The Seventeenth District Commander had a nice piece in the Juneau Empire on 17 April talking about why building the Bertholf Class “National Security Cutters” (NSC) is important to Alaska. I’m a lot more worried about getting the Offshore Patrol Cutters started than I am about finishing the Bertholf Class. Right now it appears we are going to limp along funding an NSC every other year, but I feel we see far too little of this sort of effort to advocate for the needs of the service to the general population.
Chuck Hill's CG Blog
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 
Yawn…typical CGBlog passive-aggressive garbage attack coupled with yet another example of the complete misunderstanding of the political process and how major acquistions in DHS are funded by Congress. Always, easy to throw stones on the outside looking in from the safety and comfort of your living room though.
Well Guy, what exactly do you disagree with?
During the Embargo of 1808, the Vermont based revenue boat FLY was sent to chase down and capture the notorious Vermont smuggler BLACK SNAKE. Among FLY’s armament were stout clubs and baskets full of fist-sized rocks. So, throwing rocks has some Service value. It keeps folks on their toes.
If the NSC are trickled in, with ever rising costs, we have to wonder just how many will be built? Will they all see service or will the program be cut short? I suppose some still think that all thirty-five of the 378s will be built one day.
One of the major disconnects in the Coast Guard, and its past, is that it has a difficult time explaining to anyone, much less the Congress and DHS, why a humanitarian (a life-saver) service needs such large war-like vessels. Does not the Navy have the ships to do this? Does the nation really need a second navy?
On the other hand, why aren’t vessels that could be used in peace as well as war in the hands of the service that will use them in peacetime?
Easy answer. The funding was for warships and that is their use. This has been the argument since the first attempts takeover the RCS in the 1830s.
In the 1890s, about 98% of the RCS officers (line and engineers) signed a petition requesting transfer of the RCS to the Navy Department. They too used the argument that they were aboard naval vessels (warships) and did the same work when called. However, this was a smoke screen, and what they really wanted was a retirement system.
But for a few congressional members and senior naval officers opposing the merger, it almost passed in the Congress. The senior naval officers opposed it because they did not feel the RCS officers qualified to be naval officers and by congressional members who were having a political fight with the administration. Ironically, the Navy Secretary in the 1880s, who attempted to take over everything, wrote glowingly of the RCS officers expertise and found them to be far better seamen than the officers of the navy.
It isn’t about ships. It is about culture and political ambitions.
Well, It isn’t 1830. I’m not disagreeing in that we all could know and learn from our history better. But, for the most part senior Navy officers still recognize the skills and experience of thier naval (CG counterparts) in seagoing expertise. Secondly, if you think DHS is concerned with a humanitarian argument for cutters, think again. DHS is far more interested in, well homeland security. Help develop the argument that seagoing cutters, and polar icebeakers for that matter, provide value in a National Fleet, layered homeland security environement.
No, it is not the 1830s. It more like the 1890s.
I will disagree on the idea that the Navy thinks of the Coast Guard as a naval counterpart. How many Coast Guard officers are in charge operationally of a vessel squadron in the Persian Gulf? No, the cultural problems are still alive and well.
My argument is that the DHS thinks of the Coast Guard in the image the Coast Guard has pushed since the end of World War II. It is a humanitarian service that sometimes performs other things but then retrenches to that basic life-saver mantra when it is all over.
A polar icebreaker will never be considered part of the national fleet in the sense of homeland security. What is it going to do? Back and ram a terrorist? Heck, they have enough problems getting away from the pier. The NSC with its waffled sides won’t impress many people either. The navy won’t want them for their lack of capability to keep up with fleet operations. The Coast Guard simply does not get enough practice to be part of the national fleet.
The Coast Guard coming out of WWI understood this and knew it had to change so that it would gain the respect of their naval peers. Prohibition was a boon to this. The old Four-stacker tin cans provided some valuable experience and the Coast Guard operated them in squadron operations and exercises. This was the back ground work that lead the Coast Guard into WWII. There were officers who had enough practical experience in working as a national fleet to make themselves appreciated and accepted. However, they were never considered naval officers. Since WWII, it has been if we want you we’ll call. There haven’t been many calls since. The period between 1945 and 1965 have been pretty quiet. As have most of the 1970s, 80s, 90s and onward. Just like the gal in the tone “Barnacle Bill,” he hadn’t been around so long she did not recognize his voice and the Coast Guard, like B. Bill, had to reintroduce himself.
First. Change the culture. Charles F. Shoemaker, the first modern commandant, fully understood the importance of respect from the navy and worked for ten years to give his service a naval character. He weeded out officers who felt differently and, with a few set backs, the theme went forward until 1967. Then the backslide began again. Careerism, no risk taking and specialists changed the Coast Guard and the navy saw how it changed the Coast Guard. The navy had the same problems, but it still had a 600-ship national fleet to train those who would lead the fleets into the future.
Of course, people will disagree but I fear it will be people with only a generational knowledge of the Coast Guard. The cultural history of the Coast Guard in its relationship with the navy has yet to be written and, frankly, I do not believe it will be.
Bill, I actually tend to agree with you on most points here. I would add the caveat, however, that I think you’d certainly be hard pressed to find a member of the SSBN community, for example, or maybe even some of the HDC/MSRON commands who didn’t feel the Coast Guard’s contributions to naval operations weren’t immensely valuable–and awfully hard to replace from anywhere else within the “traditional” DOD community.
I do otherwise think you’re absolutely right about our service’s post-WW2 image, however. Though I believe that’s a function of more than just the Coast Guard’s own public image-making and cultural dissonance; political posturing and indecision over the role and value of the service is an important part of how our service is defined.
Dan,
I agree to a point in the value of the Coast Guard to naval operations, but it has been spotty and only when the navy wants those pieces it does not have in its inventory. Don’t forget what Rumsfeld said about the Coast Guard in Gulf War II. Why use the Coast Guard when the navy can do it just as well. The navy’s rush to re-establish a “brown water” squadron when the Coast Guard was already trained for it (and the USMC doing it) says much about how much the culture has not changed in one hundred or more years.
There should be a policy within the Coast Guard that when it deploys with the navy (outside the legal requirements) it does so as an unique service. This has happened only twice in Coast Guard history.
Vietnam and?
The Mexican War.
The Spanish-American War is a close one too. President McKinley wrote directly particular cutters to “cooperate” with the Navy. However, there was no overall transfer. Some cutters worked for the Army. The issue came up on on the matter of pensions. The Navy claimed those in the RCS service prior to the war were not entitled to war pensions because they were in the RCS and whatever work they did for the Navy did not count as war service. However, those who entered the RCS after the war was on, they were entitled to bonuses and pensions because they were in it for the war.
Confused yet? This means that some of the crew of the Hudson received the war bonus or pension and others did not. This is one reason the Hudson crew got special congressional medals instead of the Medal of Honor (about the only award available at the time-but not for officers). None of them were in the naval service. Other cutters were not eligible because they were on the west coast.
Of course, the RCS had a similar spotty record with the Navy during the Civil War. There is a lot of Coast Guard history in the pension records that tell much about the relationship of the future Coast Guard and Navy.
Bill I disagree with your comment regarding an ice breaker’s war making abilities. In the mid 1960’s a joint Navy/Coast Guard program envisioned the WIND class ships as a viable ASW platform. Funded by the DOD as a stop gap measure until the the BROOKE class destroyers came on line, the CG breakers underwent a number of operational tests in this role. The concept(code name “Windbreaker”) had two ships of the class operating in conjunction with the fleet. Once sonar contact had been established the lead ship would steam to it’s attack position, taking station over the submerged Russian sub. Cases of toilet paper would be flushed (utilizing the crew’s head) causing the flushed paper to sink down through the ocean depths, clogging the subs intake valves. This action would cause the sub to surface and the second ice breaker, trailing one half mile behund the flushing breaker, would run at flank speed and ram the unsuspecting sub in much the same fashion as punching a hole in ice sheets.
Sucessful in therory, the project lost support when the DOD refused to fund the two ply toilet paper required for immobilizing the Juliet Class subs fielded by the Russians at that time. The Department of the Navy insisted that single ply would do the job, but a Rand study indicated a “Paper Gap” existed in our national defense strategy and further studies were needed. By the time of the congressional studies’ completion, the DOD/Coast Guard directorate lost interest in the concept but would later study the idea of melding the Coast Guard and the Library of Congress together as a cost cutting measure.
Thanks, got a good laugh out of that one. I found it hard to believe the Wind class was originally equipped with sonar. Can only imagine the sonar dome getting ripped off every time they went into the ice, but then sonars were cheaper back then.
As any good CMAA, I had the secret formula for ordering toilet paper. This ancient formula was handed down from one Jimmy Legs to another in a rite of passage by passing a Colt. However, last year WikiLeaks dropped the straight poop on the formula and now, unfortunately, the secret power of the Da Vinci Rolls is known to all.
The formula consisted, for men, a miserly one roll per man per week. Of course, some segments of the crew were allotted two rolls a week. I suppose it would take a thousand rolls to wrap up a nuclear submarine. This may cause some problems with the supply aboard. Of course, some of the sheets, single or double ply, could be used to make a poor man’s depth charge.
I am told that some Coasties serving in Vietnam made them for fishing trips. A grenade with several wraps of issue paper around the spoon. Remove the pin and toss into the water. There had to be some experimentation for gaining the proper depth per wrap formula. Different waters work differently on different manufacturers and different plys. I am sure an MST could be employed in some of this marine science work on the breakers. The most effect for shallow water was the British Concussion grenade and about four wraps. I am not sure how many wraps would be required for several hundred feet of water.