Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-03-15
CUTTERS ON GUARD
IN ICY SEALANES
Picturesque Patrol of Peri
IouS Waters TraverSed by
Liners Now Due.

Beginning in March. one Of the most
picturesque patrols in the world takes
up its cold duty-the covering of the
steamer lanes of the north Atlantic
by cutters of the United States Coast
Guard which do the work for the In
ternational Ice Patrol.
A bulletin from the National
Geographic Society tells what the pa
troll is and how it operates.
Fifteen years ago, April IA. the
Titanic, queen ship of the seas, car
rying a precious cargo of some of the
best minds of Europe and America,
ran into an iceberg $50 miles south
of Cape Race and sank with loss of
more than 1900 lives" says the bull
letin. Ever since that catastrophe
a guard has been kept each Spring to
protect the hundreds of ships and
thousands of travellers on the world s
greatest ocean ship lane.
Battle With Bergs a Success.
1.-THE annual battle with the bergs'
can be compared to some jungle trag-
edy in which the lesser animals stand
watch and wait for lion that has in
vaded their hunting ground, to sicken
and die before they again take up
their normal life. The international
Ice Patrol, the work of which is in
trusted to the Seamen and ships of the
United States Coast Guard, watches
and waits for the icebergs to die. For
four months, from March to July, the
patrol scouts for the ice monarchs
which are impelled by the Labrador
current to invade the haunts of man.
No successful method of attacking the
enemy has been conceived, although
experiments continue. But by watch
ing the bergs like guardian crows in a
corn4ield, the Tampa and the 'Modoc'
are able to warn by wireless the whole
fiack of Transatlantic shipping of ice
danger. No ship has been lost since
the ice patrol began its guard in 1912.
ITO the laymen a report that a 32-
degree cold wall is over the entire
Grand Banks means little. 1t is very
significant to the ice patrol. Bergs
will drift down the Banks practically
intact as long as they are in the
Labrador Current in which the water
hovers near freezing temperature.
But once they cross the cold wall
into the Gulf Stream with it's So or
60 degree water they waste away in
a few days and disappear. Each Spring
the Labrador Current forces cold
tongue of water into the warm Gulf
Stream which flows northeast toward
England. The tongue reaches maxi
mum toward the last of April~and then
recedes until it is confined once more
to the Labrador coast.
Likened to Flying Dutchman."
Going on ice patrol with either the
Tampa or the 'Modoc' in early Spring
Is like embarking on the Flying
Dutchman. That old legend Of the
Dutch skipper who was condemned to
beat around Cape of Good Hope Is
very real to the Coast Guard men on
north Atlantic service. The Dutch
ship and crew shuttled over the sea
buffeted by gales because once the cap
tain uttered a monstrous oath. For
two solid weeks Coast Guard crew
lives amid the gales of one of the
most storm-plagued spots on the
seven seas because of a different sort
Of oath the nations made that the
Titanic disaster should not be re-
peated That oath redeemed, the
Modoc can steam into the safe shell
ter of Halifax for two weeks respite
while the Tampa takes her place"