Photo: U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Naval Institute
By Vinny Del Giudice
Brave little "Smokey" was the sole survivor aboard a merchant tanker engulfed in flames off Florida in World War Two.
Rescued by a U.S. Coast Guard crew from Port Everglades, the cuddly, black-and-white canine was adopted and enlisted, according to the U.S. Naval Institute.
He weighed in at 15 pounds and stood a little over one-foot. His age was thought to be two years. He was issued an official U.S. Coast Guard serial number and photo identification with paw print.
It's not known if he also donned "dog tags" like his handlers but his rating was "Expert Eater" - perhaps equivalent to "E-K9" in today's enlisted ratings.
Smokey's doomed tanker had collided with another, a fiery disaster that claimed 88 souls in October 1943. The tankers - one laden with aviation fuel, the other empty - were running without lights, a maneuver to evade German submarines.
"Persons ashore heard the explosion and saw the towering flames and gave the alarm which sent Coast Guard craft racing to the scene," the Associated Press reported. "The flaming hulls floated slowly Northward in the Gulf Stream."
The AP didn't report the names of the tankers in its dispatch, perhaps due to wartime censorship.
History. Heritage. Honoring the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary.
Sunday, October 31, 2021
SOLE SURVIVOR SMOKEY
Monday, October 25, 2021
THE FINEST HOURS - ANDY FITZGERALD
Against odds, Fitzgerald, then 20, and three other Coast Guardsmen set off on Feb. 18, 1952 in a 36-foot motor lifeboat to rescue the crew of the tanker S.S. Pendleton, which broke in two in a gale off Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
“I was the lowest engineman there and hadn’t been out of school for very long. But I really wanted to be on that boat, so I talked my way on it,” Fitzgerald told the Denver Post in 2016. “I didn’t think we were going to die. I thought we were going to rescue some people.”
Dispatched from the Coast Guard station at Chatham, Massachusetts, motor lifeboat CG-36500 struggled from the start, the pounding surf knocked out its compass as it cleared the harbor. Running almost blind, the boat located the Pendleton's drifting stern section and maneuvered alongside as the merchant marines climbed down a Jacob's ladder to CG-36500, timing their movements with the crashing waves.
They saved 32 of 41 souls aboard Pendleton and Fitzgerald and the others were awarded the Coast Guard's Gold Saving Medal.
“We were confident we were going to do it,” Fitzgerald said. “We were on a 36-footer, but a pretty rugged one. We had Bernie (Webber) as our coxswain, one of the best in the Coast Guard. It was rough, with 70-mile-per-hour winds, and when I first got on the boat, it was so small I thought to myself, ‘Where do I go to the bathroom?’ But we got darn-near 40 people on that thing."
Fitzgerald’s hadn't mentioned the Pendleton rescue to his wife, Gloria, until after they married later in the 1950s, the Denver Post reported.
“We were going through some things at home and his mom said, ‘Gloria, do you want these newspaper clippings?’ ” Gloria recounted. “So I read them, and later I said, ‘Andy, I didn’t know you were on this dangerous mission!’ And he said, ‘Ah, no, it wasn’t too dangerous.’ Like all those guys, Andy just did his job and doesn’t think he’s a hero to this day.”
After the Coast Guard, Fitzgerald moved to Colorado and worked as a sales engineer. He died Nov. 15, 2018, and was laid to rest with full military honors.
The Pendleton was steaming to Boston from New Orleans when it wrecked - apparently knifed by a pair of booming waves. Pendleton crewman Fred Brown was quoted as saying it sounded "like the tearing of a large piece of tin. It's a noise that sends shivers up and down the spine and jangles every nerve."
For the record, the same February gale caused the tanker S.S. Fort Mercer to also break apart the same day off Massachusetts and members of its crew were also rescued by a U.S. Coast Guard vessel, the cutter Yakutat.
Photo: U.S. Coast Guard
Photo: Amy McNeil
Photo: Richard C. Kelsey, U.S. Coast Guard
This is the stern section of the S.S. Pendleton resting on Pollock Rip Shoal. The survivors of the wreck were taken off the stern, which stayed afloat after the tanker broke in two.
Photo: U.S. Coast Guard
Fitzgerald (left) and shipmates secure CG-36500 after disembarking rescued mariners.
Wednesday, October 20, 2021
PORT SECURITY WW2
It was all hands on deck during World War Two and the U.S. Coast Guard recruited volunteers for port security duty.
The first unit was organized in Philadelphia in 1942.
The volunteers patrolled docks, factories and warehouses - keeping watch for espionage as well as everyday threats like fire and theft.
Men and women both served, typically working two shifts a week.
"Who goes there?"
Thursday, October 14, 2021
K9C SINBAD
Photos: U.S. Coast Guard
By Vinny Del Giudice
U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary
This is a tale about a genuine sea dog. The crew of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Campbell adopted a mixed-breed puppy named Sinbad in 1937 and he attained celebrity status during World War Two, according to the USCGC Campbell Association.
Sinbad was formally enlisted as a member of the cutter's crew complete with paw print card, paperwork, Coast Guard uniform and bunk and attained the rank of K9C - Chief Petty Officer, Dog.
He stood watch on board the Campbell (WPG-32) through the global conflict and was assigned to damage control duty below deck during combat.
When Campbell suffered heavy damage after battling a German submarine, Sinbad remained onboard with other "essential personnel" as the cutter was towed to Canada for repair. Captain James Hirschfield believed that nothing could befall the Campbell if its beloved mascot accompanied the crew, Wikipedia said.
Newspapers barked such headlines as "MASCOT MUTT HELPS LICK SEA WOLF PACK," according to the website War History Online.
Although he served honorably, Sinbad ran into trouble as any old seadog might, causing an "international incident" in Greenland involving sheep and another diplomatic crisis in Casablanca involving a soiled rug.
Sinbad was retired in 1948 to the light station at Barnegat, New Jersey, and died there in 1951. He is buried at the light station site.
“Like all mascots, Sinbad has helped to lighten the strain of life at sea,” said Admiral Russell Waesche, who served as Coast Guard commandant from 1936 to 1946.
Tuesday, October 12, 2021
ART EXHIBIT
Revenue Cutter Snohomish rescuing the lumber steamer Nika in heavy seas off the Washington Coast. U.S. Coast Guard collection.
CUTTER DEXTER
Engraving of Revenue Cutter Dexter rescuing SS City of Columbus passengers and crew after the steamer went aground at Gay Head, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, on Jan 18, 1884.
CUTTER SENECA
Revenue Cutter Seneca going to the aid of the SS Wellington after the cargo ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat on Sept. 16, 1918, during World War One. U.S. Coast Guard collection.
CUTTER HUDSON
Revenue Cutter Hudson steaming to the rescue of the torpedo boat USS Winslow in the Battle of Cardenas Bay, Cuba, in May 1898, during the Spanish American War. U.S. Coast Guard collection.
CUTTER WHITE LUPINE
U.S. Coast Guard Cutter White Lupine (WLM-546) setting a large marker buoy. The Coast Guard maintains more than 50,000 federal aids to navigation, including buoys, lighthouses, day beacons, and radio-navigation signals. (U.S. Coast Guard collection)
CUTTER MORRO BAY
U.S. Coast Guard Cutter CGC Morro Bay (WTGB-106) leads traffic up the frozen Hudson River. The 140-foot Bay Class icebreaking tug - known as "Jack of All Trades" - serves the Great Lakes and Northeast. Its homeport is Cleveland. (U.S. Coast Guard collection)
KURE ATOLL
Crewmembers of USCGC Kukui WLB-203 load marine debris into a small boat at Kure Atoll in Hawaii. (U.S. Coast Guard Art Program 2015 work by C.R. “Bob” Bryant)
BALLYCOTTON LIFEBOAT
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution has rescued mariners in the United Kingdom and Ireland since the early 19th century. The volunteers of the Ballycotton, Ireland, lifeboat rescued the crew of the Daunt Rock lightship after it broke from its moorings in a February 1936 gale. The lifeboat was at sea for 49 hours. (RNLI collection.)
Tuesday, October 5, 2021
ALASKA PANDEMIC

By Vinny Del Giudice
The U.S. Coast Guard responded by dog sled and aboard cutters when the Spanish Flu hit Alaska in the early 20th Century - highlighting the service's humanitarian mission through our nation's history.
Levi Edward Ashton, a Coast Guard surfman from Station No. 305, Nome, Alaska, was dispatched with a team of dogs on Dec. 6, 1918 on a 160-mile sled-trek to deliver medical supplies, according to Coast Guard archives. A driver, Anders Peter Brandt, was assigned to accompany him.
Days later, the snow-riding surfman arrived at remote Cape Prince of Wales and found 122 sick and 157 deceased. Ashton converted the school into a hospital and the post office into a dispensary and buried the dead.
"At the end of about three months Surfman Ashton found the people able to take care of themselves, and the epidemic abated, so he set out upon his return trip, reported upon a certain night just what he had done and was at his post next morning for his regular work," according to the Dec. 28, 1919 edition of the Montgomery Advertiser of Montgomery, Alabama.
"There are such characters all over the world, just such men as Surfman Ashton, and they are performing such heroic tasks, although perhaps not upon such large scale," the newspaper said. "But they are unknown and unsung, just as was Surfman Ashton until the government recorded his name and his deeds in the back pages of a report."
On May 26, 1919, the cutter Unalga (WPG-53) was on patrol in Alaska’s Aleutian Island chain and responded to a call from the naval radio station at nearby Unalaska. The settlement was the midst of a severe outbreak.
The 80-man cutter crew provided medical assistance, meals, child care and housekeeping for the settlement. They also built a temporary hospital, an orphan home and buried the dead (about 45) in a church cemetery.
Further help arrived June 3 when the crew from the cutter Bear joined the effort.
Unalga's enlisted master-at-arms, Peter “Big Pete” Bugaras, volunteered to care for orphans. Bugaras had a reputation as “the strongest man in the Coast Guard Service.” He was described as “Greek by birth, a born fighter of men, and protector of all things helpless and small,” according to Coast Guard archives.
Bugaras "gathered up twenty-six of the babies and little ones and tended them as carefully as any loving mother could have" with the help of the cutter's crew, according to the September 1919 edition of Red Cross Magazine. Bugaras served as a chief commissary steward in World War I. He lived from 1881 to 1960 and rests at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
The Spanish Flu infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide - that's one-third of the planet's population - with deaths totaling at least 50 million worldwide and 675,000 in the U.S., according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Young people were especially vulnerable.