For generations, the U.S. Coast Guard and its ancestor agencies, including the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, have played a mission-critical role in U.S. ice operations. That role has depended largely on the spread of U.S. strategic and commercial interests into icebound regions. It also has depended on the transition from sail- to steam-powered ships, with hulls evolving from wood to steel over the past 150 years.
During the 1800s, American maritime interests chased valuable resources, such as seals and whales, into icebound waters. And, as U.S. shipping began operating in the winter months, the duties of the Revenue Cutter Service increased in frozen areas previously thought unnavigable in wintertime.
In 1867, Alaska became a U.S. territory, luring adventurers and those exploiting natural resources on land and at sea. Alaska’s vast maritime and coastal frontier required the support of the Revenue Cutter Service’s law enforcement, humanitarian, and search-and-rescue capabilities, so revenue cutters began patrolling Alaska’s coastal waters and the Bering Sea.
The service’s first Arctic rescue mission took place in the warmer months of 1880. During her cruise that year, the Revenue Cutter Corwin undertook a search for the missing Arctic exploration vessel USS Jeannette. That 1880 cruise established the annual Bering Sea Patrol as a primary mission of West Coast revenue cutters; however, the Corwin found no trace of the missing ship. During a second cruise in 1881, the Corwin deployed cuttermen by dogsled to search for shipwreck survivors along Siberia’s Arctic coast. Later, she entered the Arctic and landed men on uninhabited Herald and Wrangel islands in the Chukchi Sea and claimed them for the United States. It subsequently was learned that the Jeannette had been crushed in the ice with the loss of 21 crew members.
The Revenue Cutter Bear was the best known of the service’s Alaskan cutters. Even though iron ship construction had begun before the Bear’s commissioning in 1874, wooden ships still were deemed superior “ice resistant” vessels. The Bear was heavily constructed with a reinforced wooden hull—more than a foot thick—with Australian ironwood for sheathing. The Bear also had a unique iron shoe fitted to her stem to protect her bow while pushing through leads in pack ice. However, the cutter was not capable of breaking thick ice, only surviving in it.
In 1884, the Navy purchased the Bear and the Arctic whaler Thetis and fitted them out to rescue survivors of the Greely Expedition near Ellesmere Island. The Bear and Thetis sailed from Greenland in June of that year and rescued Lieutenant Adolphus Greely and five surviving members of his party. The next year, the Navy transferred the Bear back to the Revenue Cutter Service and, by 1886, the cutter had begun making the annual Bering Sea Patrol in Alaskan waters.
The Revenue Cutter Service’s earliest attempt to navigate above the Arctic Circle during wintertime was the Overland Relief Expedition. It began in November 1897, when the Bear steamed north to relieve 250 starving whalers trapped in ice near Point Barrow, Alaska. The Bear made it as far as Cape Vancouver then disembarked a dogsled rescue team of cuttermen and sled drivers with a herd of reindeer. The Bear then retreated to Dutch Harbor, where she wintered over.
Three months and 1,500 miles later, the relief expedition saved the icebound whalers. The mission succeeded because of the dogsleds and reindeer; however, the Bear did not return north until the spring thaw opened access to Point Barrow. The Overland Relief Expedition is considered the most daring and successful Arctic rescue operation in history.
By the late 1800s, the era of wooden sailing vessels was fading and more powerful steamships were taking their place. During that time, the Revenue Cutter Service began an aggressive approach to not just surviving in the ice, but also breaking and clearing it. This mission shift began in 1908 with construction of the purpose-built icebreaking cutter Androscoggin. Ironically, while the Androscoggin was the service’s first icebreaker, she also was the last wooden vessel built for the service.
The Revenue Cutter Apache was converted into a light icebreaker and stationed in the Chesapeake Bay, while the Androscoggin was based in New England. These icebreaking cutters were especially busy in the winter of 1912; subzero temperatures iced in the Gloucester fishing fleet off the coast of Newfoundland, while the Chesapeake Bay, including the Port of Baltimore, froze solid. The Androscoggin and Apache had to rescue icebound ships and open shipping lanes in their respective areas.
In April 1912, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic, resulting in the loss of more than 1,500 lives. In response to the disaster, the international community demanded a patrol of the ice zone, so the U.S. Navy assigned scout cruisers to patrol the Grand Banks for the remainder of the year. But in 1913, the Navy could spare no ships for the mission, so the Revenue Cutter Service assumed the duty. In March, the Revenue Cutter Seneca initiated the Coast Guard’s International Ice Patrol mission, maintained to this day by the Coast Guard.
Since the establishment of the International Ice Patrol (except during the two world wars, when it was suspended), no vessels have been lost to icebergs within the patrol area. Today, the patrols are conducted by Coast Guard aviation using a computer drift model based on data from satellite-tracked drift buoys.
By the early 1920s, after the 1915 formation of the Coast Guard, service personnel with oceanographic training were needed for International Ice Patrol duties. From 1923 to 1931, a Harvard University research unit headed by Lieutenant Commander Edward “Iceberg” Smith regularized the investigations for the Ice Patrol. In the summer of 1928, the cutter Marion departed Boston for the Davis Strait and Baffin Bay under command of Smith, who applied his surveying methods in this productive iceberg calving area. From his research, Smith also devised a method of forecasting the number of bergs annually drifting south from Baffin Bay.
The Marion Expedition was the most comprehensive oceanographic expedition ever undertaken by the United States up to that time. Meanwhile, Smith’s research established the Coast Guard as an international authority on iceberg formation and migration. Smith received a PhD from Harvard in ice research—the first Coast Guard officer to receive an advanced degree—and later became director of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
In December 1936, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order directing the Coast Guard to “assist in keeping the channels and harbors open to navigation by means of icebreaking operations.” It mandated the Coast Guard’s icebreaking mission for opening shipping lanes and ensuring movement of vital cargoes in wintertime. From the late 1930s through World War II, the Coast Guard built several classes of vessels capable of icebreaking, including medium-endurance cutters, tugs, buoy tenders, and actual icebreakers.
During World War II, in conjunction with the Navy, the Coast Guard built several Wind-class heavy icebreakers for polar icebreaking. These capable, heavily armed ships later became the backbone of the U.S. Cold War icebreaking fleet. The service also built one-of-a-kind icebreakers, including the 230-foot icebreaking cutter Storis (WAGL-38) and the Great Lakes icebreaker Mackinaw (WAGB-83), designed to keep open Great Lakes shipping lanes in winter.
During the war, Greenland was on the edge of the Battle of the Atlantic. The United States took control of the region for occupied Denmark, and the Coast Guard’s Greenland Patrol oversaw this theater of operations. Cutters escorted convoys to and from Greenland, performed search-and-rescue missions, captured enemy trawlers and weather stations, and broke ice for strategic bases. Greenland Patrol vessels included ice ships, such as the old Bear and the Northland (WPG-49), as well as icebreaking vessels such as Escanaba-class medium-endurance cutters, icebreaking tugs of the late 1930s and early 1940s, and Wind-class icebreakers.
Beginning in the late 1940s, military and scientific responsibilities grew in polar areas. A year after World War II ended, Coast Guard icebreakers assumed a challenging role in the Antarctic. The Byrd Antarctic Expedition had been planned for the Coast Guard ice ship Northland in 1939. However, the war delayed this mission until December 1946, when Admiral Richard Byrd took command of Operation High Jump using the Coast Guard heavy icebreaker Northwind (WAGB-282).
During High Jump, in the Bay of Whales, the Northwind opened navigation to offload supplies and build Base 4 at Little America. The Northwind cleared the bay of ice ten feet thick, pounding through an area a mile wide and two miles long in 63 continuous hours of operation. It was a feat far beyond the capacity of Coast Guard ice vessels built before the war. At one time or another, all 11 of High Jump’s vessels were trapped in thick ice, and three were holed and severely damaged. The transport Merrick (AKA-97) lost her rudder and the Northwind had to tow her 1,000 miles to New Zealand for repairs, then return to complete the mission.
In 1955, Coast Guard vessels helped build the Cold War’s Distant Early Warning Line of Arctic radar installations. These stations needed resupplying in the winter, requiring the United States to find a supply route along the infamous Northwest Passage.
In July 1957, the cutter Storis and the 180-foot buoy tenders Spar (WLB-403) and Bramble (WLB-392) sailed north through the Bering Strait to attempt the passage. In 64 days, the cutters crossed from west to east. These three cutters were the first U.S. ships to complete the Northwest Passage. The Spar also became the first ship to circumnavigate the continent when she returned to her home port in Maine. And, in 1969, the Northwind repeated the feat then returned to Seattle by way of the passage, making her the first ship to transit the length of the Northwest Passage in both directions in a single season.
In 1955, the first Operation Deep Freeze Antarctic expedition took place, marking the Coast Guard’s first return to that region since High Jump. After 1965, these expeditions became an annual commitment for Wind-class icebreakers, such as the Eastwind (WAGB-279) and Northwind, which cleared up to 20-foot-thick ice for vessels carrying Deep Freeze personnel and equipment. During Deep Freeze, icebreakers supported meteorological and oceanographic research, and their helicopters provided such services as surveying and logistical support. After 1980 and the decommissioning of the old Wind-class icebreakers, the Coast Guard’s Polar Star–class heavy icebreakers supported annual Deep Freeze deployments.
Since 1965, the Coast Guard has been the sole U.S. operator of icebreakers. That year, the U.S. Navy transferred its fleet of icebreakers and its icebreaking mission to the Coast Guard. With sea ice diminishing and international competition increasing around the North Pole, Arctic operations have become more common. For example, in August 2017, the Coast Guard’s oceangoing buoy tender Maple (WLB-207) completed a Northwest Passage voyage, 60 years after the first Coast Guard transit, and 2021 saw the medium icebreaker USCGC Healy (WAGB-20) make the same passage.
In the 21st century, the Coast Guard is embarking on an Arctic strategy based on a fleet of new heavy icebreakers. The Polar Security Cutter Program will produce cutters with state-of-the-art icebreaking, propulsion, communication, and weapon systems. These new vessels will be capable of extended deployments that support the service’s traditional missions in the polar regions, including maritime transportation, law enforcement, scientific research, search and rescue, defense readiness, and environmental response. At 460 feet with a beam of 90 feet, the polar security cutters will be the largest vessels built for the Coast Guard. And, with an approximately $1 billion unit price tag, they also will be the most expensive.
During the past 150 years, the service’s ice capabilities have given the United States the ability to project national interests into the polar regions. Over time, as service missions expanded into colder regions and winter months, the technology used in these areas became ever more capable. With greater strategic and commercial interests in icebound areas and advances in icebreaking technology, the Coast Guard’s ice operations have come a long way—and now are more important than ever.