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Tag: The Long Blue Line

Portrait of William Tatham in 1779. Tatham was a contemporary and frequent correspondent of the president. He was universally acknowledged as brilliant, but could be abrasive and arrogant. He quickly alienated the other two commissioners, Jonathan Price and William Coles, working on the 1806 survey. They ended up submitting separate reports, and only Coles and Price produced the chart. (North Carolina Historical Review, July 1972)

May 6, 2022

The Long Blue Line: Death by hurricane of Coast Survey Cutters Diligence and Governor Williams 216 years ago

A busy hurricane season of 1806.

Prinsendam cruising the sheltered waters near Skagway, Alaska, before her fire and subsequent loss. (Alaska State Library)

April 29, 2022

The Long Blue Line: Prinsendam—Coast Guard’s “Miracle Rescue” over 40 years ago!

Editor’s note: This article initially published Nov. 24 in the Commandant’s Bulletin Magazine.The town of Valdez, Alaska, fell behind the U.S. tanker Williamsburgh. Full of oil, the ship headed for Texas. The bridge crew sighed relief—one more successful trip through the narrow channel. Midnight was approaching, bringing in Saturday, Oct. 4, 1980,

Lt. Buddy Ebsen on stage hosting the 7th War Loan bond drive in Seattle. (U.S. Coast Guard)

April 22, 2022

The Long Blue Line: Buddy Ebsen—Hollywood actor and World War II patrol frigate officer

Hollywood actor, Coast Guard WWII hero

A map from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) showing the State of Alaska and the epicenter of the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964. (NOAA)

April 15, 2022

The Long Blue Line: “The land turned to liquid”—Coast Guard operations in the Great Alaska Earthquake

The land turned to liquid. A long slice of the seaward edge of the plain…a section nearly a mile long and as much as six hundred feet wide-compacted, slumped, and then slid into the bay… men tumbled into the water, grasping for anything – timbers, boxes, debris-to stay afloat. One clung to the side of the fissure before he too, fell in. In the

Long-time U.S. Life-Saving Service member and keeper, Patrick Etheridge, alleged to have uttered the unofficial Life-Saving Service motto of “You have to go out, but you don’t have to come back.” (U.S. Coast Guard)

April 8, 2022

The Long Blue Line: “You have to go out, but you don’t have to come back”—origin of the old Life-Saving Service motto

The lore behind the motto

Rare photograph of a Civil War-era tugboat. USS Daisy, a tugboat converted for Union naval may have been similar in design and construction to USRCS Hercules and Reliance. (www.history.uscg.mil)

April 1, 2022

The Long Blue Line: “The last full measure of devotion”—the life and death of Revenue Cutter Capt. Thomas Dungan

A story about the Coast Guard's predecessor service in the Civil War.

Vintage photograph of Miss. Harriet Lane, niece of James Buchanan, 15th President of the United States and the White House’s first First Lady. (Wikipedia)

March 18, 2022

The Long Blue Line: Harriet Lane—first lady of the Coast Guard and the U.S.!

First Lady Harriet Lane lives today through the cutter named for her.

Marilyn Melendez Dykman, the first minority female pilot in the Coast Guard. (U.S. Coast Guard)

March 11, 2022

The Long Blue Line: Coast Guard women in aviation—blazing a trail for 80 years!

Celebrating Women's History Month: Women in Coast Guard aviation

A veteran of the Civil War and the Spanish-American War, Lt. Frank Newcomb served for over 40 years in the U.S. sea services. He was a progressive thinking man and considered one of the finest officers of the Revenue Cutter Service. (U.S. Coast Guard photo)

March 4, 2022

The Long Blue Line: Revenue Cutter Hudson and the Battle of Cardenas Bay in the War with Spain

The service’s first minority members honored for heroism in combat in the War with Spain

Chief Louis Etheridge near the end of his honorable and productive Coast Guard career. (U.S. Coast Guard)

Feb. 18, 2022

The Long Blue Line: Louis Etheridge—Gun captain and African-American war hero 

Read about the courageous actions resulting in the Coast Guard’s first military medal bestowed on an African American Coast Guardsman for combat heroism.