U.S. Coast Guard:

America’s Maritime Guardian

Coast Guard Publication 1

1 January 2002

U.S. Coast Guard:

America’s Maritime Guardian

Coast Guard Publication 1

1 January 2002

iii

A few armed vessels, judiciously stationed at the entrances of our ports, might at a

small expense be made useful sentinels of the laws.

—- Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury

Federalist No. 12, The Utility of the Union in Respect to Revenue

From the New York Packet

27 November 1787

Earliest recorded reference to what would become the U.S. Coast Guard

It had the desired effect.

—- Captain John Faunce, USRCS

Commanding Officer, USRC Harriet Lane

Comment to Harper’s Weekly about firing the

first naval shot of the Civil War in Charleston, South Carolina

Did they get off?

—- Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, Signalman First Class Douglas Munro, USCG

Inquiring of the 400 Marines he rescued, just before

dying of wounds he suffered in the effort

These poor, plain men, dwellers upon the lonely sands of Hatteras, took their lives

in their hands, and, at the most imminent risk, crossed the most tumultuous sea ...

and all for what? That others might live to see home and friends.

—- Annual Report of the U.S. Life-Saving Service, 1885

The lighthouse and the lightship appeal to the interests and better instinct of man

because they are symbolic of never-ceasing watchfulness, of steadfast endurance 

in every exposure, of widespread helpfulness.

—- George R. Putnam, the first Commissioner of Lighthouses

U.S. Lighthouse Service, 1906-1935

Having fought as a part of the Navy in all our wars, and taking an especial pride

in being fully prepared to perform credible service in the Navy whenever called

upon, the officers and men of the Coast Guard are inspired not only by the high

traditions and fine history of their own service, but also by the splendid traditions,

history, and indoctrination of the United States Navy. They have thus two rich 

heritages to be proud of and two standards of the same lofty character to live up to.

—- Rear Admiral F. C. Billard, USCG

Commandant of the Coast Guard, 1924-1932

U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, May 1929
iv

Table of Contents

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Chapter One: America’s Maritime Guardian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

COAST GUARD ROLES AND MISSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Maritime Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Maritime Safety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Protection of Natural Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Maritime Mobility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

National Defense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Chapter Two: An Evolving Coast Guard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

1790 TO 1865: REVENUE PROTECTION AND MORE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Revenue Cutters for National Defense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Supporting Maritime Trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Law Enforcement in a Restive Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Revenue Cutters in the War Between the States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

1865 TO 1915: THE ROAD TO THE COAST GUARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Sumner Kimball and Service Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Growing Civil Duties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Spanish-American War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

1915 TO 1916: ESTABLISHMENT OF THE U.S. COAST GUARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

1917 TO 1945: A SERVICE FORGED BY WAR, CRISIS, 

AND CONSOLIDATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

The Coast Guard in the Great War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Interdiction and Build-Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

The Waesche Consolidation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

National Defense to the Fore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

1946 TO 1972: SORTING OUT ROLES AND MISSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

An International Role in Peacetime and in War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Expanding Civil Responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Finding a New Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

1973 TO TODAY AND BEYOND: A UNIQUE INSTRUMENT 

OF NATIONAL SECURITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

ECHOES FROM THE PAST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
v

Chapter Three: The Nature of Our Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

CORE VALUES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

A MILITARY, MULTI-MISSION, MARITIME SERVICE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Military . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Multi-Mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Maritime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

A HUMANITARIAN REPUTATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

A UNIQUE SERVICE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Chapter Four: Principles of Coast Guard Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

THE PRINCIPLE OF CLEAR OBJECTIVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

THE PRINCIPLE OF EFFECTIVE PRESENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

THE PRINCIPLE OF UNITY OF EFFORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

THE PRINCIPLE OF ON-SCENE INITIATIVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

THE PRINCIPLE OF FLEXIBILITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

THE PRINCIPLE OF MANAGED RISK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

THE PRINCIPLE OF RESTRAINT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

APPENDIX A: GLOSSARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

APPENDIX B: THE PRINCIPLES OF WAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

APPENDIX C: THE PRINCIPLES OF MILITA RY OPERATIONS 

OTHER THAN WA R . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 66

APPENDIX D: FURTHER READING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

ENDNOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 

Foreword

From the Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard

I am pleased to present America’s Maritime Guardian: U.S. Coast Guard Publication 1

to the military and civilian men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Coast Guard

Reserve, and the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary.

The subtitle, U.S. Coast Guard Publication 1, deserves some explanation. Published

211 years after the founding of our Service, Publication 1 is clearly not the Coast Guard’s

first publication, but it is the first official publication to synthesize who we are, what we

do, and how we do things.

Why is Publication 1 necessary? Every organization worth its salt has a “handbook” to

tell its members and anyone else who is interested just what the organization is all about:

its history, its ethos, its values, and its reason for existence.

The Coast Guard is a military, multi-mission, maritime service. Though we are

America’s smallest armed service, we perform an astonishingly broad range of services to

our country—so broad that it is possible to devote a fulfilling career to one or even several

major mission areas without understanding how the whole Service works together for our

nation’s benefit. Publication 1 attempts to supply that understanding. It is designed to let

the right hand know what the left is doing and to remind both hands of the magnificent

body to which they are joined. This is our common understanding about ourselves. My

hope is that it will enable every Coast Guard service member, civilian employee, and 

volunteer to serve more effectively.

Read it to learn. Read it with pride.

Semper Paratus,

James M. Loy

Admiral, U.S. Coast Guard

1
In 1790, the First Congress of the United States established a small 

maritime law enforcement agency to assist in collecting the new nation’s

customs duties. For the next eight years, this Revenue Marine (later called

the Revenue Cutter Service) was the nation’s only naval force and so was

soon assigned military duties. Over time, the Revenue Cutter Service

acquired new responsibilities and either merged with or absorbed several

other federal agencies. The Service acquired new responsibilities based

upon its ability to perform them with existing assets and minimal disruption to its other duties. It acquired other agencies because their maritime

responsibilities were seen as intersecting with or complementing its own.

The result is today’s U.S. Coast Guard—a unique force that carries out an

array of civil and military responsibilities touching on almost every facet 

of the maritime environment affecting the United States.

What makes the Coast Guard unique is that in executing our diverse

missions as America’s Maritime Guardian, we harmonize what seem 

to be contradictory mandates. We are charged at once to be policemen and

sailors, warriors, humanitarians, regulators, stewards of the environment,

diplomats, and guardians of the coast. Thus, we are military, multi-mission,

and maritime.

As a practical matter, while Coast Guard men and women and the units

in which they serve are prepared to act across the entire range of Coast

Guard missions, some responsibilities will absorb more time, effort, and

resources than others. A practical emphasis on specific mission areas

should not, however, cause us to lose focus on the broad roles of the Coast

Guard and the way in which these roles affect how the Service is organized,

equipped, and conducts operations. Indeed, it is the multi-mission nature

of the Coast Guard that is our greatest strength. Every Coast Guard member

needs to understand our Service as a whole. This document is designed to

provide context for that understanding.

2

Introduction
Publication 1 explains what we do; that is, it describes the fundamental

roles today’s Coast Guard fulfills in support of the U.S. National Security

Strategy and the missions we perform in pursuing those roles. It traces our

organizational history, to explain how the Coast Guard acquired its diverse

mission set. It explains the unique characteristics and qualities, derived

from our history, roles, and missions, that together define who we are.

Finally, it lays out principles of operations that flow from our unique organizational nature and identity. In other words, it also describes how we do

things.

The principles of operations discussed in this publication are Coast

Guard doctrine; that is, fundamental principles that guide our actions in

support of the nation’s objectives. They are rooted in our history and are

the distillation of hard-won experience. They provide a shared interpretation

of that experience. This in turn provides a common starting point for thinking

about future action. With training and experience, this shared outlook leads

to consistent behavior, mutual confidence, and more effective collective

action, without constraining initiative.

Because this doctrine is rooted in history, it is enduring. But it also

evolves in response to changes in the political and strategic landscape, 

lessons learned from operations, and the introduction of new technologies.

Doctrine influences the way in which policy and plans are developed, forces

are organized and trained, and equipment is procured. It promotes unity 

of purpose, guides professional judgment, and enables Coast Guard men

and women to best fulfill their responsibilities. Publication 1 tells us how we

became and why we are America’s Maritime Guardian.

3

America’s enduring maritime interests—its reliance on the seas for commerce, sustenance, and defense—have

been constant since colonial days. The

U.S. Coast Guard exists to address these

enduring interests. The United States is a

maritime nation, with an extensive set of

interests and concerns in the seas

around us and beyond. With 95,000

miles of shoreline bordering nearly 3.4

million square miles of Exclusive

Economic Zones (EEZ), America’s future

will remain tied to the sea. The seas link

the nation with world commerce and

trade and allow us to project military

power far from our shores to protect

important U.S. interests, as well as to

assist allies and friends at risk from

common foes. The seas also serve as

highways for a host of transnational

threats and challenges that honor no

national frontier.

5

Chapter One: America’s Maritime Guardian

Chapter One

U.S. territorial seas and Exclusive Economic Zones.

The U.S. Coast Guard is one of the

five armed services of the United States

of America. As such, it is an important element of America’s national security strategy.

We protect vital interests of the United

States—the personal safety and security of

our population; our natural and economic

resources; and the territorial integrity of our

nation—from both internal and external

threats, natural and man-made. We protect

these interests in America’s ports and inland

Coast Guard Roles

◆ Maritime Security

◆ Maritime Safety

◆ Protection of Natural Resources

◆ Maritime Mobility

◆ National Defense
waterways, along the coasts, on international waters, or in any other maritime

region where U.S. interests may be at risk.

From 1915, when the Coast Guard was

established by law as an armed service, we

have been a military, multi-mission, maritime service possessing a unique blend

of humanitarian, law enforcement, regulatory, diplomatic, and military capabilities.

These gird our five fundamental roles:

maritime security, maritime safety, protection of natural resources, maritime

mobility, and national defense.

Each Coast Guard role is composed of

several mission areas. Each of these in 

turn is based on one or more mandated

or authorized duties. Many Coast Guard

missions benefit more than one role. For

example, while our aids to navigation 

mission primarily supports our maritime

mobility role by facilitating the movement

of people and goods, the system of aids we

maintain also supports our maritime safety

and protection of natural resources roles

by preventing accidents. This interwoven,

overlapping combination of roles and 

missions calls for Coast Guard resources

that are similarly multi-mission capable.

COAST GUARD ROLES AND 

MISSIONS

Maritime Security

Maritime law enforcement and border

control are the oldest of the Coast Guard’s

numerous responsibilities, dating back to

our founding as the Revenue Marine in

1790. Congress established the Revenue

Marine specifically to patrol the coasts and

seaports to frustrate smuggling and enforce

the customs laws of the fledgling Republic.

Two centuries have passed and that early

challenge has evolved into a full open

ocean responsibility for the maritime sovereignty of our nation. Our maritime law

enforcement role and the task of interdicting

ships at sea provide the foundation upon

which our much broader and complex 

present-day mission set has been built.

As the nation’s primary maritime law

enforcement service, the Coast Guard

enforces or assists in enforcing federal

laws, treaties, and other international

agreements on the high seas and waters

under U.S. jurisdiction. We possess the

authority to board any vessel subject to

U.S. jurisdiction to make inspections,

searches, inquiries, and arrests. We wield

this extraordinarily broad police power

with prudence and restraint primarily to

suppress violations of our drug, immigration, fisheries, and environmental laws.

As the designated lead agency for 

maritime drug interdiction under the

National Drug Control Strategy and the 

co-lead agency with the U.S. Customs

Service for air interdiction operations, the

Coast Guard defends America’s seaward

frontier against a virtual torrent of illegal

drugs. For more than two decades our 

cutters and aircraft, forward deployed off

6

Chapter One

Maritime Security Missions

◆ Drug Interdiction

◆ Alien Migrant Interdiction

◆ EEZ & Living Marine Resource Law/Treaty

Enforcement

◆ General Maritime Law Enforcement
South America and in the transit zone, have

intercepted many tons of cocaine, marijuana,

and other illegal drugs that otherwise

would have found their way to America’s

streets.

Coast Guard alien migrant interdiction

operations (AMIO) are also law enforcement

missions with a significant humanitarian

dimension. Migrants typically take great

risks and endure significant hardships in

their attempts to flee their countries and

enter the United States. In many cases,

migrant vessels interdicted at sea are overloaded and unseaworthy, lack basic safety

equipment, and are operated by inexperienced mariners. The majority of alien

migrant interdiction cases we handle 

actually begin as search and rescue cases,

once again illustrating the interwoven

nature of our roles and missions. Between

1980 and 2000, we interdicted 290,000

migrants, mostly from Cuba, Dominican

Republic, People’s Republic of China, and

Haiti.

7

Chapter One

Coast Guard members unload bales of marijuana after a bust.

A boarding team from the medium-endurance cutter Courageous (WMEC 622) prepares to board a vessel

carrying Haitian migrants.
8

Chapter One

In 1976, Congress passed what is now

known as the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery

Conservation and Management Act. By 

creating an Exclusive Economic Zone, this

act pushed out our nation’s maritime 

border to 200 nautical miles. In the years

that followed, international fisheries agreements went even further, extending U.S.

jurisdiction to high-seas areas beyond the

EEZ. Today, we patrol these areas, as well

as our EEZ—where we focus primarily on

maritime boundary areas such as the

U.S./Russian Convention Line in the Bering

Sea—to uphold U.S. sovereignty and protect

America’s precious resources.

Maritime law enforcement is a continuing

theme running through our proud history

of service to America. It requires a wide

breadth of experience and skills: seamanship, diplomacy, legal expertise, and combat

readiness. We have honed these skills for

more than two centuries. No other U.S.

armed service or federal agency possesses

this combination of law enforcement capabilities and responsibilities, together with

the legal authorities to carry them out.

Controlling the use of the seas in the best

interests of the United States is what 

maritime security is all about.

Maritime Safety

One of the most basic responsibilities

of the U.S. government is to protect the

lives and safety of Americans. In the 

maritime realm, the lead responsibility 

falls to the Coast Guard. In partnership

with other federal agencies, state and local 

governments, marine industries, and 

individual mariners, we preserve safety 

at sea through a focused program of 

prevention, response, and investigation.

Our prevention activities include developing commercial and recreational vessel

standards, enforcing compliance with these

standards, licensing commercial mariners,

operating the International Ice Patrol to

protect ships transiting the North Atlantic

shipping lanes, and educating the public.

We develop operating and construction 

criteria for many types of vessels, from

commercial ships to recreational boats. 

The Coast Guard is America’s voice in the

International Maritime Organization (IMO),

which promulgates measures to improve

shipping safety, pollution prevention,

mariner training, and certification standards.

We also are the agency primarily responsible

for developing domestic shipping and 

navigation regulations. We ensure compliance with safety regulations in many ways.

We inspect U.S. flag vessels, mobile offshore

drilling units and marine facilities; examine

foreign-flag vessels based on the potential

safety and pollution risk they pose; review

and approve plans for vessel construction,

repair, and alteration; and document and

admeasure U.S. flag vessels. The Port State

Control program, which is aimed at eliminating sub-standard vessels from U.S. ports

and waterways, is a key element in our

safety enforcement program, for 95 percent

of passenger ships and 75 percent of cargo

ships operating in U.S. waters are foreignflagged.

Maritime Safety Missions

◆ Search and Rescue

◆ Marine Safety

◆ Recreational Boating Safety

◆ International Ice Patrol
As National Recreational Boating Safety

Coordinator, the Coast Guard works to 

minimize loss of life, personal injury,

property damage, and environmental harm

associated with recreational boating. Our

boating safety program involves public

education programs, regulation of boat

design and construction, approval of

boating safety equipment, and courtesy

marine examinations of boats for 

compliance with federal and state safety

requirements. The all-volunteer Coast

Guard Auxiliary plays a central role in

this program.

Coast Guard prevention activities 

in pursuit of maritime safety are often

inseparable from those we perform to

protect the marine environment or police

the U.S. marine transportation system.

Actions in one area often reinforce those

required for other roles and missions. 

As a result, our numerous accidentprevention efforts have saved countless

lives and contributed to the economic

and environmental health of the nation.

Nevertheless, the maritime arena is

massive and complex and the sea powerful

and unforgiving. Mishaps will occur despite

our best efforts. When they do, the Coast

Guard has a long heritage and proud tradition

of responding immediately to save lives

and property in peril. As the lead agency

9

Chapter One

An HC-130 overflies an iceberg during an International Ice Patrol mission.

Coast Guard members prepare to rescue fishermen from their sinking vessel.
for maritime search and rescue (SAR) in

U.S. waters, we coordinate the SAR efforts

of sea and airborne Coast Guard units, as

well as those of other federal, state, and

local responders. We also leverage the

world’s merchant fleet to rescue mariners

in distress around the globe through the

Automated Mutual-assistance Vessel Rescue

(AMVER) system.

Finally, in addition to responding to a

wide variety of time-critical maritime emergencies and accidents, we investigate their

causes and determine whether laws have

been violated or whether changes should

be made to improve safety through our

prevention programs.

Protection of Natural Resources

America’s marine waters and their

ecosystems are vital to the health, well

being, and economy of the nation. Our

marine environment is among the most

valuable and productive natural resources

on Earth, containing one-fifth of the world’s

fishery resources. It is also a region of

extraordinary recreation, minerals-development, and transportation activities. For

these reasons our role in carrying out the

nation’s mandates to protect our marine

environment is of vital importance.

The Coast Guard’s protection of natural

resources role dates to the 1820s, when

Congress tasked the Revenue Marine to

protect federal stocks of Florida live oak.

As the exploitation of the nation’s valuable

marine resources—whales, fur-bearing animals, and fish—increased, we were given

the duty to protect these resources as well.

Today, with our U.S. EEZ supporting commercial and recreational fisheries worth

more than $30 billion annually, we serve as

the primary agency for at-sea fisheries

enforcement. But our role has expanded

over the last few decades to include enforcing laws intended to protect the environment as a public good. As a result, we now

actively protect sensitive marine habitats,

marine mammals, and endangered marine

species, and we enforce laws protecting our

waters from the discharge of oil and other

hazardous substances.

We conduct a wide range of activities—

education and prevention, enforcement,

response and containment, and recovery—

in support of our primary environmental

protection mission areas: maritime pollution enforcement, offshore lightering zone

enforcement, domestic fisheries enforcement, and foreign vessel inspection. We

also provide mission-critical command and

control support and usually are the first

responding force to environmental disasters on the seas.

In addition, we are typically the lead

agency for any ensuing response effort.

Under the National Contingency Plan, Coast

Guard Captains of the Port (COTP) are the

pre-designated Federal On-Scene

Coordinators (FOSC) for oil and hazardous

substance incidents in all coastal and some

10

Chapter One

Protection of Natural Resources

Missions

◆ Marine Environmental Protection

◆ Domestic Fisheries Enforcement

◆ Protected Living Marine Resource Law

Enforcement
inland areas. The FOSC is, in reality, the

President’s designated on-scene representative. As such, the FOSC is responsible for

forging a well coordinated and effective

response operation involving a diverse set

of government and commercial entities in

many emotionally charged and potentially

dangerous emergency situations.

Maritime Mobility

The U.S. marine transportation system

facilitates America’s global reach into foreign markets and the nation’s engagement

in world affairs, including protection of

U.S. national interests through a national

and international regulatory framework

governing trade and commerce. This 

system includes the waterways and ports

through which more than 2 billion tons of

America’s foreign and domestic freight and

3.3 billion barrels of oil move each year,

plus the intermodal links that support our

economic and military security. It also

includes international and domestic passenger services, commercial and recreational

fisheries, and recreational boating. The

Coast Guard is a leading force for providing 

a safe, efficient marine transportation system.

11

Chapter One

An HH-65A responds to an oil spill after the bulk tanker New Carissa

ran aground one mile north of Coos Bay, Oregon, in February 1999.

The crew of the cutter

Hornbeam (WLB 394)

prepares to lift a buoy

out of the water of f

Yorktown, Virginia.

Maritime Mobility Missions

◆ Aids to Navigation

◆ Icebreaking Services

◆ Bridge Administration

◆ Waterways/Vessel Traffic Management
The Coast Guard carries out numerous

port safety and security, waterways management, and commercial vessel safety 

missions and tasks. We are responsible for

providing a safe, efficient, and navigable

waterway system to support domestic 

commerce, international trade, and the 

military sealift requirements for national

defense. The services we provide include:

long- and short-range aids to navigation;

charting, tide/current/pilotage information

through Notices to Mariners; vessel traffic

services; domestic and international 

icebreaking and patrol services; technical

assistance and advice; vessel safety standards and inspection; and bridge administration standards and inspection. The Coast

Guard is also America’s principal point of

contact for international marine transportation issues in the IMO.

National Defense

Throughout our history, the Coast Guard

has served alongside the U.S. Navy in critical

national defense missions, beginning with

the Quasi-War with France in 1798, through

the Civil War, World Wars I and II, to the

Vietnam War and the Persian Gulf War. The

close relationship between our services and

between our parent agencies has evolved

through more than two centuries of cooperation, culminating in a 1995 agreement

between the Secretaries of Defense and

Transportation. This agreement assigns 

to the Coast Guard five specific national

defense missions in support of the Unified

Commanders-in-Chief (CINCs) in addition 

to our general defense operations and polar

icebreaking duties. These missions—maritime interception operations; military

12

Chapter One

The cutters Katmai Bay (WTGB 101) and Biscayne Bay (WTGB 104) break ice in the Straits of Mackinaw on the Great Lakes.
environmental response operations; port

operations, security, and defense; peacetime military engagement; and coastal 

sea control operations—require the Coast

Guard to execute essential military functions and tasks in support of joint and

combined forces in peacetime, crisis, 

and war.

1

In recent years, the CINCs have requested

Coast Guard cutters to conduct military

interception operations, peacetime military

engagement, and other supporting warfare

tasks in all key areas of operations. They

have done so because we offer unique and

non-redundant capabilities and perform a

vital, complementary role no other armed

service can provide. Unlike the other services,

we reach out to all elements of other countries’ maritime interests and agencies, and

our international humanitarian reputation

often makes a Coast Guard presence much

less threatening to foreign nations than

would a purely military one.

Like the other U.S. armed services, 

warfare is one of the Coast Guard’s primary

reasons for being. Because of our special

multi-mission capabilities our units play

unique roles in peacetime military engagement, humanitarian support, peacekeeping

and peace-enforcement, crisis-response,

and combat operations across the spectrum

of U.S. global strategies and policies. 

We maintain a high state of readiness to 

operate as a specialized service within the

Navy, and provide enormous value as a naval

augmentation force for

the nation to call upon as

needed. We exercise command responsibilities for

the U.S. Maritime Defense

Zones (MDZ) and our

extensive involvement in

coastal and port maritime functions at home

give us vital capabilities

that can be used anywhere in the world they

are needed.

13

Chapter One

The crew of the high-endurance cutter Midgett (WHEC 726) renders honors to the Constellation

(CV 64) off the coast of Pusan, Republic of Kora, at the beginning of a six-month deployment to

the Western Pacific and Arabian Gulf in 1999.

National Defense

Missions

◆ General Defense Operations

◆ Maritime Interception Operations*

◆ Military Environmental Response Operations*

◆ Port Operations, Security, and Defense*

◆ Peacetime Military Engagement*

◆ Coastal Sea Control Operations*

◆ Polar Icebreaking

_______________________________________________

* Contained in DoT/DoD Memorandum of

Agreement.
14

Chapter One

Finally, we operate the nation’s only

polar icebreakers, which enable our Service

to project U.S. national presence and 

protect national interests in the Arctic and

Antarctic regions. These polar vessels 

re-supply America’s polar facilities and 

support the research requirements of the

National Science Foundation.

The Coast Guard’s ability to fulfill its

roles—saving lives and property at sea; 

protecting America’s maritime borders and

suppressing violations of the law; protecting

our marine environment; providing a safe,

efficient marine transportation system; and

defending the nation—makes us truly a

unique instrument of national security.

More than simply “guarding the coast,” we 

safeguard the global commons and bring critical capabilities to the full-spectrum, multiagency response needed to address America’s

national and maritime security needs.

A Bear-class medium endurance cutter fires its 76-mm/62-caliber gun during live-fire exercises.
The Coast Guard’s evolution parallels

that of the United States, an “island nation”

heavily dependent upon the seas surrounding

it for commerce, resources, and a buffer

against external threats. The predecessor

agencies of the Coast Guard were created 

in response to threats to our nation’s vital

interests that arose as the nation grew. As

those threats evolved, so did the agencies’

duties and their relationships with each

other. The eventual result was consolidation, beginning in 1915 with the merging of

the Revenue Cutter Service and Life-Saving

Service to form the U.S. Coast Guard. By

1946, the Coast Guard had assimilated the

remaining agencies as well.

Since that time the Service has continued

to add responsibilities. The result is that

today’s Coast Guard, which carries out civil

and military responsibilities touching virtually

every facet of the maritime environment,

bears little resemblance to its collection 

of predecessor agencies. Yet the process 

of integrating these agencies, each with 

its own culture and characteristics, has

shaped the Coast Guard in lasting ways.

Understanding the evolutionary process

that led to the modern Coast Guard thus

provides insight into the unique nature

of our Service and the principles of Coast

Guard operations that flow from it.

Coast Guard history can be divided

into six distinct periods. Our ability to

uphold and protect the nation’s enduring

maritime interests expanded—though not

always evenly—during each of these periods.

1790 TO 1865: REVENUE

PROTECTION AND MORE

The founding of the Revenue Marine

was stimulated by the financial needs of a

new nation. After the Revolution, the

United States was deep in debt and its

emerging industries were under tremendous pressure from British imports. The

American merchant marine, a mainstay of

the colonial economy, had been weakened

by losses in the war. To secure its political

independence, the United States had to

secure its financial independence. To

accomplish this imperative, Alexander

Hamilton, the first Secretary of the

Treasury, proposed a bold economic plan

relying heavily on income generated by

customs duties and tonnage taxes that discriminated against foreign goods and ships.

15

Chapter Two

Chapter Two: An Evolving Coast Guard

Coast Guard Predecessor Agencies

(Year Established)

Merged to Form the Coast Guard in 1915:

U.S. Revenue Cutter Service (1790)*

U.S. Life-Saving Service (1848)

Assimilated into the Coast Guard:

1939: U.S. Lighthouse Service (1789)

1946: Steamboat Inspection Service

(1838) and Bureau of Navigation (1884)**

__________________________________________________________

* Congress gave the service originally known as

the Revenue Marine this statutory title in 1863.

** The Steamboat Inspection Service and the

Bureau of Navigation had been combined to form

the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation 

in 1932.
16

Chapter Two

Hamilton

understood that

in order for his

plan to succeed

“the Treasury

needed a strong

right arm”2to

suppress smuggling and ensure

duties and taxes

were paid. He

thus sought

authorization from Congress to build “so

many boats or cutters, not exceeding ten,

as may be employed for the protection of

revenue.”3 Enacted on 4 August, the Tariff

Act of 1790 authorized the building of ten

cutters, but did not define their exact 

specifications. The majority of those built

were “Baltimore Clipper”-type, two-masted

schooners: “light, fast, easily-managed, 

seaworthy vessels, handy in beating in and

out of harbors and through winding river

channels.”4 The Tariff Act also authorized 

a professional corps of 100—the Revenue

Marine—charged with a single duty: assistance in the collection of customs duties

and tonnage taxes.5

Hamilton also understood that for the

new nation to earn customs duties and 

tonnage taxes, ships had to make it safely

to port. Essential to that end were lighthouses, of which there were twelve in 1789,

each erected and maintained by local interests.6 Hamilton realized that lighthouses

were of national value; therefore, he proposed

to Congress that responsibility for all 

aids to navigation be given to the central

government. 

Congress agreed, and on 7 August 1789

the Treasury Department was given responsibility for constructing and maintaining 

all of the nation’s aids to navigation.7In

just its Ninth Act, the First Congress thus

accepted that safety of life at sea is a public

responsibility and “launched the national

government upon its course of guarding

the coast in the interest of safety and 

security afloat.”8

Revenue Cutters for National Defense

For nearly seven years, Revenue Marine

cutters were the only armed ships the

Periods in 

Coast Guard History

◆ 1790-1865: Revenue Protection and

More

◆ 1865-1915: The Road to the Coast

Guard

◆ 1915-1916: Establishment of the U.S.

Coast Guard

◆ 1917-1946: A Service Forged by War,

Crisis, and Consolidation

◆ 1946-1972: Sorting Out Roles and

Missions

◆ 1973-Today and Beyond: A Unique

Instrument of National Security

Alexander Hamilton

Boston Light is the site of America’s first lighthouse, built in

1716. The first light was burned by retreating British forces

during the Revolution. This is the second tower, built in 1783

and modified in 1859.
United States possessed, the Navy having

been disbanded after the Revolution.

Consequently, when the Quasi-War with

France loomed in 1797 the Revenue Marine

was available for duty, and Congress

assigned the Service its first military tasks.

In the same act that established the United

States Navy, Congress authorized the

President to augment the Navy with revenue

cutters when needed.9 Eight revenue cutters

were subsequently deployed under Navy

control along the U.S. southern coast and 

in the Caribbean from 1798 to 1799, where

they performed national defense duties and

preyed upon French shipping. At the conflict’s conclusion the Navy retained three

cutters and returned five to the Revenue

Marine.

For the most part, the Navy considered

the cutters to be too small and slow for

strictly naval duties.10 Nevertheless, the

need for sufficient numbers and types 

of warships led to the Revenue Marine’s

participation in naval operations on many

other occasions. With only six frigates in

service, the Navy needed the services of

more armed vessels as the nation entered

the War of 1812 against Great Britain.

Revenue cutters again were absorbed into

Navy service, and one promptly captured

the first British prize of the war.

Shallow-draft revenue cutters proved

useful in the small conflicts that erupted

along the North American coastline as the

nation expanded. From 1836 to 1839, cutters

engaged in littoral and riverine operations

during the Seminole War in Florida.

Revenue Marine vessels also participated in

amphibious operations during the Mexican

War in 1846-1848.

As the nation and the U.S. Navy grew,

the relatively small numbers of armed vessels

the Revenue Marine could contribute to

national defense duties became relatively

less important. However, the Service

remained a repository for militarily useful,

shallow-draft warships that were always in

demand for littoral operations, and revenue

cutter officers and crews performed many

gallant actions in support of the Navy.

17

Chapter Two

The revenue cutter Eagle engages the French privateer 

Bon Pere in 1799 during the Quasi-War with France.

Battle Streamers* Earned 

1790-1865

◆ 1790-1797: Maritime Protection of the New

Republic**

◆ 1798-1801: French Quasi-War

◆ 1812: War of 1812

◆ 1820-1861: African Slave Trade Patrol

◆ 1822-1830s: Operations against West Indian

Pirates

◆ 1835-1842: The Indian Wars

◆ 1846-1848: Mexican War

◆ 1861-1865: The Civil War

________________________________________

* For more information, look up 

“Battle Streamers” in the Glossary.

** Awarded solely to the Coast Guard.
Supporting Maritime Trade

From its earliest days, Revenue Marine

efforts were not single-mindedly focused

on customs collections. Instead, the Service

adopted a wider role of protecting and 

fostering—as well as regulating—marine

transportation and trade. During the 

presidencies of George Washington and

John Adams, the Revenue Marine began

maintaining aids to navigation, assisting

lighthouse personnel, and charting coastal

waters. It also carried out various health

and quarantine measures at major ports.

On the law enforcement side, beginning 

in 1819 the Revenue Marine worked with

the Navy to drive pirates out of the coastal

waters of the southern Atlantic and Gulf 

of Mexico, clearing those areas of threats 

to traders.

The Service also took on the major 

task of finding and rescuing distressed

mariners, something it had hitherto done

on an ad hoc basis. In 1832, Treasury

Secretary Louis McLane ordered Revenue

Marine cutters to begin limited cruising

during the winter months in order to 

provide assistance to mariners in distress.

This experiment was so successful that 

in 1837 Congress authorized the President

“to cause any suitable number of public

vessels ... to cruise upon the coast, in the

severe portion of the season ... to afford

such aid to distressed navigators as their

circumstances and necessities may require.” 11

Thus began a tradition of assistance to life

and property that today is one of the Coast

Guard’s most widely acclaimed missions. 

During this same period steamboats were

plying the nation’s rivers and beginning to

venture out to sea, but their boilers were

notoriously unreliable and dangerous. 

In 1832, explosions destroyed fully 14 

percent of all steamers in operation, with

the loss of a thousand or more lives. The

situation cried out for action, and in 1838

Congress enacted the first navigation law

“better securing the lives ... on board

vessels propelled in whole or in part by

steam.”12 This Act, which gave U.S. district

judges authority to appoint steamboat

inspectors, is considered the beginning 

of an organization that would evolve over

the next several decades into the Steamboat

Inspection Service within the Treasury

Department. It also launched what has

become “an enduring national policy of 

regulating private enterprise in the interest

of safety afloat.”13

Almost ten years later, Congressman

William Newell of New Jersey, who had 

personally witnessed the grounding of the

bark Terasto and the death of her crewmen

years earlier, set in motion a series of 

legislative moves that led to the formation

of the U.S. Life-Saving Service (LSS). The LSS

and the Revenue Marine worked together

closely—revenue service personnel often

were temporarily reassigned to the LSS, 

and cutters provided material support to

lifeboat stations along the U.S. coast.

Law Enforcement in a Restive Nation

The Revenue Marine aided the federal

government in enforcing its sovereignty

over U.S. affairs. Its actions were not always

popular in a country that was still searching

for a balance between central and state

power. Congress passed the Embargo and

Non-Intercourse Acts in 1807 and 1809,

18

Chapter Two
respectively, in an attempt to keep the

United States neutral during the Napoleonic

Wars. Both the Revenue Marine and the Navy

were called upon to prevent proscribed

trade—an uncomfortable policy that hurt

large numbers of traders, shipping companies, fishermen, and coastal communities.14

Beginning in 1820, the Revenue Marine

also began enforcing the laws against the

importation of slaves, another duty that

was not universally acclaimed. Revenue

cutters captured a number of slave ships,

but it was an exercise in frustration,

because captured slavers rarely were successfully prosecuted in the courts. Despite

the efforts of the Revenue Marine, the U.S.

Navy and, later, the Royal Navy, the slave

trade continued until the early 1860s.15

In 1832, the Revenue Marine was 

thrust into the national limelight when

South Carolina refused to recognize U.S.

tariff laws, challenging federal authority.

President Andrew Jackson sent five cutters

to Charleston “to take possession of any

vessel arriving from a foreign port, and

defend her against any attempts to dispossess the Customs Officers of her custody.”16

Due to its link to ocean trade and the 

revenue that it brought the U.S. Treasury,

the Revenue Marine again

became part of the federal

government’s “long arm”—

a role it would reprise 29

years later as the country

headed into civil war.

Revenue Cutters in the War Between 

the States

As war loomed after South Carolina

passed its Ordinance of Secession in

December 1860, the men and cutters of 

the Revenue Marine faced the same dilemma

as their compatriots in the Army and Navy.

“Each man in federal uniform was forced 

to decide, and to decide quickly, whether

his supreme allegiance lay with a state or

with the nation-state.” 17 Men chose both

ways, and the Revenue Marine lost men 

and cutters as a result.

Many, but not all, of those who remained

were ordered by President Abraham Lincoln

to combat service with the Navy.

18 The cutter

Harriet Lane, which took part in the abortive

relief expedition to Fort Sumter in 1861, is

credited with firing the first naval shots of

the Civil War.

19 Other cutters in service with

the Navy performed blockade duty along

the Atlantic coast, Chesapeake Bay, and

Potomac River. Cutters not assigned to 

the Navy patrolled the shipping lanes to

safeguard trade against Southern privateers

and to assist distressed vessels at sea, and

their usual duty of protecting the nation’s

customs revenue took on an added urgency

since that income was critical to the Union

war effort.

19

Chapter Two

The revenue cutter Harriet Lane fires

across the bow of the merchant ship

Nashville as she enters the harbor 

at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1861 

at the outbreak of the Civil War.
1865 TO 1915: THE ROAD TO

THE COAST GUARD

In the aftermath of the Civil War, the

nation’s continued territorial growth and

the ongoing expansion of its overseas trade

highlighted the need for a more effective

and efficient Revenue Marine and Life-Saving

Service. Reforms that began in the late

1860s ultimately improved the Services’

ability to serve the nation and laid the

groundwork for the formation of the modern Coast Guard.

Sumner Kimball and Service Reform

In 1869, George Boutwell, Secretary of

the Treasury under President Ulysses S.

Grant, formed an interim Revenue Marine

Bureau under the leadership of N. Broughton

Devereux. He in turn established boards

designed to overhaul and reorganize the

Revenue Cutter Service (RCS), as it was 

now known.20 The Revenue Marine Bureau

became a permanent agency in 1871 under

Treasury official Sumner I. Kimball.

Kimball immediately set out to

increase the professionalism of the

RCS. Six months

after taking office

he issued revised

RCS regulations that

provided for economy of operations,

centralized control of the Service in headquarters, and officer accessions and promotions based on merit rather than political

influence or seniority. Meanwhile, Bureau

Chief Devereux’s personnel board, headed

by Captain John Faunce, USRCS, reviewed

the qualifications of every RCS officer and

removed those found to be incompetent or

otherwise unfit for duty. Officers retained

were given rank equal to their capabilities,

and were thereafter promoted based on the

results they achieved on the professional

examinations mandated in Kimball’s regulations. As a result, by 1872 Kimball could

proclaim his junior officer corps the best

the RCS had ever possessed.21 To ensure a

continuous supply of competent junior 

officers, Kimball persuaded Congress in

1876 to authorize establishment of a training

school, thus laying the foundation for the

U.S. Coast Guard Academy.

22

Kimball and his staff also implemented

the recommendations of Devereux’s other

board, which had analyzed the cutter fleet.

Kimball reduced fleet tonnage by replacing

large, aging cutters with smaller, speedier,

and more efficient ones sized according to

the needs of the ports where they were to

be stationed. He also steadily replaced sail

vessels with steamers. As a result, while

from 1872 to 1881 the fleet size increased

by just one cutter, 60 percent of the vessels

had been built since 1869 and the ratio of

steamers to sailing cutters had risen from

2.5:1 to nearly 8:1. 23 Thanks to the reforms

of Kimball, Devereux, and Faunce, the RCS

now boasted a highly professional corps

manning modern cutters well suited to

their mission.

20

Chapter Two

Battle Streamers Earned

1865-1915

◆ 1898: Spanish-American War

Sumner I. Kimball
Upon appointment as chief of the

Revenue Cutter Service, Kimball also 

instituted a program of inspecting the lifesaving stations in New Jersey and Long

Island, New York, where he discovered

appalling conditions. As a result of his

findings, Congress appropriated funds 

to establish the Life-Saving Service as a

branch under the supervision of the RCS, 

to build lifesaving stations in states that

did not already have them, and to staff

the stations with paid surfmen. Kimball 

reorganized the RCS to accommodate the

LSS and applied his considerable talents 

to systematically improving readiness,

training, personnel, and equipment standards. During this period the LSS also

increased its reach, expanding to cover 

the Gulf of Mexico, Great Lakes, and Pacific

coast of the United States.24

Despite Kimball’s effort to inculcate

discipline and professionalism, the LifeSaving Service was plagued by claims that

unqualified lifesavers were given their 

jobs solely for reasons of politics and

patronage. Compounding the situation 

were several high profile tragedies, chief

among them the loss of the warship Huron

in November 1877 and the steamer

Metropolis in January 1878, which 

produced a tremendous outcry against 

the LSS. Recognizing the need to improve 

rescue operations, on 18 June 1878,

Congress passed legislation authorizing 

the construction of a number of additional

lifesaving stations, removing the LifeSaving Service from the Revenue Cutter

Service, and appointing Sumner Kimball

general superintendent of the new Service.25

Kimball steadily eliminated the system of

political patronage that had grown with 

the LSS, replacing it with one based upon

technical competence and non-partisanship.

Coordination with the Revenue Cutter

Service remained, however, since RCS officers continued to serve as inspectors and

auditors for the lifesavers.

Growing Civil Duties

Meanwhile, the United States had purchased the territory of Alaska in 1867, 

giving the Revenue Cutter Service a new 

set of sovereignty and resource protection

responsibilities. In addition to increased

law enforcement obligations, the RCS 

performed many civil and humanitarian

duties, mounted scientific expeditions, 

protected fish and game, and was entrusted

by the Bureau of Education to deliver teachers

to the native peoples. Overall, the RCS was

instrumental in establishing the power of

the federal government in Alaska. In fact,

one could say that for many years the RCS

was the government along western Alaska’s

coast.

21

Chapter Two

The Lifesaving Medals

When Congress passed the Life-Saving 

Act of June 20, 1874, it established First and

Second Class Medals to recognize daring and

heroic rescues on the waters of the United

States. The medals were renamed the Gold

(First) and Silver (Second) Lifesaving Medals in

1882. The Gold Lifesaving Medal is awarded 

for demonstrating extreme or heroic daring

while rescuing or attempting to rescue persons

in peril on the water at the risk of one’s own

life. The Silver Lifesaving Medal is awarded 

for extraordinary effort that does not reach 

the criteria for the Gold Lifesaving Medal.
With the growth of the American merchant marine, the marine safety and waterways management work of the revenue

cutters—supporting marine transportation

and trade—also expanded. Although they

acted without a clear statutory mandate,

cutter crews had long performed many

tasks related to the safety of harbors 

and cruising grounds. In 1889, however,

Congress passed laws to regulate anchorages,

giving the Revenue Cutter Service the duty

of enforcing these new laws. In 1906, 

lawmakers authorized the Service to clear

derelict hulks from harbors and their

approaches. And, in 1910, the Service 

was given authority over some aspects 

of pleasure boating.

The mission of safety at sea became

important internationally with the sinking

of the Titanic in 1912 with the loss of more

than 1,500 lives. This tragic event 

led the Revenue Cutter Service to assume

ice patrol duties the following year when

the Navy, which originally had assigned

two cruisers to perform the mission,

announced that it needed the warships

elsewhere. Private shipping and port

organizations petitioned the Treasury

Department to assign revenue cutters to

what they considered an extremely valuable

effort. The department granted its permission, and two cutters undertook the mission.

The assumption of this seemingly natural

function, which the Coast Guard has now

conducted without incident for more than

85 years, reflected long-standing RCS 

practice in the Bering Sea.

The last half of the nineteenth century

also saw the RCS expand its mission of 

protecting marine resources. RCS personnel

patrolled the Pribilof Islands off Alaska to

prevent the ongoing slaughter of seals. 

The Service also worked with the Bureau 

of Fisheries to encourage proliferation of

“food fishes” and regulated the harvesting

and sale of sponges in the Gulf of Mexico.

Spanish-American War

By 1898, both the Navy and the Revenue

Cutter Service were more modern, professional organizations than they had been on

the eve of the U.S. Civil War. Reflecting this

state of affairs, the transfer of revenue 

cutters to Navy control during the SpanishAmerican War went relatively smoothly.

22

Chapter Two

Crewmen from the revenue cutter Bear haul supplies to whaling vessels

trapped in the ice near Point Barrow, Alaska, in 1888.

The revenue cutter Hudson during a joint Navy-Revenue Cutter Service

raid on Spanish gunboats in Cardenas Bay, Cuba, during the SpanishAmerican War in 1898.
For three years prior to the outbreak of

war, RCS cutters had conducted neutrality

patrols that stretched from the waters off

North Carolina to the Gulf of Mexico. They

seized ships suspected of violating U.S.

neutrality and smuggling ammunition and

other supplies to Cuban rebels.

All of this changed with the executive

order directing the RCS to provide cutters

to the Navy. Eight cutters joined Rear Admiral

William Sampson’s North Atlantic Squadron

on blockade duty off Cuba. Another cutter

served as an escort and dispatch boat with

Commodore George Dewey’s Asiatic

Squadron, which defeated a Spanish naval

force at Manila Bay, Philippines. Elsewhere,

eleven cutters served under the Army’s

tactical control, guarding important U.S.

ports on the east and west coasts against

possible attacks by Spanish raiders or 

warships.26

Once again, the Revenue Cutter Service

provided important inshore support to the

Navy. For instance, at the specific request

of President William McKinley, Congress

awarded medals to the officers and the

crew of the cutter Hudson recognizing

their bravery under fire during a combined

Navy/Revenue Cutter Service raid on

Spanish gunboats in Cardenas Bay, Cuba. 27

1915 TO 1916: ESTABLISHMENT

OF THE U.S. COAST GUARD

The process that resulted in the formation of the U.S. Coast Guard actually began

with an attempt to abolish the Revenue

Cutter Service. In 1911, President William

Taft appointed his economic adviser,

Frederick A. Cleveland, to lead a commission

to recommend ways to increase the economy

and efficiency of government. The Cleveland

Commission concluded that uni-functional

agencies were more efficient and economical

than multifunctional ones. The commission

thus recommended combining the Lighthouse

Service and Life-Saving Service, with their

similar “protection” function, and recommended apportioning the duties and assets

of the multifunctional RCS among other

government agencies and departments. In

particular, larger cutters and their crews

would be transferred to the Navy.

The Treasury, Navy, Commerce and

Labor departments were asked to comment

on the report. Secretary of Commerce and

Labor Charles Nagel agreed that other

departments could perform many RCS

duties, but none could perform its lifesaving

mission. This mission probably could be

accomplished best, he wrote presciently, by

combining the RCS, the Life-Saving Service,

and the Lighthouse Service. While not sure

where this new combined service should

reside within the government, Nagel was

adamant that it should not be in the Navy

Department.

For its part, the Navy Department stated

that it could use the RCS cutters, since it

was short of smaller, shallow-draft ships.

But Secretary of the Navy George Meyer did

not relish absorbing RCS personnel into the

Navy. Moreover, he wrote:

23

Chapter Two
It is true that the chief functions of

the Revenue Cutter Service can be

performed by the Navy, but this

cannot be done as stated in the

Cleveland report in the regular performance of their military duties.

All duties which interfere with the

training of personnel for war are

irregular and in a degree detrimental to the efficiency of the fleet.28

The final responses came from Secretary

of the Treasury Franklin MacVeagh and

Revenue Cutter Service Captain-Commandant

Ellsworth Price Bertholf. MacVeagh in 

particular was defiant in defense of the

Service. He pointed to the close and 

successful working relationship that the

RCS and the Life-Saving Service had 

developed, a relationship that would be

severed by the abolition of the Revenue

Cutter Service. He also took the Cleveland

Commission to task over the alleged 

“efficiencies” that spreading RCS duties

across the government would generate.

Finally, he echoed the Navy’s argument 

concerning the nature of RCS and Navy

duties, stating:

[The Navy] could never give the

kind and degree of attention that is

re q u i red of the Revenue Cutter

Service and its officers and men

trained in their particular duties for

120 years. The [RCS’s] work is alien

to the work of the Navy, alien to the

spirit of the Navy, and alien, I think,

to its professional capacities and

instincts—alien certainly to its

training and tastes.29

Nevertheless, in

April 1912, President

Taft sent to Congress

the Cleveland

Commission’s final

draft, and the other

comments, with his

recommendation

that the legislators

adopt the commission’s findings. RCS supporters within the

federal government, the press, and the 

general public fought the move, citing the

Service’s heroic rescue work in particular 

as a reason not to disband the agency.

Meanwhile, Secretary MacVeagh ordered

Bertholf and Sumner Kimball, head of the

Life-Saving Service, to draft legislation that

would join the RCS and LSS in a new service.

When Taft and MacVeagh left office after

the 1912 election, President Woodrow

Wilson and his Treasury Secretary, William

Gibbs McAdoo, strongly supported the bill

combining the two services. The Senate

passed the bill in 1914 and the House

passed it on 20 January 1915, after 

a debate that centered more upon cutter 

officer and surfmen pay and retirement

benefits than conceptual issues.

24

Chapter Two

Ellsworth Price Bertholf

There will not be two services. There will

not be a Life-Saving or a Revenue Cutter

Service. It will be the coast guard.

— Captain-Commandant Ellsworth Price

Bertholf, testifying on the RCS/LSS 

amalgamation, 1915
Combining the civilian Life-Saving

Service and the military Revenue Cutter

Service—organizations with vastly different

cultures—into a single military service 

presented Captain Bertholf, who was named

the first Coast Guard Commandant, a delicate

challenge. Bertholf was absolutely convinced

that the military character of the RCS had

to prevail, but large numbers of the lifesavers had no desire to change status.

Consequently, while the Life-Saving Service

and Revenue Cutter Service were joined at

the top in 1915, they operated as separate

entities within the Coast Guard for more

than 15 years. However, events soon would

accelerate the development of a twentiethcentury maritime security force formed by

the union of these two nineteenth-century

institutions.

1917 TO 1945: A SERVICE

FORGED BY WAR, CRISIS, 

AND CONSOLIDATION

Approximately two years after its

founding, the Coast Guard was plunged

into war. World War I was the first in 

a series of events that would shape the

Service during the next several decades 

and expand its maritime duties. Some 

of these events, such as Prohibition and 

World War II, permanently increased the

size of the Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard in the Great War

World War I saw the Coast Guard transferred to the Navy to fight overseas. In 

previous wars, RCS cutters had operated

with the Navy but the Revenue Cutter

Service itself had remained under Treasury

Department control. During the Great War,

however, the entire Service was transferred

to Navy control as prescribed in the act

that created the Coast Guard.

In the period leading up to America’s

entry into the war, the Coast Guard and

Navy began rudimentary planning for 

integrating the Coast Guard into naval

operations—a first in the history of both

services. For the most part, the Navy

believed that Coast Guard forces would 

be best suited for coastal patrol although 

a few of the larger cutters were designated

for convoy escort operations. The services

did not develop any detailed plans, but

Coast Guard units did participate in some

naval preparedness drills.

The Coast Guard was actually mobilized

and transferred to the Navy in April 1917.

The Service sent six cutters to European

waters that summer. For the remainder 

of the war, the cutters escorted convoys

between Gibraltar and the British Isles.

They also performed escort and patrol

duties in the Mediterranean.

At home, one of the Coast Guard’s major

tasks was port security. Concern over the

possibility of sabotage and accidents was

acute in the aftermath of an October 1917

shipboard explosion in the port of Halifax,

25

Chapter Two

Battle Streamers Earned

1917-1938

◆ 1917-1918: World War I

◆ 1926-1927, 1930-1932: Yangtze Service
Nova Scotia. In that incident, a French

steamer loaded with ammunition collided

with another vessel and caught fire. The

resulting explosion leveled a large portion

of the town and caused more than 1,000

civilian deaths and numerous other 

casualties. U.S. ports handled more war

time shipping than Halifax, making the

issue of port security even more pressing. 

As a result, the Treasury Department, 

working closely with the Navy, established

Coast Guard Captain of the Port offices 

in New York, New York; Philadelphia,

Pennsylvania; Norfolk, Virginia; and Sault

Ste. Marie, Michigan. The New York office

soon became the Coast Guard’s largest

command.

Thus, the Coast Guard’s role of ensuring

maritime mobility in U.S. ports and waterways expanded considerably. Along the

remainder of the U.S. coast, lifesaving 

station personnel doubled as coast-watchers,

maintaining a lookout for potential infiltrators. To facilitate the reporting of suspicious activity, many lifesaving stations

were tied into the Navy’s communication

system, which had the effect of improving

the Coast Guard’s peacetime communications as well.

Interdiction and Build-Up

When the war ended in November

1918, cutters gradually began to return

from overseas service, but the Coast Guard

did not pass immediately back to Treasury

Department control. A new political storm

brewed as proponents from the Navy

(including Navy Secretary Josephus

Daniels), Congress, and even Coast Guard

officers from the old Revenue Cutter

Service, struggled to keep the Service 

permanently under the Navy Department.

The Navy was determined to retain control

of all government vessels, and most Coast

Guard officers did not wish to relinquish

the more generous pay, promotion, and

social benefits that accrued to Navy officers.

But in 1919—after strong protests and

canny lobbying by Captain-Commandant

Bertholf and Treasury Secretary Carter

Glass—the Service was returned to the

Treasury Department.

Still, the period immediately following

World War I was the most difficult the

Coast Guard ever faced. Within just a few

years, however, the Service would experience

its greatest peacetime growth. The catalyst

for this expansion was the 1920 National

Prohibition (Volstead) Act, which prohibited

the manufacture, sale, and transportation

of alcoholic beverages. With no other federal

agency prepared to enforce the new law at

sea, much of the burden of enforcing the

Volstead Act fell to the Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard began its enforcement

effort with just over 100 vessels to cover

the vast expanses along the shores of the

Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts. This situation created several years of relative inef26

Chapter Two

The Coast Guard cutter Tampa, which was sunk by a German torpedo 

in September 1918, with 131 crewmen aboard.
fectiveness. Beginning in 1924, however,

Congress appropriated funds sufficient to

allow the Service to begin a major expansion

to meet its responsibilities under the law.

Over the next ten years, the Coast Guard

budget increased dramatically and the

Service grew accordingly. The enlisted force

tripled in size, as did the fleet. The Service

acquired and refurbished 20 obsolete Navy

destroyers for use in picketing the foreign

supply ships that lay offshore, outside U.S.

territorial waters. A large force of specially

designed Coast Guard patrol boats and harbor

craft, plus a number of seized smuggling

vessels, patrolled inshore waters and pursued

the rumrunners’ contact boats. When even

this proved insufficient, the Coast Guard

began using aircraft to report suspicious

vessels. This action marked the rebirth of

Coast Guard aviation.30

While this buildup and decade-long

effort did have a deterrent effect on the

rumrunners, the interdiction effort ultimately

failed because the law was unpopular and the

demand for alcohol never ceased. In 1933,

Congress finally repealed the Volstead Act.

Still, the Coast Guard benefited from its

Prohibition experience. Patrol boats built

during this period conducted numerous

missions for many decades and served 

as prototypes for later vessel classes. 

Coast Guard communications equipment

and procedures and intelligence methods

were significantly improved. Tactics and

techniques developed to combat the 

rumrunners would be used decades later 

to combat drug smugglers. And the Service

developed international law expertise

through its efforts to increase the limit 

of the territorial sea from three to 12 

nautical miles.

The Waesche Consolidation

After Prohibition, Rear Admiral Russell

R. Waesche, Sr., Coast Guard Commandant

from 1936 to 1945, guided one of the

greatest transitions in the Service’s history.

In many ways, his vision was responsible

for today’s Coast Guard. Waesche oversaw

the addition of many responsibilities, the

most sweeping of which was Congress’

authorizing the Coast Guard to enforce 

all U.S. laws at sea and within territorial

waters. Prior to this, most observers had

presumed that the Coast Guard had sweeping

law enforcement authority at sea. However,

a 1927 Supreme Court case had called this

authority into question. At the Treasury

Department’s request, in 1936 Congress

clarified the situation, granting Coast Guard

personnel the authority to make “inquiries,

examinations, inspections, searches,

seizures, and arrests upon the high seas

and the navigable waters of the United

States.”31 The Service was also tasked to

break ice in the nation’s harbors and 

channels, and it took on a small role in the

certification of merchant seamen. That role

expanded in 1938 to include administration

of the U.S. Maritime Service, formed that

27

Chapter Two

One of 20 former Navy destroyers transfer red to the Coast Guard

for deepwater interdiction duties during Prohibition.
year to improve the efficiency of merchant

mariners.

Waesche also saw the need to regulate

boating activity in the nation’s waters.

Lacking the manpower to perform this

function, in 1939 he created the volunteer

force now called the Coast Guard Auxiliary

to meet this specific need. By 1940, the

Auxiliary had 2,600 personnel and 2,300

boats that augmented the Coast Guard

at a fraction of the cost of a full-time force.

Waesche’s greatest force multiplier, however,

was the Coast Guard Reserve, created in

1941, which gave the Coast Guard the

potential to perform many roles and missions that would otherwise be impossible

for a small service. 32

Also in 1939, as part of President

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s reorganization

plans, the U.S. Light-house Service was

placed under the Coast Guard. Waesche 

welcomed this addition, recognizing that it

gave the Coast Guard an all-encompassing

role in ensuring the safety of the nation’s

waterways. Absorbing the Lighthouse

Service also added nearly 50 percent more

civilians to the Service, caused a district

reorganization, and brought many of the

lighthouse personnel into the Service’s

military organization.

Additional responsibilities continued 

to accrue throughout Waesche’s tenure. 

In 1940, for example, the Coast Guard

was tasked with open-ocean weather patrol

duties in the northern Pacific Ocean and

the North Atlantic, a service it would 

continue to perform for nearly 40 years.

National Defense to the Fore

With the outbreak of war in Europe 

in 1939, the Coast Guard—having had its

civil responsibilities vastly increased since

World War I—once again shifted focus to

emphasize military preparedness, with its

forces playing a major role in asserting

national sovereignty over U.S. waters and

shipping. The Coast Guard began carrying

out neutrality patrols in the North Atlantic

in September 1939 and put port security

forces on a wartime footing the following

June. 

U.S. strategists also were concerned

that Germany would establish a military

presence on Greenland, which had been

incorporated in the U.S. hemispheric

defense system, and sought to station 

U.S. armed forces on the frozen island. 

The State Department believed that the 

dispatch of military forces to Greenland

would be unnecessarily provocative. 33

Eventually, however, the Coast Guard was

deemed an acceptable U.S. military presence,

and so in April 1941 the Coast Guard took

responsibility for cold-weather operations

in Greenland.

28

Chapter Two

Russell R. Waesche, Sr.
By Executive Order 8929 of 1 November

1941, roughly a month before the Japanese

attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, President

Roosevelt transferred the Coast Guard to

the Navy for the second time in its history.

Thereafter, Coast Guard cutters and aircraft

performed extensive convoy protection

duties in the Atlantic (sinking 12 German 

U-boats), while other Service craft performed

area anti-submarine patrols. Coast Guard

craft rescued the survivors of torpedo

attacks off the U.S. coast, while Coast Guard

coast-watchers maintained beach patrols

and guarded U.S. ports. This wartime mission

once again foreshadowed a future peacetime

mission—in this case the Service’s Maritime

Defense Zone duties. Coast Guard personnel

manned Navy destroyer escorts as well as

Navy and Army amphibious ships and craft,

and took part in every major amphibious

invasion of the war.

Coast Guard personnel served in-theater

around the globe during

the war years, but the

Service also made a significant contribution to

the war effort in rear

areas, protecting and facilitating the movement of

men and materiel by sea.

Coast Guard activities in

the maritime mobility

area—providing port

security, supervising the

movement of dangerous

cargoes, controlling merchant vessel traffic, maintaining aids to navigation,

and breaking ice—often

29

Chapter Two

Battle Streamers Earned

1939-1945

◆ 1939-1941: American Defense Service 

◆ 1941 -1942: Philippine Defense

◆ 1941 -1946: World War II – American Theater

◆ 1941 -1946: World War II – Pacific Theater

◆ 1941 -1945: World War II – European-AfricanMiddle Eastern Theater

◆ 1944-1945: Philippine Liberation 

◆ 1941 -1942, 1944-1945: Philippine

Independence and Philippine Presidential Unit

Citation

◆ 1945: World War II Victory

Other WW II: 

Croix de Guerre (France), Presidential Unit

Citation, Navy Occupation Service

Allied troops wade to shore from a Coast Guard-crewed landing craft during the

Normandy invasion, 6 June 1944.
received less public attention than its

direct combat duties, but they were indispensable to prosecution of the war.

34

World War II also gave the Coast Guard

the opportunity to experiment and innovate.

A Coast Guard officer, Lieutenant Commander

Lawrence M. Harding, shepherded development of a new electronic long-range aid to

navigation—LORAN—and the subsequent

development of a LORAN network.35

During the war a few far-sighted officers

doggedly pursued the development of helicopters for use in search and rescue, law

enforcement, and anti-submarine patrol.

Initially cool to the idea until after a

demonstration, Admiral Waesche urged

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Ernest

King to develop the helicopter for naval

use. King in turn ordered the Coast Guard

to obtain helicopters for use in anti-submarine surveillance. The Service acquired 

a handful of aircraft and trained Coast

Guard, Navy, and British aircrews to fly

them. While they never demonstrated much

success against submarines, these helicopters

demonstrated an immediate usefulness in

search and rescue, foreshadowing the role

for which they eventually would become

famous.

In addition to driving mission and

technological innovation, the war had a

major effect on the size and shape of the

Service. During the war years the Coast

Guard experienced a nearly ten-fold

increase in personnel strength. The

Roosevelt Administration also thought 

it would be convenient and cost-effective 

to consolidate the functions of the Bureau

of Marine Inspection and Navigation into

the Coast Guard. The roots of this agency

stretched back to 1838, when the Steamboat

Inspection Service was created. In 1932,

this agency had merged with the Bureau 

of Navigation, which had been created in

1884. Now called the Bureau of Marine

Inspection and Navigation, this civilian

agency joined the Coast Guard permanently

in 1946. As a result, Coast Guard missions

now touched every facet of domestic maritime activity. The Service’s duties expanded

overseas as well, as the United States took

the lead in shaping the postwar world.

1946 TO 1972: SORTING OUT

ROLES AND MISSIONS

The post-World War II period brought

further changes as the Coast Guard inherited

new missions and once again had its roles

redefined and broadened. Perhaps foreseeing

this expansion, and mindful of the growing

pains the Service had suffered during the

war, the far-sighted Waesche created a 

30

Chapter Two

An HNS-1 helicopter, piloted by Coast Guard

Lieutenant, j.g., Stewart Graham, lifts off from the 

converted merchant ship Daghestan in January 1944,

while in convoy from New York to Liverpool, England.

Battle Streamers Earned

1946-1965

◆ 1945-1957: China Service

◆ 1950-1954: Korean Service

◆ 1958-1965: Armed Forces Expeditionary

Service
committee in 1944 to develop a comprehensive plan to retain after the war the

functions the Service had absorbed in the

1930s and 1940s.

The 1948 Ebasco Study pointed to an

agency that was under-manned and underequipped to perform its myriad and wideranging missions. This led to legislation

formally delineating the Coast Guard’s

duties. These included port management,

control, and security functions; vessel 

traffic services; coastal security; and some

military roles.

An International Role in Peacetime and

in War

The Coast Guard obtained a global

peacetime presence as part of its efforts 

to safeguard transoceanic navigation. The

Service retained operational control over 

a regional wide-area system of LORAN

transmitter sites. Support for a burgeoning

civilian aviation system also led to Coast

Guard cutters continuing to man a system

of open-ocean weather stations until 1977,

by which time improvements in weather

forecasting and aircraft navigation and

safety had made the service unnecessary.

On-scene to provide weather and communications support to transatlantic and

transpacific flights, cutters on ocean station

duty conducted several high profile at-sea

rescues of the passengers and crews of 

civil and military aircraft. Perhaps the most

significant of these was the rescue of 62

passengers and 7 crewmembers from the

flying boat Bermuda Sky Queen by the cutter Bibb operating on a mid-Atlantic ocean

station. Cutters continued to conduct international ice patrols as well, although this

duty eventually became the province of

Coast Guard aircraft detachments.

The Coast Guard’s flexibility and diverse

capabilities allowed the Service to support

broader American political and military

policy overseas in the post-war period. 

For instance, the Service helped establish

the Japanese Maritime Safety Agency and

the navies of Korea, the Philippines, and

other countries. It also participated (and

still participates) in numerous military

exercises, including UNITAS exercises with

South American navies, and has conducted

training with small navies and coast guards

around the world. 

The Coast Guard participated only 

marginally in the Korean War. During the

Vietnam War, however, the Coast Guard

played a major role in “Operation Market

Time,” which involved the interdiction of

trawlers being used by North Vietnam for

infiltration and resupply activities.

Working together, the U.S. Navy and the

South Vietnamese Navy (VNN) had attempted

to halt the flow of men and materiel, but

the VNN’s lack of training and the U.S.

Navy’s lack of shallow-draft warships and

expertise operating in coastal waters 

frustrated the effort. Navy Secretary Paul

Nitze, therefore, wrote Treasury Secretary

Henry Fowler for assistance. After noting

the Seventh Fleet’s deficiencies, Nitze

wrote: “We are therefore attempting to

locate a source of more suitable patrol

craft. Such characteristics as high speed,

shallow draft, sea-keeping ability, radar,

and communications equipment are

important considerations.”36

31

Chapter Two
Coast Guard Commandant Admiral

Edwin Roland believed that Coast Guard

forces were tailor-made for the mission. 

He also feared that if the Coast Guard did

not play a greater role than it had during

the Korean War, the Service might lose its

status as an armed service. Consequently,

after deliberations in Washington and in

the field, 26 Coast Guard 82-foot patrol

boats (WPBs) and their crews were assigned

to Market Time.

In March 1967, when the Navy needed

additional destroyers for naval gunfire

support duties, it looked to U.S. Navy 

ships conducting Operation Market Time.

Secretary Nitze turned again to the Coast

Guard to fill the gaps in surveillance and

interdiction opened by this move, requesting

“that the Treasury Department assist the

Department of the Navy by assigning five

high-endurance cutters to augment Market

Time forces.”37 The Coast Guard responded

by deploying a squadron of high-endurance

cutters (WHEC).

Together, Coast Guard, Navy, and VNN

assets formed a gauntlet through which

Viet Cong vessels had to run. Navy patrol

aircraft monitored vessels more than 100

nautical miles from the coast. Navy radar

picket ships and WHECs formed a second

barrier 40 nautical miles out. Coast Guard

patrol boats, Navy Swift boats, and VNN

junks formed the final barrier just off the

coast and up South Vietnam’s rivers. By the

end of Operation Market Time, the Coast

Guard had boarded nearly a quarter of a

million sampans and junks and destroyed

more than 2,000. The maritime border of

South Vietnam was sealed and taken away

as a resupply route for communist forces.

32

Chapter Two

Five Coast Guard

311-foot, highendurance cutters

assigned to Operation

Market Time in Vietnam

tied up alongside the

Navy repair ship Jason

(AR 8).

Battle Streamers Earned

1962-1975

◆ 1962-1975: Vietnam Service

Other Vietnam:

Navy Unit Commendation

National Defense Service

Army Meritorious Unit Commendation

Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation

RVN Armed Forces 

Meritorious Unit Commendation, 

Gallantry Cross w/Palm

RVN Meritorious Unit Citation, 

Civil Actions Medal First Class 

Color w/Palm
Expanding Civil Responsibilities

The Coast Guard’s civil duties continued

to expand in the period following World

War II. In 1958, the Service developed

AMVER, the Automated Mutual-assistance

Vessel Rescue system, a ship reporting 

system able to identify other ships in the

area of a ship in distress that then could 

be sent to assist.38 In 1965, the Service took

responsibility for coordinating all search

and rescue operations in U.S. waters, and

that same year accepted responsibility for

all of the nation’s icebreaking duties. Until

then, both the Navy and the Coast Guard

had performed icebreaking duties. When

the Navy decided its personnel and

resources should be devoted more to traditional naval combat operations, however,

it offered the mission and its five-ship 

icebreaking fleet to the Coast Guard. The

two services signed a memorandum of

understanding and the ships were gradually

phased into the Coast Guard, which now

became the primary U.S. surface presence

in the polar regions.

Meanwhile, the Coast Guard’s traditional

maritime law and sovereignty enforcement

role remained important. Circumstances in

Cuba, for example, handed the Service a

greater role in enforcing U.S. immigration

policy and controlling the flow of sea-borne

migrants. The Coast Guard began patrols 

to enforce U.S. neutrality and to aid Cuban

refugees in the Florida Straits in 1961.

Then, in 1964, the Camarioca boatlift first

tested the Service’s ability to respond to 

a mass exodus. Repeated mass migrations

from Cuba and Haiti over the next three

decades would hone Coast Guard capabilities

in this area.

Finding a New Home

As the years progressed, the Coast

Guard found itself in a familiar situation.

The Service performed so many types of

maritime missions, in so many locales, 

and for so many purposes, that the Service

did not fit perfectly in any one federal

department. While the Service and most 

of its predecessors had been part of the

Treasury Department since their founding,

the traditional, direct link between revenue

collection and the Service had faded.

The result was President Lyndon

Johnson’s decision to include the Coast

Guard in the newly formed Transportation

Department in April 1967. In the beginning,

Treasury Secretary Fowler and Coast Guard

Commandant Roland protested, but the

President had already decided that many

Coast Guard functions belonged in the new

department. Rather than see those functions stripped from the Service, Roland

33

Chapter Two

The crew of a Coast Guard patrol boat, on duty with U.S. naval forces in

Vietnam, searches a Vietnamese craft for weapons and supplies.
cooperated in the transfer. Nevertheless, 

he successfully communicated his concern

that the Coast Guard remain a military

service.39

1973 TO TODAY AND BEYOND:

A UNIQUE INSTRUMENT OF

NATIONAL SECURITY

In the post-Vietnam era, the United

States has continued to face complex and

varied threats. Increasingly, the Coast

Guard’s unique status as military service

and law enforcement agency has brought 

it to the forefront of U.S. maritime security

efforts. For instance, social upheaval in the

Western Hemisphere highlighted the critical

importance of the Coast Guard’s alien

migrant interdiction mission. The Service

faced the challenge of mass migrations

from Cuba in 1980 and 1994 and from 

Haiti in 1992 and 1994.

The influx of illegal drugs also came 

to the fore as a national security problem

in the 1970s. The Coast Guard took on the

primary maritime interdiction role, and

eventually expanded its Caribbean presence

to disrupt the illegal drug supply chain

along its entire length. The Service’s efforts

effectively neutralized the seaborne impor -

tation of marijuana, which slowed to a

trickle after a prolonged and concerted

Coast Guard effort. Unfortunately, as the

marijuana trade dried up, the shipment 

of cocaine began to increase.

The Coast Guard’s environmental protection responsibilities grew as well. While

the Revenue Marine had been tasked with

duties protecting valuable natural resources

as early as 1822, 40 and the marine environment as a whole beginning with the Refuse

Act of 1899,41 growing environmental

awareness in the United States pushed the

Coast Guard deeper into the anti-pollution

realm. 

The Torrey Canyon and Amoco Cadiz

disasters led to the Federal Water Pollution

Control Act of 1972, in which Congress set

a no-discharge standard for oil in U.S. navigable waters. The practice of discharging

shipboard oily residues at sea led to an

October 1973 convention adopted by the

International Conference on Marine Pollution

prohibiting oil discharges within 50 miles

of shore.

Given responsibility for coordinating

and administering oil spill clean up in the

maritime realm, the Coast Guard deployed

a multi-faceted strategy for responding to

spills and identifying responsible parties.

The Service developed techniques to detect

spills from the air and to match samples of

spilled oil to the oil remaining in the tanks

of suspected polluters. Three Strike Teams

composed of Coast Guard personnel

trained to operate special oil spill clean-up

equipment were stood up, one each on the

Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts. And each

Captain of the Port identified a local network of contractors who could respond to

spill reports.

Yet the spills continued. On 15 December

1976, the Liberian tanker Argo Merchant,

carrying 7.5 million gallons of oil, grounded

34

Chapter Two

Battle Streamers Earned

1973-Present

◆ 1991-1995: Southwest Asia Service
off Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. While

favorable winds drove the oil out to sea

instead of onto the beaches of New England,

this ecological near-miss, together with the

fourteen more tanker accidents that occurred

in or near American waters during the next

ten weeks, led to the Port and Tanker Safety

Act of 1978. This legislation created a 200-

mile pollution control zone and authorized

the Coast Guard to force substandard foreign

tankers out of the U.S. trade.

The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince

William Sound, Alaska, however, had the

greatest impact on the Coast Guard’s role

as protector of the marine environment.

The Service would not only oversee the

cleanup, but the Oil Pollution Act of 1990

(OPA 90) passed by Congress in the wake 

of the spill gave the Coast Guard one of its

single largest legislative mandates in its

history. OPA 90 assigned the Service a significantly increased role in spill response,

vessel inspection, and the oversight of 

liability actions.

Another rising environmental concern

in the 1970s pertained to the perceived

depredation of America’s abundant fisheries

resources by large foreign fishing fleets. 

In the 1950s, the United States had implemented several international conventions

intended to protect certain fish stocks. 

The Coast Guard documented violations 

by foreign fishing vessels but had little

direct enforcement authority. Congress

addressed the situation in 1964 with the

Bartlett Act, which prohibited foreign fishing

in U.S. territorial waters and authorized the

seizure of foreign vessels in violation of

the act. Later amendments expanded the

protected area to include the 12-mile 

contiguous zone and increased the maximum

penalty for violations.

In 1976, when even these protections

were deemed inadequate, Congress passed

the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation

and Management Act. The Act established a

200–nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone;

created eight Regional Fishery Management

Councils, tasked to develop fishery management plans to protect America’s fish

stocks; and placed the primary responsibility

for at-sea enforcement of the nation’s fisheries laws with the Coast Guard. In the

ensuing decades, the Service acquired

authority to enforce a series of legislative

enactments and international agreements

intended to protect the nation’s living

marine resources. 

The Service has played a role in postCold War military operations as well. Coast

Guard port security units deployed to the

Persian Gulf during Operations Desert

Shield and Desert Storm in 1990-1991. In

recent years, the unified Commanders-in35

Chapter Two

The Exxon Valdez oil tanker aground in Prince William

Sound, Alaska, in 1989.
Chief have requested and been provided

cutters to conduct maritime interception

operations, peacetime military engagement,

and other supporting warfare tasks for all

three forward-deployed Navy Fleets.42

During Operations Support Democracy

(November 1993-August 1995) and Uphold

Democracy (October 1994-March 1995),

Coast Guard cutters, buoy tenders, patrol

boats, and port security units supported

United Nations-led operations to restore

democratic institutions in Haiti. Two port

security units, a harbor defense command

unit, five law enforcement detachments,

and 13 cutters carried out operations that

included maritime surveillance and interdiction, search and rescue coverage for 

in-transit U.S. aircraft, and establishing 

and restoring aids to navigation.

The Service also has commanded the

Maritime Defense Zones since they were

created in 1984 to provide for the coastal

defense of the United States. In 1994, the

MDZ concept was expanded to include

defense of foreign harbors, expeditionary

port security, and coastal sea control.

Working closely with Navy coastal warfare

units, Coast Guard reserve and active duty

forces maintain the ability to protect strategic

U.S. ports, as well as critical foreign ports

of embarkation and debarkation.

ECHOES FROM THE PAST

Over the course of its history, the Coast

Guard has evolved into a multi-mission

service that is focused on the full spectrum

of maritime affairs. Reflections of this 

generalist outlook can be seen in the organization, training, and force structure of the

modern Coast Guard. Unlike other services,

the Coast Guard has no specialized staff

corps. Likewise, as a relatively small service

with a limited budget, the Coast Guard has

needed durable platforms that are flexible

enough to be used for many different types

of missions.

As the country’s maritime “jack of all

trades,” the Coast Guard has always needed

to maintain a high degree of flexibility and

operational readiness. In the process, the

Service has been able to generate synergies

between what might otherwise have been

seen as pronounced contradictions. The

Coast Guard calls upon its military character

to ably perform dangerous and difficult

civil operations. Moreover, as the Revenue

Cutter Service merged with civilian agencies

to form the modern, military Coast Guard,

our Service charter has broadened to address

virtually every aspect of U.S. maritime affairs,

in peacetime and in war. This continued the

process of building a national service that

oversees America’s civil use of the seas and

protects its waterborne commerce, coasts,

and interests from a wide variety of

threats.

36

Chapter Two

Coast Guard port security raider boats engage in force

protection for the U.S. Navy guided-missile cruiser

Normandy (CG-60).
The nature of our Service has evolved

as we accumulated new roles and missions

from a variety of sources, including Executive

Orders, congressional action, and the absorption of different agencies. These additional

roles and missions were assigned throughout

the years for a very pragmatic reason—we

were willing to perform the assigned missions

and able to perform them effectively and

efficiently.

In assuming new duties, we developed

the ability to conduct a variety of missions

with the same equipment and people. We

also developed a distinct nature, one shaped

by our core values and by our military,

multi-mission, and maritime mandate. 43

CORE VALUES

While the formal statement of our core

values of Honor, Respect, and Devotion to

Duty is a relatively recent event, the values

themselves are deeply rooted in the heritage

of commitment and service that distinguishes

the U.S. Coast Guard. From revenue cutter

crews protecting a fledgling nation from

privateers and smugglers, to sturdy surfmen

fighting howling gales to rescue shipwrecked

mariners, to gallant small boat coxswains

landing Marines at Guadalcanal, to the men

and women of today who stop smugglers,

rescue desperate migrants, and protect

endangered marine species, Coast Guard

people have embraced and lived these values.

Our core values are the bedrock upon

which our character and operating principles

are built. They provide fundamental guidance

for our actions, both on duty and in our

private lives, and they challenge us to live

up to the high standards of excellence

exhibited by our predecessors. Whether

active duty, reserve, civilian, or auxiliary,

our core values bind us together and guide

our conduct, performance, and decisions.

37

Chapter Three

Coast Guard Core Values

Honor—Integrity is our standard. We demonstrate uncompromising ethical conduct and

moral behavior in all of our personal and 

organizational actions. We are loyal and

accountable to the public trust.

Respect—We value our diverse workforce. 

We treat each other and those we serve with

fairness, dignity, respect, and compassion. 

We encourage individual opportunity and

growth. We encourage creativity through

empowerment. We work as a team.

Devotion to Duty—We are professionals, 

military and civilian, who seek responsibility,

accept accountability, and are committed to 

the successful achievement of our organizational goals. We exist to serve. We serve 

with pride.

U.S. Life-Saving Service rescue boat underway (most likely

from Sandy Hook, New Jersey).

Chapter Three: The Nature of Our Service 
A MILITARY, MULTI-MISSION, 

MARITIME SERVICE

We call ourselves a “military,” “multimission,” and “maritime” service. These

three descriptors provide a basis for understanding the character and structure of 

the Coast Guard and are the result of our

complex and varied history. They are also

critical to understanding the Coast Guard’s

role as a unique instrument of America’s

national security.

Military

The military character of the Coast

Guard has been the subject of consideration

and comment throughout our history, and

it is consistent with the original design of

our founder, Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton

originally suggested a law enforcement

organization of “a few armed vessels, 

judiciously stationed at the entrances of

our ports, might at a small expense be

made useful sentinels of the laws.” He

insisted that this organization be organized

along military lines, and convinced President

George Washington to commission Revenue

Marine officers.

Title 14 of the U.S. Code specifies that

the Coast Guard is a military service and 

a branch of the Armed Forces of the United

States at all times, not just in wartime or

when the President directs. The 1915 

legislation establishing the Coast Guard

recognized again that military discipline

and training were critical for the Coast

Guard’s national defense duties, and useful

for the performance of dangerous and 

difficult civil duties. That reality continues

today.

The military profession is like no other.

Members of the military voluntarily limit

some of their freedoms—including even

38

Chapter Three

Members of Officer Candidate School dress left while at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.
their constitutional freedom of speech—in

order to serve. Likewise, service members

cannot just quit; they must continue to

serve until their term is up and must obey

all lawful orders while doing so. And those

orders may include undertaking tasks likely

to result in members giving the last full

measure of devotion—their lives—in service

to our country. This requirement sets military people apart from the members of

every other profession. Military forces also

are charged with carrying out the systematic

application of violence in service to the

nation. As members of an armed service,

we are called to act in accordance with

these responsibilities, and we have.

The Coast Guard has participated in all

our nation’s wars as a naval augmentation

force, providing specialized capabilities as

required for the defense of our nation.

Changes in the national security environment

since the end of the Cold War, however,

have caused decision-makers to reexamine

the Coast Guard’s military role. Peacetime

military engagement and “operations other

than war,” areas of traditional Coast Guard

expertise, have risen in importance within

the national security calculus. The Coast

Guard has wartime missions today that 

are based on logical extensions of its

peacetime duties.

The result of this reexamination was 

a Memorandum of Agreement between the

Department of Defense and the Department

of Transportation on the Use of U.S. Coast

Guard Capabilities and Resources in Support

of the National Military Strategy, which was

signed on 3 October 1995.44 This agreement

assigns the Coast Guard five specific

national defense missions in addition to

our general defense operations and polar

icebreaking duties—maritime interception

operations; military environmental

response operations; port operations, security, and defense; peacetime military

engagement; and coastal sea control operations—thus highlighting our role as a specialized military force.

However, the specialized capabilities

that allow us to augment the U.S. Navy’s

efforts also distinguish us from that service.

The purpose of the Navy is set forth in

Title 10 of the U.S. Code: “The Navy shall

be organized, trained, and equipped primarily

for prompt and sustained combat incident

to operations at sea. It is responsible for

the preparation of Naval forces necessary

for the effective prosecution of war except

as otherwise assigned.”45 The Navy is not

equipped, structured, or legally empowered

to deal with the nontraditional threats we

routinely handle. Unlike the Coast Guard,

the Navy is constrained by the Posse

Comitatus doctrine, which prevents the

other military services from acting as law

enforcement agents on U.S. soil or in U.S.

territorial waters.46 By the same token, the

39

Chapter Three

The high-endurance cutter Midgett (WHEC 726) sails alongside

the Constellation (CV 64) while deployed to the Arabian Gulf in

1999 to enforce the United Nations sanctions on Iraq.
Coast Guard is not organized, trained, and

equipped to engage in the full spectrum of

naval operations. Hence, far from being

redundant, the Coast Guard and Navy

instead provide resources that mutually

support and complement each other’s roles

and missions in order to meet the entire

spectrum of America’s maritime needs. The

accompanying graphic vividly portrays the

relationship between the two services.

Nevertheless, because the Coast Guard

is a military service, our cutters are designated warships of the United States. This

designation affords our cutters certain

rights under international conventions and

practice, such as the right to approach any

vessel to ascertain its identity and country

of origin. It gives our vessels sovereign

immunity vis-à-vis other countries’ laws.

And it allows our government to assert

principles of national sovereignty, such as

freedom of navigation, with vessels viewed

as less threatening than U.S. Navy ships

and thus as a more acceptable presence. 

40

Chapter Three
41

Chapter Three

Signalman First Class

Douglas A. Munro

Congressional Medal of Honor Citation

“For extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry in action above and beyond the call of duty as

Officer-in-Charge of a group of Higgins boats, engaged in the evacuation of a Battalion of Marines

trapped by enemy Japanese forces at Point Cruz, Guadalcanal, on September 27, 1942. After making

preliminary plans for the evacuation of nearly 500 beleaguered Marines, Munro, under constant risk of

his life, daringly led five of his small craft toward the shore. As he closed the beach, he signalled [sic]

the others to land, and then in order to draw the enemy’s fire and protect the heavily loaded boats, he

valiantly placed his craft with its two small guns as a shield between the beachhead and the Japanese.

When the perilous task of evacuation was nearly completed, Munro was killed by enemy fire, but his

crew, two of whom were wounded, carried on until the last boat had loaded and cleared the beach. By

his outstanding leadership, expert planning, and dauntless devotion to duty, he and his courageous

comrades undoubtedly saved the lives of many who otherwise would have perished. He gallantly gave

up his life in defense of his country.”

Signalman First Class Douglas A. Munro (manning the machine gun in the foreground) interposes his boat between

Japanese forces and the Marines being evacuated from Guadalcanal in 1942. After successfully recovering the Marines,

Munro was killed by Japanese fire. He was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Multi-Mission

We fulfill our five roles by accomplishing

our various missions, with most missions

supporting more than one role. This multifunctional capability is an enduring Coast

Guard quality, and our ability to field versatile platforms and develop multi-talented

Coast Guard men and women is perhaps

our most important core competency. In

short, we uphold all of America’s maritime

interests, including national defense.

We are the nation’s at-sea law enforcement arm with the broad authority of

Section 89 of Title 49 of the U.S. Code.

Evolving over the years, our reach extends

to illegal migrant interdiction, drug interdiction, and fisheries protection. Classically,

our versatile deepwater platforms stand 

the watch with a ready flight deck, a boat

at the rail, and a trained boarding party

always prepared to enforce domestic law,

observe international standards, and preserve

individual human rights. With a background

in these roles and missions, the Coast

Guard stands watch to ensure homeland

security at our ports and maritime borders.

The Coast Guard’s buoy tender fleet

presents a classic example of our multimission nature. In addition to setting

buoys for the safe navigation of mariners,

these cutters deploy oil containment booms

to protect the environment, break ice for

domestic maritime traffic, conduct naval

warfare duties, and perform search and 

rescue and law enforcement missions.

Our Marine Safety Offices (MSOs) 

are likewise multi-mission capable. MSO 

personnel examine vessels and facilities for

compliance with safety and environmental

laws. They enforce pollution prevention

statutes and respond to discharges of oil

42

Chapter Three

Captain Quentin R. Walsh

Lieutenant Commander (later Captain) Quentin R. Walsh was a member

of the Logistics and Planning Section, U.S. Naval Forces in Europe during

World War II. He planned the occupation of the port of Cherbourg, France,

which was viewed as vital to the invading allied forces and their resupply

effort.

Lieutenant Commander Walsh’s plan called for the formation of a specially trained naval reconnaissance unit to determine the condition of the

port after its capture. While leading the 53-man special mission to the port

of Cherbourg, he and his men met up with the U.S. 79th Infantry Division

and joined them in fierce house-to-house fighting against the Germans.

The Allied forces quickly captured the eastern part of the port, while most

of the Germans retreated to the western section of the city.

Lieutenant Commander Walsh personally led a 16-member unit of his

special task force on a raid to an arsenal area and adjacent waterfront on the western side of the city.

Armed with bazookas, hand grenades, rifles, and submachine guns, he and his party overcame sniper fire

to capture underground bunkers and approximately 400 Germans in the arsenal area. Lieutenant Commander

Walsh’s command went on to capture Fort Du Homet and its garrison of 350 men. Upon entering the fort, he

convinced the Germans that the city had already fallen. He then accepted the surrender of 300 German

troops and liberated 50 American paratroopers who had been prisoners since D-Day. Lieutenant Commander

Walsh received the Navy Cross for his heroic actions.

Captain Quentin R. Walsh
and refuse into our navigable waters. They

supervise and control vessel movement in

America’s ports and waterways. And, they

restrict access to vessels and facilities when

necessary for national security purposes.

Maritime

The maritime region is the Coast

Guard’s domain. We are the only service

that combines law enforcement and military capabilities in a single organization

focused on operations and missions in 

the maritime environment. We provide 

maritime expertise across numerous mission areas and maintain a meaningful,

credible federal presence in American and

international waters, while also contributing to overall U.S. engagement overseas.

Given America’s historic and continuing dependence on the sea, the formation

of a force focused on maritime tasks

beyond those that are strictly military was

inevitable. While foreign trade fluctuates as

a percentage of America’s gross national

product, it has always played a key role in

the nation’s economic health. Whether transporting dry bulk cargo, petroleum products, ferry passengers, or containerized

cargo, ships will continue to provide a

cost-effective method of transportation,

and their safe and efficient movement has

been an important consideration for the

United States. Likewise, fish and fishing

fleets have been important to the American

diet and economy, and as the nation has

grown wealthier, cruise ships, floating 

casinos, and recreational boats have joined

traditional commercial users of U.S. domestic waterways in ever-greater numbers.

Everything we do—from drug interdiction, fisheries enforcement, and alien

migrant interdiction, to pollution response,

commercial vessel inspections, and search

and rescue—has a maritime connection. 

A HUMANITARIAN REPUTATION

The Coast Guard is renowned throughout

the world as “America’s Lifesavers.” The

same military discipline that serves the

Coast Guard well in war, serves it well in

peace. Nowhere is it more apparent than 

in the prosecution of search and rescue

cases. Our reputation is based on personal

courage and selflessness that goes back 

to the earliest days of the disparate LifeSaving, Lighthouse, and Revenue Cutter

Services. Our history is replete with heroes

such as Joshua James, Ida Lewis, Captain

Josiah Sturgis, the Pea Island station crew,

and countless others who repeatedly risked

their lives to save mariners in distress.

Nothing fills us with greater pride than the

stories of harrowing rescues where professional Coast Guard men and women return

would-be victims safely to their families

43

Chapter Three

The cutter Ironwood (WLB 297) and an HH-60J offload equipment for 

maintenance on Eldred Rock Lighthouse, Lynn Canal, Alaska.
against all odds. It is not by accident that

those stories conclude successfully. Rather,

it is because the preparation for the

moment—born of good training and good

equipment blended with courage, discipline,

and selflessness—is our hallmark as an

organization.

Our humanitarian reputation, however,

goes beyond our search and rescue mission.

Whether responding to an oil spill, rescuing

people from flood waters, ensuring safe

marine transportation, performing peacetime

engagement visits in foreign countries, or

working with international organizations to

improve the safety of commercial shipping,

our Service reflects a commitment to serving

others on a daily basis. Such service adds 

a distinctive humanitarian dimension to

our character and helps define who we are.

44

Chapter Three

Coast Guard boarding team members complete a rescue at sea

while conducting interdiction operations off the coast of Haiti.

A crewmember from a ship run aground is rescued via breeches

buoy during a violent storm.
45

Chapter Three

Captain Richard Etheridge 

and the Pea Island Life-Saving Crew

On 24 January 1880, Captain Richard

Etheridge became the first African-American to

command a U.S. Life-Saving Station when the

Service appointed him as the Keeper of the Pea

Island Life-Saving Station, near Cape Fear, North

Carolina. Soon after Etheridge’s appointment,

he supervised the construction of a new station

and developed rigorous lifesaving drills that

enabled his crew to hone their skills. The Pea

Island Station quickly earned the reputation as

"one of the tautest on the Carolina Coast," with

Etheridge known as one of the most courageous and ingenious lifesavers in the Service.

On 11 October 1896, Etheridge’s rigorous

training drills proved to be invaluable. The

three-masted schooner, E.S. Newman, was

caught in a hurricane while en route from

Providence, Rhode Island, to Norfolk, Virginia.

The ship lost all sails and was blown 100 miles

south off course before it ran aground near Pea

Island.

Etheridge and his crew quickly swung into action, hitching mules to the beach cart and hurrying

toward the vessel. Arriving on scene, they found 

the vessel’s captain and eight others clinging to the wreckage. High water prevented them from firing a

line to the schooner with a Lyle gun, so Etheridge directed two surfmen to bind themselves together

with a line. Grasping a second line, the pair fought through the breakers while the remaining surfmen

secured the other end on shore. The two surfmen reached the wreck and, using a heaving stick, got the

line on board. Once a line was tied around one of the crewmen, all three were then pulled back through

the surf by the crew on the beach. After each trip two different surfmen replaced those who had just

returned. The seemingly inexhaustible Pea Island livesavers journeyed through the perilous waters a

total of ten times, rescuing the entire crew of the E.S. Newman.

For their efforts, the all-African-American crew of the Pea Island Life-Saving Station—Richard

Etheridge, Benjamin Bowser, Dorman Pugh, Theodore Meekins, Lewis Wescott, Stanley Wise, and

William Irving—were awarded the Gold Lifesaving Medal on 5 March 1996. Richard Etheridge died

while in service on 8 May 1900.

The Pea Island Life-Saving Station crew: (left to right)

Richard Etheridge, Benjamin Bowser, Dorman Pugh,

Theodore Meekins, Lewis Wescott, Stanley Wise, 

and William Irving.
46

Chapter Three

Aviation Survivalman First Class

Michael G. Odom

On the night of 23 January 1995, the sailing vessel Mirage found

itself battling 25-foot seas 300 miles east of Savannah, Georgia. After it

began taking on water, the Mirage sent a distress call to Group Hampton

Roads, Virginia. In response, an HH-60J helicopter and an HC-130 aircraft

took off from Air Station Elizabeth City, North Carolina, to assess the

unfolding emergency situation. Serving as the rescue swimmer aboard

the HH-60J was Petty Officer Michael G. Odom. 

Arriving on scene, the aircrew encountered 40-mile-per-hour winds

and 25-foot seas battering the Mirage. While discussing the best course

of action for the rescue, a crewmember from the Mirage jumped off the

back of the vessel. Petty Officer Odom voluntarily entered the cold, turbulent ocean to rescue the crewmember. After being lowered into the

water, Petty Officer Odom fought heavy breakers in the dark to reach the

crewmember and to ensure he was hoisted to safety. This evolution was

repeated two more times. However, during the rescue of the third Mirage crewmember, the hoist cable

jammed. While the crew of the HH-60J was able to safely bring the last Mirage crewmember aboard,

Petty Officer Odom had to be left behind. 

Fatigued, he dragged himself into a small, six-man life raft provided by the helicopter. He was finally

rescued five hours later, after having been repeatedly swept from his life raft. At the time of his rescue,

Petty Officer Odom was unconscious, suffering from hypothermia, and near death. He was flown to a

nearby U.S. Navy guided-missile cruiser, Ticonderoga (CG 47), where he recovered. While Petty Officer

Odom’s commitment to helping people in distress almost cost him his life, his unwavering courage saved

the lives of the crewmembers from the Mirage and exemplifies the Coast Guard’s core value of devotion

to duty.

Chief Boatswain’s Mate

Joseph A. Habel

On 25 January 2000, the 110-foot tugboat Bay King, with its fourperson crew, found itself being pummeled by snow, sleet, and 50-mileper-hour winds, and in danger of capsizing in over ten-foot seas and

near-zero visibility conditions. Coast Guard Station Cape Charles,

Virginia, received the mayday call from the crew of the Bay King, but 

the seas and winds exceeded the operating limits of the station’s 41-foot

utility boat. These same conditions prevented any other help from reaching

the foundering tugboat. Chief Boatswain’s Mate Joseph A. Habel knew

that if his crew did not respond quickly, the four crewmembers of the

Bay King would perish in the 38-degree waters of the Chesapeake Bay.

After coordinating with the Group Commander and evaluating the

risks associated with the rescue attempt, Chief Habel and the duty boat

crew volunteered to attempt the dangerous rescue. Chief Habel safely

navigated the 41-foot utility boat over six miles to the Bay King, but,

once on scene, the high sea state prevented a direct transfer from the tug. After reevaluating the situation, Chief Habel convinced the crewmembers of the Bay King to jump into the frigid waters. 

All four crewmembers were safely pulled from the water in less than two minutes, and Chief Habel

then safely navigated the utility boat back to port. Chief Habel’s decisive actions, realistic assessment of

the capability of his boat and crew, and superior seamanship skills saved the lives of the four crewmembers of the tugboat Bay King.

Aviation Survivalman First Class

Michael G. Odom

Chief Boatswain’s Mate 

Joseph A. Habel
A UNIQUE SERVICE

Taken together, the Coast Guard’s combination of military status, law enforcement

authority, and humanitarian reputation gives

us a range of access unique among the

Armed Forces of the United States. In our

law enforcement role, this authority includes

enforcing all federal laws on, under, and

over the high seas and waters subject to

the jurisdiction of the United States.47

As both a law enforcement agency and 

an armed service, we embrace a broader

concept of national security that extends

beyond our national defense missions and

provides the nation a maritime resource

with capabilities not duplicated elsewhere

in the government. All Coast Guard roles—

whether rescuing distressed mariners,

interdicting drug smugglers, combating

major oil spills, or conducting naval warfare missions in support of the unified

Commanders-in-Chief—contribute directly

to the economic, environmental, and physical

security of the United States.

Because of this unique character, U.S.

Presidents have often found the Coast

Guard to be the most readily available and

useful instrument for responding to national

emergencies or enforcing national policy.

In addition, we “speak the language” of

both civil and military organizations and

can play an important bridging role by

coordinating the actions of U.S. and foreign

civilian agencies and military forces in the

maritime arena.

Our status as a military force with

many civilian duties and responsibilities

was closely reviewed at the time the LifeSaving Service and Revenue Cutter Service

were merged to become the U.S. Coast

Guard in 1915. Captain-Commandant

Ellsworth Price Bertholf—the last

Commandant of the Revenue Cutter Service

and the first Commandant of the newly

formed U.S. Coast Guard—forthrightly 

discussed the nature of the newly created

Service in his first annual report to Congress:

The Coast Guard occupies a peculiar position among other branches

of the Government, and necessarily

so from the dual character of its

work, which is both civil and milit a ry. Its organization, there f o re ,

must be such as will best adapt it to

the performance of both classes of

duties, and as a civil organization

would not suffice for the performance of military functions, the

organization of the service must be

and is by law military. More than

120 years of practical experience

has demonstrated that it is by

means of military drills, training,

and discipline that the service is

enabled to maintain that state of 

preparedness for the prompt performance of its most important civil

duties, which ... are largely of an

emergent nature.48

Captain-Commandant Bertholf’s statement is no less true today then it was in

1915. Coast Guard men and women perform

well because they prepare well. In the final

analysis, the Coast Guard’s legal historical

core is as a military service, originated with

unique law enforcement authority and leavened with a well-earned reputation for

humanitarian service. These purposeful

attributes enable us to meet a broad multimission mandate from our nation. Our core

values of honor, respect, and devotion to

47

Chapter Three
duty enable that mandate to be fulfilled. 

As America’s Maritime Guardian, we are

proud to be warriors and protectors at 

all times.

48

Chapter Three

Lieutenant Colleen A. Cain

Lieutenant Colleen A. Cain became the Service’s third female

aviator and the first female helicopter pilot in June 1979. In her

brief career, Cain flew many rescue missions and completed her

qualifications as Co-pilot, First Pilot, and Aircraft Commander. In

1980, she received the Coast Guard Achievement Medal for

saving a three-year-old boy involved in a boating accident.

In the early morning hours of 7 January 1982, while stationed at Air Station Barbers Point, Hawaii, Cain took flight in

severe weather, heavy winds, and limited visibility in response

to a distress call from a sinking fishing vessel with seven persons on board. While en route to the sinking vessel, the HH52A helicopter she was co-piloting crashed into the side of a

mountain in the Wailua Valley of Molokai, Hawaii, killing Cain

and her two crewmembers, Commander Buzz Johnson and

Aviation Survivalman David Thompson. Cain became the first

female Coast Guard member killed in the line of duty. A Coast

Guard officer wrote of Cain’s reputation among her peers:

"Without fail, they regarded her as an exemplary Coast Guard

officer, patriot, and human being."

Lieutenant Cain and her fellow crewmembers made the

ultimate sacrifice in service to their nation and fellow countrymen, striving to protect life at sea. On 25

October 1985, the Coast Guard dedicated Cain Hall, a 100-room residence hall at Reserve Training Center

Yorktown, Virginia, to her memory.

Lieutenant Colleen A. Cain
Our effectiveness as a military, multimission, and maritime service depends in

no small part on a set of key ideas about

the way we operate. These principles have

emerged over time and have become part

of our unwritten Service culture. They

describe our operating style and underpin

our ability to operate successfully, both

domestically and internationally.

As members

of an armed

service, Coast

Guard men and

women should

be familiar with

the principles 

of war as well 

as the principles

of military operations other than

war, which are

presented in Appendix B and Appendix C,

respectively. However, the Coast Guard has

adopted an additional set of operating principles that reflect both the civil and military

elements of our roles and missions. These

principles modify and extend the principles

of war and military operations other than

war to encompass the distinctions between

war fighting and civil law enforcement

and regulation.

The principles of Coast Guard operations

discussed below apply across the range of

Service roles and missions. There will be

times, during engagements with clearly

hostile forces, for instance, when the

importance of some of these principles will

decrease. Nevertheless, these principles

underpin our actions in the vast majority

of situations we encounter on a day-to-day

basis.

THE PRINCIPLE OF CLEAR 

OBJECTIVE 

Direct every operation toward a clearly

defined and attainable objective. The most

significant action a leader can take in planning and executing an operation is to clearly

express the overarching objective to subordinates. This principle holds whether the

objective is one that has been defined by

our national leaders or by the commander

on scene at an oil spill or any other operation. Once the objective has been defined,

we must focus our operations and efforts

to achieve it.

Some operations are short lived, and

the objectives are easily understood. Rescue

the people. Prevent the spill. Clean up the

spill. Seize the drugs. Other operations are

of a long-term nature, and the objectives

may not be as easily defined. For example,

the primary focus of a cutter on patrol may

be fisheries law enforcement. Yet, like a

police officer on a beat, a cutter on patrol

is also alert and prepared to perform all

other Coast Guard missions. Regardless,

leaders must be able to articulate the central

objective of the mission at hand.

49

Chapter Four

Chapter Four: Principles of Coast Guard Operations

Principles of Coast

Guard Operations

◆ Clear Objective

◆ Effective Presence

◆ Unity of Effort

◆ On-Scene Initiative

◆ Flexibility

◆ Managed Risk

◆ Restraint
THE PRINCIPLE OF EFFECTIVE

PRESENCE

At the most basic level, effective presence means having the right assets and

capabilities at the right place at the right

time. This principle traces its origins to the

earliest days of the Revenue Marine. The

first revenue cutters were designed specifically for effectiveness in their designated

operating areas—rivers, harbors, and their

approaches—and they were assigned to the

most strategically important ports. The

first Revenue Marine officers came from 

the ranks of the colonial merchant fleet,

former privateers, and the former state 

and Continental navies. They were selected

because they understood their operating

areas and their adversaries’ methods. This

put the “right assets” in place.

Revenue Marine founder Alexander

Hamilton explained another aspect of the

concept of effective presence in a Letter 

of Instruction to his officers in 1791:

[I]t will be necessary for you from

time to time to ply along the coasts

in the neighborhood of your station, and to traverse the different

parts of the waters which it comprehends. To fix yourself constantly or even generally at one position, would in a great measure

defeat the purpose of the establishment. It would confine your vigilance to a particular spot, and allow

full scope to fraudulent practices,

everywhere else.49

Hamilton was saying that to be effective,

units must be active, because the “right

place to be” changes over time. This is

reflected in the assignment of units to 

different operating areas depending on the

anticipated need. Once assigned, cutters

and aircraft need to patrol operating areas,

small boats need to cruise local waterways,

and marine safety personnel need to patrol

the port. To be effective we must be vigilant

and ready to respond to situations as they

arise, keeping in mind all of our principles

of operations.

Ensuring an effective presence also

requires careful attention to the ability to

sustain our assets during normal operations.

We should operate our assets to the level—

and only to the level—that the logistics 

system (i.e., people, parts and equipment,

and funding) can sustain. If we can achieve

near-term performance only by operating

our assets beyond the level of long-term

sustainability, we risk harming the national

interests by degrading our ability to respond

effectively in the future.

50

Chapter Four

An HC-130 Hercules long-range surveillance aircraft on patrol off the

Florida coast.
A key component of effective presence

is acceptable presence, which refers to the

reality that foreign governments and nonstate actors oftentimes regard Coast Guard

forces as less threatening or objectionable

than those of the other U.S. armed services.

This is a powerful discriminator of the Coast

Guard from the Department of Defense

armed services. Due to the unique combination of military status, law enforcement

authority, and humanitarian reputation, 

the Coast Guard offers the U.S. National

Command Authorities a unique option 

with which to pursue national strategy and

enforce national policy. Indeed, in many

civil and military arenas worldwide, the

Coast Guard is ideally suited to cooperate

with and provide assistance to foreign 

governments, navies, and coast guards;

international organizations; and domestic

and international non-governmental organizations on a broad spectrum of defense- and

maritime-related issues.

THE PRINCIPLE OF UNITY OF

EFFORT

Most Coast Guard operations are performed by cooperative effort among a number of different units, or by the Coast Guard

working in concert with and coordinating

the efforts of a diverse set of governmental

and non-governmental entities, to achieve

the operational objective. Success in either

case requires positive leadership to ensure

clear understanding of the objective and

the role each individual, unit, or organization is expected to play in meeting that

objective.

The concept known as the “chain of command” is an essential element to achieving

internal unity of effort. Chain of command

recognizes the principle that every person—

and every unit—in a military organization

reports to someone higher up. In a given

operation, there can be only one responsible

51

Chapter Four

The highendurance cutter

Gallatin (WHEC

721) operates with

a proof-of-concept

MH-90 Enforcer

helicopter and an

Over-the-Horizon

Rigid Hull

Inflatable Boat

(OTH RHIB), both

of which were

specifically

designed to

engage “go-fast”

drug smuggling

boats.
commander. The timely and accurate flow

of information to and from the responsible

commander via the chain of command is

essential for ensuring the necessary

resources, including information, get to the

right place at the right time. Maintaining an

effective and efficient chain of command

requires constant attention, since we have

multi-mission field units under higher echelon commanders whose staffs are organized

along mission or other specialty lines. This

calls for staff coordination. Respect for the

chain of command, especially when coupled

with proper staff coordination, contributes

significantly to internal unity of effort.

Unity among organizations is the external

counterpart to internal unity of effort. This

external leadership challenge is in many

respects the more demanding, because 

the external entities we deal with generally

are not under the Coast Guard’s authority

and discerning those organizations’ lines 

of authority may be problematic. Further,

the Coast Guard frequently has to decide

between the conflicting and divergent

demands of various stakeholders, each of

whom represents legitimate and worthy

public or private interests. The Coast Guard

does not have the final authority in all situations and when necessary refers decisions

to the appropriate level. Nevertheless, the

responsibilities and authorities given the

Coast Guard by Congress, and the tendency

of Congresses and Presidents to turn to the

Coast Guard whenever difficult maritime

issues arise, are testimonies to our history

of providing effective leadership across

diverse and competing interests.

THE PRINCIPLE OF ON-SCENE 

INITIATIVE

The nature of our operations demands

that Coast Guard men and women be given

latitude to act quickly and decisively within

the scope of their authority, without waiting

for direction from higher levels in the chain

of command. Personal initiative has always

been crucial to the success of our Service.

Tight control from above was never really

an option for the Revenue Marine, whose

original ten cutters were based from

Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to Savannah,

Georgia; or for the nineteenth-century LifeSaving Service, which relied on 148 remote

stations along the U.S. coast.50 Since then,

advances in technology have revolutionized

our commanders’ ability to communicate

with and even control units in the field. But

the concept of allowing the person on

scene to take the initiative—guided by a

firm understanding of the desired tactical

objectives and the national interests at

stake—remains central to the Coast Guard’s

view of its command relationships.

Many of our operations—responding 

to oil spills, searching for and rescuing

mariners in distress, or interdicting smugglers, for instance—are of an emergent,

unpredictable nature. History has shown

that situations like these are best handled

locally. Thus, we push both authority and

responsibility to the lowest possible level.

Our ethos is that the person on scene can

be depended upon to assess the situation,

seize the initiative, and take the action 

necessary for success.

52

Chapter Four
This style of operational command is

based upon the trust senior commanders

place in their subordinates’ judgment.

Decisive action requires unity of effort—

getting all parts of a force to work together.

Rapid action, on the other hand, requires 

a large degree of decentralization, giving

those closest to the problem the freedom

to solve it. To reconcile these seemingly

contradictory requirements, we use tools

called the “commander’s intent” and 

“concept of operations.”

The commander’s intent conveys the

objective and the desired course of action.

The concept of operations details the 

commander’s estimated sequence of actions

to achieve the objective and contains

essential elements of a plan—i.e., what is to

be done and how the commander plans to

do it. A significant change in the situation

that requires action will alter the concept

of operations, but the commander’s intent

is overarching and usually remains

unchanged.

Effective commanders at all levels 

neither expect nor attempt to control their

subordinates’ every action. Instead, they

ensure their subordinates thoroughly

understand their expectations and how 

to meet those expectations in a variety 

of situations. Great commanders in naval

history rarely issued detailed instructions

to their subordinate commanders. Instead,

they frequently gathered their captains 

to discuss a variety of tactical problems.

Through these informal discussions, the

captains became aware of what their commanders expected to accomplish and how

they planned, in various situations, to

accomplish it. Thus prepared, they later

were able to act independently, following

their commanders’ intent even though 

formal orders were brief or nonexistent.

Good decisions are made in unpredictable situations when Coast Guard

personnel on the scene of an emergency 

or a crisis are rigorously trained to act as

part of a cohesive, cooperative team. It

works through the common understanding

of how individual incidents or situations

are normally handled. This shared understanding lies at the heart of effective

decentralized command and control. 

53

Chapter Four

An HH-65A Dolphin helicopter operating with an Island-class

patrol boat.
THE PRINCIPLE OF FLEXIBILITY 

This principle is the operational corollary to our multi-mission character. Arising

from a combination of broad authority,

diverse responsibilities, and limited

resources, the principle means that if we

are to succeed in pursuing multiple missions

with the same people and assets, we must

be able to adjust to a wide variety of tasks

and circumstances.

As is true of our other principles of

operations, the principle of flexibility has

its roots in our early history. During their

operations in Alaska during the nineteenth

century, for example, the crew of the revenue

cutter Bear conducted an incredible variety

of tasks, including the transporting of reindeer and undertaking long, arduous rescue

missions through the territory’s interior.

Many of these tasks went well beyond 

anything they could have imagined from

their original orders. Thanks to their 

training, experience, and can-do attitude,

the crew was able to adapt their operations

to the needs of the people they served.

This notion of flexibility also is deeply

embedded in our heritage of semper paratus. We built our reputation for being

“always ready” to meet just about any maritime challenge by successfully and repeatedly adapting to the situation at hand.

Thus, a cutter on fisheries patrol is as 

prepared to divert to a search and rescue

operation, respond to a pollution incident,

or intercept a suspected drug smuggler—in

many cases across thousands of nautical

miles of open ocean—as it is to enforce our

fisheries laws.

Our units also frequently find themselves facing competing mission priorities

as incidents unfold. Two examples illustrate the point. A cruise ship on fire and

drifting toward the rocks is both a searchand-rescue case and potential pollution

54

Chapter Four

The revenue cutter Bear, veteran of 34 cruises to Alaskan

waters during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Origin of 

Semper Paratus

The exact origin of our motto—“Semper

Paratus”—has never been determined. The earliest

recorded use of the phrase semper paratus in

regards to the Service was in the New Orleans

newspaper, Bee, in January 1836, which used the

phrase in an article praising the revenue cutter

Ingham. The motto appears to have been adopted

sometime between October 1896 and May 1897,

when a new seal containing the phrase appeared

on a general order of the Division of Revenue

Cutter Service on 21 May 1897.

Information obtained from the Coast Guard

Historian’s Office and an unpublished document

by William R. Wells, II, “SEMPER PARATUS”—The

Perception of a Motto, 17 November 1991.
incident. Similarly, an overloaded boat

filled with migrants intent on reaching 

our shores is both a law enforcement and

potential search-and-rescue case. In each

instance, responding units must adapt to

the circumstances as they unfold, giving

priority to the mission most critical at the

moment. And, since at least the late nineteenth century, the mission of aiding distressed mariners usually has trumped all

other priorities. 

The most demanding circumstances

today require the Coast Guard to conduct

“surge operations”—high-intensity efforts

usually launched at short notice in response

to an emergency situation. Recent examples

of events requiring surge operations include

the Exxon Valdez oil spill response in 1989

and the mass migrations from Haiti and

Cuba that occurred in 1992 and 1994.

Surge operations require the Coast Guard

to reallocate large numbers of people,

assets, and money to respond to the situation. This affects not only the people and

units directly involved, it demands that the

entire Service adapt to find the resources

to meet the needs of the surge operation

while still continuing critical day-to-day

operations. Upon completion of the surge

operation, the Coast Guard then must 

transition back to normal operations. Surge

operations are very demanding, but our

ability to transition to and from these 

operations provides an enormous benefit 

to the nation and serves as a testament to

our flexibility.

THE PRINCIPLE OF MANAGED RISK

Just as the unity of effort principle has

internal and external dimensions, so too

the principle of managed risk operates at

two levels. The internal aspect of this principle involves the commander’s obligations

to ensure the unit is properly trained,

equipped, and maintained for the mission

and to carefully assess crew and equipment

capabilities against the operational scenario

when assessing whether and how to execute a given mission.

We do dangerous work in hostile environments. Our heritage is based in large

part on the selfless acts of courageous men

and women who used their tools and their

wits under dangerous conditions to save

the lives of others. This tradition continues

today, as we perform duties that routinely

place us in harm’s way. Without a continuing and observable commitment to the

safety of our forces we unnecessarily

endanger our people and jeopardize the

mission.

Successful mission execution begins

with a thorough understanding of the 

55

Chapter Four

A 47-foot motor lifeboat trains in waters off the coast of Station Cape

Disappointment, Washington.
environment in which we operate. Based on

that understanding, we develop operational

concepts, acquire appropriate equipment,

and put our people through rigorous formal

training. We build on that foundation by

continuous training and drills, by improving

our personal skills and by maintaining our

equipment at the highest state of readiness.

In short, consistently successful performance

requires thorough preparation.

Preparation alone, however, is not

enough. Success also requires that our 

people and equipment be used within the

limits of their abilities. No small boat or

aircraft, no matter how well maintained 

or skillfully piloted, can be expected to 

survive, much less execute a mission, 

when wind and sea conditions are beyond

the strength of hull, airframe, or the human

body. Responsible commanders evaluate

the capability of crew and equipment against

the conditions likely to be encountered

when deciding on the proper course of

action. Conscious attention to time-tested

and time-honored principles of safe operation is a necessity.

Today’s Coast Guard standard of

response remains true to its rich legacy.

We honor our heritage daily by casting 

off all lines or lifting off in severe weather

to save lives and property in peril, accepting

the risk that we may not come back. We

honor our heritage as well by attending 

to the principle that a proper and practiced

understanding of duties, a thorough evaluation of the risks involved in an operation,

and the exercise of good judgment in 

executing that operation is of paramount

importance for success.

The idea of managing risks is not limited

to Coast Guard response operations. In

fact, risk management through prevention

(to reduce the probability of an adverse

event) and response (to minimize consequences when an adverse event does occur)

has long been a fundamental aspect of

Coast Guard operations. Prevention

includes such measures as placing aids to

navigation in shipping channels; ensuring

that commercial vessels are properly

designed, built and maintained; and providing courtesy marine exams and safety education for recreational boaters. Prevention

will never be perfect, however, so we maintain the ability to respond aggressively and

capably, whether in a search and rescue 

situation or following an oil spill. We also

use these same prevention and response

concepts internally. We acquire rugged ships,

boats, and aircraft and train our crews with

prevention in mind. We also monitor

unfolding operations and have back-up

plans in place, ready to minimize negative

consequences when the unwanted does

occur.

Finally, prevention and response activities, while focused on different aspects of

the same problem, are inextricably linked.

Neither is superior to the other and neither

is adequate by itself. More importantly, the

Coast Guard’s overall effectiveness depends

on the synergy between these two very

different means of achieving success: our

operational strengths in the response arena

make us more effective in the prevention

arena, and vice versa. Prevention and

response are both essential tools for Coast

Guard success. 

56

Chapter Four
THE PRINCIPLE OF RESTRAINT

Coast Guard personnel have always

been under a special obligation to exercise

their powers prudently and with restraint.

Title 14 of the U.S. Code, Section 89, confers

on Coast Guard personnel an unparalleled

level of law enforcement authority.

Consequently, the portion of Treasury

Secretary Hamilton’s Letter of Instruction to

Revenue Cutter officers, explaining the

need for restraint and the standard to be

met, remains as true today as it was in

1791:

[A]lways keep in mind that [your]

countrymen are free men and, as

such, are impatient of everything

that bears the least mark of a domineering spirit.... [Refrain, therefore,] with the most guarded circumspection, from whatever has

the semblance of haughtiness,

rudeness, or insult.... [E]ndeavor to

o v e rcome difficulties, if any are

experienced, by a cool and temperate perseverance in [your] duty—by

a d d ress and moderation, rather

than vehemence and violence. 51

The Coast Guard has a legacy of public

service that has shaped our tradition of

restraint and good judgment. The Life-Saving

Service rescued distressed mariners. The

Steamboat Inspection Service protected

ships’ crews, passengers, and cargo. The

Lighthouse Service had similar humanitarian

commitments. The Revenue Marine cruised

offshore in winter to aid mariners. Today,

we do all this and more. Even our regulatory

and law enforcement missions contribute

to the safety and well being of the

American public. A lack of restraint in Coast

Guard operations, then, would be inconsistent

with one of the fundamental and longstanding practices of the Service, as well 

as potentially violating the constitutional

protections afforded American citizens.

Restraint extends beyond how Coast

Guard personnel treat American citizens—it

also covers how we treat the foreign citizens with whom we come into contact. Our

sensitive handling of alien migrants during

the mass exoduses from Cuba and Haiti

illustrate how Coast Guard forces safeguard

U.S. interests at sea while also upholding

the dignity and contributing to the wellbeing of the migrants. As the cutting edge

of U.S. maritime law enforcement, the

Coast Guard must also exercise restraint

when dealing with the illegal acts by foreign

vessels and their crews. We have a duty to

enforce U.S. sovereignty, but in a manner

that does honor to the Constitution we took

an oath to uphold. 

CONCLUSION

Taken together, the characteristics 

and attributes discussed in Coast Guard

Publication 1 define a remarkable institution

of noble purpose and enduring worth to

the American Republic. We have developed

a unique culture and sense of ourselves

that continues to define us daily. We are

public servants and the accomplishment 

of our roles and missions benefits society.

The Coast Guard is the recipient of public

trust and we must remain worthy of that

trust. We recognize that few other organizations afford their members as much

responsibility and authority at junior levels

as does the Coast Guard. We are personally

charged with stewardship of the authority

57

Chapter Four
and resources that have been delegated to

us, regardless of our rank or rate.

Whether we are members of a large

unit, small station, or crew at sea, whether

active duty, reservist, civilian, or auxiliary,

we are one Coast Guard. The Coast Guard

has many of the positive characteristics of

a family-run firm. This permits personnel

and units to be nimble and flexible, changing

quickly with little effort. Our organization

works on the basis of trust among people.

In turn, their loyalty, responsibility, and

professionalism inspire motivation to excel.

As Coast Guard men and women we

enthusiastically embrace the heritage of

semper paratus and our continuing responsibility to uphold the values of Honor,

Respect, and Devotion to Duty. We are heirs

to this proud historical tradition. We understand that by their day-to-day attention to

these values, our forebears developed and

entrusted to us a venerable institution

respected throughout the world for the

work we perform as America’s Maritime

Guardian.

58

Chapter Four

The high-endurance cutter Hamilton (WHEC 715) on patrol.
APPENDIX A: GLOSSARY

APPENDIX B: THE PRINCIPLES OF WAR

APPENDIX C: THE PRINCIPLES OF MILITARY

OPERATIONS OTHER THAN WAR

APPENDIX D: FURTHER READING

59

APPENDICES
To measure the various dimensions, capacities, and tonnage of a ship for 

official registration.

The Automated Mutual-assistance Vessel Rescue system is an international

program run by the Coast Guard to provide resources to help any vessel in

distress on the high seas. Participating merchant vessels provide sailing plans,

periodic position reports, and a list of the vessels’ capabilities to the Coast

Guard. The AMVER center then provides a surface picture to rescue centers

that contains the position of participating ships in the vicinity of an emergency

that can be used to assist a vessel in distress.

Forward presence by U.S. forces that regional countries do not find threatening

or objectionable.

Equipment used to assist mariners in determining position and warn of 

dangers and obstructions by providing references such as audio, visual, or

electronic signals.

An organized military force of a nation or group of nations.

Battle streamers are 2 3/4-inch wide by 4-foot long cloth ribbons that are

attached to the ceremonial version of our Coast Guard colors. They represent

Coast Guard heroic actions in naval engagements throughout the history of

our Service. Our earliest battle streamer is for the Maritime Protection of the

New Republic from 1790-1797. The Coast Guard started using battle streamers

in 1968.

The ability to execute a specified course of action.

The exercise of authority and direction by a properly designated commander

over assigned and attached forces in the accomplishment of the mission.

Command and control functions are performed through an arrangement of

personnel, equipment, communications, facilities, and procedures employed

by a commander in planning, directing, coordinating, and controlling forces

and operations in the accomplishment of the mission.

The commander’s intent conveys the “end state” and the commander’s desired

course of action. The concept of operations details the commander’s estimated

sequence of actions to achieve this end state and contains essential elements

of a plan—i.e., what is to be done and how the commander plans to do it. The

commander’s intent reflects the individual’s vision and conveys the commander’s

thinking through mission-type orders, in which subordinates are encouraged

to exercise initiative and are given freedom to act independently.

The beliefs, customs, and institutions of an organization.

Fundamental principles by which military forces or elements thereof guide

their actions in support of national objectives. It is authoritative but requires

judgment in application.

Pertaining to one’s own or a particular country.

60

Appendix A

GLOSSARY 

Admeasure

Automated 

Mutual-assistance

Vessel Rescue

(AMVER) System

Acceptable

Presence

Aids to

Navigation

Armed Service

Battle Streamers

Capability

Command and

Control

Commander’s

Intent

Culture

Doctrine

Domestic
The Exclusive Economic Zone is comprised of those waters seaward of a

coastal state’s territorial sea and extending no further than 200 nautical miles

from the baseline from which the territorial sea is drawn. In this zone, a

coastal state may exercise jurisdiction and control over natural resources,

both living and non-living.

Having the right assets and capabilities at the right place at the right time.

Forces that are capitalized and in a sufficient state of readiness to respond as

needed. As one of the nation’s five Armed Forces, the Coast Guard is a specialized, capitalized, complementary, non-redundant force-in-being available to

the National Command Authorities as a specialized instrument of national

security.

See Roles.

The sea or ocean beyond the territorial waters and contiguous zone of a 

country.

Having concern for or helping to improve the welfare of mankind. 

The International Maritime Organization is a specialized agency of the United

Nations that is responsible for improving maritime safety and preventing 

pollution from ships. 

The relationship between different modes of transportation. An “intermodal

connection” is a place where cargoes move from one mode of transportation

to another, such as a container yard where shipping containers are transferred

from ships to trucks or rail cars.

Between or among nations or concerned with the relations between nations.

Activities, operations, or organizations in which elements of more than one

armed service of the same nation participate.

The process of discharging or loading vessels anchored offshore. In the United

States, the term generally is used to describe the process of offloading liquid

cargo from a large tanker located in a designated “lightering zone” into smaller

coastal tankers or barges.

To authorize or decree a particular action, as by the enactment of a law.

In 1984, the Secretary of Transportation and Secretary of the Navy signed a

memorandum of agreement establishing Maritime Defense Zone Commands to

coordinate the defense of the coastal United States. Coast Guard Atlantic Area

and Pacific Area Commanders are responsible to their respective Navy Fleet

Commanders-in-Chief for coastal defense planning and operations, as well as

for validating the requirements for naval coastal warfare missions. Since 1994,

MDZ has expanded to include foreign harbor defense, port security, and

coastal sea control in littoral areas. The MDZ Commanders employ forces 

composed of active and reserve units of the Coast Guard and Navy.

61

Appendix A

Exclusive

Economic Zone

(EEZ)

Effective Presence

Force-in-Being

Function

High Seas

Humanitarian

International

Maritime

Organization (IMO)

Intermodal

International

Joint

Lightering

Mandate

Maritime Defense

Zone (MDZ)
An agreement between two or more agencies concerning mutually supporting

services and responsibilities.

1. The mandated services the Coast Guard performs in pursuit of its 

fundamental roles. Syn: Duties. The missions the Coast Guard performs 

in fulfilling its roles are:

Search and Rescue; Marine Safety; Recreational Boating Safety; Port and

Waterways Security; Maritime Law Enforcement—Drug Interdiction;

Maritime Law Enforcement—Living Marine Resources; Maritime Law

Enforcement—Alien Migrant Interdiction; Maritime Law Enforcement—

General; Marine Environmental Protection; Aids to Navigation; Ice

Operations; Bridge Administration; Vessel Traffic Management; National

Defense; and International Ice Patrol.

2. Tasks or operations assigned to an individual or unit.

The Marine Transportation System consists of waterways, ports, and their

intermodal connections, vessels, vehicles, and system users. Each component

is a complex system within itself and is closely linked with the other components.

National Security:

1. A collective term encompassing both the national defense and foreign 

relations of the United States. Specifically, the condition provided by a 

military or defense advantage over any foreign nation or group of nations.

2. A favorable foreign relations position.

3. A defense posture capable of successfully resisting hostile or destructive

action from within or without, overt or covert.

The Port State Control program exists under congressional mandate to 

eliminate sub-standard vessels from U.S. waters. It came about as a result 

of an increased number of non-U.S. flag commercial and passenger vessels

arriving and departing U.S. waters. The program requires boardings of foreign

flag vessels prior to their entry to U.S. ports to ensure compliance with international conventions such as SOLAS (Safety Of Life At Sea) and MARPOL

(Prevention of Pollution from Ships) and provides for detention of vessels

found not in compliance with requirements. 

The principles of military operations other than war represent the best efforts

of military thinkers to identify those aspects of the use of military capabilities

across the range of military operations short of war that are universally true

and relevant. Military operations other than war focus on deterring war,

resolving conflict, and promoting peace, and may involve elements of both

combat and non-combat operations in peacetime, conflict, and war.

The principles of war represent the best efforts of military thinkers to identify

those aspects of warfare that are universally true and relevant. The principles

of war generally focus on large-scale, sustained combat operations, during

which the primary goal is to win as quickly and with as few casualties as 

possible.

62

Appendix A

Memorandum of

Agreement

Missions

Marine

Transportation

System (MTS)

National Security

Port State Control

Program

Principles of

Military Operations

Other Than War

(MOOTW)

Principles of War
Regulatory

Roles

Search and Rescue

(SAR)

Specialized Service

Tactical Level

63

Appendix A

Of or concerning a rule, law, order, or direction from a superior or competent

authority regulating action or conduct.

The enduring purposes for which the Coast Guard is established and 

organized. Syn: Functions. Our fundamental roles are:

• Maritime Security. Protect America’s maritime borders and suppress 

violations of federal law in the maritime region.

• Maritime Safety. Save lives and property at sea through prevention and

response activities.

• Protection of Natural Resources. Protect the marine environment and

the natural resources within it through prevention and response activities.

• Maritime Mobility. Provide essential services that undergird an effective,

efficient, and safe marine transportation system.

• National Defense. Defend the nation as a full partner with the Navy and

the other U.S. Armed Forces in support of America’s national security and

military strategies and operations.

Search and Rescue is the use of available resources to assist persons and

property in potential or actual distress. The Coast Guard is the lead agency for

Maritime SAR. The Commandant has divided the Maritime SAR Area into two

sections, the Atlantic Maritime Area and the Pacific Maritime Area. The Atlantic

Area Commander is the Atlantic Area SAR Coordinator, and the Pacific Area

Commander is the Pacific Area SAR Coordinator.

An armed service specialized for a certain type or class of duties. The Coast

Guard operates as a specialized service when part of the Navy.

The level at which the missions are actually executed. For example, a small

boat responding to a search-and-rescue mission.
As a member of the U.S. Armed Forces, the principles

of war also apply to the Coast Guard, particularly

when we engage in joint military operations with

the Navy and the other armed services. Like the

broader principles to which the Service adheres,

these principles do not constitute a checklist that

should be memorized. Rather, they provide a

framework for thinking about the requirements 

of warfare and, when taken out of the context 

of combat, other types operations as well. 

The principles are as follows52:

• Objective. The purpose of the objective is to

direct every military operation toward a clearly

defined, decisive, and attainable objective. The

objective of combat operations is the destruction

of the enemy armed forces’ capability and will to

fight. The objective of an operation other than war

might be more difficult to define; nevertheless, 

it too must be clear from the beginning. Objective

must directly, quickly, and economically contribute

to the purpose of the operation. Each operation

must contribute to strategic objectives. Avoid

actions that do not directly contribute to achieving

the objective.

• Mass. The purpose of mass is to concentrate

the effects of combat power at the place and time

to achieve decisive results. To achieve mass is to

synchronize appropriate joint force capabilities

where they will have a decisive effect in a short

period of time. Mass must be sustained to have

the desired effect. Massing effects, rather than

concentrating forces, can enable even numerically

inferior forces to achieve decisive results and minimize human losses and waste of resources.

• Maneuver. The purpose of maneuver is to place

the enemy in a position of disadvantage through

the flexible application of combat power. Maneuver

is the movement of forces in relation to the enemy

to secure or retain positional advantage, usually in

order to deliver—or threaten delivery of—the

direct and indirect fires of the maneuvering force.

Effective maneuver keeps the enemy off balance

and thus protects the friendly force. It contributes

materially in exploiting successes, preserving 

freedom of action, and reducing vulnerability by

continually posing new problems for the enemy.

• Offensive. The purpose of an offensive action

is to seize, retain, and exploit the initiative.

Offensive action is the most effective and decisive

way to attain a clearly defined objective. Offensive

operations are the means by which a military force

seizes and holds the initiative while maintaining

freedom of action and achieving decisive results.

The importance of offensive action is fundamentally

true across all levels of war.

• Economy of Force. The purpose of the economy

of force is to allocate minimum essential combat

power to secondary efforts. Economy of force is

the judicious employment and distribution of

forces. It is the measured allocation of available

combat power to such tasks as limited attacks,

defense, delays, or deception in order to achieve

mass elsewhere at the decisive point and time.

• Unity of Command. The purpose of unity of

command is to ensure unity of effort for every

objective under one responsible commander for

every objective. Unity of command means that all

forces operate under a single commander with the

requisite authority to direct all forces employed in

pursuit of a common purpose. Unity of effort,

however, requires coordination and cooperation

among all forces toward a commonly recognized

objective, although they are not necessarily part 

of the same command structure. In multi-national

and interagency operations, unity of command

may not be possible, but the requirement for unity

of effort becomes paramount. Unity of effort—

coordination through cooperation and common

interests—is an essential complement to unity 

of command. 

• Simplicity. The purpose of simplicity is to prepare clear, uncomplicated plans and concise orders

to ensure thorough understanding. Simplicity contributes to successful operations. Simple plans and

clear, concise orders minimize misunderstanding

and confusion. When other factors are equal, the

simplest plan is preferable. Simplicity in plans

allows better understanding and execution planning

at all echelons. Simplicity and clarity of expression

greatly facilitate mission execution in the stress,

fatigue, and other complexities of modern combat

and are especially critical to success in combined

operations.

64

Appendix B

THE PRINCIPLES OF WAR
• Surprise. The purpose of surprise is to strike

the enemy at a time or place in a manner for

which it is unprepared. Surprise can help the commander shift the balance of combat power and

thus achieve success well out of proportion to the

effort expended. Factors contributing to surprise

include speed in decision making, information

sharing, and force movement; effective intelligence; deception; application of unexpected combat power; operations security; and variations in

tactics and methods of operation.

• Security. The purpose of security is to never

permit the enemy to acquire unexpected advantage. Security enhances freedom of action by

reducing our vulnerability to hostile acts, influence, or surprise. Security results from the measures taken by commanders to protect their forces.

Staff planning and an understanding of enemy

strategy, tactics, and doctrine will enhance security. Risk is inherent in military operations.

Application of this principle includes prudent risk

management, not undue caution. Protecting the

force increases our combat power and preserves

freedom of action. 

65

Appendix B
Military Operations Other Than War encompass a

broad range of military operations and support a

variety of purposes, including: supporting national

objectives, deterring war, returning to a state of

peace, promoting peace, keeping day-to-day tensions between nations below the threshold of

armed conflict, maintaining U.S. influence in foreign

lands, and supporting U.S. civil authorities consistent

with applicable law. Support of these objectives is

achieved by providing military forces and resources

to accomplish a wide range of missions other than

warfighting. The principles of war, though principally

associated with large-scale combat operations,

generally apply to MOOTW, though sometimes in

different ways. Strikes and raids, for example, rely

on the principles of surprise, offensive, economy

of force, and mass to achieve a favorable outcome.

However, political considerations and the nature

of many MOOTW require an underpinning of additional principles described below. MOOTW that

require combat operations (such as some forms 

of peace enforcement, or strikes and raids) require

joint force commanders (JFC) to fully consider the

principles of war and principles of MOOTW.

53

• Objective. Direct every military operation

toward a clearly defined, decisive, and attainable

objective.

• JFCs must understand the strategic aims,

set appropriate objectives, and ensure

that these aims and objectives contribute

to unity of effort. Inherent in the principle

of objective is the need to understand

what constitutes mission success, and

what might cause the operation to be

terminated before success is achieved.

As an example, excessive U.S. casualties

incurred during a peacekeeping operation

may cause abandonment of the operation.

• Although defining mission success may

be more difficult in MOOTW, it is impor -

tant to do so to keep U.S. forces focused

on a clear, attainable military objective.

Specifying measures of success helps

define mission accomplishment and

phase transitions.

• The political objectives that military

objectives are based on may not specifically address the desired military end

state. JFCs should, therefore, translate

their political guidance into appropriate

military objectives through a rigorous

and continuous mission and threat 

analysis. JFCs should carefully explain 

to political authorities the implications

of political decisions on capabilities 

and risk to military forces. Care should

be taken to avoid misunderstandings

stemming from a lack of common 

terminology.

• Change to initial military objectives may

occur because political and military leaders gain a better understanding of the

situation, or it may occur because the

situation itself changes. JFCs should be

aware of shifts in the political objectives, or in the situation itself, that

necessitate a change in the military 

objective. These changes may be very

subtle, yet they still require adjustment

of the military objectives. If this adjustment is not made, the military objectives

may no longer support the political

objectives, legitimacy may be undermined,

and force security may be compromised.

• Unity of Effort. Seek unity of effort in every

operation.

• This MOOTW principle is derived from

the principle of war, unity of command.

It emphasizes the need for ensuring all

means are directed to a common purpose. However, in MOOTW, achieving

unity of effort is often complicated by 

a variety of international, foreign, and

domestic military and non-military participants, the lack of definitive command

arrangements among them, and varying

views of the objective. This requires that

JFCs or other designated directors of the

operation, rely heavily on consensus

building to achieve unity of effort.

• While the chain of command for U.S. 

military forces remains inviolate (flowing

from the National Command Authorities

through the combatant commander to

66

Appendix C

THE PRINCIPLES OF MILITARY OPERATIONS OTHER THAN WAR
the subordinate JFC), command arrangements among coalition partners may be

less well-defined and not include full

command authority. Under such circumstances, commanders must establish

procedures for liaison and coordination

to achieve unity of effort. Because

MOOTW will often be conducted at the

small-unit level, it is important that all

levels understand the informal and 

formal relationships.

• Security. Never permit hostile factions to

acquire a military, political, or informational

advantage.

• This principle enhances freedom of

action by reducing vulnerability to 

hostile acts, influence, or surprise.

• The inherent right of self-defense

against hostile acts or hostile intent

applies in all operations. This protection

may be exercised against virtually any

person, element, or group hostile to the

operation; for example, terrorists, or

looters after a civil crisis or natural 

disaster. JFCs should avoid complacency

and be ready to counter activity that

could bring harm to units or jeopardize

the operation. All personnel should stay

alert even in a non-hostile operation

with little or no perceived risk. Inherent

in this responsibility is the need to plan

for and posture the necessary capability

to quickly transition to combat should

circumstances change.

• In addition to the right of self-defense,

operations security is an important 

component of this principle of MOOTW.

Although there may be no clearly

defined threat, the essential elements 

of U.S. military operations should still 

be safeguarded. The uncertain nature

of the situation inherent in MOOTW,

coupled with the potential for rapid

change, require that operations security

be an integral part of the operation.

Operations security planners must 

consider the effect of media coverage

and the possibility coverage may compromise essential security or disclose

critical information.

• Security may also involve the protection

of civilians or participating agencies and

organizations. The perceived neutrality

of these protected elements may be a

factor in their security. Protection of a

nongovernmental organization (NGO) 

or private volunteer organization (PVO) 

by U.S. military forces may create the

perception that the NGO or PVO is proU.S. Therefore, an NGO or PVO may be

reluctant to accept the U.S. military’s

protection.

• Restraint. Apply appropriate military capability

prudently.

• A single act could cause significant 

military and political consequences;

therefore, judicious use of force is 

necessary. Restraint requires the careful

balancing of the need for security, the

conduct of operations, and the political

objective. Excessive force antagonizes

those parties involved, thereby damaging

the legitimacy of the organization that

uses it while possibly enhancing the

legitimacy of the opposing party.

• Commanders at all levels must take

proactive steps to ensure their personnel

know and understand the rules of

engagement (ROE) and are quickly

informed of changes. Failure to understand and comply with established ROE

can result in fratricide, mission failure,

and national embarrassment. ROE in

MOOTW are generally more restrictive,

detailed, and sensitive to political 

concerns than in war, consistent always

with the right of self-defense. Restraint 

is best achieved when ROE issued 

at the beginning of an operation address

most anticipated situations that may

arise. ROE should be consistently

reviewed and revised as necessary.

Additionally, ROE should be carefully

scrutinized to ensure the lives and

health of military personnel involved in

MOOTW are not needlessly endangered.

67

Appendix C
• Perseverance. Prepare for the measured, 

protracted application of military capability in

support of strategic aims. Some MOOTW may

require years to achieve the desired results. The

underlying causes of the crisis may be elusive,

making it difficult to achieve decisive resolution.

It is important to assess possible responses to 

a crisis in terms of each option’s impact on the

achievement of the long-term political objective.

This assessment does not preclude decisive military action, but frames that action within the

larger context of strategic aims. Often, the patient,

resolute, and persistent pursuit of national goals

and objectives, for as long as necessary to achieve

them, is a requirement for success. This will often

involve political, diplomatic, economic, and

informational measures to supplement military

efforts.

• Legitimacy. Committed forces must sustain 

the legitimacy of the operation and of the host

government, where applicable.

• In MOOTW, legitimacy is a condition

based on the perception by a specific

audience of the legality, morality, or

rightness of a set of actions. This audience

may be the U.S. public, foreign nations,

the populations in the area of responsibility/joint operations area, or the participating forces. If an operation is perceived

as legitimate, there is a strong impulse

to support the action. If an operation is

not perceived as legitimate, the actions

may not be supported and may be actively

resisted. In MOOTW, legitimacy is frequently a decisive element. The prudent

use of psychological operations and

humanitarian and civic assistance programs

assists in developing a sense of legitimacy

for the supported government.

• Legitimacy may depend on adherence to

objectives agreed to by the international

community, ensuring the action is

appropriate to the situation, and fairness

in dealing with various factions. It may

be reinforced by restraint in the use of

force, the type of forces employed, and

the disciplined conduct of the forces

involved. The perception of legitimacy

by the U.S. public is strengthened if

there are obvious national or humanitarian

interests at stake, and if there is assurance

that American lives are not being needlessly or carelessly risked.

• Another aspect of this principle is the

legitimacy bestowed upon a government

through the perception of the populace

which it governs. Because the populace

perceives that the government has 

genuine authority to govern and uses

proper agencies for valid purposes, they

consider that government as legitimate.

68

Appendix C
Hamilton’s Vision and Circular of 4 June

1791—No other service or agency of the federal

government ever received clearer sailing directions

than the Coast Guard did from its founder, Alexander

Hamilton. It is known that Hamilton had a deep

and abiding concern as to the conduct of the

crews. This is evidenced by his superbly crafted 

4 June 1791 “Letter of Instruction.” As CaptainCommandant Horatio Davis Smith wrote in his

early history of the U.S. Revenue Marine Service,

“the Circular embodied the views of the Secretary

concerning the Service he had created, the success

of which was problematical, and over whose fortunes

he watched with considerable solicitude. He was

ever ready to listen to suggestions of officers

tending to improve the Corps, and stood ready to

aid the elevation and improvement of the Service

by personal influence and the ready eloquence, of

which he was such a complete master.” Hamilton’s

Circular, available on the Internet at http://www.

uscg.mil/hq/g-cp/history/hamiltonletter.html,

should be thoroughly reviewed and studied by all

Coast Guard personnel—officer, enlisted, civilian,

and auxiliary.

Headquarters Circular No. 126 of 16 October

1936—There is a tendency to believe that current

statements are original expressions of purpose

and expectation, but in truth they are not. America’s

Maritime Guardian is not the first authoritative

statement of Coast Guard doctrine. In 1936, for

example, Headquarters Circular No. 126 laid down

doctrine that with minimum editing (largely to

update our mission set) would be as applicable

today as it was more than 60 years ago. Circular

No. 126 is available on the Internet at http://www.

uscg.mil/hq/gcp/history/HQCircular126.html.

Strategic Planning Documents—America’s

Maritime Guardian describes what we do, why 

we do it, and who we are as an organization. 

It does not describe the challenges we face as 

a nation and Service, our vision for the future, 

our goals to reach that future, or when and how

we plan to reach our goals. These subjects are

addressed in the following strategic planning 

documents.

• The White House. A National Security

Strategy for a New Century. December

1999.

• Joint Chiefs of Staff. Shape, Respond,

Prepare Now: A Military Strategy for 

a New Era. 1997.

• Department of Transportation. Strategic

Plan (current edition).

• United States Coast Guard. Coast Guard

2020. May 1998.

• United States Coast Guard. United States

Coast Guard Strategic Plan (current edition).

• Office of Naval Intelligence and U.S.

Coast Guard Intelligence Coordination

Center. Threats and Challenges to

Maritime Security. 1 March 1999.

• Mendel, William W. and Murl D. Munger.

Strategic Planning and the Drug Threat.

Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute,

U.S. Army War College, August 1997.

• Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The National Drug Control Strategy,

1998: A Ten-Year Plan. Washington, DC:

GPO, 1998.

• Report of the Interagency Task Force 

on U.S. Coast Guard Roles and Missions.

A Coast Guard for the Twenty-First

Century. December 1999.

History—America’s Maritime Guardian provides 

a brief overview of the rich history of the Coast

Guard and its predecessor organizations. A better

knowledge of the history of the Coast Guard, as

contained in the following recommendations, will

enhance the reader’s understanding of our Service.

The Coast Guard Historian’s Office also maintains 

a list of the best books on Coast Guard history in

print on the Internet at http://www.uscg.mil/hq/gcp/history/bestbooks.html.

69

Appendix D

FURTHER READING
• Beard, Barrett Thomas. Wonderful Flying

Machines: A History of U.S. Coast Guard

Helicopters. Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval

Institute Press, 1996.

• Browning, Robert M., Jr. “The Coast Guard

Captains of the Port,” in Jan M. Copes

and Timothy Runyon, ed., To Die

Gallantly: The Battle of the Atlantic.

New York: Westview Press, 1994.

• Evans, Stephen H. The United States

Coast Guard, 1790-1915: A Definitive

History. Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval

Institute Press, 1949.

• Johnson, Robert Erwin. Guardians of the

Sea: History of the United State Coast

Guard, 1915 to the Present. Annapolis,

MD: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1987.

• King, Irving H. George Washington’s

Coast Guard: Origins of the U.S. Revenue

Cutter Service, 1789-1801. Annapolis,

MD: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1978.

• King, Irving H. The Coast Guard

Expands, 1865-1915. Annapolis, 

MD: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1996.

• King, Irving H. The Coast Guard Under

Sail: The U.S. Revenue Cutter Service,

1789-1865. Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval

Institute Press, 1989.

• Junger, Sebastian. The Perfect Storm.

New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.

• Larzelere, Alex. The Coast Guard at War.

Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute

Press, 1997.

• Noble, Dennis L. Lifeboat Sailors:

Disasters, Rescues, and the Perilous

Future of the Coast Guard’s Small Boat

Stations. Washington, DC: Brassey’s,

2000.

• Noble, Dennis L. Lighthouses & Keepers:

The U.S. Lighthouse Service and Its

Legacy. Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval

Institute Press, 1997.

• Noble, Dennis L. That Others Might Live:

The U.S. Life-Saving Service, 1878-1915.

Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute

Press, 1994.

• Noble, Dennis L. and Truman R.

Strobridge. Alaska and the U.S. Revenue

Cutter Service, 1867-1915. Annapolis,

MD: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1999.

• U.S. Coast Guard. International Ice Patrol.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of

Transportation, July 1984.

• Willoughby, Malcolm F. The U.S. Coast

Guard in World War II. New York: Arno

Printing, 1980.

Maritime Policy—The Coast Guard not only 

executes U.S. maritime policy, we also play a 

significant role in the development of that policy.

The following are excellent books on maritime

policy issues.

• Degenhardt, Henry W. Maritime Affairs:

A World Handbook. New York: Longman

Publishing Group, 1985.

• Fuss, Charles M., Jr. and W.T. Leland. 

Sea of Grass. Annapolis, MD: Naval

Institute Press, 1996.

• Galdorisi, George V. and Kevin R. Vienna.

Beyond the Law of the Sea. Boulder, CO:

Praeger, 1987.

• Ginifer, Jeremy and Michael Pugh, ed.

Maritime Security and Peacekeeping: 

A Framework for United Nations

Operations. Manchester, UK: Manchester

University Press, 1994.

• Kearsley, Harold J. Maritime Power and

the Twenty-first Century. Aldershot, UK:

Dartmouth Publishing, 1992.

• Oakley, Robert B. Policing the New World

Disorder: Peace Operations and Public

Security. Washington, DC: National

Defense University Press, 1998.

70

Appendix D
• Staly, Robert Stephens, II. The Wave of

the Future: The United Nations and

Naval Peacekeeping. New York: Lynne

Riener Publishers, 1992.

• Till, Geoffrey, ed. Seapower: Theory and

Practice. Essex, UK: Frank Cass, 1994.

• Wang, James C.F. Handbook on Ocean

Politics and Law. New York: Greenwood

Publishing Group, 1992. 

• Williams, Michael C. Civil-Military

Relations and Peace-keeping. Oxford,

UK: Oxford University Press,

International Institute for Strategic

Studies, Adelphi Paper 321, August

1998.

Legal Authorities—The Coast Guard has been

granted broad legal authority to act. The following

publication outlines the numerous sources of that

authority.

• Coast Guard Legal Authorities, 

COMDTPUB P5850.2B.

71

Appendix D
1 Memorandum of Agreement between the

Department of Defense and the Department

of Transportation on the Use of U.S. Coast

Guard Capabilities and Resources in Support

of the National Military Strategy; 3 October

1995. This document may be found on the

Coast Guard Intranet site at http://cgweb.

comdt.uscg.mil/g-opd/NAVGARD/navgard1.htm.

2 Stephen H. Evans, The United States Coast

Guard, 1790-1915: A Definitive History

(Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute, 1949),

p. 5 [hereafter Evans, Definitive History of

the Coast Guard].

3 Quoted in Robert Erwin Johnson, Guardians

of the Sea (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute

Press, 1987), p. 1.

4 Evans, Definitive History of the Coast Guard,

p. 13.

5 Act of August 4, 1790 (1 Stat. L., 145, 175)

(ten per cutter—a master, three mates, four

mariners, and two boys).

6 Dennis L. Noble, Lighthouses & Keepers: The

U.S. Lighthouse Service and its Legacy

(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997),

p. 7. There were at least eleven lighthouses

in the colonies before the Revolution, but

the first one is generally agreed to have

been the Boston Light, located on Little

Brewster Island, Boston Harbor,

Massachusetts. Id., p. 5.

7 Act of August 7, 1789 (1 Stat. L., 53).

8 Evans, Definitive History of the Coast Guard,

p. 4.

9 Act of July 1, 1797 (1 Stat. L. 523, 525).

10 Johnson, Guardians of the Sea, p. 2.

11 Act of December 22, 1837 (5 Stat. L. 208).

12 Act of July 7, 1838 (5 Stat. L. 304), quoted in

Evans, Definitive History of the Coast Guard,

p. 29.

13 Evans, Definitive History of the Coast Guard,

p. 29.

14 Joshua M. Smith, “‘So Far Distant from the

Eye of Authority’: The Embargo of 1807 and

the U.S. Navy, 1807-1809,” in William B.

Cogar (ed.), New Interpretations in Naval

History: Selected Papers from the Twelfth

Naval History Symposium (Annapolis, MD:

Naval Institute Press, 1996), p. 132.

15 For an excellent treatment of this subject,

see Warren S. Howard, American Slavers and

the Federal Law, 1837-1862 (Berkeley, CA:

University of California Press, 1963).

16 Quoted in The U.S. Coast Guard: A Historical

Overview by the Office of the Coast Guard

Historian.

17 Evans, Definitive History of the Coast Guard,

p. 76.

18 President Lincoln invoked the provisions 

of section 98 of An Act to Regulate the

Collection of Duties on Imports and Tonnage,

2 March 1799, which stated that “revenue

cutters shall, whenever the President of the

United States shall so direct, co-operate with

the navy of the United States, during which

time, they shall be under the direction of

the Secretary of the Navy....” 1 Stat. L. 626,

pp. 699-700.

19 Evans, Definitive History of the Coast Guard,

p. 75, citing Army and Navy Journal, 26

November 1864. This claim was verified by

Captain (E) J. H. Pulsifer, USCG (Ret.) in the

U.S.C.G. Association Journal, 1917, Vol. I,

No. 1.

20 For many decades the Service had no official

title, although “Revenue Marine” or “Revenue

Service” seem to have been the most common appellations in the 1800s. Not until

1863 did Congress actually call the Service

by name. In that year, Congress used the

name in An Act in Relation to Commissioned

Officers of the United States Revenue Cutter

Service, 4 February 1863, 12 Stat. L. 639.

21 Irving H. King, The Coast Guard Expands,

1865-1915: New Roles, New Frontiers

(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996),

pp. 11-13.

22 Id., p. 13.

23 In 1872, the fleet consisted of 35 cutters, 

of which 25 were steamers. Id., p. 14. In

1881, the numbers were 36 and 31, respectively. Id., p. 17.

24 Joe A. Mobley, Ship Ashore! The U.S. Lifesavers

of Coastal North Carolina (Raleigh, NC: North

Carolina Department of Cultural Resources,

Division of Archives and History, 1994), pp.

26-27.

25 For a discussion of the Huron and Metropolis

disasters and their effect, see Mobley, Ship

Ashore!, pp. 53-90.

72

Endnotes

Endnotes
26 This task was a precursor to those associated

with Maritime Defense Zones during the late

twentieth century.

27 Evans, Definitive History of the Coast Guard,

pp. 169-72. In his letter to Congress, the

President wrote:

On the 11th of May, 1898, there occurred

a conflict in the Bay of Cardenas, Cuba,

in which the naval torpedo boat Winslow

was disabled, her commander wounded,

and one of her officers and a part of her

crew killed by the enemy’s fire.

In the face of a most galling fire from the

enemy’s guns the revenue cutter Hudson,

commanded by First Lieutenant Frank H.

Newcombe, [USRCS], rescued the disabled

Winslow, her wounded commander, and

remaining crew. The commander of the

Hudson kept his vessel in the very hottest

fire of the action ... until he finally [was

able to tow] that vessel out of range 

of the enemy’s guns, a deed of special

gallantry. Id., pp. 171-2.

28 Johnson, Guardians of the Sea, p. 20.

29 King, The Coast Guard Expands, p. 232.

30 Coast Guard aviation traces its beginnings

to 1915, when Lieutenants Elmer F. Stone

and Norman B. Hall of the cutter Onondaga

persuaded Captain Benjamin M. Chiswell to

allow them to fly search missions for the

cutter in a borrowed aircraft. Their success

led Congress to authorize a fledgling aviation program, but Congress failed to follow

up with appropriations. The program lay

dormant until after World War I, when the

Coast Guard established an air station in

Morehead City, North Carolina, using an

abandoned naval air station and borrowed

Navy flying boats. Again, the failure of

appropriations doomed the program, and

the air station closed in 1922. Johnson,

Guardians of the Sea, pp. 42, 67.

31 P.L. 755, June 22, 1936, 49 Stat. 1820. The

law did not apply on the inland waters of

the United States, except the Great Lakes

and their connecting waters.

32 During World War II, even the reserves

required augmentation in order to meet port

security needs. In June 1942, the Coast

Guard established a Temporary Reserve

made up of men and women who were

excluded from full-time military service. By

1944, 50,000 served, primarily as a part-time

Volunteer Port-Security Force. Robert M.

Browning, Jr., Captains of the Port

(Washington, DC: Coast Guard Historian’s

Office, 1993), pp. 15-16. 

33 Id., p. 177.

34 Id., pp. 195-196.

35 Id., pp. 220-22. The acronym LORAN, adopted

to conceal the project from our enemies,

was a shortened version of “Long Range

Navigation.” Id., p. 221.

36 Alex Larzelere, The Coast Guard at War:

Vietnam 1965-1975 (Annapolis, MD: Naval

Institute Press, 1997), p. 7.

37 Id., p. 121.

38 Originally known as the “Atlantic Merchant

Vessel Emergency Reporting System,” AMVER

became operational on 18 July 1958. A history of AMVER may be found on the Coast

Guard Internet site at http://www.uscg.mil/

hq/g-o/g opr/amver/history.htm.

39 Johnson, Guardians of the Sea, p. 341.

40 The Timber Reserve Act of 1822, 3 Stat. L.

651 (23 February 1822) authorized the

President to “employ so much of the land

and naval forces of the United States” as

necessary to preserve public stands of live

oak, used to build the stout hulls of U.S.

men-o’-war, located in Florida. According 

to Evans, the Revenue Marine enforced this

law. Evans, Definitive History of the Coast

Guard, p. 29.

41 Act of March 3, 1899, ch. 425, § 13, 30 Stat.

1152, codified at 33 U.S. Code § 407.

42 The three forward-deployed fleets are the

Fifth Fleet in the Arabian Gulf/Middle East,

the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, and the

Seventh Fleet in the Western Pacific.

73

Endnotes
43 Interagency Task Force Report on Coast

Guard Roles and Missions, A Coast Guard for

the Twenty First Century, 3 December 1999,

p. ix.

44 This document can be found on the Coast

Guard Intranet site at http://cgweb.comdt.

uscg.mil/gopd/NAVGARD/navgard1.htm.

45 10 U.S. Code § 5062.

46 The prohibition is statutory for the Army

and Air Force (Act of June 18, 1878, ch. 263,

§ 15, 20 Stat. L. 145, 152; codified at 18 U.S.

Code § 1385); it is a matter of policy for the

Navy and Marine Corps.

47 14 U.S. Code § 2.

48 Annual Report of the United States Coast

Guard for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30,

1915, Government Printing Office,

Washington, DC, 1915, Treasury Department

Document No. 2746, Coast Guard, p. 45.

49 Alexander Hamilton, Letter of Instruction,

4 June 1791, ¶ 3; available on the Internet at

http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-cp/history/hamiltonletter.html.

50 Irving H. King, The Coast Guard Expands,

1865-1915 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute

Press, 1996), pp. 8, 198.

51 Hamilton, Letter of Instruction, ¶ 14.

52 Joint Publication 3-0, Doctrine For Joint

Operations (Washington, DC: Joint Chiefs 

of Staff, 1995), pp. A1-A3.

53 Joint Publication 3-07, Joint Doctrine For

Military Operations Other Than War

(Washington, DC: Joint Chiefs of Staff,

1995).

74

Endnotes

U.S. Coast Guard