The Coast Guard Cutter Oliver Berry conducts a patrol in and around American Samoa, covering 8,169 nautical miles. The crew sought to combat illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing and other maritime threats across the Pacific to protect the United States and our partner’s resource security and sovereignty. (U.S. Coast Guard photo courtesy of the CGC Juniper)

Forbes reports on what might be an unexpected problem for the Coast Guard, a shortage of cooks to fill afloat billets. Consequently, there are now high bonuses for those who are qualified and want to cook for the Coast Guard.

Anyone who has spent any time afloat knows how important the cooks are to a ship’s morale.

The article reminds us that contracting out food preparation for shore units adversely affects coastie cooks sea/shore ratio and drive people out of the service.

There is also a bit of insight into what is necessary to allow Webber class WPCs to make those long Pacific deployments.

The FV Scandies Rose arriving in Kodiak, Alaska, in an undated photo. The fishing vessel sank off Alaska’s Sutwik Island in 2019, with the loss of five of seven crew members. Source: Gerry Cobban Knagin via NTSB

gCaptain reports,

The GAO report concluded that the while the Coast Guard does make efforts to promote commercial fishing vessel safety, including through conducting dockside exams, engaging with industry, and collaborating with other federal agencies, it has yet to fully implement 17 of 22 statutory requirements enacted over the 10-year timeframe.

Plus there is a lot more.

I have made a point of trying to illustrate how hard it is to sink a ship, even a small ship, with gunfire. My most popular post, “What Does It Take to Sink a Ship?,” takes a statistical look at the USN WWII combat losses, and I have published other posts that have looked at this question.

• What Does It Take to Sink a Ship, Illustrated
• What Does It Take to Sink a Ship, another Illustration
• What Does It Take to Sink a Ship–the ex-USS Rentz Sink-Ex

This was to show how inadequate the armament of Coast Guard cutters is, if they are ever called upon to forcibly stop a mediium or large vessel with a determined crew.

What we have, in the video above, is an illustration of the damage that was done to a very tough, but relatively small US Navy destroyer, with a determined crew, that fought agressively against Japanese destroyers, cruisers, and battleships including the Yamato with its 18″ guns which hit the little ship three times.

In this battle, despite very long odds, actually more than half of the small ships survived. Of the six escort carriers (CVEs), three destroyers (DDs), and four destroyer escorts (DEs), five CVEs, one DD, and three DEs survived the assault by four battleships, six heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and eleven destroyers.

For comparison, Fletcher class destroyers like USS Johnston typically had a full load displacement of 2,924 tons, less than two thirds the size of the NSCs and OPCs or about 50% larger than a 270.