Some photos from my Coast Guard Career

This page is always under construction

USCG Training and Supply Center Alameda, California

In 1970, at the time I attended boot camp, there were two such facilities in the Coast Guard - Alameda and in Cape May, New Jersey.  I believe that at that time, where one lived in relation to the Mississippi River determined which boot camp one went to.


Government Island (now known as Coast Guard Island) is where
I received my basic training from June to August 1970 
(Note that this is an air photo of Government Island taken well before I was there.)

Recruit Company Golf-75
June - August 1970
(I'm in the 1st row, 3rd from the left)

Coast Guard Training Center Governors Island, New York
(Radioman School)

Radioman "A" School Class 6-71
(I'm in the 3rd row from the bottom, 11th from the left.)

A few of the places I served at in Alaska

USCG Radio Station Adak Island, Alaska 
Radio Call Sign NOX

Radio Station Adak was attached to the Naval Communication Station on Clam Lagoon of Adak Island, located in the middle of the Aleutian Chain, Middle of Nowhere. Our primary responsibility  was to provide radio communications support for U.S. Military Sealift Command ships plying the Great Circle route from U.S. Pacific Coast ports to Southeast Asia (Vietnam for instance). We also received marine weather observations  and movement reports (AMVER) messages from other ships at sea including foreign fishing vessels operating in U.S. territorial waters. Radio Station Adak also provided the ears of the Coast Guard for distresses at sea, listening for that infamous SOS no matter how minute the signal. Coast Guard Radio Station Adak's only mode of radio communication was CW - International Morse Code.

Coast Guard Radio Station Adak was a tenant command of Naval Communication
Adak, as seen from across Clam Lagoon. The mountain behind the station is
Mt. Adagdak, an extinct volcano.

Coast Guard LORAN Station Sitkinak Island, Alaska
Radio Call Sign NRW1

Loran Station Sitkinak Island, Located about 20 miles off the southern tip of Kodiak Island, was part of a network (chain) of Long Range Aid to Navigation transmitting stations in the north Pacific and Bering Sea of Alaska. Along with LORAN stations at St. Paul Island, Attu Island, and Port Clarence (north of Nome on the Bering Sea), Sitkinak provided precise navigation signals to ships at sea and aircraft.

Radio Room at Loran Station Sitkinak Island, AK.

USCG Radio Station Barrow, Alaska
Radio Call Sign NMT

Coast Guard Radio Station Barrow, a secondary radio station of the Seventeenth Coast Guard District,  was tasked with providing radio communications support for U.S. and Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers working in the Western Arctic waters. We also provided radio support for National Science Foundation researchers based on Fletcher's Ice Island T3. From time to time, we provided flight following services for a Navy R4D (military version of a DC-3), used to fly logistics missions for the national DEW Line network of air defense radar sites strung between Alaska and Greenland. USCG Radio Station Barrow was located within the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory, a few miles from the town of Barrow. The radio station utilized radio teletype and single sideband (voice) communications. Since radio communications at extreme northern latitudes can become extremely unreliable, we had the ability to use CW (International Morse Code) as our primary back-up mode.

 


(above left) Naval Arctic Research Lab, Barrow, located on the northern tip of Alaska, was the parent command for the Coast Guard Radio Station. (above right) An operator position at NMT. (bottom) Another operator position showing radio teletype terminal equipment.

USCG Radio Station Ketchikan (Pt. Higgins) Alaska
Radio Call Sign NMJ

Coast Guard Radio Station Ketchikan was a primary radio station of the Seventeenth Coast Guard District. Our responsibilities included radio communications in support of the protection of life and property at sea in the waters of the southern portion of the Gulf of Alaska and Alaska's Inside Passage from Skagway to the United States/Canada border line (Dixon Entrance).  Included were several Coast Guard Buoy Tenders, home ported out of Juneau, Sitka, and Ketchikan; USCG 95 foot Patrol Boats which were based at Auke Bay (Juneau), Petersburg, and Ketchikan; and a chain of manned lighthouses which included Cape Decision, Eldred Rock, Point Retreat, Cape Spencer, and Five Finger Islands.

Radio Station Ketchikan also received weather observations and AMVER messages plus worked any distress traffic originating in its operating area of the Gulf of Alaska and Inside Passage.

Radio Station Ketchikan, while I was stationed there in 1972-73,  had three operator positions, one for CW, one for Voice Frequencies, and a Supervisor's position.  We did very little radio teletype. The buoy tenders we guarded all used CW as their primary radio modes. The patrol boats and lighthouses all utilized single sideband (voice).

The station was located about 15 miles north of the town of Ketchikan on Point Higgins. The site consisted of three  major buildings - Operations, where the radio watches were stood, Barracks, which housed about 15 bachelor personnel and contained a small galley, recreation deck and radio ham shack; and the Commanding Officer's house.  The CO was a Chief Warrant Officer (COMM).  The galley had a Commissaryman First Class as the station cook who usually cooked breakfast, and lunch during the weekdays. During the evening meal and on weekends, we enjoyed open galley where we were our own cooks.

An article from the Ketchikan, Alaska Sitenews.com:

Demolition of Historic Coast Guard Buildings Planned
 

USCG Communication Station
Kodiak, Alaska
Radio Call Sign NOJ

(Photos to be embedded)

Coast Guard Radio Station/Communication Kodiak maintained communication responsibilities for the northern Gulf of Alaska and eastern Bering Sea and was a primary radio station of the Seventeenth Coast Guard District.  My first tour, Radio Station Kodiak was located in the basement of the receiver site of the Naval Communication Station, located at Holiday Beach, about 20 miles south of the town of Kodiak. There were four positions - supervisor, single sideband, CW, and radio teletype.  The station transmitters were located on the Buskin River, not far from the main Navy/Coast Guard base.

Radio Station Kodiak had the military responsibility for a 210' Medium Endurance Cutter (CGC Confidence),  buoy tenders working out of Adak, Kodiak, Homer, and Cordova plus light houses located at Cape Hinchenbrook, and Cape St. Elias. 

After the Navy left Kodiak in the early 1970s, Coast Guard radio operations moved upstairs to the main deck of the receiver site and the command became officially known as "Communication Station Kodiak" or by its acronym, COMMSTA Kodiak. COMMSTA also worked visiting Coast Guard High Endurance Cutters conducting Alaska Patrol (ALPAT) in the waters off of Alaska.

USCGC Confidence (WMEC 619)
Radio Call sign NHKW

USCGC Confidence is a two hundred ten foot Medium Endurance Cutter that was home ported at Kodiak, Alaska when I served on her. The primary mission of the CGC Confidence was fisheries law enforcement, especially patrolling for foreign fishing vessels with prohibited species catches. The Confidence also was ready for any maritime search and rescue work within a several hundred mile radius. The ship was judged not suitable for the rough waters of Alaska and eventually transferred to Florida. It was a bit of a rough ride up there!.  An account of some of the snotty weather experienced on the CGC Confidence can be read here.

USCG Group Shinnecock
Hampton Bays, Long Island, New York
Radio Call sign NMY43  

USCGC Evergreen (WAGO 295)
Radio Call Sign NRXD

USCGC Evergreen was a one hundred eighty foot long Coast Guard Oceanographic Research Vessel.  Her primary mission was oceanographic research, principally on International Ice Patrol off the waters between Newfound and Greenland. The CGC Evergreen also conducted research of the Gulf Stream current between Bermuda and New England.  Many pieces of life saving equipment such as life rafts received their Coast Guard seal of approval based on data from the work of the crew of the Evergreen.  In its previous life, Evergreen was a 180 foot Seagoing Buoy Tender. After the Coast Guard terminated its oceanographic program, Evergreen became a Medium Endurance Cutter whose prime mission was maritime law enforcement.

The Web master in 1978 with a small ice berg in the background. The fog  and the decayed condition of the berg indicate that the
 possible position is at the edge of the warmer Gulf Stream current south of Newfoundland.

USCGC Evergreen nears an Atlantic berg.

USCG Reserve Training Center
Yorktown, Virginia

Located on the York River between the colonial town of Yorktown and Hampton, Virginia at the
edge of the Yorktown Battlefield where British General Charles Cornwallis was forced to
surrender British forces to General George Washington's combined American and French Armies.
Just before entering the main gate of the Coast Guard Training center, you pass the Moore House,
where the terms of British surrender were drafted.  One can't help but think while passing on the
way to work, "WOW! This is were America was born."

An aerial view of the USCG Training Center at Yorktown on the York River.
The center hosts the Coast Guard Officer Candidate School and several
Enlisted specialty schools.

USCGC Planetree (WLB 307)
Radio Call Sign NRPY

I reported aboard USCGC Planetree in 1984 in Juneau, Alaska.  A year later, the home port for Planetree was shifted south to Ketchikan.  CGC Planetree was an one hundred eighty foot buoy tender responsible for the maintenance for navigational aids such as buoys and lights from the U.S./Canadian boundary (Dixon Entrance), through the Inside Passage of Southeast Alaska north to Juneau and Skagway.

(top) USCGC Planetree off of Five Finger Island. (middle left) Planetree refueling Five Finger Light House.  (middle right) Web master as an angry Officer of the Deck at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii*. (bottom) Heading into a bit of ice near Prince William Sound not far from Valdez.

*The previous night, while on duty as Officer of the Deck, I received a call from the Army Provost Martial at Fort DeRussy on Waikiki informing me that they had four of our crewmen in the stockade for fighting.  I spent most of the night negotiating with the Army for the release of our sailors as the next day was an important event in our Navy refresher training.  I ended up assuming full responsibility for these 4 in return for their immediate release.  The four sailors  worked their collective butts off in  helping our ship receive a "clean sweep" - an excellence in training award, the next day. NEVER TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER!

Miscellaneous Pictures

A study in the aging process. (1969 - 2004)

Cold weather testing of the Transportable Communication Central with Mike Dyer (l) and 
Mike Wygand (r) at Cape Lisburn, north of the Arctic Circle near Point Hope, Alaska.