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Posted on 08/03/2003 10:51:44 PM PDT by 68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub
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NOTE: CLICK ON EACH GRAPHIC ON THIS TABLE TO GO TO A COAST GUARD RELATED SITE
Brief Timeline of The U.S. Coast Guard
On any given day, the men and women of the Coast Guard:
Most important, the Coast Guard saves lives.
Now that's a respectable day's work. All from a service of only 35,000 people, fewer than the New York Police Department. And by the way, the Coast Guard is the only service in which the role of women is unrestricted. Regular Coast Guard Total 35,000 Coast Guard Reserves Activated since 9/11 2900 The Coast Guard increased its vigilance, readiness, and patrols to protect the country’s 95,000 miles of coastline, including the Great Lakes and inland waterways. CLICK HERE for the Coast Guard marching song "The civilian volunteer component of the United States Coast Guard" In the summer of 1934 a yachtsman named Malcolm Stuart Boylan planted the seed that eventually sprouted as the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary. Boylan had just been elected commodore of the newly-created Pacific Writers' Yacht Club, which was about to undertake a cruise from its home in Los Angeles to Catalina Island. Boylan asked a Coast Guard acquaintance, LTCDR C.W. Thomas of the cutter Hermes, to inspect the club's boats before their departure. Another of the Hermes's officers, LT F.C. Pollard, made the trip to Catalina on board Boylan's yacht, and the two men had a long discussion about the relationship between the Coast Guard and the boating community. On August 23, 1934, Boylan sent Pollard a letter outlining a basic concept for a Coast Guard reserve: ... A Coast Guard Reserve would be an excellent thing to perpetuate its traditions, preserve its entity and, more particularly, to place at the disposal of CG officers, auxiliary flotillas of small craft for the frequent emergencies incident to your...duties. A copy of Boylan's letter made its way to Washington, and to the desk of CDR Russell Waesche, an aide to the Commandant of the Coast Guard. Waesche saw merit in the idea, but it languished for some five years. In 1936 Waesche was promoted to rear-admiral and appointed Commandant. He was a forceful, energetic man, and the creation of a Coast Guard reserve became one of his favorite projects. With the backing of the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of the Navy, and several influential Congressmen, RADM Waesche finally was able to gain Congressional approval for the concept. On February 19, 1941 Congress passed a law restructuring the Coast Guard Reserve. Henceforth the Coast Guard was to operate two reserve forces. The existing civilian reserve organization was renamed the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary. A new U.S. Coast Guard Reserve was to function on a military basis as a source of wartime manpower, like the reserves of the other armed services. The officers running the Coast Guard appreciated the staggering demands that war would put on it, and the value of the new reserve system in helping them meet those demands. By the summer of 1941 the District Commanders were sending Coast Guard headquarters lists of boats owned by Auxiliarists that would make good patrol craft - and requisitioning Lewis machine guns, Thompson submachine guns, rifles, and pistols for them. On November 1, 1941, President Roosevelt signed an order transferring the Coast Guard from the Treasury Department to the Navy Department. A few weeks later the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and the Coast Guard's reserve system was put to the ultimate test. On the night of December 7, amid rumors of Japanese invasion, twenty Coast Guard Auxiliarists from the 13th District took their boats out of Seattle on the service's first wartime patrol cruise. In May, 1942 the Secretary of the Navy authorized uniforms for the Coast Guard Auxiliary. Perhaps the Auxiliary's most important contribution to the war effort came in the form of the Volunteer Port Security Force. An executive order of February, 1942 directed the Secretary of the Navy to take the necessary steps to prevent "sabotage and subversive activities" on the nation's waterfronts. The task of protecting the hundreds of warehouses, piers, and other facilities that kept the American shipping industry in business fell to the Coast Guard, which in turn delegated it to the Reserve and the Auxiliary. As the war went on and the Coast Guard's resources were stretched thinner, Auxiliarists and TRs were called upon to fill gaps wherever active duty Coast Guardsmen left them. Auxiliarists' boats patrolled the waterfronts and inlets looking for saboteurs, enemy agents, and fires. At least one unit of temporary Reservists, recruited from the Auxiliary, patrolled east coast beaches on horseback. Other Auxiliarists manned lookout and lifesaving stations near their homes, freeing regular Coast Guardsmen for sea duty. When a flood struck St. Louis in the spring of 1943, Coast Guard Auxiliarists and Reservists evacuated seven thousand people and thousands of livestock. The Auxiliary and the Reserve attracted their share of celebrity members. Actor Humphrey Bogart took his yacht on several patrols out of Los Angeles, and Arthur Fiedler, conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, put in his twelve hours per week on patrol duty in Boston Harbor. During the Vietnam conflict several Coast Guard cutters were taken off their normal stations and sent to Southeast Asia. Auxiliarists put their boats to work on patrol duty. The years 1992 and 1993 saw the Auxiliary's ingenuity and dedication tested by disasters precipitated by weather and international politics. Auxiliarists evacuated hundreds of people from the path of Hurricane Andrew, and from the scenes of devastating floods in the Midwest. In 1994 a military coup in Haiti released another surge of immigrants heading for Florida. The Coast Guard and the Auxiliary mobilized in the largest search-and-rescue operation since the Second World War.
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Wherever you are, Godand all is well! |
Good Morning Tonk! Good morning to our military and good morning to the whole Canteen crew.
Warm up exercise for today . . . . .
Double Shot
There's this drunk standing out on the street corner, and a cop passes by, and says, "What do you think you're doing?" The drunk says, "I heard the world goes around every 24 hours, and I'm waiting on my house. Won't be long now, there goes my neighbor."
A man walks into a bar with a giraffe and they proceed to get blitzed. The giraffe drinks so much it passes out on the floor. The man gets up and heads for the door to leave when the bartender yells, "Hey! You can't leave that lyin' there!" The drunk replies, "That's not a lion! It's a giraffe."
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SALUTE!
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Good morning, Tonk! Good morning, Canteen Crew! Good morning, EVERYBODY!
MORNING
Chicagoland Weather
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Today's FEEBLE attempt at humor:
One day a housework-challenged husband decided to wash his own sweatshirt.
Seconds after he stepped into the laundry room, he shouted to his wife,
"What setting do I use on the washing machine?"
"It depends," she replied. "What does it say on your shirt?"
He yelled back, "Chicago Bears"
Naturally she replied, "Cold water only gentle cycle."
BRATT SouthernHawk!!!
Today's classic warship, USS Turner Joy (DD-951)
Forrest Sherman class destroyer
Displacement. 4,200 t.
Lenght. 418'6"
Beam. 45'
Draft. 22'6"
Speed. 33 k.
Complement. 360
Armament. 3 5", 2 3", 6 16.5" tt., 1 dct., 2 hedgehogs
Turner Joy (DD-951) was laid down on 30 September 1957 at Seattle, Wash., by the Puget Sound Bridge & Dredging Co.; launched on 5 May 1958; sponsored by Mrs. C. Turner Joy; and commissioned on 3 August 1959, Comdr. Ralph S. Wentworth, Jr. in command.
After commissioning she cruised down the Pacific coast to visit South America. In May of the next year the destroyer steamed across the Pacific to begin the first of a dozen deployments to Asian waters. Her return to the U.S. in November 1960 was followed by a year and a half of duty in the eastern Pacific, then another Seventh Fleet tour during the last half of 1962. Turner Joy's third Western Pacific cruise, between March and October 1964, was historic. While serving with the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga on 2 August she was sent to reinforce the destroyer Maddox after the latter was attacked by North Vietnamese motor torpedo boats. Two days later, on the night of 4 August, the two ships believed they were again under attack and took vigorous countermeasures. This Gulf of Tonkin Incident was an important preliminary to the United States' long and painful combat experience in Southeast Asia.
Turner Joy's next six Seventh Fleet deployments, in 1965-66, 1966-67, 1968, 1969-70, 1971 and 1972-73, included intense involvement in the Vietnam conflict. In addition to screening carriers in nearby waters and undertaking patrol duties, she actively used her guns to support Allied forces ashore. One such mission, in October 1965, ended in tragedy when a shell accidently detonated in one of her five-inch gun mounts, killing three of her crew. During another bombardment, off North Vietnam on 7 April 1967, Turner Joy was hit by return fire, but was not seriously damaged. Following the January 1973 agreement that temporarily ended the fighting, the destroyer took part in Operation "Endsweep", the clearance of U.S. mines from North Vietnamese waters.
During the next decade Turner Joy went to the Western Pacific three more times, in 1974, 1975-76 and 1980. The '75-76 deployment carried her to the Arabian Sea, an area that in future years would become an increasingly important destination for U.S. Navy ships. While there, she took part in an exercise with the British, Iranian and Pakistani navies. In November 1982, as the Navy was in the process of taking all the ships of her class out of service, USS Turner Joy was decommissioned. She spent over seven years in the Pacific Reserve Fleet before being stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in February 1990. However, in April 1991 she embarked on a new career as a museum and memorial ship. Ever since, Turner Joy has been on exhibit at the city of Bremerton, Washington, as an enduring representative of the Cold War Navy.
Big guns in action!
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