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    U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary: Birth to the New Normalcy, 1939-2007
    U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary: Birth to the New Normalcy, 1939-2007
    U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary: Birth to the New Normalcy, 1939-2007
    Ebook271 pages1 hour

    U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary: Birth to the New Normalcy, 1939-2007

    By Turner Publishing

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    About this ebook

    This large 9x12, 144 page, full color, coffee-table, hardbound history of US Coast Guard Auxiliary chronicles the legacy and dedication of our nation's men and women who volunteer their time assisting the US Coast Guard in various missions. This book highlights sixty-five years of being the nation's number one organization dedicated to boating safety. Also includes the assimilation of the US Coast Guard Auxiliary into the Department of Homeland Security.""
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTurner Publishing Company
    Release dateAug 1, 2007
    ISBN9781618585509
    U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary: Birth to the New Normalcy, 1939-2007

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    • 5/5
      A very good illustrative history of the Coast Guard Auxiliary.

    Book preview

    U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary - Turner Publishing

    e9781618585509_i0008.jpge9781618585509_i0009.jpg

    Coast Guard Auxiliary vessels, North Carolina, 1939-1942. History Division, National Department of Public Affairs, U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary.

    THE U.S. COAST GUARD AUXILIARY 1939-2007

    CHAPTER ONE

    THE U.S. COAST GUARD AUXILIARY 1939-2001

    The U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary was first established as a volunteer force to promote recreational boating safety. Throughout its history, however, it has served as an important force multiplier for its parent service, the U.S. Coast Guard, conducting search and rescue and varied Coast Guard support missions and assisting in the defense of the homefront, during World War II and in the years since the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001. The Coast Guard as a whole, including the Auxiliary, has become a keystone in our nation’s Department of Homeland Security since its establishment in 2002.

    Although best known over the years for its boating safety classes, the Coast Guard Auxiliary was created in 1939 as a reserve component of the Coast Guard. At the time America was facing the possible involvement in a world war in both the Pacific and Europe. Thus, headquarters officers’ foresaw the need for more men and boats to respond to two critical demands: an ever-increasing recreation boating population with the corresponding number of emergency calls and the potential deployment of active duty forces overseas which would leave the homefront open to possible enemy attacks and sabotage as in World War I.

    Recreational boat ownership had been rising since the end of the Civil War. New yacht clubs had been built in summer resort and suburban areas, then accessible by new train lines. The burgeoning wealth and rise of an even bigger middle class with more leisure time fostered more single sailors. The horseless carriage engine industry had also spawned the outboard engine and single-operator motorboat. Even during the 1930s Depression Era, demand remained for the new cabin cruisers, many of which became live-aboards that afforded fishing opportunities. New federal dam complexes such as those that comprised the Tennessee Valley River Authority became the responsibility of the Coast Guard. All these factors created an unprecedented need for boating safety education and emergency response that the Coast Guard was having difficulty meeting. In 1939, there were three hundred thousand pleasure boats operating in federal waters and thousands more on state waters.

    A major Coast Guard responsibility has always been enforcement of federal boating laws and safety standards. But pre-World War II budget cuts had reduced the Coast Guard’s manpower to about 10,000 officers and enlisted men. Few of these were stationed in inland navigable waters where most of the pleasure boats operated. Although constituted as one of the nation’s five armed services, unlike its Army and Navy counterparts, the Coast Guard had no peacetime reserve, either civilian or military.

    Both in England and America, a long history gave precedent to integrating civilian boaters into national defense. Traditionally English yacht clubs had participated in exercises with the Royal Navy. During America’s Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, privateers manned by civilians had been commissioned by the U.S. government. During the Civil War, private yachts were loaned or leased to the U.S. Navy, sometimes under the command of their owners. In 1916, the Naval Reserve Act provided for the enrollment of civilian boats and crews for the naval defense of the coast and some yacht clubs conducted World War I harbor patrols. Moreover, yachtsmen liked the idea of using their skills and boats to serve their country. Beginning around the turn of the century, calls came from boaters to establish a more formal role for them in the nation’s defense.

    One of the prominent yachtsmen who lobbied for such a role was Malcolm Stuart Boylan, commodore of the Pacific Writers’ Yacht Club in Los Angeles, California. In a letter written to Coast Guard officers in 1934, he suggested that an auxiliary flotilla of small craft could be formed and put at the disposal of the Coast Guard to respond to the frequent emergencies on the water. During the next five years Boylan made numerous trips to Washington to promote the idea.

    e9781618585509_i0010.jpg

    Members of Coast Guard Auxiliary flotilla, 1941-1945, Madison, Wisconsin. History Division, National Department of Public Affairs, U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary.

    e9781618585509_i0011.jpg

    Adm. Russell R. Waesche, commandant of the Coast Guard during World War II, who was instrumental in establishing the Auzxiliary, Coast Guard Historian’s Office.

    At the same time future Commandant ADM Russell R. Waesche and other officers were eyeing manpower needs and also saw that a civilian reserve organization could lessen boating accidents and improve adherence to laws and regulations. Moreover, in a speech to boaters in New York in January of 1939, RADM Thomas Molloy recalled the role that civilian boaters had played during World War I. He concluded that, Should a similar crisis arise in our national life again, your boats and your experience will be needed.

    What followed was the introduction of House Bill No. 5966 by Rep. Schuyler Otis Bland of Virginia on April 24, 1939. The bill that was signed into law on June 23, 1939, established the Coast Guard Reserve as a civilian volunteer organization to promote recreational boating safety and facilitate the operations of the Coast Guard. The new Reserve was formed with four purposes described in the language of the law:

    In the interest of (a) safety to life at sea and upon navigable waters, (b) the promotion of efficiency in the operation of motorboats and yachts, and (c) a wider knowledge of, and better compliance with, the laws, rules, and regulations governing the operation and navigation of motorboats and yachts, and (d) facilitating certain operations of the Coast Guard, there is hereby established a United States Coast Guard Reserve... which shall be composed of citizens of the United States and its Territories and possessions... who are owners (sole or in part of) of motorboats or yachts....

    Reserve members could not hold military rank or be vested with or exercise any right, privilege, power or duty vested in or imposed upon the personnel of the Coast Guard. They were, however, invited to place their boats at the disposal of the Coast Guard in conduct of duties incident to the saving of life and property and in the patrol of marine parades and regattas. Initially, the boats would be under the command of a Coast Guard officer or petty officer.

    Groups of boat owners were organized into flotillas, and these flotillas into divisions within the Coast Guard Districts. Each Flotilla was under the leadership of an elected civilian Commander who had a Vice Commander and a Junior Commander to assist him. Five or more flotillas made up a division with an elected Division Captain, Vice Captain and Junior Captain. A civilian Commodore and Vice Commodore administered each Reserve district. The Coast Guard administered the Reserve through the Chief Director of the Reserve in Washington D.C., with assistance from each of the fourteen District Directors.

    Some outsiders were skeptical about the newly organized civilian reserve and its statutory restrictions. However, civilian boaters and the manpower-poor Coast Guard embraced the new organization and applications poured into headquarters. By the end of 1940, there were 3,000 reservists organized into 150 flotillas with 2,700 boats at their disposal.

    Initially, the reservists conducted search and rescue and patrolled regattas, trained their members, helped enforce the provisions of the 1917 Espionage and 1940 Federal Boating Acts, and supported the Coast Guard in various ways such as delivering supplies to lighthouses. Yet the Reserve’s mission mainly was viewed as preventive search and rescue, with the reasoning that safer boaters would mean fewer people needing rescue by the Coast Guard. However, that soon changed.

    In September 1939, war broke out in Europe following Germany’s invasion of Poland. Then on December 7, 1941, in a surprise early morning attack, Japanese planes attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii. Adhering to his alliance with the Japanese, four days later German Chancellor Adolf Hitler declared war on the United States. American naval forces then faced a two-ocean war with not enough ships or boats.

    Even before hostilities erupted, the Coast Guard had recognized the need for a military reserve force similar to those of the other services whose members could be called to active duty and be subject to the articles of war. Thus, on February 19, 1941, Congress amended the 1939 Act to establish a Coast Guard Reserve as a military component and renamed the civilian volunteer reserve the Coast Guard Auxiliary, retaining its volunteer status and purposes.

    During World War II, the Auxiliary became the eyes and ears of the Coast Guard, patrolling waterways and coastlines on the lookout for threats to the nation’s security. More than 50,000 mariners joined the Auxiliary. Many of their private vessels were placed into service. In the nation’s ports, members guarded docks and ships; put out fires, made arrests, and saved drowning victims; pounded the sands on beach patrols; virtually took over all harbor patrols; protected transportation routes over water and defense factories from the water; transported customs officials; enforced blackouts; manned radios; salvaged planes and escorted naval ships; engaged in antisubmarine warfare; rescued survivors from torpedoed ships; and carried out domestic search and rescues. As in other areas of national defense, women also contributed their skills and support. By 1943, there were approximately 100 women in the Auxiliary.

    An article that appeared in Popular Science in 1941 aptly summarized how the Auxiliary fit into the Coast Guard’s service to national defense:

    The yachtsmen, whose knowledge of seamanship, navigation and gas engines, plus familiarity with local waters and boatmen, makes a national-defense asset immediately convertible to a useful purpose. These men would be greenhorns aboard a battle-wagon,

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