Admiral Linda L. Fagan

Politico reports,

Homeland Security officials have removed Adm. Linda Fagan from her role as the Coast Guard’s commandant, according to a note sent to service members — the first firing of a top military officer under the Trump administration.

I have reproduced the linked ALCOAST below.

DHS Secretary did not give a reason for the dismissal but apparently someone gave the reasons to Fox, “Coast Guard commandant terminated over border lapses, recruitment, DEI focus: official.”

I have not always agreed with Admiral Fagan’s positions, but she has had some notable successes. As Pacific Area Commander she pushed out the operating envelop of the Fast Response Cutters to include distant operations in the Eastern Pacific Drug Transit Zone and the Western Pacific. Alien migrant interdiction seems to be working well.

Admiral Fagan seems to have solved our long running recruitment problem. In 2024,

For the first time since 2007, the Coast Guard has achieved all its recruiting missions for enlisted active duty, the Reserve, and Non-Academy Officer Candidate School (OCS) accessions.

Fox sites, “mismanagement in acquiring key acquisitions such as icebreakers and helicopters.” Admiral Fagan has only been Commandant since June 2022. Contracts for icebreakers and helicopters predate her selection as Commandant.The “Fouled Anchor” report was mentioned. It came in January 2020, a year and a half before she became commandant and reported on events that occurred 2006 or earlier.

A parts procurement problem for our now 40 year old H-65s helicopters, was identified in 2021 and the Coast Guard made the decision to go to a uniform fleet of H-60s, but it is a long-term program. (meanwhile, “Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Gets 16 New Helicopters“) The program hit a bump when there was a reduction in pre-SLEP operational life of H-60s from 20,000 to 19,000 hours, but it seems manageable.

• • “Coast Guard awards hull contract as part of MH-60T sustainment effort” –CG-9, January 2021
  • “Coast Guard to SLEP, Expand MH-60T Helicopter Fleet as Sikorsky Delivers First New Airframe” –Seapower / Implications for Cutters, December 2023
  • “Coast Guard takes next steps toward all MH-60T helicopter fleet ” –CG-9, January 2024
  • Change is Coming, “Coast Guard delivers first MH-60T to new Air Station Ventura” –News Release, August 2024

As for the difficulties with the Polar Security Cutter, the choice of the shipyard and the decision to accept an unproven design, rather than that of an already operational icebreaker, as was required in the initial request for proposal, happened during the first Trump administration.

On April 23, 2019, the Coast Guard-Navy Integrated Program Office for the PSC program awarded a $745.9 million fixed-price, incentive-firm contract for the detail design and construction (DD&C) of the first PSC to Halter Marine Inc. of Pascagoula, MS, a shipyard that as owned by Singapore Technologies (ST) Engineering.

Admiral Fagan has been pointing out shortfalls in support for the Coast Guard.

My own evaluation is that Admiral Fagan has been one of the more effective Coast Guard Commandants we have had in this century. I am sorry to see her go.

I expect the Chief of Naval Operations will be next.

ALCOAST 021/25 – JAN 2025 LEADERSHIP NOTIFICATION TO USCG WORKFORCE

U.S. Coast Guard sent this bulletin at 01/21/2025 07:25 AM EST

A friend sent me the link to the video above. Thought you might enjoy it. A good visual tour, but there seem to be errors in the narration–I don’t think it ever served in the Navy, although it did go to war. Also, I don’t think it was ever equipped a 3″/50. During WWII they were armed with the 3″/23 and after WWII with a single Bofors 40mm.

Good to see this former cutter, the former USCGC Active, being well taken care of. It is owned by the Vietnam war flight museum in Houston, Texas.

Another of the class, the former USCGC McLane, is at the USS Silversides Submarine Museum (formerly the Great Lakes Naval Memorial and Museum), 1346 Bluff Street, Muskegon, MI 49441.

These were members of the Active class. 35 of them were built in a big hurry to enforce Prohibition, with all 35 commissioned between 30 November 1926 and May 1927.

85 years separate them, but they make an interesting comparison with the Webber class (Sentinel) Fast Response Cutters. In 1966, the remaining Active class were redesignated WMECs, but originally, like the new cutters, they were designed WPCs.

The old cutter is smaller (232 tons vs 353) but for much of its life, it had a larger crew, up to at least 38, though I seem to remember 44. I went aboard one as a cadet and the crowded berthing area, well forward, made a lasting impression. I could imagine what it would have been like pitching in a heavy sea.

While the new cutters have 11,600 HP for 28 knots, the old cutters started life with only 600HP for 10 knots and were upgraded to 1200 HP for a blistering 13. Range really wasn’t that different, with the old cutters good for 2,500 miles at 13 knots after the upgrade–2,500 miles at 14 knots for the newer cutters. The old cutters were probably more comfortable sustaining an eight knot cruise speed.

There is definitely a huge difference in ship’s boats and boat handling as you may note in the video.

Having seen how much wiring goes into the new cutters, they come from totally different worlds.

Thanks to Lee for bringing this to my attention.

Enlisted technicians from the Navy Munitions Command (NMC) Bahrain Detachment support the delivery of hardware and software upgrades aboard USS Indianapolis (LCS 17) in September 2024 while the ship was forward deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet Area of Responsibility. USN

The War Zone reports, “Littoral Combat Ship Can Now Rapidly Shoot Down Aerial Drones with Hellfire Missile.”

The Coast Guard needs a counter drone capability if Coast Guard ships are going to do force protection and the “Ports, Waterways, and Coastal Security” and “Defense Readiness” missions.

Hellfire, and its form factor twin replacement JAGM, are emerging as primary candidates for this role. Compared to gun systems, they do not throw multiple rounds well beyond the target that might cause collateral damage. They also have the advantage of being useful in other roles as well, including as an anti-aircraft weapon against low flying sub-sonic threats and as an effective surface to surface weapon against a range of naval threats from small fast highly maneuverable threats like kamikaze USVs to ships.

Included in the report was the photo below that depicts a proposed deck mounted vertical launcher for Hellfire/JAGM. It probably weighs about the same as a 30mm Mk38 Mod4 and would not require the same deck foundation strength since there is no recoil.

A close-up of the Hellfire/JAGM launchers on the Arleigh Burke model on display at the 2025 Surface Navy Association symposium. Joseph Trevithick

I cropped the photo to get a better look at the launchers. It appears the mount is being loaded in the horizontal position and would return to the vertical for firing. This means reloading would be relatively easy and the location of the mount could be very flexible.

It appears that each of the three sets of tubes (above) are much the same as the “Patrol Boat Compatible” above deck launchers pictured below, which would mean each mount could house twelve missiles. A pair of these would provide up to 24 rounds ready to launch–same as the number in the LCS mission module.

For smaller cutters Hellfire has been adapted to USVs as small as 12 meters.

Here is a new type of craft that might find use in the Coast Guard.

Would welcome suggestions of how the Coast Guard could use these.

I just ran across this interesting bit from Wikipedia. Sounds like a good idea.

“In May 2000, the Japan Coast Guard introduced a nationwide emergency number, 118, for reporting accidents at sea, oil spills, suspicious vessels, smuggling, and illegal immigration. It can be dialed from mobile phones, landline phones, public phones, and marine radiotelephones in Japan.“

Below is a Coast Guard news release.

Jan. 15, 2025

JUNEAU, Alaska – Coast Guard Cutter Alex Haley (WMEC 39) was selected as the recipient of the 2024 Hopley Yeaton Cutter Excellence Award. 

For the second year in a row, Alex Haley earned the medium cutter of year award across the entire Coast Guard fleet. The Hopley Yeaton Cutter Excellence Award recognizes the ship that demonstrated exceptional performance across operations and mission accomplishment, commitment to crew and families, training and readiness, and engineering.

Spending nearly 200 days deployed in support of Coast Guard Pacific Area and District 17, Alex Haley embodied the proud tradition of the Bering Sea cutter, sailing from the Arctic Ocean to the furthest reaches of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands. Leading all cutters in Bering Sea and Aleutian Island living marine resource law enforcement boardings to protect and help sustain Alaska fisheries, the ship also supported strategic United States Government priorities including intercepting and escorting a Russian warship across the Aleutian Islands. Most notably, the cutter and crew earned a Letter of Commendation from the International Maritime Organization for bravery saving eight mariners in distress while towing a fishing vessel 32 hours to safe harbor during a winter gale. 

Additionally, Alex Haley earned the 2024 Large Afloat Dining Facility of the Year award for best galley and was runner up for the 2024 Morale Program of the Year Award. The Alex Haley crew was awarded the Arctic Service Medal and the Operational Excellence “E” Award.   

“As the only major cutter homeported in Alaska, the ‘Bulldog of the Bering’ lives and operates in unforgiving conditions across a vast area of responsibility,” said Cmdr. Steven Baldovsky, Alex Haley ‘s commanding officer. “Our crew displayed exceptional mission execution and resilience against a challenging work-life balance – always answering the call and providing an incredible return on investment to the American people. I could not be any prouder of the crew and our amazing family support for the work Alex Haley did to earn the back-to-back Hopley Yeaton Cutter Excellence Awards.”

Alex Haley is a 282-foot Medium Endurance Cutter that performs search and rescue, fisheries law enforcement and maritime security across Alaska and has been homeported in Kodiak since 1999.   

National Defense reviews the current state of the US Coast Guard’s icebreaker fleet. There is probably nothing here we haven’t already heard, but it did include a question and answer with the Commandant that, as reported, might give the wrong impression,

“So, as a nation, we have one heavy icebreaker,” she said.

This led to the follow-up question of how many does Russia operate?

“Way more than one. It’s close to 40,” she said. Russia operates the world’s only fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers.

I think the Commandant was saying the Russians have about 40 icebreakers, not 40 heavy icebreakers.

The Russians do have the largest fleet of heavy icebreakers. Table B-1, page 51, of the Congression Research Service’s “Coast Guard Polar Security Cutter (Polar Icebreaker) Program: Background and Issues for Congress” dated November 19, 2024, indicates that as of April 4, 2022, Russia had 51 icebreakers (36 Government owned or operated and 15 Privately owned or operated), but only six operational icebreakers were classed PC1, PC2 or equivalent. The only other operational icebreaker with these characteristics was USCGC Polar Star. The Russians were reported to have 31 medium icebreakers classed PC3 or PC4 and 14 light icebreakers classed PC5 or PC6.

Only Russia and the US operate what the US Coast Guard would call a heavy icebreaker. Of the 104 icebreakers listed, from 20 countries, only 7 would be considered heavy icebreakers by the USCG.

Healy and Storis (formerly Aiviq) are considered medium icebreakers and Nathanirl B. Palmer and Sikuliaq are considered light icebreakers.

Clearly medium and light icebreakers have a role. Not every mission requires over 45,000 HP. The highly successful Wind class would now be considered light icebreakers and USCGC Glacier would barely qualify as a medium icebreaker. Sometimes smaller size is actually an advantage. There are probably places where two medium icebreakers might be preferable to only one heavy icebreaker, if only to provide a degree of redundancy.

So why aren’t we building some medium icebreakers? We know there is a stated Coast Guard has a requirement for nine icebreakers and four or five are expected to be medium icebreakers. So why haven’t we at least started the procurement process for those medium icebreakers? So far not even a Request for Proposal.

If we use the current approach, we are probably not going to see the first new Arctic Security Cutter (medium icebreaker) until 2035 even if the process starts now.

The Icebreaker Collaboration Effort, or ICE Pact may provide another way. Hopefully the US and Canadian Coast Guards could get together to come up with a set of requirements and optional enhancements both could agree on and ask the Finnish partners to detailed design a medium icebreaker that would be welcomed by both services. It the final design is acceptable, have the Finnish yard build the prototype. It successful then determine where follow on ships should be built.

This isn’t a short process, but it does not get shorter if we wait to start. A prototype built quickly in Finland would allow the proof of concept testing the GAO keeps telling the Coast Guard that they should do before building the second and later ships of a class.

If the Congress and Administration actually feel any urgency for additional presence in the Arctic, the Coast Guard should try to offer them a shortcut.

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

Wreck of Ayrshire Rescue by Life Car

1850  The wreck of Ayrshire on occurred on Squan Beach, New Jersey on this date in 1850.  All but one of the 202 persons on board were saved by a life car.  This was the first recorded use of a life car in the U.S.

Unopposed US military landing at Constantine Harbor, Amchitka, Aleutians, 12 January 1943.

1943  Coast Guardsmen participated in the landings at Amchitka, Alaska.

“Once on the ground the island was cleared and found to be empty of Japanese military.^[6][7] During the first night ashore a “willowaw” (violent squall) smashed many of the landing boats and swept a troop transport aground. On the second day a blizzard wracked the island with snow, sleet, and biting wind. Lasting for nearly two weeks, the blizzard finally subsided enough to reveal to a Japanese scout plane from Kiska the American beachhead on Amchitka.”

52 foot MLB Triumph (MLB-52301)

1961  Two Coast Guard craft from the Cape Disappointment Lifeboat Station (LBS), CG-40564 and CG-36454, answered a call for assistance from the 38-foot crab boat Mermaid, with two crew on board, which had lost its rudder near the breakers off Peacock Spit.  CG-40564 located the Mermaid and took her in tow.  Due to adverse sea conditions the crew of CG-40564 requested the assistance of CG-52301 “Triumph,” stationed at Point Adams LBS, which took up the tow upon her arrival on scene.  Heavy breakers capsized CG-40564 and battered the CG-36454, but the 36-foot motor lifeboat (MLB) stayed afloat.  The crew of CG–36454 then located and rescued the crew of the CG-40564 and made for the Columbia River Lightship.  The crew of the CG–36454 managed to deposit safely all on board the lightship before it too foundered.  Soon thereafter, a heavy breaker hit Triumph which parted the tow line, set the Mermaid adrift, and capsized the Triumph.   The crew of the Mermaid then rescued one of the six crewman on board Triumph.   CG-36554 and CG-36535, also from the Point Adams LBS, then arrived on scene and CG–36535 took the Mermaid in tow.  Another large breaker hit, snapping the CG-36535’s tow line and sinking the Mermaid.   CGC Yocona arrived on scene soon after Coast Guard aircraft UF 2G No. 1273 from Air Station Port Angeles and began searching for survivors.  Other CG aircraft, including UF 2G 2131, UF 2G 1240, and HO 4S 1330, arrived and began dropping flares.  Foot patrols from the life-boat stations searched the beaches as well and recovered one Coast Guard survivor.  Ultimately five Coast Guard crewman, all from MLB CG-52301 Triumph, drowned, as did both of the Mermaid’s crew.

USCGC Tupelo (WLB-303)

1963  CGC Tupelo, four Navy and one Ohio State Highway patrol helicopters, CG-44002D, three ice skiffs and crews from Marblehead Lifeboat Station, Sandusky Light Station, Lorain Lifeboat Station, and a panel truck from Toledo CG Moorings were dispatched to rescue 150 persons reported adrift on an ice floe off Reno Beach, Lake Erie, 10 miles east of Toledo, Ohio during a severe storm that had winds gusting to 40 knots.  Four persons, also adrift, reached a breakwater offshore.  Tupelo, using ship’s boats, removed four persons from the breakwater and the panel truck crew passed a line to the ice floe and anchored it to the shore.  All 150 persons were brought safely ashore without incident.  The helicopters searched the surrounding area to ensure that no others were adrift.  Commander Ninth Coast Guard District stated that the prompt action of all the commands and agencies involved averted a “serious catastrophe and sent a ‘Well Done’ message to all participants.”

Republic of Korea Coast Guard vessel #3006 in company with U.S. Coast Guard cutter USCGC Boutwell (WHEC-719) during the North Pacific Coast Guard Forum in August 2007. This forum was created to increase international maritime safety and security in the Northern Pacific Ocean and its borders. The Boutwell worked with the Korean coast guard while on their way to Yokosuka, Japan. The Japanese coast guard is one of the six nations involved in the forum.

2009  CGC Boutwell departed Alameda, California, on an around-the-world cruise as part of the USS Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Crews from the Coast Guard Cutters Tahoma and Mohawk evacuate Haitian refugees, some critically injured, from a makeshift clinic at a Haitian Coast Guard Base. The Coast Guard Cutters received additional medical assistance, two doctors and three corpsmen, from the USS Carl Vinson. The additional resources have allowed Coast Guard crews to speed-up the stabilization efforts and movement of those injured. U.S. Coast Guard photo.

2010  A severe earthquake struck Haiti. USCGCs Forward, Mohawk, and Tahoma were the first U.S. assets to arrive on scene at Port au Prince, with Forward arriving the morning of January 13, 2010 and Mohawk arriving in the afternoon.  These units provided air traffic control for military aircraft, conducted damage assessments of the port, and ferried supplies and injured people with embarked boats and helicopters.  Other Coast Guard assets began arriving soon thereafter to assist in the recovery efforts, including the USCGC Oak and aircraft from AIRSTA Clearwater.