From http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-cp/history/Chronology_Oct.html DAILY CHRONOLOGY OF COAST GUARD HISTORY: OCTOBER DAILY CHRONOLOGY of COAST GUARD HISTORY OCTOBER 1 October 1926-An airways division, headed by a chief engineer, was set up as a part of the Lighthouse Service, its work covering the examination of airways and emergency landing fields and the erection and maintenance of aids to air navigation. 1943-Coast Guard-manned LST-203 stranded in Southwest Pacific. 1976- Coast Guard personnel are required to change to the new "Bender Blues" uniforms by this date. 1991- The CGC Storis became the oldest commissioned cutter in the Coast Guard when the Fir was decommissioned. The cutter's crew painted her hull number "38" in gold in recognition of her status. 1996- Operation Frontier Shield commences. It is the largest counter-narcotics operation in Coast Guard history. 2 October 1789-Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton asked collectors of customs to report on expediency of employing boats for the "security of the revenue against contraband." 3 October 1898-The American barkentine, Wanderinq Jew lost her sails and sprung a leak during the severe hurricane of October 2. Stranded and sunk during the night. 11 miles E by S from station at Sullivans Island, SC. On account of distance and frequent heavy rain squalls, she was not sighted by station lookout until 3:30 pm on the following day. Surfboat was launched and the ship was found abandoned by her crew. 4 October 1918-There was an explosion at the T.A. Gillespie Co. munitions yard in Morgan, NJ. Coast Guardsmen from Perth Amboy responded. When fire threatened a trainload of TNT, these men repaired the track and moved the train to safety, thus preventing further disaster. Two Coast Guardsmen were killed in this effort. 1956-Two U.S. Air Force F-89 aircraft crashed in rugged mountain terrain about four miles from Mount Olympus, WA. For seven days, the Coast Guard directed a highly coordinated search for the lost plane and crews. Finally, aircraft and helicopters from the CG Air Station, Port Angeles, WA, assisted by aircraft and ground search elements from other services located and evacuated the four crew members, one of whom had died. 1980- A fire breaks out on the Dutch cruise vessel Prinsendam off Ketchikan, AK. Coast Guard helicopters and the cutters Boutwell, Mellon, and Woodrush respond in concert with other vessels in the area and rescue all of the passengers and crew without loss of life. 5 October 1938- The first members are enrolled in the Coast Guard Reserve. 6 October 1881-At daylight the crew of Station No. 1, First District (Carrying Point Cove, West Quoddy Head, ME), sighted a schooner at anchor some four miles east-southeast of the station. She did not appear to be in distress, and as no signal was made it was supposed she had simply anchored to await the abatement of the winds, which at the time was blowing strong from the northwest. The keeper ordered a close watch on the schooner, in case she should signal for assistance. At 11 a .m. the lookout observed a boat leave her side and attempt to reach land, but the gale was too much for it and the effort had to be abandoned. The boat returned to the schooner. Upon arriving alongside, the keeper found the schooner to be Eclipse, of Eastport, ME and that she had encountered a heavy squall the afternoon previous. It had split her sails and started her leaking badly. In this condition they had anchored her during the night, about two miles from the land, her crew, three in number, being almost exhausted by their efforts to keep her free. The life-saving crew at once turned to and pumped her out and made temporary repairs on the sails, and then worked her up into a safe harbor. 8 October 1847-Secretary of Treasury Walker ordered reduction in expenditures by lowering complements on revenue cutters. 9 October 1852-The Lighthouse Board, which would administer the lighthouse system until 1 July 1910, was organized. "This Board was composed of two officers of the Navy, two officers of the Engineer Corps, and two civilians of high scientific attainments whose services were at the disposal of the President, and an officer of the Navy and of the, Engineers as secretaries. It was empowered under the Secretary of the Treasury to "discharge all the administrative duties" relative to lighthouses and other aids to navigation. The Secretary of the Treasury was president of the Board, and it was authorized to elect a chairman and to divide the coast of the United States into twelve lighthouse districts, to each of which the President was to assign an army or navy officer as lighthouse inspector." 1858-The Secretary of the Treasury appointed a 3 man Board of U.S.H.M. officers to consider a lifeboat design best adapted for life-saving work. 1945-USS PC-590 (Coast Guard-manned) grounded and sank in typhoon off Okinawa. 10 October 1798-Secretary Stoddert, first Secretary of the Navy, sent first instructions to cutters acting in cooperation with Navy via collectors of customs. 11 October 1896- The crew of the Pea Island (NC) Life-Saving Station performed one of their finest rescues. The three-masted schooner E.S. Newman, sailing from Providence, RI to Norfolk, VA ran into a hurricane. Pushed before the storm, the ship lost all sails and drifted almost 100 miles before it ran aground about two miles south of the Pea Island Lifesaving Station. The station keeper, Richard Etheridge, had discontinued the routine patrols due to the high water that had inundated the island. Surfman Theodore Meekins, however, saw what he thought was a distress signal and lit a Coston flare. He then called to Etheridge to look for a return signal. Both strained to look through the storm. Moments later, they saw a faint signal of a vessel in distress. Etheridge, a veteran of nearly twenty years, readied the crew. They hitched mules to the beach cart and hurried toward the vessel. Arriving on the scene, they found Captain S.A. Gardiner and eight others clinging to the wreckage. Unable to fire a line because the high water prevented the Lyle Gun’s deployment, Etheridge directed two surfmen to bind themselves together with a line. Grasping another line, the pair moved into the breakers while the remaining surfmen secured the shore end. The two surfmen reached the wreck and tied a line around one of the crewmen. All three were then pulled back through the surf by the crew on the beach. The remaining eight persons were carried to shore in this fashion. After each trip two different surfmen replaced those who had just returned. For their efforts the crew of the Pea Island Life-Saving Station were awarded the Gold Lifesaving Medal. [CLICK HERE FOR A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE PEA ISLAND LSS CREW] 1897-Property saved at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. During a severe storm the surf threatened to wash away a fish house, with valuable nets and other gear. Surfmen saved the property and took it to a place of safety. They also assisted lighthouse keeper to remove lenses of beacon to secure place. The lighthouse was in danger of being washed down by the sea. 12 October 1897- Near Corson Inlet, NJ a man and two women were endangered by the sea sweeping around a their house 1/2 mile from the station. Life-savers answered signal of distress and rescued them in the surfboat. 13 October 1883-Between 4 and 5 o’clock in the afternoon, a small sailboat, owned at West Hampton, NY, capsized In crossing the bay with one man on board. Three of the crew of the Petunk Station (Third District) sprang into a skiff, rowed out, rescued the man, and towed the boat ashore. 1988: The first U.S. merchant marine World War II veterans receive their Coast Guard issued discharge certificates. Congress gave the merchant mariners veterans' status and tasked the Coast Guard with administering the discharges. 1995: The cutter Ida Lewis is launched, the first of the new 175-foot Keeper class buoy tenders. 14 October 1801-Secretary of the Treasury Gallatin announced the decision to reduce "Revenue Cutter Establishment" as near as circumstances will permit within its original limits. 1943-USCGC E.M. Dow grounded and abandoned near Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. All hands were saved. 1947-USCGC Bibb rescued 62 passengers and 7 crew members of the transatlantic flying boat Bermuda Sky Queen in mid-Atlantic. 1961-After US Air Force B-52G [serial number 58-196??] with eight persons aboard was reported overdue and possibly down in the Atlantic Ocean somewhere off Newfoundland, the US Coast Guard commander, Eastern Area, coordinated the extensive search that resulted. Participating in it were 79 US Coast Guard, Navy, Air Force, and Canadian aircraft, 5 US Coast Guard cutters, and 2 merchant ships. Despite this search that lasted through 18 October and covered 286,225 square miles, no trace of the missing B-52 or its crew was found. 15 October 1846-USRC McLane ran aground while attempting to cross the bar of the River Alvarado during the Mexican War. 1944-USCGC Eastwind, supported by Southwind, captured the German trawler Externsteine in East Greenland, 800 miles south of North Pole off Shannon Island, after destroying Nazi radio station on Little Koldewey Island. 16 October 1790-Contract entered into for the construction of the "first" of the 10 revenue cutters, Massachusetts at Newburyport, MA. 1952-A Merchant Marine Detail was established at Yokohama, Japan to handle increased merchant marine problems occurring there as a result of the Korean Conflict. 1956- CGC Pontchartrain on Ocean Station November rescued the passengers and crew of Pan American Clipper Flight 943 which ditched between Honolulu and San Francisco. 17 October 1814-The crew of USRC Eagle driven ashore near Negros Head, NY in an encounter with the British brig, Dispatch dragged guns up bluff and continued battle, using log books for cartridges and returning enemy’s small shot lodged in hull. 1989- An earthquake hits Northern California, killing 67 people. Coast Guard units assisted state agencies in rescue and relief operations. 18 October 1799-USRC Pickering (70 men) captured French privateer L’Egypte Conquiste (250 men). 1848-Captain Douglas Ottinger, USRM, was designated by the Secretary of the Treasury to supervise the construction of the first Life-Saving Stations and the equipment and boats to be place at them. 19 October 1881-The sloop Zulu Chief with four passengers and a crew of two men struck the bar off Hog Island Inlet, VA at a point about half a mile from the beach. The accident occurred at 11 o’clock am in plain view of the crew of Station No. 9, Fifth District, on Hog Island. They launched the surfboat and went to the sloop’s assistance. She was pounding heavily and lay in a very dangerous position. The life-saving crew went to work without delay and carried out her anchors and succeeded in saving the vessel. 20 October 1892-After ten years of difficult and costly construction, the St. George Reef Lighthouse, built on a rock lying six miles off the northern coast of California, midway between Capes Mendocino and Bianco, was first lighted. 1920-The Superintendent of the 5th Lighthouse District inspected the aids to navigation "in New River Inlet and Bogue Sound, NC by hydroplane in two hours, which would have required at least four days by other means of travel, owning to the inaccessibility of the aids inspected." 1944-Landings on Leyte, Philippine Islands. 1950- President Harry S. Truman issued an executive order subsequent to the passage of the Magnuson Act. This act, passed to ensure the safety of the country, tasked the USCG with the port security mission. 1978- The cutter Cuyahoga sinks after colliding with M/V Santa Cruz II near the mouth of the Potomac River. 11 Coast Guard personnel are killed. 22 October 1853-English ship Western World grounded off Spring Lake, NJ during a gale with about 600 persons on board. Everyone was rescued using equipment at the nearby station. 1960-Early in the morning, SS Alcoa Corsair and SS Lorenzo Marcello collided near the mouth of the Mississippi River. Although the Lorenzo Marcello suffered no casualties and could proceed to New Orleans, Alcoa Corsair had 8 fatalities, 9 injured, and 1 missing, besides being forced to beach because of severe damages. A Coast Guard Helicopter removed 4 of the critically injured crewmen, while Coast Guard boats and other craft ferried the remaining ones ashore to waiting ambulances. 1962- Shortly after a Northwest Airlines DC-7 with 102 occupants ditched in the waters of Sitka Sound, Alaska, a US Coast Guard amphibian sighted 5 life rafts. All on board survived, although three suffered minor injuries. A Federal Aviation Administration supply boat picked up the survivors, later transferring them to the USCGC Sorrel, which took them to Sitka, Alaska. 25 October 1941-South Greenland Patrol expanded to include 3 cutters of the Northeast Greenland Patrol and form the Greenland Patrol. 28 October 1943-Choiseul, Treasury Islands landing (Coast Guard-manned LST-71 was in second echelon November 1, 1943). 29 October 1883-At a quarter before 4 o’clock In the morning the two surfmen on patrol from the Plum Island Station (Second District), below Newburyport, MA, discovered a vessel ashore on the south breaker at the entrance of Newburyport Harbor, about half a mile northeast of the station. A signal was made to her that she was seen and the men hurried to the station and gave the alarm. The boat reached her shortly after 4 o’clock. She was the schooner Forest Maid with a crew of seven men bound on a fishing cruise. While going out over the bar, the wind being light, she had been carried by the strong ebb tide on to the shoal. The first thing done by her crew was to let go an anchor to hold her, but finding she continued to drive farther on they veered away. They were disappointed, for she soon fetched up hard and fast with ninety fathoms of cable out. As the water was still falling nothing could be done until the flood tide. The life-saving crew remained on board and when the tide began to rise at 8 o’clock, commenced operations by heaving in on the cable, The wind freshened considerably while they were at work, raising quite a swell, which caused the schooner to pound heavily. They persevered, however, gaining a little every time she lifted on the seas, so that by 9 o’clock the schooner was safely afloat and on her way back into the harbor, apparently none the worse for the accident. 30 October 1956-USCGC Chincoteague manning Ocean Station Delta in the North Atlantic, received a distress message that the German freighter Helgs Bolten was taking on water and wished to abandon ship as soon as possible. After reaching the scene some hours later, the cutter found that the high winds and 25-foot seas made it impossible to launch lifeboats. Two inflatable lifeboats, therefore, were passed by shot line to the freighter, and the 33 crewmen aboard were removed to the cutter unharmed. USCGC Chincoteague then stood by the drifting vessel for seven days, while commercial tugs made salvage attempts. In the all of the survivors returned on board the cutter to Norfolk. VA while a tug towed Helg Bolten to the Azores. 31 October 1904-Cape Elizabeth, ME- The morning watch reported a dory adrift 2 miles off the station, and the crew put out in surfboat and towed It to shore. 1984- The tanker Puerto Rican exploded outside of San Francisco Bay. Coast Guard units responded. 1999-EgyptAir Flight 990 crashes about 60 miles southeast of Nantucket. Coast Guard units, including the CGC Monomoy, Spencer, Reliance, Bainbridge Island, Juniper, Point Highland, Hammerhead, a HC-130 from Elizabeth City and an HH-60 from Air Station Cape Cod, search unsuccessfully for any survivors. All 217 persons on board were killed in the crash. Coast Guard units then assisted in the recovery of debris. [Daily Chronology] [Historians' Office] [USCG Home Page] Added: January 1998 Updated: October 2002