My Coast Guard News

Photograph of a Sicilian fishermen preparing to return to sea describing to Lt. Pell the challenges of fishing in Italian waters. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Cmdr. Clay Pell)

Sept. 6, 2024

Celebrating the Coast Guard’s role in liberating Rome during World War II

The wartime missions demanded a rapid expansion of Coast Guard manpower. On Dec. 7, 1941, Coast Guard personnel totaled about 29,000. By June 30, 1944, the ranks had swelled to over 175,000.

Color photograph of a November 1991 Haitian migrant interdiction performed by the U.S. Coast Guard. (U.S. Coast Guard photo)

Aug. 30, 2024

Maturing, making an impact — Coast Guard Intelligence in the 1980s and 1990s

The program’s development over the next two decades had the corollary effect of helping the service’s broader transformation into a more national security-centric and -relevant entity.

Coast Guard enlistment photograph of Joseph R. Toahty at age 21. (National Archives)
A faded image of marines landing on Guadalcanal on August 7, 1942. The marines landing on Guadalcanal far outnumbered the unprepared Japanese troops and civilian airfield workers on the island, so the enemy fled for the cover of Guadalcanal’s jungle interior. (U.S. Navy)

Aug. 23, 2024

Guadalcanal — Pawnee warrior strikes the first blow beside Doug Munro

Joseph Robert Toahty became the first Pawnee Indian to go to sea, the first Native American to participate in a U.S. naval offensive operation, and first Native American to set foot in enemy territory.

Soaked and tired, a U.S. Life-Saving Service crew lands the rescued survivors of a shipwreck. (U.S. Coast Guard)

Aug. 16, 2024

Hero without a headstone

Forgotten Keeper Joseph Doyle and his Gold Lifesaving Medal rescues.

The painting “To the Rescue” by acclaimed artist Anton Auto Fisher. (Coast Guard Heritage Art Collection)

Aug. 9, 2024

Honor, Respect, Devotion to Duty

Foundational principles of Coast Guard culture.

A photograph of the Chase’s boarding party motoring out to the 35-foot Haitian sailing vessel Exoribe. (U.S. Coast Guard)

Aug. 2, 2024

Raising The White Picket Fence

The 1981 origin of the Coast Guard’s Haitian Migration Interdiction Operations.

A vintage photo of a Coast Guard HH-3F “Pelican” making a hoist at sea. (Courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard Aviation association)

July 26, 2024

SS Steel Executive — an impossible and heroic aviation medevac

“In honoring the Coast Guard by my selection, I really feel that you honored a service that from the helicopters very beginning — we employed it to rescue thousands of people and saved millions of dollars of property.” - Lt. Cmdr. Paul Lewis

U.S. Coast Guardsmen assigned to the USCGC Heriberto Hernandez (WPC 1114), a Fast Response Cutter homeported in San Juan, Puerto Rico, delivers food near the port of Ponce, Puerto Rico, Sept. 27, 2017. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Michael De Nyse)

July 19, 2024

Lessons learned from 2017’s Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico

Eyewitness accounts to the catastrophic Hurricane Maria, revealing the commitment to service, devotion to duty and willingness to make sacrifices that characterize the Coast Guard and the Coast Guard community.

U.S. Revenue Cutter Wolcott. The Wolcott was a sail-steamer homeported at Port Townsend, Washington, Territory. Although her crew discovered no drugs aboard the George E Starr, a landing party from the cutter made the earliest yet-known drug seizure by predecessor agencies of the Coast Guard, finding nearly 3,012 pounds of opium hidden in barrels at a fishery in Alaska on January 14, 1886. (U.S. Coast Guard)

July 12, 2024

The service’s first drug seizure at sea? The mostly mistaken case of the George E Starr

The story of the service’s first drug interdiction case (1891) and how it was misrepresented in the history books.

Official photograph of Charles T. Thrun in his dress uniform. (U.S. Coast Guard)
The Grumman J2F “Duck” No. 162 that Thrun flew when he died. (U.S. Coast Guard)

July 5, 2024

The last flight of Coast Guard Aviator #3

USCG aviator #3 Charles Thrun, the first enlisted aviator in the Coast Guard.