50 Fun Facts About Coast Guard

Which Founding Father persuaded Congress in 1790 to create the Revenue Cutter Service?

As first Treasury Secretary he wanted the cutters to stop smugglers dodging the tariffs that funded the new government.

The Coast Guard celebrates its birthday on which date, when Congress authorized ten revenue cutters in 1790?

The Tariff Act also authorized just 40 revenue officers; each cutter got one master and three mates.

The modern Coast Guard was created on 28 January 1915 by merging the revenue cutters with which agency?

The Life-Saving Service's surfmen had an unofficial motto: 'You have to go out, but you don't have to come back.'

What is the Coast Guard's Latin motto?

It means 'Always Ready'; the Marines' Semper Fidelis and Space Force's Semper Supra are the others.

Which federal department has the Coast Guard operated under in peacetime since 2003?

It sat in the Treasury from 1790 to 1967 and Transportation from 1967 to 2003, and can be transferred to the Navy in wartime.

Which cabinet agency did the Coast Guard belong to for its first 177 years, until 1967?

Its original job was collecting customs revenue, so it reported to the same department as the tax collectors.

The Coast Guard is by far the smallest US armed service. Roughly how many active-duty personnel does it have?

Add roughly 7,700 reservists and 18,000-21,000 volunteer auxiliarists and it is still smaller than the New York Police Department.

Douglas Munro, the only Coast Guard Medal of Honor recipient, died shielding Marines in which 1942 campaign?

Shot while covering the evacuation at the Matanikau, his last words were reportedly 'Did they get off?'; Coast Guard headquarters in Washington is named for him.

In which country was Medal of Honor recipient Douglas Munro born?

He was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1919 and raised in Cle Elum, Washington, where his grave is now a historic site.

The Coast Guard training ship Eagle was originally built in 1936 for which navy?

Launched at Hamburg as the Horst Wessel, she was won by the US in a drawing of lots with the British and Soviets after the war.

What type of sailing rig does the 295-foot training cutter Eagle carry?

Nicknamed 'America's Tall Ship', she is homeported in New London and sails each summer with cadets aloft.

In which Connecticut city is the United States Coast Guard Academy?

Founded in 1876 as the School of Instruction of the Revenue Cutter Service, its teams are the Bears.

What makes admission to the Coast Guard Academy different from the other US service academies?

About 300 cadets arrive each summer and roughly 250 graduate as ensigns owing five years of service.

The Coast Guard's only recruit training centre, its boot camp, is in which New Jersey town?

The base has been in Coast Guard hands since 1924 and sits at 1 Munro Avenue.

The Coast Guard's famous diagonal 'racing stripe' was designed by the firm of which industrial designer?

President Kennedy, pleased with Loewy's Air Force One livery, suggested the Coast Guard as the next federal makeover.

At what angle are the Coast Guard racing stripe's bars canted, matching the year it was drawn?

Designed in 1964, the slash appeared across the whole service on April 6, 1967.

Who wrote the Coast Guard's official march, penning the words in 1922 and the music in 1927 in Alaska?

He wrote the lyrics in his cabin aboard the cutter Yamacraw in Savannah and the tune while stationed in Unalaska, Alaska.

The SPARS, the Coast Guard's women's branch in World War II, took their name from what?

About 11,000 women served; the Coast Guard was the only service to train women officer candidates at its own academy.

Who was the first director of the SPARS, previously Purdue's first full-time dean of women?

She was appointed a lieutenant commander in November 1942; a cutter now bears her name.

The Finest Hours (2016) dramatises the 1952 Coast Guard rescue of which broken tanker's crew?

Bernard Webber's 36-foot motor lifeboat CG 36500, built for 12, came back with 32 survivors aboard.

How many survivors did coxswain Bernard Webber bring back on the 12-man lifeboat CG 36500 in 1952?

Nine of the tanker's 41 crew were lost, and Chris Pine played Webber in the film.

The Coast Guard-run International Ice Patrol was established in 1914 in response to which disaster?

Every 15 April a wreath is dropped at the wreck site, and 13 shipping nations still fund the patrol.

Under what original name did Congress create the Coast Guard Auxiliary in 1939?

It was renamed the Auxiliary in 1941; its 18,000 or so members are barred from law-enforcement duties.

Which Coast Guard programme followed the 1983 Marine Electric sinking, when aircrews couldn't enter the water?

Rescue swimmers, formally Aviation Survival Technicians, train at Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and there were 300 of them within six years.

Which 2006 Coast Guard rescue-swimmer film starred Kevin Costner as instructor and Ashton Kutcher as trainee?

Andrew Davis directed; the script was rewritten after Hurricane Katrina to include those rescues.

The Coast Guard icebreaker Healy became in 2015 the first unaccompanied US surface vessel to reach where?

Commissioned in 1999 and homeported in Seattle, she carries up to 50 scientists and is named for Revenue Cutter captain Michael Healy.

The icebreaker Polar Star breaks a channel each year to resupply which Antarctic base?

Commissioned in 1976, she can smash through 21 feet of ice by backing and ramming and became America's only heavy icebreaker in 2010.

The Coast Guard's MH-65 Dolphin helicopter is a variant of an aircraft from which country?

It is based on the Eurocopter AS365 Dauphin and was the first helicopter certified with a four-axis autopilot for hands-off hovering.

The Coast Guard's MH-60 Jayhawk belongs to the same Sikorsky family as which Army helicopter?

It derives from the Navy's SH-60 Seahawk and entered Coast Guard service in June 1990 with a range of 260 nautical miles offshore.

To be called a 'cutter', a Coast Guard vessel must be at least how long?

It must also have a permanently assigned crew living aboard; anything smaller is a 'boat'.

The Coast Guard's Legend-class National Security Cutters are built at a shipyard in which state?

Huntington Ingalls builds them at Pascagoula; the lead ship Bertholf entered service in 2008.

During Hurricane Katrina in 2005, roughly how many people did the Coast Guard rescue or evacuate?

That was six times as many as the service saved in the whole of 2004.

What mocking nickname did the Coast Guard pick up chasing rum-runners in old destroyers during Prohibition?

The four-stack destroyers helped fight the 'Rum War' of the 1920s.

What was the D-Day flotilla of 60 wooden 83-foot Coast Guard rescue cutters nicknamed?

They pulled 400 Allied airmen and sailors from the Channel on 6 June 1944.

The United States Lighthouse Service was absorbed into the Coast Guard in which year?

Lighthouses had been a federal job since 7 August 1789, before the revenue cutters even existed.

In Vietnam, Coast Guard cutters served under the Navy in Operation Market Time. What was the mission?

Twenty-six Point-class cutters were sent to interdict supplies moving from the South China Sea into South Vietnam.

Which Newport lighthouse keeper was the first woman awarded the Gold Lifesaving Medal, in 1881?

Called 'the bravest woman in America', she met President Grant, and the first Keeper-class buoy tender was named for her in 1995.

The revenue cutter Bear, the Coast Guard's most famous ship, was best known for patrols where?

Under 'Hell Roaring Mike' Healy she carried Siberian reindeer to Alaska; she sank under tow in 1963 and the wreck was found in 2021.

A Coast Guard cutter docked as a museum in Maryland is the last floating warship from which battle?

Formerly named Taney, she was renamed simply WHEC-37 in 2020 because her namesake wrote the Dred Scott decision.

Which Michigan town, home of the Coast Guard Festival, was named 'Coast Guard City, USA' by Congress in 1998?

The festival began as a personnel-only picnic in 1924 and now draws about 350,000 people each August.

The Coast Guard's only shipyard, founded in 1899, sits on Curtis Bay in which city?

It is the largest industrial facility in the Department of Homeland Security and was the first US government body to earn ISO 9001 certification.

In October 1980, Coast Guard, Air Force and Canadian helicopters lifted all 520 people off the burning cruise ship Prinsendam in which waters?

Nobody was lost or seriously hurt despite the ship burning 120 nautical miles from Yakutat.

From which Cuban harbour did the 1980 flotilla bring about 125,000 Cubans to Florida?

Around 1,700 boats made the crossing between April and October in what became known as the Mariel boatlift.

Unlike its American counterpart, the Canadian Coast Guard, formed in 1962, is what kind of organisation?

It runs 119 vessels and 23 helicopters, including the icebreakers that keep the St. Lawrence and Arctic open.

HM Coastguard was founded in Britain in 1822 with what primary objective?

Today it coordinates UK search and rescue while the volunteer RNLI actually crews the lifeboats.

The Japan Coast Guard was founded in 1948 under what earlier English name?

It took its current name in 2000 and answers to the transport ministry, with a motto of 'Righteous Benevolence'.

The Coast Guard ensign, first flown in 1799, carries how many vertical stripes?

The count matched the number of states at the time; the flag is flown only as a symbol of law-enforcement authority, never as a parade standard.

Which admiral's 1974 uniform overhaul dropped the enlisted sailor suit for a common service dress?

Coast Guard uniforms had mirrored the Navy's for most of the service's history and remain among the simplest of any branch.

Which telegraph operator became the Coast Guard's first woman, enlisting as an electrician in 1918?

She was the only woman to serve during World War I and now has a cutter named after her.

Which Roots author is among the famous Coast Guard veterans, along with Tom Waits and Arnold Palmer?

Other notable Coasties include boxer Jack Dempsey, brothers Beau and Jeff Bridges, and comedian Sid Caesar.