Alaska and Hawaii:
A Brief History of U.S. Coast Guard Operations
by
Dennis L. Noble
The last two states to join the Union,
The U.S. Lighthouse Service had the earliest impact on
the maritime histories of
Since
The Lighthouse Service gradually added more aids to
navigation. In 1884, 14 iron buoys were set and a beacon light in
To augment the aids, Congress appropriated $100,000 in
1900 to establish lighthouses in Alaskan waters. Eleven lights were
recommended for
In 1903, the government built two lights to help ships
bound for the
In 1898, just over 20 years after acquiring
When the service obtained this added responsibility,
there were 19 lighthouses, 20 daymarks and 20 buoys, along with some 16
private aids maintained by steamboat companies on the islands. In
general, the condition of the system was, in the words of one inspector,
"very crude." For example, the lamps at Kanahene Point, on the
south coast of
Only one lighthouse,
Lightkeepers not only tended to their lights but were
also involved in rescues. The Lighthouse Service’s annual reports are
replete with the heroic rescues by its employees. One case happened
near Barbers Point Light in January of 1928. The five-masted sailing ship, Bianca,
was struck by a sudden severe squall, leaving its sails in shreds. The
ship’s skipper let both anchors go, which held the vessel slightly off a
reef. The anchors, however would not hold and if help did not arrive
quickly, it would be dashed to pieces.
Keeper Manuel Ferreira, with no telephone or radio at
the light, realized the danger and quickly went for help. Through
"blasting winds and stinging rain," he ran three miles
cross-country to the nearest telephone. Ferreira’s long distance run was
instrumental in having a ship tow the Bianca to safety. Tending a
light is often pictured as an idyllic existence but many lighthouse keepers
faced life-threatening situations. For example, the five keepers at Scotch
Cap Light in
In addition to operating aids to navigation, the
Lighthouse Service also commanded a fleet of lightships and tenders.
Lightships were placed where lighthouses could not stand to help guide ships
through hazardous waters. The service’s tenders maintained the buoys and
lighthouses. The rocky and isolated nature of these regions made servicing
aids dangerous work.
The Lighthouse Service tender Shubrick was the
first steam-powered craft of this class and the first tender on the Pacific
coast. The tender was transferred to the Revenue Cutter Service between
1861-1867. But early in 1865 the vessel operated as part of the Navy for 90
days. It served as flagship for six vessels that surveyed the Bering Strait
in an attempt to lay cable linking the first telegraph service between
Europe and the
Increased shipping in
One such rescue occurred in January of 1916 on the
Hawaiian
The Columbine, much older and smaller than the British
Yeoman, could not tow the bark. Strong winds and seas made it much
more difficult. Warriner radioed tot assistance the next morning and was
told that the Navy tug Navajo was enroute. Before the tug
arrived however, the Columbine managed to haul the British Yeoman Out
of immediate danger. The Navajo took over the tow while the Columbine escorting
both ships back to
By 1930 the Lighthouse Service was well established in
Changing technology soon made lightkeepers obsolete.
No longer was anyone needed to trim wicks or to polish lenses.
The Revenue Cutter
Service
The Revenue Cutter Service also greatly influenced the
maritime history of these states. The Revenue Cutter Service’s largest
role in the Pacific region came in Alaskan waters. After the
The Bering Sea Patrol started as a reaction to the
large scale harvesting of the fur seals. The illegal killing of these
animals threatened to lead to their extinction and to deprive the
The cutters also came close to playing a military role
in the
The cutters performed a variety of tasks. One of the
more famous cutters in
A theme that runs throughout the reports and logs of
the officers of the Bering Sea Patrol is the concern for and the effort to
help settlers and natives in these isolated regions. To provide services,
the cutters visited villages from Unalaska to Point Barrow providing medical
care and food. In 1891 the legendary cutter Bear, under the
command o Captain Michael A. "Hell Roaring Mike" Healy,
transported reindeer from Siberia to
The Revenue Cutter Service provided a form of law and
order in this isolated unforgiving land. They performed these duties in a
region where no other law enforcement agency existed. The Revenue Service
for many years acted as the only law enforcement agency and provided many
civil functions. They even performed marriage ceremonies and held church
services.
The cutters that sailed the Bering Sea Patrol were
assigned to ports on the West Coast and
A cutterman recalled duty aboard Thetis during
this period: "We used to make trips to Midway and visit all the islands
in between. We used to inspect ships suspected of bringing opium from the
Orient. If we had reason to believe some ship was trying to smuggle opium
into
In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson began searching for
a means to streamline the federal government. One suggestion was to combine
the Revenue Cutter Service and the Navy. This did not meet with approval,
but a proposal to merge the Life-Saving Service and the Revenue Cutter
Service did. So on January 15, 1915, the measure was approved and the Coast
Guard was established.
For the next five years little changed in the normal
operating procedures for the new Coast Guard in
The Life-Saving
Service
The Coast Guard has a deservedly strong reputation as
a lifesaving organization. The foundation for the modern reputation was the
U.S. Life-Saving Service.
This service, however, got a relatively late start in
both territories. In the age of sail, the best way to assist shipwrecks
close to the beach was by shore-based small boats. Life-Saving stations were
usually established in areas known to be treacherous to ships. The nature of
shipping, terrain and weather in the Pacific Ocean around Hawaii dictated
that the islands would have no stations. Alaska met all the requirements of
terrain and weather, but for many years the amount of shipping did not
warrant the establishment of stations.
The Alaskan gold rush drew thousands of
fortune-seekers to the town of Nome. Nome’s offshore anchorage provided no
shelter and is extremely shallow, so passengers and freight had to be
transferred to shore from two miles out by small boats. This eventually led
to the establishment of a Life-Saving station there in 1905. This
station marked the northern-most of all units in the service. There was a
refuge station at Point Barrow but this was not controlled by the
Life-Saving Service.
Keeper Thomas A. Ross and his crew of surfmen
performed lookout duties and beach patrols. The surfmen rescued people from
ice floes, grounded ships and capsized boats. The lifesavers also helped the
local fire department fight fires. The surfmen performed other
humanitarian services, Between 1918 and 1919, a devastating influenza
epidemic swept Alaska. Keeper Ross sent a dog sled with surfman Levi Edward
Ashton and driver Anders Peter Brandt, to Cape Prince of Wales and other
villages with medicine and supplies. The two men were gone for almost two
months.
The Nome Station was slowly reduced in the early
1930's, due again, to the changing nature of shipping and technology. Ross
recommended cuts, but in 1934 fire destroyed the station and it was never
rebuilt. The Coast Guard used other buildings during World War II, but by
1951 the station was permanently closed.
The middle to late 1930s marked important changes for
the Coast Guard in the Pacific area. To replace aging cutters, the Coast
Guard acquired new ships, the best of which were the 327-foot Secretary
Class. These tough cutters could carry a fixed-wing aircraft on board.
The long range of the ships marked them for duty in the Pacific. The cutter Taney
went to Honolulu while Spencer went to Cordova, Alaska. World War
II had a great impact on the Coast Guard in Alaska and Hawaii. Before the
bombing of Pearl Harbor, district operations and personnel were limited in
Hawaii. In July of 1939, only 30 officers and 200 men were assigned to the
district. Floating units consisted of Taney, two 125-foot patrol
boats, two buoy tenders and five smaller patrol boats. Also within the
district were 12 major light stations, 52 unattended fixed aids and a few
other miscellaneous units.
At the beginning of the war, the district encompassed
an area bounded roughly from the Hawaiian Islands to Midway Island, Wake
Island and to Palmyra Island. Four years later, the area of responsibility
stretched to include Japan, the Philippines and to near Samoa. And 200
officers and 3,000 enlisted people served in the district. Coast
Guardsmen in the Pacific served aboard transports protecting convoys and
were coxswains aboard landing craft during invasions. Even the seemingly
non-combatant buoy tenders were at times in the midst of the fighting.
Sweetbriar, for example, repeatedly put up anti-aircraft fire
against Kamikaze attacks. In May 1945, it assisted in downing a Japanese
"Zeke" and although the Coast Guard did play an important combat
role in the Pacific, one of the most lasting legacies of the war for the
service was LORAN.
LORAN (Long-Range Aids to Navigation) uses radio
signals to help ships and aircraft obtain an accurate position. Clearly, any
device that would help navigators in the vast region of the Pacific would be
of great help to the war effort. On March 1,1944, LT Alvin L. Loose
and a small party of men built the first LORAN A station in the Pacific at
Baker Island. LORAN units were built with increasing speed afterwards.
From November 8, 1944, to June 22, 1945, 19 stations
were built throughout the Pacific Islands. Problems of supply and
administration were enormous. The distance from Honolulu to units in the
Marianas, for example, was 4,600 miles. "No other Coast Guard
District," one official history stated, "was faced with such
problems of distance, supply and transportation."
The LORAN A stations were classified as secret and
each unit was given a code word. Sometimes six months would pass before a
re-supply ship would appear. Eighteen months was a regular tour of
duty. One official report aptly summed up the duty: "For the personnel
who operated the stations, there was no glory and no medals only dull,
monotonous routine watches."
One of the most isolated of all LORAN stations and the
one most Coast Guardsmen of the 1950s and 1960s came to recognize as the
symbol of LORAN duty was French Frigate Shoals located 500 miles
west-northwest of Honolulu. The station was on Tern Island, which was
bulldozed into the shape of an aircraft carrier during World War II. It
provided a landing strip for the invasion of Midway Island. The length of
the runway is 3,100 feet, with a width of 410 feet and a mean elevation of
nine feet above sea level.
On this small island, two officers and 18 enlisted men
served for a one year period. The station was supplied weekly by C-130
aircraft from Air Station Barbers Point. The crew was once evacuated by a
helicopter from a
The 339-foot cutter Kukui maintained many of
these isolated stations and was a workhorse for the islands. Coast Guardsmen
assigned to this ship had to be jacks-of-all-trades and move from island to
island. In 1972 Kukui touched at, or worked on stations at
Johnson, Atoll, Marcus, Saipan, Guam, Yap, Palau Islands, Anguor, Koror,
Keelung, Iwo Jima, Yokosuka, Kure, Midway and French Frigate Shoals.
Other navigational devices began to replace LORAN A stations and the need
for this type of ship ended. Kukui was decommissioned in 1972.
The modern Coast Guard has benefited greatly due to
advances in technology and it has changed the nature of search and
rescue. The helicopter, combined with better motor lifeboats, now insures
that people can be reached faster than ever before. In fact,
shore-based rescue operations can now reach further out to sea than ever
before. The famous Prinsendam case in the
Beginning in the nineteenth century, the service has
been many things to those in the 14th and 17th Districts: a marine
policeman; a doctor; a protector of life and a guide to safe harbors.
Today, the men and women of the Coast Guard, building upon a strong
foundation of service to others, now surpass the efforts of their
illustrious predecessors in their service to those in