PEA ISLAND STATION

Richard Etheridge at far left

In the 1880s, Pea Island in North Carolina was home of the first U.S. Life Saving Service station staffed exclusively by African Americans and commanded by a black officer, Richard Etheridge.

The station earned the reputation of "one of the tautest on the Carolina Coast" under Ethridge.

Belonging to the Life Saving Service "took extensive training and continual practice to be able to successfully launch a lifeboat or surfboat in heavy seas and shoot the Lyle Gun to a ship offshore to set up the breeches buoy," according to the U.S. Life-Saving Heritage Association.

In clear daylight, men kept watch from a station's tower. At night and during periods of daytime fog, they paced beaches, lighting flares to warn off ships too close to shore.

On Oct. 11, 1896, Etheridge and his men staged a daring rescue of nine people from the schooner E.S. Newman - which was blown off course and beached nearby - by braving the pounding surf 10 times. 

On the 100th anniversary of that rescue, the crew was posthumously awarded a Gold Lifesaving Medal, according to the National Park Service.  

Additionally, a Sentinel-class cutter named for Ethridge was launched in 2011.

ICE PATROL

The U.S. Coast Guard leads the International Ice Patrol. It was established in the aftermath of the 1912 Titanic disaster to track ice hazards in the North Atlantic in the area of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. The patrol initially fell under the auspices of the Revenue Cutter Service, the Coast Guard's predecessor. The North Atlantic ice season runs from Feb. 1 to July 31. Thirteen countries fund the patrol.

Photos: U.S. Coast Guard

In the 21st century, the International Ice Patrol relies primarily on aircraft. The "mainstay" has been the C-130 family since 1962, according to the Coast Guard. Today, the patrol's HC-130Js operate out of Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Flights last five to seven hours and cover 30,000 square miles. Air crews go out an average of five days every other week during ice season. Data are gathered to predict iceberg drift.

Seneca and Miami were the first revenue cutters to chart the North Atlantic icefields. This is a photo of Seneca on the prowl in 1914. The cutters sent ice reports by radio. The patrol stood down during both World Wars when German U-boats hunted Allied shipping. To be considered an iceberg, a free-floating, frozen chunk of glacial freshwater must measure at least 15 meters (or 16.4 yards) in length. Smaller chunks are called growlers - and they too can punch a hole in a hull.

In March 1957, the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Eastwind (WAGB-279) photographed the tallest known iceberg in the North Atlantic at that time. It extended 500 feet above surface - almost the height of the Washington Monument. It was located in Melville Bay, Greenland, position 75N, 67-30W.

View of cutter Eastwind through "eye" of an iceberg in Baffin Bay in September 1952 during an Arctic trek. Here's a knowledge nugget from Science Daily: "Since the density of pure water ice is ca. 920 kg/m3, and that of sea water ca. 1025 kg/m3, typically, around 90% of the volume of an iceberg is under water, and that portion's shape can be difficult to surmise from looking at what is visible above the surface."

This is believed to be the iceberg that sank the Titanic - pockmarked by a patch of paint that may have rubbed off the doomed liner's ruptured hull. It was photographed hours after the Titanic foundered on April 15, 1912 from the German ocean liner SS Prinz Adalbert. The actual collision occurred late on April 14. On the anniversary of the Titanic disaster, the Ice Patrol drops flowers over the presumed site.

On ice patrol duty in 1951, U.S. Coast Guard cutter Evergreen (WAGL-295 / WLB-295 / WAGO-295 / WMEC-295), rides the waves. The seagoing buoy tender featured a reinforced hull for light ice-breaking duty.

- Vinny Del Giudice, U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary

PHOTO GALLERY No. 1

The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Morrill was moored off Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Dec. 6, 1917, when an explosives-laden freighter exploded in a narrows, leveling much of the city and taking more than a 1,700 lives. The cutter survived the blast and a landing party helped provide aid to the stricken Canadian city.

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard
In January and February 1937, the U.S. Coast Guard assisted in relief efforts when the Ohio River flooded from Cairo, Illinois, to Pittsburgh. More than 300 people died.

The Nauset Coast Guard Station, one of nine such facilities that once served Cape Cod, Massachusetts, opened under the auspices of the U.S. Life-Saving Service in 1873. It went out of service in 1958. Cape Cod extends from the southeast corner of mainland Massachusetts into the Atlantic Ocean.

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

In Keokuk, Iowa, a U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary boat crew assisted the Missouri Water Patrol and local firefighters with radio communications and perimeter control at a vessel fire on Sept. 17, 2005.

Post card view of U.S. Coast Guard Air Station on Mississippi Gulf Coast, circa 1930s. The Coast Guard built up its aviation fleet to combat smuggling during the Prohibition-era.  It has expanded every since for search and rescue, law enforcement, etc.

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard
In the late 1800s, the Revenue Cutter Fessenden - propelled by a paddle wheel - would patrol the Great Lakes. The cutter went into serve in 1869. Its first home port was Cleveland. 

Photo: Inland Marine Radio History Archive
Vintage radio console at U.S. Coast Guard station "NOG" at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, serving shipping on the Great Lakes. This is the CW - continuous wave or Morse Code - operating position.

On April 4, 1933, the Navy airship USS Akron crashed off the Barnegat Lightship in New Jersey. The search employed Coast Guard vessels and aircraft. The Coast Guard cutter Tucker CG-23 was the first American vessel on the scene. The airship crashed tail first in high winds. The final death toll was 73. Three aboard the Akron survived. The crew hadn't been issued life vests.