Monday, July 30, 2018

NATHAN BRUCKENTHAL

USCG Nathan Bruckenthal

Nathan Bruckenthal
Photos: U.S. Coast Guard

In 2018, the U.S. Coast Guard commissioned a Fast Response Cutter named for the first Coast Guardsman killed in action since the Vietnam War.

Nathan Bruckenthal, 25, a petty officer third class, died in the Persian Gulf in 2004. His sister told The Washington Post: “His pride [in the Coast Guard] was tremendous.''

Cutter Nathan Bruckenthal WPC-1128 is a member of the 154-foot Sentinel-class of Coast Guard vessels.

Bruckenthal and two Navy sailors lost their lives in a waterborne attack on an offshore oil terminal - a suicide bombing.

Thursday, July 12, 2018

SHIPWRECKS - PART 1

SS MATAAFA


Dramatic photo of U.S. Life-Saving Service boat rescuing crewmembers of the bulk carrier SS Mataafa after it broke apart in Lake Superior near Duluth, Minnesota, in November 1905. Fifteen of 24 survived in a forward cabin. "The poor fellows on the stern end of the boat had little protection. In the engine house they could find no shelter for the waves covered the deck to the height of the rail. They finally climbed up under the shelter of the big smokestack, but wet as they were and with the biting cold they could not long stand the exposure," the Oshkosh Daily Northwestern reported.


SS HARVARD


The U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy responded when the passenger vessel SS Harvard ran aground in fog off Point Arguello, California, on May 30, 1931. Everyone survived.


S
S MOHAWK


Early on the night of Jan. 1, 1925, the passenger line SS Mohawk caught fire off New Jersey. The vessel left New York that day for Florida with more than 200 passengers and crew. A distress call brought Coast Guard cutter Kickapoo 
(WAGL-56) out of Cape May, New Jersey. It arrived before dawn on Jan. 2.  The SOS was received at the Navy's Cape Henlopen Radio Compass Station in Delaware. Passengers were taken about the cutter and commercial tugs to Lewes, Delaware. On Jan. 24, 1935, a replacement vessel also named SS Mohawk sank after a collision with the Norwegian freighter Talisman off Sea Girt, New Jersey, killing 16 passengers and 31 crew.


AFRICAN QUEEN


Photo: U.S. Navy

On Dec. 30, 1958, the Liberian taker African Queen ran aground off Ocean City, Maryland, and broke in two causing a huge oil spill.
 "Forty-five of the men were air-lifted from the stern of the broken vessel by nine Coast Guard, Navy and Marine Corps helicopters in a coordinated shuttle," The New York Times reported. 


SS FOUNDATION STAR



Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

It was Semper Paratus on Sept. 8, 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," according to the U.S. Coast Guard Historian's Office. The wreck occurred off Charleston, South Carolina. The tanker was built in 1916.


SS OAKLEY L. ALEXANDER

Photo: Gendisasters

On March 3, 1947, shore-based U.S. Coast Guardsmen used a Lyle Gun and breech buoy to evacuate the crew of the collier SS Oakey L. Alexander, which broke apart and ran aground at High Head, Maine, in heavy seas and high winds.


FREIGHTER IOWA


Front page of the Morning Oregonian reporting on the wreck of intercoastal freighter 
Iowa, which smashed into Peacock Spit in a storm near the entrance to the Columbia River on Jan. 12, 1936, killing the crew of 34. The Coast Guard cutter Onondaga responded to a distress call. "A few moments after we first sighted the wreck, the stack and bridge went over the side," said the cutter's captain, R. Stanley Patch, quoted by The New York Times. Captain Lars Bjelland at the Point Adams Life Station said he suspected the Iowa broke in two. Bjelland said the Fort Stevens Radio Compass Station heard the distress call at 5:35 a.m


ROSENCRANS



San Francisco Call front page on loss of crude oil tanker Rosencrans in a gale. The U.S. Life Saving Service struggled to reach the wreck at Peacock Spit, Oregon, on Jan. 7, 1913. "Life saving crews from Fort Canby and Point Adams put out against the gale," The New York Tribune said. "Big waves broke over the crews in the lifeboats, and it was found impossible to reach the Rosecrans. " Only four of the crew of 35 survived. In 1912, the steamship General Washington went aground at the same place.


SUBMARINE S-19


Photo: Wikipedia

On Jan. 13, 1925, the U.S. Navy submarine S-19
 ran aground at Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in a storm that knocked it off course. Coast Guard cutters Tampa and Acushnet and the crews of two lifesaving stations responded. "Heavy seas made it impossible to pass a line to the grounded submarine or to reach her by boat until late in the evening of 14 January, when a party from the Nauset, Massachusetts Coast Guard station succeeded in boarding," according to Wikipedia. "By the morning of 15 January, S-19's crew had been safely brought to shore. After strenuous effort by Navy tugs and the Coast Guard cutters, S-19 was finally freed from the shoal."


CZARINA


It was not the finest hour. On Jan. 12, 1910, the freighter Czarina bound for San Francisco from Coos Bay, Oregon, wrecked in a storm before reaching open ocean. About two dozen people died. Rescue efforts failed and the keeper of the U.S. Life-Saving Service Station was dismissed for incompetence, according to Encyclopedia Oregon. The ship was carrying cement, coal and lumber.


SS CORWIN


Photo: Wikipedia

U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear (front) and steamer SS Corwin in ice field near Nome, Alaska, about 1914. SS Corwin shuttled between Nome and the Seward Peninsula, according to University of Alaska Fairbanks archives.

SS PRINCESS MAY


Photo: Wikipedia

On Aug. 5, 1910, SS
Princess May on the rocks at low tide after running aground near the Sentinel lighthouse in Alaska at 10 knots. It was was retrieved and repaired. "The wireless operator, W.R. Keller, did not have time to send out a distress call before the main power was lost," Wikipedia said. "Thinking quickly, he ran down to the engine room, where the incoming water was by then waist deep. Keller rigged an improvised electrical connection with the engine room telegraph battery, and using this was able to send out a wireless distress call before the engine room was completely flooded." 


SS CITY OF FLINT 32

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

U.S. Coast Guard boat crew rows to aid of railroad car ferry SS City of Flint 32, which ran aground on Lake Michigan during the 1940 Armistice Day storm. It was one of the luckier big vessels that day. Three others foundered with the more than 60 lives.


SS PENNSYLVANIA SUN


Photo: Library of Congress

On July 15, 1942, the German U-boat U-571 attacked the tanker SS Pennsylvania Sun off Key West, Florida, setting it ablaze. The Navy destroyer USS Dahlgren DD-187 rescued the survivors. The tanker survived, too! Repairs were completed in 1943 and Pennsylvania Sun served for another 20 years. The U-boat didn't fare that well. Aircraft sank the submarine in the North Atlantic on Jan. 28, 1944.  


SS SANTA ROSA



On July 6, 1911, the costal steamer SS Santa Rosa, bound for San Diego from San Francisco, went aground in fog with 200 passengers and 78 tons of cargo. Four crewmen died attempting to establish a lifeline to shore, according to some news reports. Everyone else survived. The captain was accused of negligence.


CUTTER MOHAWK


Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Mohawk was repaired after running aground on Bartlett Reef in  Long Island Sound on May 29, 1916. A little over a year later, Mohawk was struck by the tanker
 SS Vennacher in Ambrose Channel off Sandy Hook, New Jersey on Oct. 1, 1917 and sank. The crew of 77 survived.

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

USCG AVIATION

UPDATED DECEMBER 2021

IN THE BEGINNING

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard 
 

FLYING BOAT - 1958


Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

It's all hands on deck as a U.S. Coast Guard "Giant Marlin Flying Boat" delivers a stricken seaman to a marine hospital in 1958.

HURRICANE KATRINA - 2005


Photo
Petty Officer 2nd Class Kyle Niemi, USCG

Petty Officer 1st Class Steven Huerta hoists two children into a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.


PELICAN HH-3F

Photo: Wikipedia The U.S. Coast Guard maintained a fleet of aptly-named HH-3F Pelican amphibious helicopters from 1972 to 1994 primarily for search and rescue missions. This chopper is attending a boat fire.

ALASKA - 2018


 
In Alaska, a pair of MH-60 Jayhawk helicopters from U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Sitka hoisted 11 people to safety after a floatplane crashed on a mountain on Prince of Wales Island on July 10, 2018. 
There were no serious injuries.  “Cases like these exemplify the versatility of our aircrews," said 
Commander Michael Kahle of Coast Guard Sector Juneau.

Photos: U.S. Coast Guard
:

GULF OF MEXICO - 2020



Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

MH-65 helicopter from U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Houston prepares to hoist two stranded mariners from the sailing vessel Rhapsody, which suffered an engine room fire 
about 288 miles east-southeast of Corpus Christi, Texas, on Jan. 2, 2020.


OFF MASSACHUSETTS - 2017
:
Petty Officer 2nd Class Clinton Laramore hoists injured crewman from fishing boat Orion onto U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod helicopter 50 miles east of Gloucester, Massachusetts, on Aug. 8, 2017.

PhotoPetty Officer 3rd Class Andrew Barresi, USCG

OFF LOUISIANA - 2021

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

A MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew from Coast Guard Sector New Orleans hoisted a patient experiencing stroke-like symptoms from cruise ship Liberty of The Seas about 80 miles south of Grand Isle, Louisiana, on Sept. 13, 2021. The ship bound for Houston was diverted to New Orleans to avoid Tropical Storm Nicholas.


OHIO RIVER FLOOD - 1937


Photo
: Willard Library, Evansville Indiana


U. S. Coast Guard crewman watches Coast Guard floatplane landing on Ohio River during catastrophic 1937 flood in Evansville, Indiana.


SWOOPING IN AT SEA


Photo: NASA

Vintage photo of U.S. Coast Guardsman lowered from chopper with rescue gear at sea.


PROHIBITION

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

Semper Paratus. U.S. Coast Guard aviation crew on Rum Patrol during Prohibition. The Coast Guard was at the front line in the battle with liquor smugglers. 

Monday, July 9, 2018

CUTTER COURIER

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard 

The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Courier (WAGR/WTR-410) played a most unusual role during the Cold War.


It was a mobile radio relay platform for the U.S. government's overseas broadcasting network, the Voice of America. Courier's oceangoing VOA programming to the people of the Soviet bloc evaded Russian jamming by shifting position and transmitting patterns. The Red jammers used fixed-site transmitters by and large. A salt water environment also helps improve the strength of radio signals. 

Courier's transmitters were the most powerful installed on a ship, including a 150-kilowatt medium wave unit - a real "blowtorch." To illustrate, t
hat's three times more powerful than the transmitter at today's KOA 850AM Denver, the Voice of the Rockies, as well as AM radio stalwarts like WBBM in Chicago, WLW in Cincinnati and WBBR in New York City.

The unarmed Courier was placed under the auspices of the Coast Guard, instead of the war-focused Navy, in the name of diplomacy, according to Wikipedia, and operated in conjunction with the State Department. When the cutter called on Washington, D.C. on March 4, 1952, President Harry Truman went aboard to broadcast a speech to the peoples of the Soviet Bloc. 

Courier's homeport was Rhodes, Greece.

As for the Voice of America, it debuted in World War Two, directing programing to Nazi-occupied Europe. After the war it beamed its broadcasts to the Soviet Union. In 1949, the Soviets started jamming VOA frequencies with deliberate interference, a practice that continued though the Cold War.

According to Wikipedia, VOA's debut broadcast during World War Two opened with this statement: "
Today, and every day from now on, we will be with you from America to talk about the war... The news may be good or bad for us – We will always tell you the truth."

Friday, July 6, 2018

CUTTER ESCANABA


Cutter Escanaba rescuing SS Dorchester survivors

It was U.S. Coast Guard swimmers to the rescue when a German U-boat attacked an Atlantic convoy on Feb. 3, 1943, sinking the packed American troop ship SS Dorchester.

Crew from the Coast Guard cutter Escanaba WPG-77 clad in wet suits secured lines to men struggling in the frigid waves, saving 133.

It was reported to be the first such rescue using wet suits. Life jackets provide little relief against deadly hypothermia.  Along the efforts of other ships in the convoy, which was bound for Greenland, a total of 230 lives were saved. More than 600 were lost.

In an October 1989 interview with the Daily Press on Newport News Virginia, Dorchester survivor James W. "Mac" McAtammey recalled: "The Coast Guardsmen jumped over the side in rubber suits to help survivors get on board. They gave us the clothes off their backs to keep us warm. There was no distinction between officers and enlisted men; we all worked together to get home safely."

The Dorchester sinking is also remembered for the sacrifice of four chaplains who died because they gave up their life jackets to save others. Congress established Four Chaplains Day to honor the men each Feb. 3, anniversary of their loss.

Sadly, on June 13, 1943, Escanaba itself was lost in action. The cutter struck a mine or was hit by a torpedo and sank with the loss of 102 souls, no doubt some of whom participated in the Dorchester rescue.


Launched in 1932, Escanaba patrolled the Great Lakes before going to war. Dorchester was a coastal passenger steamer launched in 1936. Dorchester was torpedoed by German submarine U-233, according to Wikipedia. British warships destroyed U-233 in 1944. In the end, everyone lost something. Such is war.