From http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-cp/history/Chronology_Jul.html DAILY CHRONOLOGY OF COAST GUARD HISTORY: JULY DAILY CHRONOLOGY of COAST GUARD HISTORY JULY 1 July 1797- Cutters’ complements increased by Congress to not more than 30 marines and seamen and employed to defend the sea coast, while protecting the revenue. 1885- The Bureau of Navigation was permanently organized in accordance with the provisions of the Act of Congress of 3 March 1885. 1903- The Lighthouse Service, along with other activities having to do with navigation, was transferred from the Treasury Department to the Department of Commerce and Labor. 1910- Under the Organic Act of 1910, Mr. George R. Putnam and Mr. John S. Conway took office as the first Commissioner of Lighthouses and first Deputy Commissioner of Lighthouses, respectively. 1910- The Lighthouse Board was terminated, its place being take by the newly organized Bureau of Lighthouses. 1918- Congress directed that retired officer personnel may be recalled to active duty during war or national emergency. 1921- A system of longevity increase of pay, after six months’ service for the unappointed members of the crews of Light-house Service vessels, was introduced for the first time as a means of maintaining "a more efficient personnel on these vessels." 1924- An adjustment of the compensation of vessel officers in the Lighthouse Service was made effective in order to bring the pay of these positions more nearly on a level with that of similar Positions in the U .S. Shipping Board, the Lake Carriers Association, and other shipping interests. 1939- Lighthouse Service of Department of Commerce transferred to Coast Guard under President’s Reorganization Plan No. 11. 1939- Under the President’s Reorganization Plan No. 11, made effective this date by Public Resolution No. 20, approved 7 June 1939, it was provided "that the Bureau of Lighthouses in the Department of Commerce and its functions be transferred to and consolidated with and administered as a part of the Coast Guard. This consolidation made in the interest of efficiency and economy, will result in the transfer to and consolidation with the Coast Guard of the system of approximately 30,000 aids to navigation (including light vessels and lighthouses) maintained by the Lighthouse Service on the sea and lake coasts of the United States, on the rivers of the United States, and on the coasts of all other territory under the jurisdiction of the United States with the exception of the Philippine Island and Panama Canal proper." Plans were put into effect, "Providing for a complete integration with the Coast Guard of the personnel of the Lighthouse Service numbering about 5,200, together with the auxiliary organization of 64 buoy tenders, 30 depots, and 17 district offices." 1941- Northeast Greenland Patrol organized in Boston. 1946- As a final step in the return of the Coast Guard to the Treasury Department from wartime operation under the Navy Department, the Navy directional control of the following Coast Guard functions was terminated: search and rescue functions, maintenance and operation of ocean weather stations and air-sea navigational aids in the Atlantic, continental United States, Alaska, and Pacific east of Pearl Harbor. 1957- USCGC Storis, Bramble, and Spar depart Seattle for their traversal of the Northwest Passage. The three arrived in Boston after the successful completion of the mission around 19 September 1957. 1958- The new Atlantic merchant vessel position reporting program was established. It was aimed at encouraging domestic and foreign merchant vessels to send voluntary position reports and navigational data to US Coast Guard shore based radio stations and ocean station vessels. Relayed to a ships' plot center in New York and processed by machine, these data provided updated position information for US Coast Guard rescue coordination centers. The centers could then direct only those vessels which would be of effective aid to craft or persons in distress. This diversion of all merchant ships in a large area became unnecessary. 1991- A 14th Coast Guard District LEDET, all crewmen from the CGC Rush, deployed on board the U.S. Navy's USS Ingersoll, made history when they seized the St. Vincent-registered M/V Lucky Star for carrying 70 tons of hashish; the largest hashish bust in Coast Guard history. The team, led by LTJG Mark Eyler, made the bust 600 miles west of Midway Island. 2 July 1836- Captain’s pay increased to $1200 per annum, 1st Lieutenant’s to $960, 2nd Lieutenant’s to $860, 3rd Lieutenants to $790. 1937- USCGC Itasca, while conducting re-supply operations in the Central Pacific, makes the last-known radio contact with Amelia Earhart and her co-pilot Fred Noonan. Itasca later joins the Navy-directed search for the aircraft. The search is finally called off on 17 July with no trace of the aircraft having been found. 3 July 1905- An Executive Order extended the jurisdiction of the Lighthouse Service to the noncontiguous territory of the American Samoan Island. 1918- Congress passed Migratory Bird Act - Coast Guard enforced after 1936 passage of Act to Define Jurisdiction of Coast Guard. 1927- Ensign Charles L. Duke, in command of CG-2327, boarded the rumrunner Greypoint in New York harbor and single-handedly captured 22 prisoners and its cargo of illegal liquor. 1986- The Statue of Liberty Centennial Celebration takes place in New York harbor. The Coast Guard, especially the activities on Governor's Island, was in the "forefront" of the celebration. 4 July 1881- At half past four in the afternoon the lookout at Station No. 11 Eleventh District (Chicago, Illinois), observed a small boat with one man in it capsize on Lake Michigan about a mile south of the station. The life-saving crew put off with all the haste possible to the rescue, but before they could reach the spot the man had been picked up by a passing boat and was safe. They righted the boat, however, and bailed it out and towed it ashore all right. 5 July 1884- An Act of Congress (23 Stat. L., 118) created a special service known as the Bureau of Navigation, under the Treasury Department, with the duty of supervising the work having to do with the administration of American navigation laws. "The act specifically allotted to the bureau the numbering of vessels and the preparation of the annual list of merchant vessels of the United States." 6 July 1809- Twelve new cutters authorized by Congress to enforce President Jefferson’s embargo. 1942- Coast Guard plane V-166 landed and took aboard 21 survivors in Gulf of Mexico. 7 July 1798- Hostilities began in Quasi-War with France. USRC Pickering, Virginia, Scammel, South Carolina, Governor, Jay, Eagle, General Greene, and Diligence were the first to be placed under naval orders, comprising about one-third the U .S. Fleet. 1801- Treasury Department circularized collectors looking toward reducing size of cutters and cut down their crews. 1838- Under the authority of an Act of Congress passed this date, the President divided the Atlantic coast into six, and the Great Lakes coast into two, lighthouse districts. A naval officer was detailed to each lighthouse district, a revenue cutter or a hired vessel was placed at his disposal, and he was instructed to inspect all aids to navigation, report on their conditions, and recommend future courses of action. 1884- Congress directed that cutters be used exclusively for public service and "in no way for private purposes." 1911- Convention signed between United States, Great Britain, Japan and Russia prohibiting taking of fur seals and sea otters in North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea, north of 300 latitude, except for food and clothing. 1939- On this date, "the Lighthouse Bureau went out of existence and its personnel moved themselves and their equipment to Coast Guard Headquarters from the Commerce Department building. Thus did lighthouses return to the Treasury Department. 8 July 1791- Secretary of Treasury authorizes collectors of customs to disburse for cutters and to pay officers as agents of the Secretary. 9 July 1942- USCGC McLane and the Coast Guard-manned patrol craft USS YP-251 reportedly sank Japanese submarine RO-32 off Sitka, Alaska. However, the Navy Department did not officially credit either with the sinking. The RO-32 was actually stricken from the Japanese Navy rolls in April, 1942 as obsolete and Japanese records indicated that no Japanese submarine was lost or damaged in Alaskan waters on that date. 1943- Coast Guard-manned ships land the first Allied troops in Sicily. 1946- Sixteen Coast Guardsmen were killed when their C-54 transport aircraft crashed into Mount Tom, Massachusetts. These Coast Guardsmen were all returning from duty in Greenland. 1986- A fire breaks out at the Bayonne, NJ, transfer facility. Coast Guard units respond to fight the fire. 10 July 1882- At 5 o’clock in the afternoon, during a violent storm of wind and rain, the steam-yacht John Bueg, of Rochester, New York, having on board a party of twelve excursionists, consisting of two men, two women, and eight children, was driven ashore one mile and a half east of the harbor piers at Charlotte, Lake Ontario, New York. She was discovered by a surfman of Station No. 4, Ninth District, who waded out to her in the surf, carried the children in his arms, and then assisted the women to the shore. The yacht was towed off by a steamer, having sustained slight damage. 11 July 1942- U .S. Maritime Service was transferred back to the War Shipping Administration after being under Coast Guard administration since February 28, 1942. 12 July 1953- Coast Guard aircraft and surface craft of the Search and Rescue Group at Wake Island joined with a large naval task unit in conducting an intensive search for a Transocean Air Lines DC-6 aircraft last reported about 300 miles east of Wake Island. The scene of the crash was located, and 14 bodies were recovered. 13 July 2001- USCGC Sherman became the first cutter to circumnavigate the globe when she returned to the United States from a six-month deployment to the Arabian Gulf in support of U.N. operations. 14 July 1926- The first radio-beacon established in Alaska, at Cape Spencer, was placed in commission. 1949-U.S. Coast Guardsmen from Point Allerton and Boston Lifeboat Stations figured prominently in one of the largest rescue operations in the history of Boston Harbor Mass. when they helped in removing 690 persons from the excursion steamer Nantasket, which had go a round in a thick fog off Peddock’s Island. 1960- Following the loss of a propeller, which resulted in fuselage damage and an engine fire, a Northwest Airlines CD-7C airliner carrying 58 persons ditched in Philippine waters. During the US Coast Guard coordinated air search in the vicinity of the Polillo Islands, a US Coast Guard UF amphibian aircraft sighted four life rafts, landed, and rescued 23 survivors. A US Navy P5M seaplane, meanwhile, rescued 34 others and also recovered from the water the body of the only fatality. 15 July 1870- Congress directs the revenue cutters on the northern and northwestern lakes when commissioned shall be specially charged with aiding vessels in distress on the lakes. 1870- An Act of Congress (l6 Stat. L., 291, 309) directed the Lighthouse Board to mark all pierheads belonging to the United States situated on the northern and northwestern lakes, as soon as it was notified that the construction or repair of pierheads had been completed. 1972- USCGC Absecon was decommissioned and transferred to the South Vietnamese Navy. This was the last of the seven 311-foot Casco-class cutters to be transferred to the South Vietnamese. 16 July 1946- Certain functions of former Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation permanently transferred to Coast Guard. 17 July 1893- Life-saving Station keeper H .E. Wilcox of Cape Arago Life-saving Station rescued 55 of 56 passengers of SS Emily that was capsizing in a raging sea. Persons were transported from the doomed vessel to the lifeboat via a life raft. 1994- The Polar Sea departed from Victoria, British Columbia on operation Arctic Ocean Section 1994 and becomes the first U.S. surface vessel to reach the North Pole. She then transited the Arctic Ocean back to her homeport in Seattle, WA. 1996- TWA Flight 800 crashes off New York with no survivors. Numerous Coast Guard units conduct search and rescue operations to no avail. 18 July 1866- Congress authorized officers to search vehicles and persons suspected of concealing contraband. 19 July 1883- At half past 1 in the afternoon, a boy named Frank Little, eight years old, while playing upon the Government wharf at Sand Beach, Michigan, fell overboard, and would have been drowned but for the assistance of Surfman James McCash, of Sand Beach Station (Tenth District), who hurried to the spot just in time to save him. 20 July 1917- An Executive Order extended the jurisdiction of the Lighthouse Service to the non-contiguous territory of the American Virgin Islands. 21 July 1947- President Truman signed H.R. 3539, which became Public Law No. 209, authorizing the Coast Guard to construct a suitable chapel for religious worship by any denomination, sect or religion at the US Coast Guard Academy in New London, CT. 1952- The USCGC Mackinac, enroute from New York to Ocean Station ECHO, and the SS Gripsholm, removed 45 of the 49 persons on board the SS Black Gull, which had caught fire in a position south of Block Island, Long Island, NY. 22 July 1881- A young man named Joseph Ryan, of Buffalo, New York, while bathing off the lighthouse pier at that place, was seized with cramps and sunk. One of the surfmen belonging to Station No. 5, Ninth District, about a quarter of a mile distant, was on duty at the pier and saw him disappear. Without a moment’s hesitation, he plunged into the water and succeeded in grasping Ryan by the hair and brought him safely to the shore. 23 July 1836- A band of Seminole Indians attacked and burned the Cape Florida lighthouse. 1947- Congress approved Public Law 219 which provided for the integration of the personnel of the former Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation into the regular military organization of the Coast Guard. This was effected during Fiscal Year 1948, "and the Service thus had a single unified organization to carry forward the correlated duty which prior to 1939 were divided among three different Federal agencies the Coast Guard, Lighthouse Service, and Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation." 24 July 1936- USCGC Cayuga was ordered to San Sebastian, Spain as the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War necessitated the evacuation of US citizens. While on this deployment the US ambassador to Spain and his staff came on board and the ship served as the US embassy in Spain. 1967- The Coast Guard Station at Rochester, New York was notified that a 16-foot sailboat with two youths aboard was overdue from a day’s sail. The weather was reported as: winds to 40 miles per hour in gusts during a thunderstorm, 1-2 foot seas, visibility 2 miles to zero in squalls. A motor lifeboat and a 30ft utility boat commenced a surface search. An aircraft was dispatched to conduct a first light air search. On the third expanded search the boat was located by the aircraft within the search area. 25 July 1947- The Women’s Reserve of the Coast Guard Reserve (SPARS) was made inactive. 1956- The Swedish liner Stockholm collides with the Italian liner Andrea Doria off Nantucket. Coast Guard and other vessels responded Andrea Doria sank 10 hours after the collision that resulted in 52 deaths. 26 July 1886- An Act of Congress (24 Stat. L., 148) authorized an increase in the number of lighthouse districts to 16 within the Lighthouse Establishment. 1846- USRC Woodbury put down a mutiny on board the troop ship Middlesex during the Mexican War. 27 July 1793- President ordered full complements for cutters and Increased monthly pay to $40 for Captains, $26 for 1st mates, $20 for 2nd mates, and $18 for 3rd mates. Captains to have subsistence of Captain in Army, three mates subsistence of Army Lieutenants and mariner’s subsistence not to exceed $10 per month. 1868- Secretary of Treasury directed by Congress to enforce law prohibiting unauthorized killing of fur seals in Alaska. Also President authorized to regulate traffic in firearms, ammunition and spirituous liquors in Alaska. President assigns Revenue Marine to police work necessary to enforce. 1957- A Captain of the Port patrol vessel discovered a fire of unknown origin at the Mystic Coal Yard in Boston, MA. The US Coast Guard Base, Boston, immediately rushed the USCGC Cactus, 150 Coast Guardsmen, and portable fire-fighting equipment to the scene. While the cutter moved a 450-foot Norwegian freighter away from the flaming dock, the shore party with the assistance of local agencies brought the fire under control. Eight Coast Guardsmen were hospitalized because of the injuries they received while fighting the fire. 28 July 1884- The Senate approved the appointment of Captain Jarvis Patten as Commissioner of Navigation to direct the work of the organization of the Bureau of Navigation, under the supervision of the Secretary of the Treasury. 1942- Coast Guard plane V-214 is credited with sinking the Nazi sub U-166 in Gulf of Mexico. 29 July 1898- USRC Bear took 97 survivors of whalers, caught in Arctic ice by overland expedition, and transported them to San Francisco. 30 July 1966- When the Coast Guard Station at Belle Isle, Michigan, received a report of a cabin cruiser afire at a boat dock, patrol boats were dispatched to the scene by radio. Within minutes, they were alongside the burning vessel, spraying water on the fire. The entire cabin cruiser was in flames, since its gas tanks had already blown up. The patrol boats, to minimize the damage to nearby facilities, towed the burning craft out of the marina. When notified that a woman was still on board, two Coast Guardsmen boarded the flaming cruiser and checked the cabin, only to find no one. As it turned out, the woman had already jumped overboard and made her way to shore safely. The fire was eventually brought under control, but not before the expenditure of many gallons of foam. 31 July 1876- Congress re-establishes the Revenue Cutter cadet training after three years suspension and the institution of promotion by examination. 1894- Division of Revenue Cutter Service created with Captain of Revenue Cutter Service as Chief. 1985- The Coast Guard conducted a fleet dedication ceremony for the new 110-foot patrol boats in Lockport, LA. [Daily Chronology] [Historians' Office] [USCG Home Page] Added: January 1998 Updated: March 2002