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Article: The-Coast-Guard-in-the-Pacific-Northwest-part-II
The first lightship on the West Coast was the Columbia River Number 50. The ship was built by the Union Iron Works of San Francisco and began her service in 1892. The next lightship assigned to the Pacific Northwest took station at Umatilla Reef, about halfway down the coast of Washington, in 1898. The third, and last, lightship location in the region was at Swiftsure. The light vessel took station near the entrance to the Straits of Juan de Fuca in 1909.
The U.S. Lighthouse Service also operated a fleet of ships known as lighthouse tenders. The tenders provided the means to bring supplies and needed work parties to the scattered and isolated lighthouses. The rocky nature of lighthouse locations made this duty very hazardous. One author noted that the fleet of tenders consisted "of vessels whose duty it is to go where no other vessels are allowed to go, and who, through storm, darkness and sunshine, do their work..." At first, all tenders were fitted with sails. The first steam powered vessel of the Service assigned to the West Coast was built in Philadelphia, in 1857. The 140-foot Shubrick sailed for many years on the waters of Puget Sound. She helped in the construction of the first lighthouses in the state of Washington, became enmeshed in the unrest with the Native Americans and whites of the region, and helped ships in distress. She also had a brief stint in the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service from 1861 to 1867. The old tender served for some 28 years before being sold for scrap in 1885.
The Lighthouse Service along the West Coast continued to grow over the years. As new ports gained importance, additional lights were placed into commission. By 1900, for instance, there were 17 lighthouses located in Washington and Oregon.
The purchase of Alaska in 1868 caused an increase in the Revenue Cutter Service’s presence in the Puget Sound region. The main port of operations for the cutters sailing to protect the United States’ revenue interests in the territory was Port Townsend, Washington. Some of the most famous cutters of the Service, the Bear, the Corwin, and Wolcott — sailed to the Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean from this port. After the turn of the 20th Century, however, the port of Seattle began to become more important for all shipping in the region.
The next predecessor agency of the modern day U.S. Coast Guard to be established in Washington and Oregon was the Steamboat Inspection Service. The large growth of steam powered ships and the resultant explosions of faulty boilers, with great loss of life, caused the passage of the first laws to regulate passenger carrying steam vessels in 1838.
In the early years of steamboat development, inland waterways were better suited to the new vessels than ocean navigation. The inland waters of Washington and Oregon were ideally suited to this new type of transportation. It was not until 1863, however, that Captain J. M. Crouch, as Inspector of Hulls, and John Gates, Boiler Inspector, were established at Portland, Ore. In their first year of operations, they inspected 24 steam vessels and licensed fifty pilots and thirty-eight engineers. As work increased, another office was established in Seattle in 1871. By 1899, the Portland District was inspecting 151 vessels totaling 42,944 tons and issuing 188 licenses.
The last of the four predecessor agencies that would eventually make up the U.S. Coast Guard — the U.S. Life-Saving Service — did not begin duty in the Pacific Northwest until 1877, even though it can trace its federal origins to 1848. The primary duty of this organization was the assistance to mariners in distress close to the beach by shore based small boats. One has only to look at wreck charts of the region to understand the need to establish rescue stations. Regional marine writer Jim Gibbs, for example, has listed at least 204 wrecks around the entrance to the Straits of Juan de Fuca Don Marshall lists 124 known wrecks between Cape Falcon and Cape Disappointment on the Washington-Oregon coasts.
The first station of the U.S. Life Saving-Service in the Pacific Northwest was established at Shoalwater, later Willapa Bay, in 1877, with Cape Disappointment and Neah Bay, Washington, stations placed into commission in 1878. (Neah Bay station was first built on Waddah Island). Most stations of the Service, until well after the beginning of the 20th Century, were small, usually consisting of no more than seven men. The crewmen, called surfmen, spent long hours practicing with their rescue equipment and performing beach patrols and lookout duties. When assistance was needed, it was oars and human muscles against the sea.
The lifesavers certainly earned their small monthly wages. In 1881, for example, Keeper Alfred T. Harris, of the Cape Disappointment Station, rescued 19 men from a wrecked ship. Three years later, with a volunteer crew, Harris helped in the rescue of 175 passengers from the Queen of the Pacific. The British bark, Lammerlaw, grounded near Shoalwater Bay at five in the morning on October 30, 1882, during a driving storm. The rescue of its crew is described in the pages of the Annual Report of the U.S. Life-Saving Service:
The start was... made for the wreck, the danger and difficulty increasing at every boat’s length... In tempestuous weather the great field of shallow waters literally raged, and the wreck struck out aslant, the center an abatis of flying chutes and cataracts... Amidst this turmoil the boat inched up to the wreck, the men keeping a terrible grip on the oars and straining for their hold against the sea. Once the boat half-filled and an oar snapped...but finally, by hazardous maneuvers...the crew of the Lammerlaw was rescued. For his efforts, Albert T. Stream, who was in charge of the rescue, received the Gold Life-Saving Medal, the highest award bestowed by the Service, and a medal from the British government.
With the establishment of the U.S. Life-Saving Service in the Washington-Oregon region, all the predecessor agencies of the modern day U.S. Coast Guard were now effectively serving the maritime community of the Pacific Northwest. The gradual adding of stations and the shifting of the various cutters within the area continued but, in general, the status quo was continued until 1915 when, in an effort to streamline government operations, a major change came about. On January 15, 1915, the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service and the U.S. Life-Saving Service were amalgamated to form the U.S. Coast Guard.
The first major task of the new Service came in 1920, with the passage of the Volstead Act, the experiment to outlaw liquor in the United States. For the next 14 years the U.S. Coast Guard waged a war against the smugglers of illegal spirits. While the volume of smuggling in Washington and Oregon never reached the proportions of that along the eastern seaboard, there was enough to keep Coast Guardsmen busy.
The cutter Arcata, under the command of Boatswain L.A. Lonsdale’s "skillful and patient endeavor,… was able to make a good number of seizures (of illegal), many of them involving...craft (of higher speeds)." In June 1924, for example, Arcata was pursuing a speedboat and placed a shot across her bows. The rumrunner returned fire with small arms. The cutter then increased her rate of return fire and the smuggler’s boat exploded, apparently hit in her fuel tank. The boat was beached and it was found to contain contraband liquor, plus some Chinese were found onboard who were trying to enter the United States illegally.
The repeal of Prohibition in 1934 ended the long rum war at sea. The role of the U.S. Coast Guard in the effort to keep America dry was not a popular one. As one historian has noted, the Service was unpopular with those that wished to ban liquor because they could not completely cut off the illegal flow of booze and the Service was unpopular with those that wished the country "wet," for the anti-smuggling work did cut off some of the sources of liquor. ‘It was a cross which the Coastguardsman had to bear, and he bore it well." Out of the long rum war, however, came an expanded Service that "remained larger and more important than it had been previously." In the same year as the repeal of Prohibition, a major new unit was established on the West Coast. On July 29, 1934, work was begun on the first U.S. Coast Guard Alr Station on the West Coast. Its location at Port Angeles, Wash., was chosen for the strategic position it occupied for coastal patrol. The station’s first equipment included three seventy-five foot patrol boats, four picket boats, and one amphibious aircraft.
As war clouds began to thicken in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt made another major change to the U.S. Coast Guard. Again, citing the need for governmental efficiency, the U.S. Lighthouse Service, in existence since 1789, was taken over by the U.S. Coast Guard. Shortly after this take over, the Service began to go on a wartime footing and was greatly increased.
During World War II, the U.S. Coast Guard in the Pacific Northwest continued its traditional duties while assisting in the war effort. Beach patrols, now greatly augmented with dogs and horses, continued to keep a lookout for ships in distress, but now, reacting to the fear that gripped the country, the patrols kept a sharp watch for submarines and saboteurs. Air Station Port Angeles was a base for training aerial gunners and also had a practice landing strip for carrier landing training. In 1942, as a wartime measure, the former Steamboat Inspection Service, now called the U.S. Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation, was transferred to the U.S. Coast Guard. The transfer was made permanent in 1946.
Even in the midst of a global war, the U.S. Coast Guard, now operating under the U.S. Navy, carried out its humanitarian role in the Pacific Northwest. During a severe gale on March 31, 1943, the Russian freighter Lamut struck near Teahwhit Head, Washington., south of Cape Flattery, and started a unique rescue. The Captain of the Lamut lost his position in the gale whipped rain and struck heavily against the rocks near La Push.
There were 44 men and eight women aboard the doomed vessel. The wild pounding seas drove the ship hard against the rocks and prevented other ships and small boats from approaching her. The men from the Quillayute Coast Guard Station started to hack their way through thickly wooded terrain and came out onto the rocky headlands, with the Lamut lying on the rocks below them. The Coast Guardsmen, turned mountain climbers, edged their way cautiously onto a precipitous ridge. A glance at contemporary photographs of the Lamut wreck site and one can feel nervous about the sailors inching their way over rain slick rocks, with heavy winds tearing at them and threatening to hurl them into the waters below. Clinging to the rocks high above the ship, the rescuers knew that if something were not accomplished quickly, the crewmen would be lost. There was, however, no rescue equipment then available that could be wrestled out onto the dangerous ridge and the rope available would not reach the Lamut. While the Coast Guardsmen tried to figure out how the crew could be saved, the Russians attempted to launch a lifeboat, but one woman was killed and another injured when a cable snapped. Now everything depended upon the men clinging to the rocks above the freighter.
In one of the most inspired moments in the history of maritime rescue in the Pacific Northwest, the Coast Guardsmen on the rocks above the Lamut hit upon the idea of how to bring the crew to safety. The men unlaced their shoes and tied the laces together, thus forming enough extra line to reach the Lamut. The incredulous Russian seamen grabbed the shoelaces, tied a heavier line to the makeshift messenger line, which the Coast Guardsmen then hauled up the cliff. Eventually, a heavy line was stretched from the Lamut and belayed to the rocks above. The crew of the Lamut was now compelled to work its way hand-overhand up the hawser to the relative safety of the cliff. "Hanging between the black clouds above and the snarling, crashing breakers below, they went. One slip would have meant instant death." Later, some of the crew "admitted that fear alone impelled them onward." The inspired actions of the Coast Guardsmen prevented the sea from claiming more victims.
The U.S. Coast Guard in the Pacific Northwest that emerged from World War II is the Service that still operates its multi-faceted missions today. To be sure, there have been major changes. Technology, for example, has made it possible for the closing of many units. Better ship navigation has made the use of some lighthouses no longer necessary. Isolated Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, where Robert Gerloff served for so many years, was disestablished in 1957. Technology has also made it possible to automate lighthouses and the use of keepers at a light station is no longer necessary. In fact, when the U.S. Coast Guard took over the Lighthouse Service, it began immediately to explore ways to automate the many isolated stations. Tatoosh Island, where so much friction developed between the Native Americans and the Service, was automated in 1977. It is estimated that before the end of the 1980s there will be no manned lighthouses in the United States, thus ending a long era in our maritime history. Technology has also marked the end of all lightships in Washington and Oregon.
Lastly, another technological advancement was the replacement of the Coast Guard’s standard workhorses in lifesaving equipment. In 1961, a new 44-foot motor lifeboat was built to replace the old 36-footer. To test the prototype boat, the Coast Guard chose the Cape Disappointment Station area where the Pacific Ocean breaks on the Columbia River Bar to form huge surf. From this testing site came the formation of a unique school, the National Motor Life Boat School. At the school, U.S. Coast Guard coxswains from all over the United States learn "to forge (an) understanding between the boat, the people and the sea" Or, as one writer has graphically put it, the students "learn to work calmly while instinct warns they’re about to die."
Other changes in the region include adding other air stations at Astoria in 1964 and North Bend, Ore. In 1967, the U.S. Coast Guard was transferred from its traditional home in the Treasury Department to the Department of Transportation. The Service in the Pacific Northwest continues to pursue its traditional duties of assistance and law enforcement. On January 18, 1986, for example, the Honduran ship, Eagle One, was seized near Neah Bay, Wash. Eagle One was found to be carrying a total of 507 pounds of illegal cocaine. The seizure marked the largest haul of illegal cocaine to date on the West Coast.
When the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service cutter Jefferson Davis sailed into Puget Sound in 1854, it marked the beginning of the U.S. Coast Guard’s long service to Washington and Oregon that continues to this day. The various small maritime agencies that were amalgamated into the present day Service left a strong foundation of assistance to others. Today, the men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard, who serve in the many units scattered throughout the Pacific Northwest, continue to carry on, and to surpass, the deeds of their illustrious predecessors.
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