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Article: Rum-War-The-U-S--Coast-Guard---Prohibition-part-IV
1930-1933:The demise of Prohibition
The history of the Coast Guard role in Prohibition saw no outstanding developments in the last years of the law’s sway It remained a constant, sometimes niggling, battle of minor skirmishes. The numerical strength of the service continued to grow, though of course, not in leaps comparable to 1924 and 1925. By 1932, it was becoming obvious that repeal of the 18th amendment was coming, and some of the steam began to run out of enforcement efforts. On December 5, 1933 the 21st amendment became the law of the land and Prohibition was dead.
The Coast Guard came out of the Prohibition era quite different. It had grown substantially both in ships and personnel. The efforts expended had brought much experience to all levels of personnel, and in many types of endeavors. Aviation, radio, and intelligence operations were particular beneficiaries of Prohibition-related growth and the experiences would collectively benefit the service in the following years.
With the present emphasis on the illicit drug traffic and the Coast Guard role in what many perceive to be a parallel situation to Prohibition, it may be well to comment on the effectiveness of the service during the era.
Most authorities make the assumption that the failure of Prohibition automatically indicates the defeat of the enforcement mechanism. In this regard it should be pointed out that the sources for illicit alcohol in the U.S. were across land borders, from domestic manufacture, and from the seaboard. Domestic production exceeded by a large percentage the amount available from outside the country, whether by land or sea routes.
Furthermore, of the imported liquor in 1924, two-thirds came across from Canada, one-third from Rum Row. The obvious continued supply of alcohol throughout Prohibition, therefore, cannot be directly attributed to the Coast Guard. Additionally, it is well known that the majority of the high visibility gangsterism of the era was based on domestic beer production, not foreign liquor.
Unfortunately, it may never be possible to determine accurately the degree of success attained by the service in Prohibition. The illicit nature of the trade and its decentralization, it was not a unified institution which kept records, means that no true statistics will ever be available to show the level of success had by the Coast Guard. This writer believes, however, that some future historian will write a definitive study and find that the Coast Guard, particularly in the years immediately after the 1925 "offensive" was a great deal more effective than popularly believed at the time.
"The Real McCoy"
Popularly, the Prohibition era brings to mind notorious characters such as Al Capone, "Legs" Diamond, and others. "William S. McCoy", on the other hand, is hardly a household name, but his story and his name have become a part of Americana.
Captain McCoy was familiar figure along the Florida coast, having operated a motor boat service and a boat yard out of Jacksonville for many years before Prohibition began. The sea was in his blood. His father had, ironically, been in the Union Navy during the Civil War, serving on the blockade of Southern coasts.
By 1921 McCoy had gained a reputation as a skilled yacht builder, having constructed vessels for the likes of Andrew Carnegie, and for all-round dependability and honesty in his dealings. He was also, according to his own memoirs, a teetotaller.
After being approached by an obviously prosperous, though not far above the law boat-owner to skipper a load of liquor from the Bahamas at a handsome daily fee, McCoy began to see the financial possibilities available to skilled sailors in the Prohibition economy. Accordingly, he determined to go with the very best and entrained to Gloucester, Massachusetts to acquire one of the legendary and fast fishing schooners for his planned circumnavigation of the 18th amendment.
Henry L. Marshall was available for an investment of $20,000. She was a handsome Gloucester fisherman with knock-about rig and twin auxiliary engines for emergencies. She was able to carry 3,000 cases of liquor, re-packed into burlap sacks or "burlaps" for ease of storage. She was 90 feet long and built of white oak .She was also all he could afford at the time.
But this was not the case for long. Even before McCoy came to anchor in Nassau on her first voyage, a speedboat brought an entrepreneur with an offer, 1500 cases to Savannah at $10 per case. In less than two weeks McCoy had nearly recouped his vessel’s purchase price.
Amazed at the ease with which this astonishing sum was made, McCoy soon had a tidy sum and a growing circle of contacts, both in Nassau and in New York. In the latter, a member of a gangster-syndicate approached him with a lucrative offer. He wanted to know if he could "import" 5,000 cases at a crack.
The skipper lost no time in returning to Gloucester, this time to purchase the Arethusa, a vessel he considered the finest of the Gloucester-built fishing schooners. Her owners were bankrupt and she was for sale. McCoy got her for $21,000 although she had been appraised at twice that. He paid cash.
Rather than selling Henry L. Marshall, McCoy hired her out. This was his first mistake. He attempted to allay misgivings about the quality of the ship’s captain and crew by insisting his schooner be kept no less than 20 miles from the Jersey shore. Captain and crew got drunk and she drifted into the waiting arms of the Coast Guard Cutter Seneca. At least that was McCoy’s version of the story. The more official version had it that she was running under auxiliary engines while the crew was pitching liquor overboard double-quick. Though seized four miles out, the act was upheld on the grounds of a "conspiracy" to violate Customs laws and the Volstead Act.
Late in July of the same year, McCoy himself hove to off Long Island in Arethusa, now renamed Tomoka, with 5,000 cases. Two thousand of these were consigned to gangster backers. The remainder was "first come, first serve’ to all who could come alongside with the right color money. For a week Tomoka hovered and McCoy cleared $50,000 for his trouble.
McCoy claimed to be the originator of Rum Row: that line of floating bars and liquor "wholesalers" seen off major market cities in the early days of Prohibition just outside the three mile limit and therefore a mocking offense to the "drys". The rows would persist until international law was bent to scatter the fleet beyond 12 miles from shore.
After the seizure of the Henry L. Marshall, Captain McCoy returned to Nassau, concentrated on enlarging his fleet, and avoiding American arrest. When he finally returned in Tomoka in late 1922, his name was only one of many on the row off Fire Island. The way McCoy told it, he fell in with a friend selling "cheap rye from Cuba" who agreed to steer customers in search of quality stuff to McCoy, who had a reputation for only selling the best, "the real McCoy" The phrase put this rumrunner in the language.
Once his reputation was reestablished, Captain McCoy saw his profits soar and in 1923 he was bringing in $100,000 per voyage, with two vessels, the Tomoka and Gardner. His days were not all to be spent in high rolling cash, however.
As "founder" of rum row, and with an indictment against him outstanding in connection with the Henry L. Marshall, McCoy was certainly a sought-after catch for the enforcers of the Volstead Act. On November 24, 1923 off Seabright, New Jersey it happened. Tomoka was boarded and ordered to follow Seneca into port.
When a passenger liner passed between the two vessels, McCoy attempted a run to sea, but was not fast enough to outrun the cutter’s gun. Though outside the 3-mile limit at the time, the seizure was upheld and two years later Tomoka was auctioned off.
The same year saw McCoy incarcerated for nine months for rum running. He was released on Christmas Eve, 1925. Despite legal fees and the loss of two of his ships his illegal trade had been incredibly profitable. For over a year he had cleared $100,000 a month, total sufficient to retire on. And he did.
The "Six-Bitters" and the "400" boats
The largest single element in the Coast Guard expansion program of the mid1920s was the construction of 203 75-foot patrol boats, nicknamed ‘six-bitters’ by the service. These sturdy vessels became the mainstay of the anti-liquor war resulting from the Prohibition amendment to the Constitution and were far more numerous than any other class in the ‘20s and ‘30s.
These vessels were intended for offshore work. They were to picket the rum vessels beyond the 12-mile limit and prevent the contact vessels from obtaining their loads of liquor. In practice, such duties meant remaining 20 to 30 miles at sea for several days at a time. These mother ships were not built for speed. Consequently, the priorities in the design and construction of the 75-footers were "seaworthiness, habitability, and speed" with emphasis on the first two qualities. The construction program itself emphasized standardization, economy, and efficiency.
The design of these vessels, layout, machinery, operational features, and weight, emanated from the Coast Guard’s Superintendent of Construction and Repair Office. The second phase of the design, the final lines and plans, were prepared by John Trumpy a naval architect of the Mathis Yacht Building Company The dimensions were: length, overall: 74’ 11" (741" between perpendiculars); beam: 13’ 7 1/2"; draft: 3’ 9"; displacement: 37.5 tons.
The construction of the vessels was quite substantial, ranging from 5 3/4" keel to 1 3/8" planking. The frames and keel were white oak and the planking and bulwarks fir or yellow pine. Fir was used on the vessels constructed on the West Coast. Two six-cylinder gasoline engines powered the vessels and drove twin screws. Each developed 200 hp at 1200 rpm and the designed speed was 17 to 18 statute miles per hour. In the interests of standardization, the Sterling Engine Company of Buffalo, New York built all the engines at $4,129 each.
They were flush-decked, with pilothouse and two trunk cabins. One of the latter sheltered the engine spaces. The other was over crew accommodations. They were designed for a crew of eight men and a week at sea without return to base.
Actual construction of the vessels was a remarkable exercise in cooperation between the Coast Guard and the 17 boat builders eventually selected for the contracts. Prior to the completion of the final design, a conference of all interested builders was held to discuss the technical details of the plans with an eye towards formulating specifications in line with the general practice of the day
In the end each contractor built ten or fifteen vessels, depending on their capacity. There were supplemental contracts totaling 25 vessels made to Mathis Yacht Company and Gibbs Gas Engine Company and three of the vessels were built at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. Prices ranged from $18,675 to $26,900 each, not including engines.
Twenty-five boats were built on the West Coast, and an equal number on the Great Lakes. The Atlantic ‘bias" was a source of complaint among the contractors, but was in line with the policy of building the vessels close to their eventual stations. In fact, all twenty-five Pacific-built vessels remained there.
The pre-planning and standardization paid off in the expediency of the boats’ construction. The final plans were available in April 1924, and the first of the class, CG-100, was commissioned October 21, 1924. CG-302, the last completed, was commissioned July 18, 1925. An average of five were completed each week.
In service, the speed of the vessels fell somewhat short of expectations, about 15.7 statute miles per hour. They proved to be exceedingly hardy ships. In January 1925, CG-125 was abandoned in a storm some 40 miles east of Boston lightship. Five days later, the cutter Acushnet picked her up. The vessel was reported "in apparently good condition. There was some water in the engine room space and after part of crew’s space about up to floorboards. All other compartments were dry. The fact that the C G 175 rode through two gales before it was picked up and then towed through two intense gales by Acushnet without any damage, speaks well for the sturdy construction of these boats." So read the salvaging officer’s report.
The vessels continued to be useful long after Prohibition ended. Harbor patrols, regatta work, assistance, and other duties were assigned to them after Prohibition ended. Forty-six were turned over to the Navy in 1934, and about fourteen went to other government agencies. Many of the Navy six-bitters remained in service through World War II and the last one in Coast Guard service was sold in 1946. Jane’s Fighting Ships of 1955 listed six still in use in Central American navies. Forty-two were listed in the 1955 edition of Merchant Vessels of the U.S. as still performing various functions from private yachts to oceanographic research vessels.
In 1930 an improved, speedier, variation of the six-bitter was designed. It was a 78-foot patrol cutter. Six of these were built and were numbered, beginning with CG-400, thus the "400 boat" nickname. The hull design was visually similar to the earlier class, but one of the trunk cabins was eliminated. A single mast abaft the wheelhouse replaced the two present on the six-bitters.
Materials used in their construction were similar, though the new vessels incorporated four galvanized iron watertight bulkheads. As with the 75-footers, armament was a one-pounder mounted forward and a .30 caliber machine gun.
The major improvement was in the power plant. Two eight-cylinder Sterling Viking II engines were used, each developing over 500 hp. These, as well as finer lines enabled them to reach 24 statute miles per hour.
After Prohibition ended, all six were transferred to Hawaii to serve out their years in the service. The boats were under Navy jurisdiction during World War II, though their comparatively short range prevented their extensive use in convoy work. All were sold out immediately after the war.
Ensign Duke plays a hunch
It was the third of July. 1927 and Ensign Charles L. Duke was following his instincts. More precisely: there was a shadowy steamer running in the darkness of New York’s Upper Bay passing behind a well-lit liner in quarantine and proceeding rather uncertainly up the Narrows. Duke, a two-year veteran in the Coast Guard, was suspicious. It was the night before a holiday and a prime time to lay in fresh "off the boat" party gin.
The Ensign, with two crewmen and five bullets in his service revolver, gave chase. At over 20 knots, in CG-2327, a 38-foot picket boat, they soon closed and identified the suspect as Economy, a run-down rust bucket of European registry. This was a profile that further fueled Duke’s inclinations that she was up to no good.
Fighting a heavy chop and drenching spray, Duke drew alongside and hailed her to heave to. The only reply was a refusal and she showed no sign of slackening her pace. Not to be easily deterred, Duke fired two rounds for emphasis then maneuvered to close with the vessel despite maintaining a speed that put his stem into every sea and quickly soaked his little crew.
Knowing the precarious situation of his vessel and the imminent danger of being swamped or colliding with the fleeing freighter, Ensign Duke gambled. He had his helmsman bring the pitching, wallowing picket boat within arm’s length of the quarry reached out, grabbed her rail and pulled himself on board. He carried his revolver, now with three bullets, and a flashlight.
Feeling his way forward on the darkened freighter, Duke encountered a burly sailor blocking his path. The butt end of his pistol displaced this obstacle and he continued to the wheelhouse where he found six men, including the vessel’s master.
These odds, given the ensign’s obvious audacity, meant only that the element of surprise was on his side. This was sufficient. Pushing his revolver into the side of the master, Duke demanded the vessel be stopped, then brought to anchor at Bedloe’s Island where Prohibition agents could board, inspect, and, incidentally give Ensign Duke badly needed back-up. When the skipper proved reluctant, despite the proddings of Duke’s gunpoint, the ensign again took matters in hand by spinning the untended ship’s wheel and grounding her in 10 feet of water on Robbins Reef. Though the odds were unfavorable, he had both "captured" the ship and prevented her reaching the Jersey shore where the crew might escape.
Of course, the Ensign was still on board an alien vessel with an unknown number of presumably hostile miscreants. Duke quickly hailed his two crewmen on CG-2327 and sent them to Bedloe’s Island for assistance. By the time help was sent, it was after 12:30 AM. The boarding had taken place somewhat after 9:00 PM and Duke was still alone on Economy. In fact it was 2 AM when the cutter Calumet approached. She could not close because of the shallow water. CG-122 then grounded in the mud and CG-143 nearly met the same fate. It was 6 AM when friendly faces relieved Ensign Duke on board the seized vessel.
Ensign Duke’s hunch had paid off. Investigation revealed 3,000 drums of alcohol, each with fifty gallons, valued "on the street" at $50,000. The vessel, in actuality, was the 793-ton Greypoint from Antwerp and Halifax. Her name had been changed en route.
In all Duke had captured 22 men and led "perhaps the most heroic" exploit in the rum war. Ensign Duke explained with these words, "I had a hunch that the rumrunner might try to slip by over the holiday weekend. This steamer had the rumrunner look. You’d think they would be wise and paint their boats, but they pick out the worst old tubs for their rum ships. I can tell one almost every time."
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