Champions of Commerce

From Hamilton’s “few armed vessels” to cutters and LEDETs in modern war zones, a small revenue force evolved into a full-fledged armed service that has answered every call from the age of sail to the Global War on Terrorism.

Suspended above uncharted ice in a heated cabin, a young Coast Guard scientist watched the Graf Zeppelin map islands, mountains, and sea ice no one had ever seen from the air—and foresaw how aviation would transform Arctic safety.

From reindeer-driven rescues and wooden “ice resistant” cutters to Northwest Passage breakthroughs and new Polar Security Cutters, this story traces 150 years of operations that turned a frozen frontier into a year round mission set.

Kate began assisting her father with tasks around the station as a small child. By age 12, she had assumed all the duties her father could not accomplish due to his physical limitations and was, for all practical purposes, the lighthouse keeper.

Since the late 1800s, the United States Coast Guard and its predecessor agencies have played an essential role in U.S. polar operations. A new kind of ship, the icebreaker, evolved to serve U.S. commercial and strategic interests spread in the Arctic.

The Coast Guard has a rich history of underwater operations. Since the early 1940s, the service has nurtured a diving capability that has become vital to modern Coast Guard missions.

“Kill the engines,” Jackson ordered. In the eerie quiet, they heard a metallic tapping. Closer now, they saw a man in a second-story attic window, striking its metal bars with a quarter. He and his bedridden, 87-year-old mother had been trapped for days in water up to their necks. Jackson’s team sawed through the attic ceiling.

From evacuating stranded survivors to reopening critical waterways, the Coast Guard (USCG) performed heroically during Hurricane Katrina, but the widespread disaster exposed operational limitations that soon served as lessons learned and has resulted in sweeping changes in readiness, technology, and interagency collaboration.

Even before Katrina made initial landfall, the Coast Guard was closely coordinating with local vessels and the region’s maritime industry in order to help reduce loss of life and property – as well as avoid environmental impact. Beyond lifesaving, here are some of the ways the Coast Guard helped the nation recover after Hurricane Katrina.

Oftentimes during a crisis, an iconic image or object defines that moment. During the search and rescue effort following landfall of Hurricane Katrina, several of those images and relics became a hallmark of Aug. 29, 2005, the day the massive storm ravaged the Gulf Coast. To the men and women stationed at Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans, the air station’s sign became that iconic relic.