Based on the Coast Guard Historian’s timeline, https://www.history.uscg.mil/research/chronology/
With inspiration from Mike Kelso
June 15
Steamboat General Slocum
1904 Nearly 1,000 lives were lost when the steamboat General Slocum caught fire in the East River in New York. The disaster led to improved safety regulations and life-saving equipment.
Victims of General Slocum washed ashore at North Brother Island
1917 Congress passed and President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Espionage Act, authorizing the Treasury Secretary to assume control of U.S. ports, control ship movements, establish anchorages, and supervise the loading and storage of explosive cargoes. The authority was immediately delegated to the Coast Guard and formed the basis for the formation of the Coast Guard’s Captain of the Ports and the Port Security Program.
USS Cambria (APA-36) at anchor, date and location unknown. Her camouflage is Measure 32 Design 3D. US Navy photo. Navsource from Michael Marzolla for his father, Lt. Anthony Mario Marzolla USCG, USS Cambria
1944 Coast Guardsmen participated in the invasion of Saipan, Marianas. The Coast Guard-manned transports that took part in the invasion included the USS Cambria, Arthur Middleton, Callaway, Leonard Wood, LST-19, LST-23, LST-166, and LST-169.
USS Arthur Middleton (AP-55) undergoing conversion from a Maritime Commission Passenger and Cargo liner to an Attack Transport in drydock at San Francisco Navy Yard, Hunters Point, circa 1942. Photographs show how much had to be added to a cargo liner to convert her into an attack transport. She needed heavier booms to handle landing craft (note the boat chocks atop the hatch in the photo of the ship’s after end). Note also the catwalk to assist in handling personnel boats launched from the new triple Welin davits, and the boat chocks positioned under the davits. The small lattice mast ultimately carried a radar antenna. Mare Island Navy Yard photos from “U.S. Amphibious Ships and Craft: An Illustrated Design History” by Norman Friedman.
The U.S.S. Serpens Monument is dedicated to those who lost their lives when the U.S.S. Serpens was destroyed. The 14,250-ton ammunition ship exploded off Lunga Baech, Guadacanal, British Solomon Islands on the night of Jan. 29, 1945 and was the largest single disaster suffered by the U.S. Coast Guard in World War II. (U.S. Army photo by Rachel Larue/released)
1949 Two hundred and forty-eight unidentified victims of the 1945 explosion of the U.S. Coast Guard-manned Serpens at Guadalcanal were buried in Arlington National Cemetery in what was described as the largest recommittal on record.
USS Serpens (AK-97)
1986 Upon assuming the office of Commandant on May 30, 1986, ADM Paul Yost banned the wearing of beards by Coast Guard personnel, to be effective on June 15, 1986.
25 June 2009: The Pacific Ocean – A U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point C-130 crew flies over USS Crommelin (FFG 37), homeported in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and the FSS Independence, a patrol boat from the Federated States of Micronesia, patrolling the Western Pacific Ocean.
(U.S. Coast Guard photo #090625-G-0314D-002 by PO3 Michael De Nyse from the Navy Newstand)
2009 Law Enforcement officers from the 14th Coast Guard District reported aboard the USS Crommelin (FFG-37) to support U.S. Coast Guard fisheries enforcement in Oceania in an operation called the “Fight for Fish” mission. It marked the first time a Navy warship was utilized “to transit the Western Pacific enforcing fishing regulations in a joint effort with the Coast Guard to stop illegal fishing in this region.”
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