A History Of Coast Guard Operations On The Gulf Coast And The Western Rivers Part Ii_48761

In 1903, the Service was transferred from the Treasury Department to the Department of Labor and Commerce. in 1932, the Steamboat Inspection Service and the Bureau of Navigation were combined into the Bureau of Navigation and Steamboat Inspection. The Bureau was completely reorganized in 1934, and two years later renamed the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation. On January 20, 1915, the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service and the U.S. Life-Saving Service were merged to form the U. S. Coast Guard. The first major task for the new Service after World War I, began in 1920 with Prohibition, the banning of alcoholic beverages in the United States. The Coast Guard waged a thirteen-year battle, the Rum War. A large expansion in personnel began in 1925 and new patrol boats and cutters were put on smuggler patrol. Once the new equipment and crews were aboard, the Service adapted their strategy to the smuggler抯 tactics. Typically, the contraband was loaded in larger ships in a foreign country and then they would lie offshore awaiting smaller boats. Small, fast boats met with the heavily laden ships, transferred their cargoes and raced to the beach. Coast Guard ships shadowed the large smuggling ships and reported the comings and goings of the contact boats to the faster patrol boats, which would then go after the oncoming smuggler抯 boat. In the first years of the Rum War there was almost a game-like attitude on both sides. Coast Guardsmen and rummies, in many cases, had a grudging respect for each other. However on August 7, 1927 the situation changed dramatically when one Coast Guardsman was murdered and another mortally wounded. CG-249, commanded by boatswain Sidney L. Sanderlin was transporting a Secret Service Agent, Robert K. Webster, to Bimini. Sanderlin noticed a suspicious boat and attempted to overtake it. The boat refused to heave to so shots were placed across her bow, and she finally stopped. The boat, crewed by Horace Alderman and Robert W. Weech, had 160 cases of illegal liquor onboard. When Sanderlin went to radio his base about the seizure, Alderman shot and killed the Boatswain and mortally wounded Motor Machinist Mate First Class Victor A. Lamby. The rumrunners took control of the patrol boat and threatened to kill everyone aboard. In a struggle to regain control, Agent Webster was killed and another Coast Guardsman wounded. The smugglers, however, were overpowered. Alderman was hanged for his crime at the U. S. Coast Guard Section Base, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in 1929, the only person ever executed by the Service. The efforts to stop the flow of illegal spirits also caused international complications. I抦 Alone, a two-masted schooner with two twin 100 horsepower auxiliary motors, was built especially for the smuggling trade. From 1924 to 1928, she operated primarily between Gloucester, Mass., and the Virginia Capes. In 1928, she was sold to Captain John T. Randall and moved to the Gulf of Mexico. Randall and I抦 Alone worked outside of the territorial limits. She was soon shadowed by the cutter Wolcott. This cat-and-mouse game continued until March 1929, when Boatswain Frank Paul, commanding the Wolcott fixed the position of the smuggler at 10.8 miles off-shore, within the 12 miles then recognized as the United States?jurisdiction. Randall, however, felt he was at least 15 miles out to sea. Boatswain Paul ordered I抦 Alone to heave to. After having blank warning shots fired at him, Randall ordered his schooner to stop, then changed his mind and decided to flee. Wolcott opened fire with live ammunition and was joined in the pursuit by the cutter Dexter The firing "grew hotter and hits were more numerous. . One of I憁 Alone抯 crew, a citizen of France was killed in the gun battle. The French government protested as did the British (Randall抯 nationality) and the Canadians, where I抦 Alone was registered. It took several years to untangle the twisted international legal ramifications. The need to locate smugglers far out at sea also brought about a "renaissance" in Coast Guard aviation. The first Coast Guard aviator, LT Elmer Stone, had pointed out the need for aircraft as early as 1916, but the air arm had languished. Prohibition proved Stone correct and from 1926, when the Loening OL-5 amphibious plane became the first aircraft built to Coast Guard order, aviation grew in importance. The first Coast Guard Air Station in the southern coastal region was commissioned in June 1926 at Miami, Fla., followed by stations at St. Petersburg,fake rolex watches, Fla. (1934), and Biloxi, Miss. (1934). By the late thirties, as war clouds thickened, President Franklin D. Roosevelt enacted more changes within the Coast Guard. On July 7,1939, in the interest of streamlining the federal government, the President transferred the Lighthouse Service td) the Coast Guard. Shortly thereafter, the service itself became part of the U.S. Navy as the nation entered World War II. Later as a wartime measure, the Steamboat Inspection Service, now called the Bureau of Marine Navigation, was temporarily transferred into the Coast Guard in 1942. The move was made permanent in 1946. The U.S. Coast Guard that emerged from World War II is basically the Service that now operates in the southern coastal region and along the Western Rivers of the United States. Several changes have since taken place as a result of progressive technology. Almost as soon as the Lighthouse Service came under the Coast Guard, there was a drive to automate the lights in order to release keepers from isolated stations. Electricity was the first step in this process, followed by solar power. Lightships were replaced by Texas-tower type of structures, and by Large Navigation Buoys. Shore-based rescues also changed as technology evolved. The 44-foot motor lifeboat responds much faster and further than former small boats. and helicopters can reach individuals in distress out at sea even further and faster. The helicopter抯 agility was graphically demonstrated on the night of January 27, 1967. The 62 foot Cecil Anne, with six people aboard, reported at 1:10 am that she was sinking 50 miles, 146 degrees from Carrabelle, Fla. The vessel had no flares or rafts. A HU-16E fixed wing aircraft from St. Petersburg attempted to (drop pumps to the boat, but was unsuccessful. Shortly after two in the morning, the captain of the Cecil Anne decided to abandon the boat and requested the that the two teenage boys be taken off by helicopter. The wind and seas made the remaining adults?chances doubtful as the boat wallowed badly in four to six foot seas and a 25 knot wind with gusts to 30 knots whipped across the area. Meanwhile, a Coast Guard HH-52A helicopter from St. Petersburg, with LT Robert B. Workman, as pilot, and LT Norman H. Huff, co-pilot, and AM1 John L. Chassereau, hoist operator, were proceeding the 120 miles to the site. Under the hazardous conditions of darkness and strong crosswinds, LT Huff and his crew raced to the Cecil Anne. The hoist could only be made in the bow section of the boat, which was obstructed by a 24-foot antenna amid 12-foot jack staff. The helicopter began hoisting aboard the people from the Cecil Anne. Due to the large amount of weight, a total of 961 pounds "the last hoist was made with continuous forward flight using 100 percent torque to remain airborne." When the chopper landed safely at C River airport, it had only 350 pounds of fuel remaining For their actions, LT Workman was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and LT Huff amid AMI Chassereau were awarded Air Medals. Beginning in the 1970s, the U.S. Coast Guard has been engaged in a on-going war with drug runners, in addition to a steady stream of illegal immigrants, and an exodus of people escaping oppression. The Caribbean抯 Windward Passage was a natural route for the Prohibition抯 rumrunners and is now also used by drug smugglers. The war against "druggies" is conducted much like the old rum war, with various medium and high endurance cutters placed in the Caribbean to patrol and to cut off natural "choke points" between the islands where "mother ships" sail, carrying large loads. The next line is made up of 95 foot and 110 foot patrol boats some 200 miles off-shore where the mother ships meet the smaller, faster boats for their attempt to make the beach. The last line of defense is made up of 18- to 41-foot small boats operating close to shore. The war against drug smugglers is not limited to just the Florida region, it is being carried on throughout the southern coastal region. For example, from January 1 to October 30, 1988, in the Gulf of Mexico there were 30 arrests, involving 16 vessels. The total amount of marijuana involved was 17,551 pounds and 1 pound of heroin. Include the southeastern region抯 seizures, and the total amount of marijuana seized was 186,232 pounds and 30,776 pounds of cocaine. Smuggling in the 1980抯 has not been limited to just drugs. The Coast Guard has had to deal in another "sorry and of ten tragic" trade, the smuggling of illegal economic migrants. On September 29, 1988, President Ronald Reagan ordered the Service to stop vessels on the high seas that were suspected of carrying illegal migrants. Cutters and aircraft throughout the United States were shuttled to the region to carry out this order. The nature of the work was, as one Coast Guardsman said, "no fun for anyone? These people, primarily Haitians, have often sold everything they own in order to pay the captains of卻cows (a flat-bottomed boat with square ends), who would pack them in like animals in the holds." The Cuban Exodus of 1980 greatly taxed the U.S. Coast Guard抯 resources. When political refugees attempted to flee Fidel Castro抯 regime, they sailed almost anything that could float, risking a large loss of life. The Coast Guard attempted to bring order to this flood of refugees. More than 5,000 vessels, carrying some 117,000 people were involved in the exodus. During this year, the Coast Guard (dealt with 1,300 reported rescue cases. The U.S. Coast Guard on the Western rivers was also very busy in the 1980s, battling their traditional enemy, "Mother Nature". In 1988, the mid-west suffered an acute drought that greatly reduced the water levels of the Mississippi River and other rivers. Normally, the Coast Guard maintains more than 10,000 buoys to mark the dredged channels of the rivers and 3,000 shore aids to navigation. The large drop in the rivers?level, however, caused the Service to order an additional 2,000 buoys to replace those lost from barges trying to navigate the smaller river channels. The importance of keeping these channels open is grasped when one realizes that a 15-barge tow pushed by a 3,500 horsepower towboat can transport 22,500 tons (787,500 bushels or 6,804,000 gallons). In addition to drought, the service on the Western Rivers responded to a large oil spill. An Ashland Oil Company storage tank at Floreffa, Pa., near Pittsburgh, collapsed on January 2, 1988, spilling nearly one million gallons of diesel fuel into the Monongahela River. The U. S. Coast Guard抯 Atlantic Strike Team, from Mobile, Ala., tasked for major environmental cases, coordinated the cleanup of the spreading oil slick. The Atlantic Strike Team also came to the aid of the Argentine ship Rio Neuquen. on June 30, 1984, the Rio Neuquen exploded while moored at Houston, Texas. The explosion was centered in a cargo container with approximately ten tons of aluminum phosphine fumigant with high amounts of toxic phosphine contained in flasks. The risk of further explosions and the release of toxic fumes into the atmosphere prompted the government to appoint the Coast Guard as on-scene coordinator for a multi-agency recovery and disposal operation. The flasks were removed from the Rio Neuquen and, in a four-day operation, taken to an EPA-designated dumpsite in the Gulf of Mexico. Three days after the Rio Neuquen explosion, on July 30,fake rolex watches, the British tanker Alvenus grounded with "catastrophic structural failure" about 11 nautical miles south southeast of Cameron, La., creating the largest oil spill from a ship in the Gulf of Mexico. From July 30 to August 4, approximately 2.7 million gallons of crude oil flowed into the Gulf of Mexico from this grounding. Members of the Coast Guard Strike Team, the Marine Safety Office, Port Arthur, Texas, and many other units, worked from July 30 to August 20, tracking the oil slick and supervising the cleanup. The U.S. Coast Guard along the Florida coasts, the Gulf Coast and on the Western Rivers continues to perform its traditional duty of saving lives. Saving lives remains the most important duty in the Coast Guard. The call may come at any time, as illustrated when BMI Stephen A. Cirinna, stationed on board the buoy tender White Holly, saved a drowning girl. On April 30, 1983, BM1 Cirinna was out jogging near Fort Pickens Beach, Fla. when, two "hysterical girls" ran up to him. They took him to the beach where they pointed to a girl, about 75 yards offshore, "with her head bobbing out of the water." A small boat was nearby,rolex submariner replica, but waves prevented the boat from reaching her. Cirinna saw a group of men standing on the beach watching, but making no attempt to enter the water. The Boatswain抯 Mate, however, quickly ran into the sea and immediately discovered the reason for the hesitancy of the on-lookers: A very strong shore current, a riptide, swept the area. Cirinna waded out about 50 yards, through 4- to 6-foot surf, knowing he could not swim in the "chin-deep, swift current". Then he swam 25 yards to the exhausted girl and grabbed her, wondering, as he later related, whether he would have the "strength to pull her to safety." As he fought his way to the beach, the current pulled both Cirinna抯 and the girl抯 "heads under the water a couple of times." The Coast Guardsman抯 strength held, he reached the beach and quickly began treating the girl for shock and hypothermia until she was evacuated to a hospital. For his rescue, BM1 Stephen A. Cirinna was awarded the Silver Life-Saving Medal. In 1990, the U.S. Coast Guard celebrated two hundred years of service to the nation. Building upon the strong foundations laid by their predecessors, the men and women of today抯 U. S. Coast Guard in the southern coastal region and the Western Rivers continue the service to others who live in this area.