The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1944-04-17
Adventure In The Coast Guard

First Fleet" by Reg Ingraham,
published by the Bobbs-Merrill
Company, 300 pages.
"First Fleet is adventure at it's
best-one thrilling adventure after
another, most of them different.
Some involve vivid action. Others
involve the suspense of something
horrible which never quite hap
pens because it was prevented by
the heroic action of those to whom
it was about to happen.
1t is the story of the United
States Coast Guard in this war.
There is also a fast moving sketch
of the $50 years of action and ad-
venture in war and peace which
prepared the Coast Guard for the
widespread part it has been able
to take in global warfare.
The author is Reg Ingraham,
naval correspondent of Time mag
azine. This means that the ma
terial is authentic and well under
stood by the writer who sailed on
the Coast Guard cutters and wit
messed the handling of the landing
barges by the Coast Guaurdsmen
in the invasions of Sicily and Italy.
1t means also that the story races
along in clear, forceful English
which carries the reader through
the pages.
The introduction is appropriate
ly presented by Secretary of the
Navy Frank Knox.
The historical background makes
clear how the Coast Guard, a small
organization compared to the 9TH
err branches of the armed serv-,
ices, is able to figure as prom
inently as it does in the war at
sea and in all theaters abroad. 1t
also shows how the Coast Guard
alone was fully prepared to care
for the difficult parts of the world
such as the bitterest sections of
the fa@ north where several i'm
portant "little" things have had to
be taken care of, even before
Pearl Harbor.
The author points out that log
ical conflict between Secretary of
the Treasury Alexander Hamilton
and other founders of the Republic
who desperately wanted revenues,
on the one hand, and absent mind
ed Shippers who had difficulty
overcoming their smuggling habits
which had been a virtue under
British rule on the other, created
the Coast Guard in 1890. Ten rev.
enue cutters were built and put
to sea.
Then the author traces the rug
ged history of the Coast Guard as
the rescuer and patrolman at sea
and on the inland waterways in
peacetime and as a sharp fighting
arm of the Navy at war.
The author has been able 70 cast
new light on the progress of war
too vast to be grasped in its en-
tirety, by means of comparatively
small things about it in which the
Coast Guard has been involved.
This well applies to the chilling
chapters about the Coast Guard
doings around the Greenland re-
gion, Alaska and the Aleutian Is
lands where it was left alone dur
ing peacetime - and welcome-to
its iceberg patrols, rescue oper
atoms, salmon and seal conserva-
ton duties, etc.
The chapters on the detection
and capture of Nazi weather fore
casting stations in the remotest
parts of Greenland, even before
Pearl Harbor, make thrilling read
ing and make clear once and fo.
all the effect which these German
installations might have had on
the Battle of Britain had the Nazis
been able to receive from Green
land precise reports on exactly
what the weather over britain
would be, for the British weather
passes over Greenland in good,
convenient time for air prepare.
tons in Germany.