FANNIE MAY SALTER

 

Photos: U.S. Coast Guard

The U.S. Coast Guard's Fannie May Salter took over the watch at Maryland's Turkey Point Light after her husband, lightkeeper Clarence Walter "Harry" Salter, died in 1925 and she served heroically enduring nature's wrath.

Sparing no expense, the government electrified the station ... two decades after she hired on under the auspices of the old U.S. Lighthouse Service.

In 1939, the lighthouse service merged with the Coast Guard, which finally modernized the light in the 1940s.

The following is a biography from the Coast Guard Historian's Office:

Because of her age, the Civil Service had told Fannie that she could not succeed her husband.  However, she appealed to her senator who took it to the White House, which then overruled the Civil Service. 

She served until August 1947 when she retired at age 65, with 22 years of service as lighthouse keeper, and another 23 years previously assisting her late husband who was keeper at several stations. She stated, "Oh, it was an easy-like chore, but my feet got tired, and climbing the tower has given me fallen arches."

Before the station was electrified, Fannie would fill and light one of the two lamps at dusk, climb the tower and place the lamp within the lens, then recheck it about one hour later, and again at 10 pm before going to bed. From her bedroom in the keeper's quarters she could see if the light was functioning properly and would immediately awake if the light ever went out.

With electricity installed in 1943, she only had to turn on a switch, which lit a 100 watt bulb, which in combination with the lens produced 680 candlepower of light. 

Once she had to manually strike the fog bell when it suddenly failed as a steamer was heading for the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal in a fog. She rang the bell four times a minute for 55 minutes until the steamer had safely passed.  In so doing, she was away from the phone when her son-in-law tried to call and tell her that her daughter had given birth to her granddaughter. 

The Lighthouse Board in 1928 authorized $25 per month for a laborer to wind the fog bell striking mechanism for Mrs. Salter during months of the year when fog was prevalent. This fee was reduced to $15 per month in 1932. Upon retirement, she moved to another house six miles away, but she was still within sight of the light. She died at age 83 in 1966.

SINBAD OF THE COAST GUARD

By Vinny Del Giudice

This is a tale about a famed U.S. Coast Guard dog named "Sinbad the Sailor," a lost family snapshot of a boy named Ed embracing Sinbad - and detective work by a dogged Coast Guard auxiliarist to find Ed.

The dogged auxiliarist, in this case, would be your Denver-based editor who purchased a copy of the book "Sinbad of the Coast Guard," which was first published in 1945, from an online bookseller in Toledo, Ohio.

The family snapshot of Ed and Sinbad was tucked away in the old book.

Loveable Sinbad was an enlisted member of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Campbell during World War Two, and noted for enduring combat at sea, woofing ham and eggs at mess call and lapping up beer on liberty.

The brown-and-black pooch even attained rank of Chief Petty Officer, Dog (K9C) for his service as a moral builder.

Back to the old book:

Carefully taped inside the cover was a 3x4-inch, black-and-white image inscribed "Ed with Sinbad in 1948." That was the year Sinbad retired from sea duty and took up residence at a Coast Guard lighthouse.

Ed, judging from the photo, was about 13 or 14.

Upon further inspection the title page of the book was inscribed in pen and ink with the name of a Coast Guard chief gunners mate, most likely Ed's dad.

Through the magic of the internet, and with the clues provided, your editor was able to locate Ed's family in Washington state and share the frame in time.

By the way, the collie in the photo is believed to be the family's dog. 

Sadly, both Ed and his father the gunners mate are gone now, as is Sinbad who crossed the bar in 1951.

It is likely Ed's dad served alongside Sinbad on the cutter Campbell.

Photos: U.S. Coast Guard

U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Campbell WPG-32 at New York Navy Yard in 1940

COAST GUARD JOURNALISM

Alex Haley, first chief journalist

Editor's Note: This story first appeared in Coast Guard Compass, March 25, 2019

By Lt. Cmdr. Matt Kroll

In a service with limited resources to research its own history, many Coast Guard stories of the past remain untold or unknown. Additionally, the smaller communities outside of cutter and aviation forces get lost in the complex identity of a service made up of five other services and ever-changing missions.

The Coast Guard marked the 70th anniversary of the creation of the journalist rating in 2018, which was one of the two predecessor ratings of the current public affairs specialist rating. Public affairs specialists, in particular, remain an elusive and widely misunderstood part of the Coast Guard and the history of the rating is even more mysterious.

The Coast Guard laid the foundation for the journalist rating during World War II when the United States entered into an information war to counter enemy propaganda and to gain the support for the war from the American people. All of the military branches expanded their public affairs programs (still called public relations at the time) during our efforts in WWII. In the Coast Guard, this included the addition of a temporary enlisted rating for public relations in 1943.

Temporary, or “specialist,” ratings allow the service to add specific skills, mostly to the Coast Guard reserves, needed to complete missions during times of war. In WWII, the Coast Guard created as many as 10 specialist ratings, which included jobs such as dog-horse handler, classification interviewer, chemical warfare, teacher, and public relations. To control the expansion of new specialist ratings, the Coast Guard needed to justify more than 100 jobs, also known as billets, before creating a specialist rating. As the demand for a particular skill grew or diminished, the specialist ratings could be adjusted or abolished as needed.

Specialists (public relations) worked at Coast Guard Headquarters, district public relations offices, and deployed overseas as combat correspondents. They commonly worked alongside photographer’s mates, the imagery side of public affairs. Without a formal training program, the Coast Guard recruited civilian public relations practitioners for the specialist jobs and relied on their industry expertise and newspaper contacts to publish stories about the service’s contributions to WWII.

After the war, the Coast Guard eliminated most of the specialist ratings including public relations. Any correspondents who remained on active duty became a sub-specialty of the yeoman rating known as yeoman (PI). The service reorganized its entire enlisted structure by creating, eliminating and combining several enlisted ratings on April 2, 1948. As part of that initiative, the Coast Guard established and renamed the yeoman (PI) sub-specialty as its own rating, which would be known as journalists.

In the summer of 1949, Alex Haley, the most famous Coast Guard journalist to date, received a transfer into the rating and would become the first chief journalist of the Coast Guard in December later that year. Haley and his fellow journalists continued to support Coast Guard missions by writing articles and press releases to inform the public for the next two and a half decades.

In 1973, the Coast Guard combined the journalist and photographer’s mate ratings to form the photojournalist rating, which was renamed to public affairs specialist in 1984. Today, there are approximately 75 public affairs specialists on active duty who manage the Coast Guard’s day-to-day external communications and deploy to major incidents to conduct public information campaigns.

ALASKA GALLERY - No. 1

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

U.S. Coast Guard cutters John Midgett (WHEC 726), Hickory (WLB 212) and Douglas Munro (WHEC 724) moored in Kodiak, Alaska, on May 28, 2019.

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard 
U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Algonquin on ice-breaking duty at Fort Liscum, Alaska, in 1920.

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard
U.S.Revenue Service cutter McCulloch at Kodiak, Alaska, during eruption of Katmai volcano, June 6-8, 1912.

Photo: J.F. Hahn, U.S. Revenue Cutter Service
U.S. Revenue Service cutter Manning offered refuge to residents of Kodiak when the Novarupta volcano erupted in June 1912, showering the town with a foot of ash.

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard
MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter on approach to U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak, Alaska, on June 5, 2019.

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard
Boarding party from U.S. Coast Guard cutter Alex Haley alongside fishing vessel Republic West in Bering Sea on May 27, 2021.

BLACK DUCK

Photos of Black Duck in U.S. Coast Guard custody

Photos: U.S. Coast Guard

While on coastal Prohibition duty, the U.S. Coast Guard patrol boat CG-290 raked the rum runner Black Duck with machine-gun fire, killing three of her crew in late December 1929.

The incident in Naragansett Bay, Rhode Island, caused public outrage against the Coast Guard though CG-290's boatswain, Alexander Cornell, and his crew were cleared of wrongdoing. 

The Black Duck, considered one of Prohibition's fastest smuggling craft, failed to heave to, Cornell said.

Historians contend the encounter contributed to the end of Prohibition, which was unpopular among the masses and ultimately un-enforceable.

CIVIL WAR CUTTERS

FIRST NAVAL SHOT

Images: U.S. Coast Guard, Wikipedia
The first naval shot of the U.S. Civil War was fired by the Revenue Cutter Service, predecessor of today's Coast Guard. Cutter Harriet Lane forced the merchant steamer SS Nashville to show its colors during the Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter at the war's outbreak on April 13, 1861. The paddle-wheel cutter went onto other engagements, including the Battle of Pig Point, Virginia, in June 1861. Rebel forces captured the Harriet Lane during the Battle of Galveston in Texas on New Year's Day in 1863.


PORTLAND HARBOR

Image: New York Public Library
Confederate raiders destroyed the U.S. Revenue Cutter Caleb Cushing during the Battle of Portland Harbor (Maine) on June 27, 1863.


HAMPTON ROADS

Image: U.S. Coast Guard
Abraham Lincoln is the only sitting president to personally direct an invasion and he did it from the U.S. Revenue Cutter Miami in April 1862. Lincoln, War Secretary Edwin Stanton and Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase sailed to Hampton Roads, Virginia, aboard the cutter for an assault on Confederate-occupied Norfolk. Lincoln ordered bombardment of Sewell’s Point, dispatched a reconnaissance party and presided over the landing of Union regiments that captured Norfolk and its navy yard. 


IRONCLAD

Images: U.S. Coast Guard, Wikipedia

Naugatuck sailed under the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service ensign. It was a one-of-a-kind ironclad with a gun battery that could partially submerge for protection. The odd duck revenue cutter took part in the historic battle of the ironclads CSS Virginia (aka Merrimack) and USS Monitor (lower image, lower right) in Hampton Roads, Virginia, in March 1862 - a battle that rendered wooden warships obsolete.