Guardians of the Sea: History of the United States Coast Guard, 1915 to the Present

Winner of the 1988 Roosevelt Naval History Prize and the John Lyman Book Award in Naval History, this work is filled with fascinating details of the Coast Guard's long record of service to the country. Written by a historian and World War II veteran of the Coast Guard, it chronicles the organizational changes that came about as the service grew, adapted to new missions, and weathered social, political, economic and technical upheavals. The focus of the book is on the years after 1915 when the US Revenue Cutter and Life-Saving services formally merged to form today's Coast Guard, but its first chapters briefly trace developments from 1790 onwards. At the same time it provides an operational history of the Coast Guard in the twentieth century. The author recounts stories of wartime action and peacetime rescues at sea and the stories illustrate the nature of Coast Guard duties and the ways in which major events have influenced the service's development.