Based on the Coast Guard Historian’s timeline, https://www.history.uscg.mil/research/chronology/
With inspiration from Mike Kelso

December 15

The Mobile Point Lighthouses prior to the American Civil War. They were destroyed during the Battle of Mobile Bay.

1835  The superintendent of the lighthouse system wrote to Winslow Lewis, “I perceive by a Mobile paper which I received this morning that the Mobile Point light has been fitted by you as a revolving light” similar to the nearby Pensacola lighthouse.  “I am very sorry that you have done so.” Lewis was a contractor who – almost by himself a virtually controlled the administration of the lighthouse system.  The incident helped cause a Congressional investigation that ultimately created a modern lighthouse system in this country.

1839  Near Gloucester, Massachusetts, a storm from the southeast caught and dragged ashore or drove to sea over fifty vessels.  An eyewitness wrote: “From one of the beach to the other, nothing could be seen but pieces of broken wrecks; planks and spars…ropes and sails…flour, fish, lumber…soaked and broken…”  The local fishermen manned two boats, the Custom House boat and the newly launched Revenue Cutter Van Buren (commissioned December 2, 1839) and “fearlessly risked their lives for the safety of their fellow creatures” and brought many safely to shore.

15 December 1943, New Britain. Landing craft approach the inhospitable shores near Arawe, where American troops forced a landing at dawn in one of the most daring amphibious assaults yet undertaken in this area. Completely overwhelming the Japanese defenders they seized the entire Arawe Peninsula within three hours. Note the number identifying the landing craft had been whited out by the censor. Photo credit: Harold George Dick

1943  Coast Guardsmen participated in the landings made on Arawe Peninsula, New Britain.

1944  Coast Guardsmen participated in the landings made on Mindoro, Philippine Islands.

Argo Merchant sinking

1976  The Liberian-flagged 644-foot tanker Argo Merchant, with 7.5 million gallons of oil on board, grounded on a shoal 28 miles southeast of Nantucket.  Coast Guard helicopters from AIRSTA Cape Cod rescued her 38-man crew.  CGCs Sherman and Vigilant responded, along with other vessels, but heavy weather prevented the containment of the spill.  The tanker broke in two on December 21.

December 16

USRC Gallatin; “U.S. Coast Guard survey schooner GALLATIN photographed in 1855
Gallatin was a 73-foot topsail schooner that displaced 112 tons. She was built by the New York Navy Yard and entered Revenue service in 1830. She was ordered to Charleston, SC, on 16 November 1832 to enforce federal tariff law and suppress the “nullification proceedings” adopted by the State of South Carolina. She was transferred to the Coast Survey in 1840 and returned to Revenue service between 1848 to 1849 and then returned to the Coast Survey. She was captured by Confederate forces early in the Civil War and served the South as a privateer. This is the earliest known photo of a Revenue cutter although by the time this photo was taken she had already transferred permanently to the Coast Survey.

1831  Secretary of the Treasury John McLane ordered Revenue cutters to conduct “winter cruises.”  The USRC Gallatin became the first cutter “directly authorized by the government to assist mariners in distress.”

The crash site of the United Airlines DC-8, United 826, in Park Slope, Brooklyn

1960  A United Airlines DC-8 with 84 passengers on board collided with a TWA Super Constellation carrying 44 in mid-air over the New York City area. There were 134 fatalities including all aboard the two aircraft and six on the ground. Coast Guard helicopters, working with the aircraft of the Army, Navy and New York Police Department, transported the injured to a nearby hospital.  Coast Guard vessels also searched the New York harbor area.  The debris they picked up was used by the Civil Aeronautics Board in its determination of the cause of the mishap.

The crash site of the TWA Super Constellation, TWA 266, in Miller Field, Staten Island.