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Prince William Sound, AK (Mar. 24)--The Exxon Valdez remains in place in Prince Williams Sound after running aground. The Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska, March 23, 1989 spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil, which resulted in the largest oil spill in U.S. history. U.S. COAST GUARD PHOTO

May 20, 2022

The Long Blue Line: Four Minutes after Midnight—Bligh Reef, Murphy Prefers Midnight!

Exxon Valdez tragedy...32 years later

Photograph of Keeper Samuel Amalu scanning the horizon from one of his many lighthouses. (U.S. Coast Guard Collection)

May 13, 2022

The Long Blue Line: Samuel Amalu and Manuel Ferriera—Hawaiian Keepers of the Light

Celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Month, here is a story about Hawaiian lighthouse keepers.

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

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.

A flotilla of Coast Guard landing craft evacuated a battalion of Marines surrounded at Point Cruz, Guadalcanal. For his heroism in this operation, Signalman 1st Class Douglas Munro received the service’s only Medal of Honor. (U.S. Coast Guard)

Feb. 4, 2022

The Long Blue Line: 1942—Coast Guard’s history making year 80 years ago!

Remembering events from 1942

Vintage black and white image of Lightship 70 marking the entrance to San Francisco Bay. (U.S. Lighthouse Service)

Jan. 21, 2022

The Long Blue Line: Coast Guard pioneers the marine radio over 100 years ago!

Learn how radio became a basic part of a maritime communications.