunition, jet fuel and all sorts of other combustibles stored in large quantities, even in peacetime, most U.S. military facilities have to train constantly to respond quickly to even the smallest conflagration.
As it happens, Saturday, May 4th is the Feast of St. Florian, a Roman soldier and Christian martyr, who is the patron saint of firefighters.
Florian was born around 250 C.E., in what is now present-day Austria. He joined Rome’s army and advanced quickly to become commander of the Imperial Army in the Roman province of Noricum (most of modern day Poland). One of his many duties was being responsible for forming fire brigades. Florian organized and trained this elite group of soldiers in their sole duty of fighting fires.
May 4 is also International Fire Fighters Day, so we thought we’d feature some of the “smoke eaters” in the U.S. military.
In the Navy and U.S. Coast Guard, firefighters are called Damage Controlmen. Not only do they fight, and prevent, fires, they perform the tasks of damage control and maintaining ship stability. They also prepare defenses against chemical, biological and radiological (CBR) warfare attacks. And they instruct personnel in damage control and CBR defense and repair damage-control equipment and systems. (Incidentally, Navy Fire Controlmen maintain the control mechanism used in weapons systems on combat ships.)
In the photo below, Sailors practice firehose handling during a damage control drill aboard the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Gravely (DDG 107) in the Red Sea on April 12, 2024.
. (Official U.S. Navy photo) Click on photo to enlarge the image.
As we’ve said in the past at 4GWAR Blog, the U.S. Navy takes fires very seriously. At the Navy’s only boot camp — Naval Service Training Command in Great Lakes, Illinois — recruits are trained in firefighting as one of five basic competencies, which also include: Damage control, watch standing, seamanship and small-arms handling/marksmanship.
THE FRIDAY FOTO (January 12, 2024)
HEAVE HO!
(U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Ryan Graves) Click on the photo to enlarge the image.
The crew of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star “tows” the cutter while on the fast ice in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica on December 29, 2023. Fast ice (also called land-fast ice, landfast ice, and shore-fast ice) is sea ice that has fastened” to the coastline, to the sea floor along shoals, or to grounded icebergs.
But what is really happening here? The crew of the cutter Polar Star were participating in an ice liberty, sort of a break or recess, during the serious work of Operation Deep Freeze 23. The free time gives the crew a moment to walk on the ice and pose for a photo of them appearing to tow the largest vessel in the U.S. Coast Guard.
Polar Star, the only U.S. heavy ice breaker, and its crew journey to the southern continent annually in support of Operation Deep Freeze, a joint military service mission to resupply the U.S. Antarctic stations of the National Science Foundation, the lead agency for the United States Antarctic Program.
The U.S. military’s support of U.S. Antarctic research began in 1955, according to the Defense Department. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command continues to lead the Joint Task Force-Support Forces Antarctica team in providing logistic support for the United States Antarctic Program. However, it is a New York State Air National Guard unit — the 109th Airlift Wing, at Stratton Air National Guard Base, Schenectady, New York — that provides airlift support to the National Science Foundation’s South Pole research program by flying LC-130H Hercules airlifters, modified with wheel-ski gear.
THE FRIDAY FOTO (August 25, 2023)
THE EAGLE AND LADY LIBERTY.
( U.S. Coast Guard photo by Chief Petty Officer John Masson.) Click on photo to enlarge image.
Sometimes you just want to see a pretty picture.
In this one, the U.S. Coast Guard tall ship, Eagle, lies at anchor near the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor on July 28, 2023. The ship and crew are on a four-month training deployment for Coast Guard Academy cadets and officer candidates that includes visits to Europe, Bermuda and ports along the Eastern Seaboard.
As we’ve noted in previous 4GWAR posts, the Eagle is the only active (operational) commissioned sailing vessel in the U.S. maritime services. USS Constitution (Old Ironsides), launched in 1797, is the oldest commissioned ship in the United States Navy, but serves as a pierside museum and seldom takes to sea.
A three-masted barque, the Eagle has a permanent crew of eight officers and 50 enlisted personnel to maintain the ship year-round and provide the knowledge and seamanship for training up to 150 cadets at a time.
In the midst of a tumultuous summer of deadly record-breaking heat across the northern hemisphere, wildfires from Greece to Hawaii, seldom seen-Pacific hurricanes, desert floods, persistent economic concerns and a widening political gap, we thought this peaceful sunset on the waters around one of the world’s busiest cities, might feel a little calming and with a ship named Eagle and a statue named Liberty — maybe a little inspiring.
THE FRIDAY FOTO (August 4, 2023)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY U.S. COAST GUARD.
Hatteras Lighthouse on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The Lighthouse Service was one of several maritime safety agencies combined to form the modern U.S. Coast Guard in the 20th century. (4GWAR Blog photo by Deborah Zabarenko, copyright Sonoma Road Strategies LLC)
The U.S. Coast Guard celebrates its 233rd birthday today, August 4. That’s when President George Washington signed the Tariff Act in 1790 authorizing construction of 10 vessels to enforce federal tariff and trade laws and prevent smuggling.
The organization’s original purpose was collecting customs duties at U.S. seaports. By the 1860s, that name was less frequently used and became known as the Revenue Cutter Service. Over time, the Life-Saving Service, the Lighthouse Service, the Bureau of Navigation and the Steamboat Inspection Service were all added to the entity known as the Coast Guard which Congress established on January 28, 1915. That legislation created a single maritime service dedicated to saving life at sea and enforcing the nation’s maritime laws.
The United States Lighthouse Service, also known as the Bureau of Lighthouses, was created in 1910 as the U.S. agency responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of all lighthouses and lightvessels in the United States. The Coast Guard took over maintenance of the country’s aids to maritime navigation, including lighthouses in 1939.
Built in 1870, the iconic Cape Hatteras Lighthouse pictured above, stands watch over what was known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic. Off Cape Hatteras, the Gulf Stream collides with a branch of the Labrador Current from Canada often forcing southbound ships into a dangerous twelve-mile long sandbar called Diamond Shoals. There are hundreds and possibly thousands of shipwrecks in this area.
Construction of a lighthouse at Cape Hatteras was first authorized in 1794, but construction did not begin until 1799, according to the National Park Service. The first lighthouse was lit in October of 1803. Made of sandstone, it was 90 feet tall with a lamp powered by whale oil. But the 1803 lighthouse was too short to effectively warn ships of the dangerous Diamond Shoals. The unpainted sandstone blended in with the background, and the signal was not strong enough to reach mariners. In 1853, following studies made by the Lighthouse Board, it was decided to add 60 feet to the height of the lighthouse, making the tower 150 feet tall. The newly extended tower was then painted red on top of white making the lighthouse more recognizable during the day.
During the U.S. Civil War, Confederate troops from North Carolina arrived at Hatteras Island in May 1861 to protect the 59-year-old sandstone lighthouse. However, a Union force landed at Cape Hatteras and occupied the island.
Congress appropriated funds for a new lighthouse in the 1860s and construction began in October 1868. The new lighthouse was lit on December 16, 1870. The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse received the famous black and white stripe pattern in 1873. The Lighthouse Board assigned each lighthouse a distinctive paint pattern (daymark) and light sequence (nightmark) to allow mariners to recognize it from all others during the day and night as they sailed along the coast.
THE FRIDAY FOTO (July 14, 2023)
NIGHT DELIVERY.
(U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sergeant Corban Lundborg) Click on photo to enlarge image.
A U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III cargo transport plane from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, offloads a MH-60 Blackhawk at Las Palmas Air Base in Lima, Peru on July 5, 2023 for exercise Resolute Sentinel 23.
Led by the 12th Air Force, a component of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), Resolute Sentinel seeks to improve readiness through joint training of U.S. and partner nation forces’ civil engineers, medical professionals and support personnel in a series of humanitarian assistance activities. This year Resolute Sentinel is being held in Peru and will integrate combat interoperability and disaster response training to the medical aid and construction projects.
First held in 2021, Resolute Sentinel evolved out of two annual joint humanitarian assistance exercises in Latin America and the Caribbean. Participating nations this year include Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and the United Kingdom, according to Diálogo Américas.
The C-17 Globemaster serves as the Air Force’s primary strategic lift aircraft for global transport of troops and equipment. According to Military.com it can carry 102 paratroopers, 36 litter cases and 54 ambulatory patients and attendants or 170,900 pounds (77,519 kilograms) of cargo. The MH-60 Blackhawk helicopter weighs 2,511 pounds (5,675 kilograms) empty and has a 50-foot-long fuselage, so you know the C-17 can handle big loads. This Blackhawk is part of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), also known as the Night Stalkers.
If you are curious or confused about the long name McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, or whether it’s an Army, Navy or Air Force base, the answer is all three. McGuire Air Force Base, the Army’s Fort Dix and Naval Air Engineering Station Air Station Lakehurst — all in New Jersey — were combined into one joint operation in 2009 by the congressionally-mandated Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process.
THE FRIDAY FOTO (April 28, 2023)
“High shall our purpose be.”
(U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Brandon Hillard) Click on the photo to enlarge image.
Coast Guard personnel conduct maintenance aloft on the Coast Guard cutter Eagle, a three-masted barque, in the Atlantic Ocean on April 9, 2023.
The Eagle is the only active (operational) commissioned sailing vessel in the U.S. maritime services. A permanent crew of eight officers and 50 enlisted personnel maintain the ship year-round. They also provide the knowledge and seamanship for training up to 150 cadets at a time.
In early April, Eagle began a four-month summer deployment to teach practical seamanship skills to officer candidates from the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Corps, as well as foreign military personnel. During this voyage, cadets and crew will meet with U.S. allies in Northern Europe (the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark), the Portuguese archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira — and later, Bermuda.
Eagle will return to its homeport in New London, Connecticut by mid-August.
The German-built Eagle is an actual war prize, taken from the Nazis at the end of World War II. Launched in 1936 by the Blohm + Voss Shipyard in Hamburg, Germany, the sailing ship was commissioned as Horst Wessel, after the Nazi icon and “martyr.” Originally operated by Nazi Germany to train cadets for the German Navy, the ship was taken over by the United States after World War II. In 1946, a U.S. Coast Guard crew – aided by the German crew still on board – sailed the tall ship from Bremerhaven to its New London.
By the way, the words of the headline are taken from the Coast Guard marching song, “Semper Paratus,“ Always Prepared.
SHAKO: Remembering the Deadliest Disaster in Coast Guard History
DESTRUCTION OF THE USS SERPENS.
Members of the U.S. Coast Guard attend a wreath-laying ceremony at the USS Serpens Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery on .January 27, 2023. Seventy-eight years ago, the explosion and destruction of the Navy cargo ship in which 250 were killed was the largest fatal disaster in the history of the Coast Guard. (U.S. Army photo by Elizabeth Fraser / Arlington National Cemetery)
Named after the Serpens constellation, the USS Serpens was a Crater-class Navy cargo ship commissioned in May 1943. On the night of January 29, 1945, the freighter was anchored off Lunga Beach, Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, carrying ammunition and other cargo bound for U.S. bases in the Pacific.
While the crew was loading depth charges into the holds, a massive explosion occurred. The explosion destroyed the entire ship, save for its bow, which sank to the bottom. More than two hundred and fifty men lost their lives: 196 Coast Guardsmen, 57 U.S. Army stevedores and a U.S. Public Health Service surgeon, Dr. Harry. Levin. Only two of the 198-man Coast Guard crew aboard that night survived: Seaman 1st Class Kelsie Kemp and Seaman 1st Class George Kennedy. Both awarded the Purple Heart medal.
USS Serpens (Photo U.S. Coast Guard)
The cause of the explosion was never definitively determined. At first report, the incident was attributed to enemy action but a court of inquiry later determined that the cause of the explosion could not be established from the remaining evidence.
Those who died in the Serpens disaster were originally buried at the Army, Navy and Marine Corps Cemetery on Guadalcanal. On June 15, 1949, their remains were re-interred in Section 34 at Arlington National Cemetery.
The USS Serpens Memorial was dedicated on November 16, 1950. The Octagon-shaped memorial is inscribed with the names and ranks of those who perished. At the dedication ceremony, Vice Admiral Merlin O’Neill, Commandant of the Coast Guard, stated, “We cannot undo the past, but we can ensure that these men shall be respected and honored forever.”
The USS Serpens earned one battle star for her World War II service.
The U.S.S. Serpens Monument is dedicated to those who lost their lives when the 14,250-ton ammunition ship exploded off Lunga Baech, Guadacanal on the night of January 29, 1945. (U.S. Army photo by Rachel Larue)
Click here to see the names listed on the monument.
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SHAKO is an occasional 4GWAR posting on military history, traditions and culture. For the uninitiated, a shako is the tall, billed headgear worn by many armies from the Napoleonic era to about the time of the American Civil War. It remains a part of the dress, or parade, uniform of several military organizations like the corps of cadets at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York in the photo.
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