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

April 9

Mark Twain, age 31, 30 September 1867

1859  Samuel Clemens, who later gained fame as a writer under the pseudonym Mark Twain, was issued a steamboat pilot’s certificate.

REVENUE CUTTER LINCOLN

1867  The Senate ratified a treaty to purchase Alaska from Russia.  The cutter Lincoln was dispatched with LT George W. Moore, USRM, as the first U.S. agent in the territory.

USCGC Northland, 1944

1941  The United States and Denmark signed an “agreement relating to the defense of Greenland.”  The Coast Guard, in part because of its experience in the Arctic environment, was the principal service used to carry out the agreement.  The first action seen by U.S. forces in World War II was the seizure of a weather station and a pro-German vessel in Greenland waters by CGC Northland just before the U.S. officially entered the war.

USCGC Cleat (WYTL-65615)

1974  The oil tanker Elias docked at the Atlantic Richfield Terminal in Fort Mifflin, Pennsylvania, caught fire.  CG-40412 responded and was first on scene and began SAR for any crew who jumped overboard.  CG-40412 crewman Kim Lee remembered: “The response for our crew on 40412 was looking for personnel off the ship Elias that might be in the water.  We were first on scene and I called back to base giving the update.  The request by us was to shut the Delaware River down to all traffic due to crude oil on fire extending completely across the Delaware River.  Captain of the Port (Capt. Goodwin) shut the river down which stopped all vessels traffic in the area.  A while had passed and we then received a distress call from the Coast Guard Cutter Cleat and we quickly responded toward the Cleat.  The crewmen from the Cleat were in the water and the Cleat was on fire and drifting into the Elias which was totally involved in fire.  My crew (Petty officer Joe Friel and Allen Mowbray) began pulling the crew out of the river.  We then attached a tow line on the burning Cleat and began towing it toward the middle of the channel.  At one point while towing the Cleat our engines on the 40412 stopped because of the ships (Elias) mooring lines in our props.  My crew quickly pulled up the mooring lines and cut them apart with a hand ax.  Freeing one engine we were able to pull the Cleat to safety and put out the fires on the Cleat.  All members of the Cleat crew were accounted for but one engine men who we found still down in the engine room trying to start the Cleat’s main.”

SeaRAM

The War Zone Reports,

The U.S. Navy plans to add RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missiles(RAM) to the arsenals of its Arleigh Burke class destroyers to boost their defenses against incoming cruise missiles, drones, and other air and surface threats. RAM launchers will take the place of existing 20mm Vulcan cannon-armed Mk 15 Phalanx Close-in Weapon Systems (CIWS), but the exact final configuration will differ depending on the sub-class of ship.

Replacing the Phalanx with SeaRAM on National Security Cutters would be a major improvement in their ability to survive an air attack. It has much greater range and greater ability to deal with multiple targets, as well as much better anti-surface capabilities, than the Phalanx which has an absolute max range of about three miles and an effective range of about one mile.

It is an easy swap.

The SeaRAM combines the radar and electro-optical system of the Phalanx CIWS Mk-15 Block 1B (CRDC) with an 11-cell RAM launcher to produce an autonomous system—one which does not need any external information to engage threats. Like the Phalanx, SeaRAM can be fitted to any class of ship. Due to the common mounting, SeaRAM inherits the relatively easy installation characteristics of its gun-based sibling, with Raytheon stating that SeaRAM “fits the exact shipboard installation footprint of the Phalanx, uses the same power and requires minimal shipboard modification”. In 2008, the first SeaRAM system was delivered to be installed on USS Independence.

The Missile: 

RAM or Rolling Airframe Missile, RIM-116, is a relatively small, relatively cheap, quite  mature weapon system having its Initial Operational Capability in 1992. Fitting SeaRAM would bring the NSC’s weapons fit more in line with that of the LCSs which are also fitted with the 57mm Mk110 and RAM. RAM is currently fitted on virtually every US Navy surface combatants other than cruisers which will soon be decommissioned and the destroyers that will be getting the system.

Anti-Surface Capability:

RAM would also provide an enhanced anti-surface capability. SeaRAM would be an excellent complement to the 57mm Mk 110. The 57mm has a greater maximum range than the RAM, but effective ranges are similar, at five to six miles. SeaRAM has only eleven rounds immediately available, but it’s combination of high hit probability, Mach 2+ speed, 164 pound mass, and a 1.3 kg (24 lb 15 oz) warhead means it can inflict significant damage quickly.

(Eleven rounds times 164 pounds equals 1804 pounds. That mass is equal to 340 rounds of 57mm HE and the RAM probably has a higher hit probability.)

Why isn’t the Navy Converting all Phalanx?

The fact that the Navy is not replacing all Phalanx systems with SeaRAM might suggest they don’t believe RAM is necessary for all classes, but, actually, every US Navy combatant that has a Phalanx, also has a longer ranged missile system. If they don’t have the longer ranged Standard or ESSM missile systems, then they have RAM, many have more than one.

Hopefully all Coast Guard NSC Phalanx systems will be replaced by SeaRAM.

The Offshore Patrol Cutter:

For many potential naval missions, OPCs are interchangeable with the NSCs. They probably should be similarly equipped. If the NSCs need SeaRAM, the OPCs need it more.

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

April 8

U.S.R.C. Onondaga, America’s Cup races, 1901. Library of Congress.

1902  President Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., and his party of 40 guests boarded USRC Onondaga in Charleston Harbor.  The cutter, which had been dressed in “rainbow fashion,” extended to the President “all honors as prescribed by the Regulations, Revenue Cutter Service.”  The cutter and its crew of transported them to Fort Sumter and back. The cutter expended “42 6 pdr saluting charges” by firing two separate 21-gun salutes.

1909  Race Point, Massachusetts: The sloop Keewaydin IV’s mast was carried away and the sloop anchored 2 miles SW of station, but dragged ashore.  Station crew was on the beach when she struck and the keeper rowed out surf and threw a heaving line on board.  One of the two men was rescued by this means.  The other jumped overboard and was pulled ashore by the keeper.  The sloop drifted up on the beach and became a total wreck.

USRC Seneca, 1908

1913 USRC Seneca, designed from the keel up as the nation’s first “derelict destroyer,” inaugurated the service’s participation in the International Ice Patrol.

SAULT SAINT MARIE, Mich. (Sept. 15)–The Coast Guard Cutter Katmai Bay (WTGB 101) is tied to the pier at Group Sault Saint Marie, Michigan. USCG photo by PA1 Harry C. Craft III

1978 CGC Katmai Bay was launched at Tacoma Boatbuilding Company, Inc., in Tacoma, Washington.  Katmai Bay was the first cutter in the Coast Guard’s new class of icebreaking harbor tugs.  The cutter was sponsored by Ms. Jeanmarie Griffin.

Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star (WAGB 10) visited Palmer Station, a United States research station on the Antarctic peninsula, March 3, 2023, after completing a successful deployment in support of Operation Deep Freeze 2023. This was the Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star’s first visit to Palmer Station in 35 years. Operation Deep Freeze is one of many operations in the Indo-Pacific in which the U.S. military promotes security and stability across the region. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Aidan Cooney)

2023 CGC Polar Star returned to Seattle 8 April 2023 following a 144-day deployment to Antarctica. The deployment marks the ship’s 26th journey to Antarctica as part of Operation Deep Freeze, an annual joint military service mission to resupply the United States Antarctic stations. Polar Star departed Seattle on 14 November 2022, traveling more than 25,000 miles through the North Pacific, South Pacific, Indian, Southern, and South Atlantic Oceans. While en route, the crew made two stops in Australia. After arriving in Antarctica, the cutter broke a 15.3-mile channel through fast ice to create a route for cargo vessels to reach McMurdo Station. The cutter then departed the Antarctic region on March 2. On the return journey, the ship crossed the Drake Passage, rounded Cape Horn, and stopped in Chile. At the stop in Valparaiso, Chile the Polar Star’s crew conducted exchanges with the Chilean Navy and First Naval Zone members. “The completion of this mission is a testament to our crew’s hard work, sacrifice, and dedication,” said CAPT Keith Ropella, Polar Star’s commanding officer.

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

April 7

Photograph of Ellsworth P. Bertholf, Commandant of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service from 1911 to 1915 and Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard from 1915 to 1919. Coast Guard photo.

1866  The first Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, Ellsworth P. Bertholf, was born in New York City.  He entered the Revenue Cutter Service as a cadet on September 14, 1885 and graduated from the Revenue Cutter School of Instruction with the Class of 1887.

1938  Congress passed HR 8982, an amendment to the Alien Fishing Act (50 Stat. 639).  The amendment clarified the earlier laws on salmon fishing in Alaskan waters by limiting commercial salmon fishing in the vicinity of Bristol Bay, Alaska, to U.S. citizens only.  The act was enforced by the Coast Guard.

HMT Bedfordshire one of over 20 Royal Navy trawlers dispatched to the US to escort coastal convoys, sunk by the German submarine U-558 on 11 May 1942 off the coast of Ocracoke Island in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, with the loss of all hands.

1942  A Coast Guard aircraft directed a Royal Navy trawler to a life boat with 24 survivors off the coast of North Carolina.

1952  The breakup of ice in the Missouri River and its tributaries at Bismarck, North Dakota, and above, and on the Big Sioux, created the worst flooding conditions in that area in thirty years.  U.S. Coast Guard personnel rendered assistance, utilizing small boats, mobile radio stations, automotive equipment, helicopters, and fixed wing aircraft.  The Coast Guard evacuated stranded persons, transported critical relief supplies, evacuated livestock from low ground, transported personnel engaged in levee construction, and generally assisted the Red Cross, local, state, civil, and military authorities.

Aerial view of China’s icebreaker Xue Long 2 berthing at the pier of Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center on July 3 in Qingdao, Shandong Province of China.
This icebreaker, delivered in 2019 and with a displacement of about 14,000 tons, is said to be the first icebreaking vessel capable of breaking polar ice with both its bow and stern in the world.

The Diplomat provides an unusually balanced assessment of China’s current icebreaker competence. It also projects their growing technical development.

It looks at the relationship between China and Russia in the Arctic, opportunism but with some degree of distrust.

China’s largest and most capable icebreaking research vessel, Xue Long 2. Snow Dragon 2, sails in Antarctica’s Prydz Bay in this aerial photo taken on Nov. 19, 2019

It talks about the Chinese military’s interest in polar regions, not just the Arctic, they see the Antarctic as an area of possible future conflict.

Aerial view of China’s icebreaker Ji Di berthing at the pier of Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center on July 3 in Qingdao, Shandong Province of China.
© Sun Qimeng/VCG via AP

Also of interest is the growing number of ships of various types that are not icebreakers, in the usual sense of a ship that breaks ice to allow other ships to pass, but are ships of various types that are simply designed to operate independently in ice covered waters.

China’s first icebreaker, Ukrainian built, Xue Long 1. Snow Dragon 1