May 24

1830  Navy officers, under furlough from the Navy until April 1832, were given commissions in the Revenue Service.

1941  USCGC Modoc sighted the German battleship Bismarck while the cutter searched for survivors of a convoy southeast of Cape Farewell, Greenland.  There they were witnesses to an attack on Bismarck by nine Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers only hours after the Battle of the Denmark Strait where HMS Hood, the largest ship in the Royal Navy at the time, was sunk with only three survivors.

• An accurate telling of the incident here
• A less accurate, but first person story by two men who were on the Modoc

1977  The Coast Guard issued a request for female volunteers to serve afloat on board cutters as members of the cutters’ permanent crew.  Beginning in late-September of that year the first of 24 women chosen for afloat assignments began reporting on board the CGCs Gallatin and Morgenthau as members of their permanent crew.  Twelve women – two officers and 10 enlisted – served on board each cutter.