Latin American Navies

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The year 1982 was one of change and belt-tightening. A new Commandant, Admiral James S. Gracey, and Vice Commandant, Vice Admiral Benedict L. Stabile, were appointed. The size of the service was reduced to 38,395 military (4,947 commissioned officers, 1,430 warrant officers, 31,139 enlisted persons, and 879 cadets) plus 5,258 civilians, as of 31 December 1982. In the spring of last year, the Coast Guard made prelimi­nary plans to decommission 11 cutters and numerous shore facilities throughout the nation. A supplemental appropriation from Congress allowed the service to re­tain 10 of these ships and most of the shore facilities.

Operationally, 1982 was a busy year. The International Ice Patrol recorded its longest season between 13 March and 1 September. The Coast Guard coordinated the cleanup of hazardous chemicals in Poughkeepsie, New York, after a dye

Admiral James S. Gracey, at left above, and Admiral John B. Hayes salute as part of the 27 May change of command in which Admiral Gracey became Coast Guard Commandant. The ceremony at the Washington Navy Yard took place on board the cutter Alert with the training ship Eagle moored nearby.

plant exploded; this was the first use of the chemical “superfund” by the Coast Guard. The last of eight Omega stations was commissioned in Australia, complet­ing this worldwide navigational network. The first Trident submarine, Ohio (SSBN-726) was escorted by the Coast Guard into her new home port in Bangor, Washington. The Navy joined the Coast Guard to create tactical law enforcement teams in order to improve law enforce­ment capabilities, particularly in the war against drugs. In the Antarctic, scientists on board the icebreaker Glacier (WAGB-4) discovered the first fossilized land mammal found on that continent. During the year, seven Coast Guardsmen lost their lives in the line of duty. One HH-52 helicopter and one C-130 cargo plane were lost.

The service acquired new equipment. The surface effect ships Sea Hawk and Shearwater were commissioned in the fall. Also the Falcon Gu&^d}^an operational. Ten new surf boa ^s _new livered to selected units. Two ⁰ the 270-foot medium endurance cu ^ Harriet Lane (WMEC-90.) ¹ j_urin2 land (WMEC-904) were launched ^ the vear and two more keels

^nuary                        .     . , f_rnm Air

1: A Coast Guard helicopter ^ ition Port Angeles, ^^ashl"f‘ _t’_oSsed ed four men from the s p_uca as iters of the Strait of ^{Juan d} _craft ;ir heavily laden 58-foot tishmg

psized and sank.       -.-ached ^0,1

8: An HH-52 helicopter cm she ^

olokai Island, Hawaii,         _the

ree-person crew, ^indadmf _vice. The ree female pilots in the •          . f_or a

licopter was en route to s

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*^ntercoa t i°^{aSt Guard} reopened the Gulf - ^{s a}‘ Waterway after a five-day-

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b.C_t) aft'^⁶ 'ⁿ downtown Washington, Airr>_0rt ^eoff from nearby National

lce-coW^C_rf^{h Were} conducted in the frigid Small pr.l ^Waters of the Potomac River

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land, T_b ^Uard Yard, Curtis Bay, Mary- ''bike Tp⁶^ ^Were Joined by the Atlantic ^Car°lina "n!,^frt)ni Elizabeth City, North

■oast o^area: d bc 180-foot Madrono and ard tug Capstan broke ice to

age barges to be moved to the

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^rescu'ed^ThiL^CUt‘^er Gallatin (WHEC-721) foot _Saji. ⁶ Nubians from a leaky 35­13- Th°^at’ ^ reiles west of Haiti, a _dis^e_bl^G^ rescued 26 Haitians

°^Verthro^{er 3} ®^rouP ^exiles trying to Was _arr ^W Haitian Government. He C. s _n^CStCC* ^and charged with violating 13; "^eutrality laws

iaiop_a pA'^r Florida jetliner, bound for 1 °rida. crashed into the 14th

■rport tk ^{11 Irorn nearb}y National ^sUbseq_Ue ^e kloast Guard aided in the ffons, wh° k^rescue and salvage opera-

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^atherous ^CU*^ters as economy measures. A^berations ■ ^Cr facilities would reduce ^^Cadetn_v a '!^Kll|ding the Coast Guard 23; _A ^and °ther training facilities.

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the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. The Coast Guard opened the waterway sev­eral hours later.

February

8: The Coast Guard went to the aid of two freighters that had collided in the Gulf of Mexico. A damage control team boarded one of the ships in order to help crewmen make emergency repairs which enabled the 450-foot freighter to reach Key West, 150 miles to the east.

15: Two Coast Guardsmen were criti­cally injured at Kalama, Washington, while fighting a fire on board a 600-foot grain carrier which had beached in the Columbia River. The cutter Bluebell sprayed foam on the grain ship, and the fire was brought under control without the ship’s 354,000 gallons of fuel explod­ing.

15: The giant Ocean Ranger oil rig capsized and sank off St. John’s, New­foundland, during a North Atlantic storm. All 84 persons on the rig perished. As a U. S.-registered vessel, the rig was subject to Coast Guard safety regula­tions.

24: The Coast Guard seized a 60-foot lobster boat, carrying seven tons of mari­juana, off the north coast of Haiti.

25: The Coast Guard rescued 22 Greek merchant sailors from a lifeboat adrift in an ice floe in the Annapolis anchorage.

26: The Reagan Administration can­celled plans to close 15 Coast Guard sta­tions, cut the strength of others, and de­commission 11 cutters when the service was given additional funds.

26: Coast Guardsmen helped to free a 30-foot grey whale, which had beached itself in shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico at Venice, Louisiana.

March

2: The Coast Guard said that fishing patrols off New England and the Pacific

Northwest would be reduced so that cut­ters and aircraft could be concentrated in the Florida waters to intercept drugs and illegal aliens.

4: The Coast Guard helped rescue 11 crew members of an 85-foot fishing ves­sel which had caught fire and sunk off Malibu. California. Earlier, firefighters from the cutter Walnut had boarded the vessel to fight the flames.

5: Crewmen from cutter Diligence (WMEC-616) fired on and stopped a Co­lombian vessel, seized the ship, 12 per­sons, and 20 tons of marijuana, in the Windward Passage about 260 miles off Colombia between Cuba and Haiti. The action was taken with permission of the Colombian Government.

16: The Coast Guard discontinued its Mississippi River vessel traffic system to conserve funds. The system was begun in 1976, after 77 people died in a tanker- ferry collision on the river.

17: The Secretary of the Navy told Congress that moving the Coast Guard to the Department of Defense would create more problems than it would solve.

29: Cutter Point Whitehorn, assisted by a Coast Guard helicopter, seized a New Jersey-based shrimp boat carrying 10 tons of marijuana, valued at $4.5 mil­lion, after a six-hour chase.

April

2: The Coast Guard rescued three

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b°at aided ^{CrCW a} Coast Guard small ?^an 'On . re^^ldents in the rescue of more began _to ^rdwatchers as their tour boat ⁸'^yer in m 6 °^{n wa}ter in the Kennebec ^and 'he ere ^a,ne' Tbe Coast Guard crew °°^at and nW 0t a tu§hoat secured the tour tescue      raped out the water after the

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p'^e, 'nclud' °^{aSt Guard} rescued six peo- *^ae East Ri!ⁿ^ a Pregnant woman, from U^tes after fu ^{New York} City 10 min- ^l,ehed. ^{Clr s}tghtseeing helicopter

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i w_0rr„,_t ^Ul me National Strike P°nse p₀ ^Wdh other government re- _b ‘^,t had _run^{LS to} refloat a benzene barge

IVer at Ait"¹'^{0 3} ^^{arn on} the Mississippi ^ ton, Illi_nois

^      ■ ^uuARd           1,111 1

of th_e               ^cl‘ngs to a crewman

bo_at i„ , Chase while the small boh,, ^{H l}‘^{< /}‘ she had been riding is ^S'^ed “board the cutter.

’heir craft f^rmen 'ⁿ the Florida keys after guested , broken up. The fishermen 13; c ° °^{e returned} to Cuba.

’he Waterv^{St Guarc}* helicopters combed '"issino ^rS-,P^ San Francisco for two between _t?'^lboats after a yachting race ^land_{s Ca} ^{c c}°ast and the Farallon 1s- ^ar°^Se- Th^{C 10 c}*‘^saster as a sudden storm Dor, ^{C searc}h ended on the 15th.

, Pjsons were lost.

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-orris, ^arine Safety Office in St. _t^ulf Strike x^Un’ ^and members of the °^rce ^eam °f the National Strike

M_ay

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)^tcrtl trawlp?^{3St Guard} seized a Japanese ft- S. f:      the Bering Sea for violat-

. ^Cn catchin ^ln® *^aws- fhe vessel had ^ft”^les West ‘ ^{8 mack}erel and cod 180 , ⁸= The r ^Samt Mathew Island. ^C;irch and ?^{aSt Guard} announced a re- ^eyelopment program to use

^t>0<*^edi«gs / V ,

^Naval Review 1983

pigeons to help locate people in the water. Six pigeons had been “drafted” into the program. The birds, which can scan a far wider area than humans, can watch for a longer time and have excel­lent color vision, can spot debris such as orange life rings much better than can human observers. With training, the birds could greatly increase the effectiveness of search and rescue missions. And the cost would be minimal, as the feathered lifesavers demand only peas, barley, wheat, and the like for their hard work.

18: The Coast Guard closed the Chesa­peake and Delaware Canal after a barge carrying a toxic chemical collided with a freighter and began to leak. The canal was reopened the next day after the dam­aged barge had been off-loaded. The barge was carrying phenol, which can be hazardous to marine life. The chemical leaked out in small amounts, which were not considered a threat.

June

3: The USS Farragut (DDG-37) took over the tow of two vessels seized by the Coast Guard. This was the first time that a naval ship directly aided in the war against drugs. The Farragut was on ma­neuvers in the Caribbean area, and the Coast Guard asked for her help.

23: Coast Guardsmen, assisted by FBI agents, took control of the Liberian regis­tered tanker Ypapanti off Cape Henlopen, Delaware, after agents had been unsuc­cessful at settling a dispute between the crew and owners. The dispute was a month old.

July

6: Three Coast Guardsmen were charged with attempting to sabotage the cutter Boutwell (WHEC-719) and seize a marijuana-laden sailboat that the cutter had captured. The sailboat Orca had been seized on 20 June, 1,500 miles southwest of Kodiak with 3,100 pounds of mari­juana on board. A fourth Coast Guards­man drowned during the incident.

9: The Coast Guard, aided by game wardens, captured a 7-foot, 1,000-pound female moose in downtown Duluth, Min­nesota, and released her in a more natural environment. She was shipped off in a snowmobile trailer.

11: Cutters Ute (WMEC-76) and Chase (WHEC-718) turned back an 18- foot sailboat with eight Haitians on board off Southeastern Cuba. This was the fifth such incident since 10 October 1981.

designer and builder of oxygen generators for submarines

TREADWELL CORPORATION, 1700 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, N. Y. 10019

15: The Coast Guard and other agen­cies worked to clean up a 2,000-gallon oil (Continued on page 258)

The U. S. Coast Guard in 1982

spill in San Francisco harbor. The entire operation took four days.

17: Coast Guard personnel from cutter Bibb (WHEC-31) seized the 116-foot Grimurkamban carrying approximately 50 tons of marijuana about 270 miles southeast of Cape Cod. This was the larg­est seizure in New England waters.

24: Cutter Venturous (WMEC-625) relieved the Canadians of the task of keeping an eye on a Soviet intelligence trawler Sarychev at the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It is believed that the Soviet ship was there to monitor the arrival of the Trident submarine Ohio.

30: Two Coast Guardsmen were killed when a C-130 crashed in the Aleutian Is­lands. Nine survived.

August

12: The first Trident submarine, the USS Ohio (SSBN-726), entered her home port at Bangor, Washington. The Coast Guard had to spray water from fire hoses in the path of protesters’ boats to keep them away from the submarine.

16: A Coast Guardsman lowered on a cable from an HH-3 helicopter plucked an injured pilot from the side of the 1,500-foot-steep Beare glacier in the Robinson Mountain Range after his plane had crashed near Juneau, Alaska.

September

6: The Coast Guard seized the 270-

Members of the National Strike Force check chemical levels after train de­railment near Livingston, Louisiana.

foot Bulgarian-registered trawler Argo­naut 35 miles off Coos Bay, Oregon. The captain of the trawler was accused of not maintaining an accurate record of fish caught.

10: A woman was crushed to death beneath a lifeboat and two passengers in­jured as tourists abandoned the cruise ship Majestic Explorer in Alaskan wa­ters. The ship had grounded in Frederick Sound and the passengers were removed as a precautionary measure. The Coast Guard is responsible for inspecting pas­senger-carrying ships to see that they comply with U. S. law and for determin­ing the cause or causes of accidents by U. S.-flag ships or in U. S. waters.

22: The motor vessel Poinciana, car-

rying hazardous chemicals as pa ^ cargo, took on water and bloc x _e Miami River. The Coast Guar _re. Safety Office in Miami directe .^nii- floating of the ship. Some of t ^e _aVOjd cals on board had to be remove ^ _£X. environmental damage or person posure.           . ₀the^r

24: The Coast Guard, ^ald,n® _ed to state and federal agencies, con i work on the removal of a         gj_ver

freighter which sank in the M^ia ^ and completely blocked tra * freighter was raised the next d^_iirablt 25: Coast Guard cutter (WMEC-628) seized two U‘ ,_onS of tered fishing boats, carrying . j_a marijuana, off the Yucatan f*^enl _onnel 28: Chemical spill response F fotce of the Coast Guard National S^trj. j_a|s in assisted other federal and state 0 monitoring during cleanup o ^C_vj_ngst°^fl’ after a train derailment in ¹ Louisiana.

October                                             ^

1: An Appeals Court ^uP^held                 dnP^s

Guard’s right to board and se g ju-

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1982 Coast Guard Statistics

Law Enforcement                                             Search and Rescue

Cases................................................... 265

Vessels seized..................................... 201

Marijuana seized .... 3,730,058   pounds

Cocaine seized..................... 93.12. pounds

Thai sticks seized................. 3,190  pounds

Hashish seized........................... 18 pounds

Dangerous drugs seized . .61,628 doses Arrests made           1,158

Total value of contraband estimated at $2,089,­430,000. (All figures include assistance cases to other agencies.)

Cases............................................. 68,303

Responses...................................... 75,338

Sorties............................................ 87,232

Lives saved...................................... 5,631

Lives lost......................................... 1,892

Persons otherwise assisted .... 157,668

(Search and Rescue statistics are incomplete. These numbers reflect information processed at Headquar­ters by 27 January 1983.)

11: Cutter Vigorous (WME _[0 the cued three men who were cling¹ j^arnr¹ overturned 60-foot sailboat         The

Gonzo off Cape Cod, Massac           w'¹'¹

seas were running 30 to 4U heavy winds. The boat s P^os' _r6|_ayed determined through a radio sig^na by a Soviet satellite.        plafl^e

16: A Colombian Air For                ^

ditched in the Atlantic Ocean               fhr

Jersey with 13 persons on ° .^_v,jd- Coast Guard rescued eight of t ottiers- uals but was unable to save t

November

7: Cutter Duane (WHEC-33)                 *,,

the 240-foot freighter                         QcA

about 400 miles southeast of ^Ca ^ tfic The cutter had to fire shots ³         glu

freighter’s bow to make her s             0

was carrying approximately marijuana.   , _„,,_ed ^

9: The Coast Guard rescu

^stfanded lie •,

Qieshi • ^sai'^ors from the 42-foot Cutter T,⁰¹®*^{11 m}'les off the Cuban coast. Penni_s ■ ^m (^VMEC-630) had received ^to enter^h ^^r°^{m t}^^le Cuban Government 16:      p country’s territorial waters.

(WHe_c T^^>asl Guard cutter Taney board _tu * rescued seven persons on Klary, ^the disabled 50-foot ketch Was with^Vtr          blorth Carolina. The craft

adrift f„ °^Ut *°°d ^or power and had been

l7: T_h^{rtW0 da}ys-

and Sh ^{C SUr}^^ace effect ships Sea Hawk These earwater were commissioned. ^lhird_< ^Peedy cutters, to be joined by a Their _Dl.^{ere stat}'oned in Florida waters, unary task will be drug interdic­tion. These were the first cutters pur­chased specifically for law enforcement to be commissioned since Prohibition days.

23: The nuclear-powered guided mis­sile cruiser Mississippi (CGN-41), with a Coast Guard boarding party embarked, became the first Navy ship to assist di­rectly in the seizure of a drug-laden ship on the high seas. The seized craft was carrying 30 tons of marijuana.

29: The Coast Guard chased and fired on a freighter off the coast of Georgia as part of a coordinated federal drug raid. Forty-five tons of marijuana were seized and 38 persons arrested.

December

6: Coast Guardsmen assisted in rescu­ing flood victims on the Mississippi River. Helicopters and small craft oper­ated by the Coast Guard and volunteers evacuated as many as 18,000 residents.

9: Cutter Unimak (WHEC-379) suc­ceeded in towing the stricken Gloucester scalloper Sacred Heart away from dan­gerous David Banks, 45 miles east of Cape Cod. Seas were running at 30 feet with 50 mph winds.

20: Members of the National Strike Force traveled to Caracas, Venezuela, to advise officials in pollution control fol­lowing oil storage tank explosions at a power plant.

Dr. Scheina is the Coast Guard’s official historian. He has contributed a number of Coast Guard items to the Proceedings, including an account of the 1980 Cuban refugee rescue effort which was published in the special Coast Guard issue of the Proceedings in October of that year. He is also author of U. S. Coast Guard Cutters & Craft of World War II, which was published by the Naval Institute Press in 1982.