Ocean Station: Operations of the U.S. Coast Guard 1940-1977.

Michael R. Adams, Eastport, Maine, NOR’EASTER PRESS  2010.  350 pp. illustrated. appendix, notes, index.  $36.95.  ISBN:978-0-9779200-1-3.

Reviewed by Paul Scotti.

Finally, a book about Ocean Station: a duty that comprised three weeks of hazards, heroics, brutal endurance, and extreme boredom. It was a necessary patrol but one that most Coast Guardsmen disdained. There was nothing exciting about sitting for weeks on an imaginary spot on the ocean. From these nautical outposts the cutter crews reported weather observations, provided navigational reference to trans-oceanic aircraft, and rescued distressed ships and planes.

The constant enemy of cutter and crew was the weather. When storms came through blowing in excess of forty knots with forty foot seas the men just rode it out while they were endlessly tossed and bruised. Sleeping was near impossible under these conditions. Ocean Station duty — just wore a man out.

Weather station patrols began in 1940 when the Bibb and Duane took positions on Station 1 and Station 2 in the Atlantic Ocean between Bermuda and the Azores. Over the years the number of Oceans Stations around the world varied. From 1951-1971 the Coast Guard manned primarily six stations: four in the Atlantic (Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo) and two in the Pacific (November, Victor). This duty was given to the cruising cutters: the 327-foot Secretary Class; the 311- foot Casco Class; and the 255-foot Lake Class cutters.

The chapters of the book are broken down into the respective stations. The author, a retired Coast Guard officer with service on the North Atlantic ocean stations, and a licensed master mariner, weaves into the narrative details that make absorbing reading. He explains subjects such as dead reckoning; what aircraft pilots and ship captains need to consider when an airplane has to ditch in the ocean; and factors that go into determining where to search for survivors. His explanation of the sagging, hogging, wracking, pitching, yawing, rolling, surging, and heaving stresses a ship continuously undergoes causes one to marvel at the durability coming out of ship design and construction.

Rarely would a cutter abandon station even when its topside structures were smashed, its small boats destroyed, and topside gear carried away by the sea. In winter, when the North Atlantic turned a ship into an ice sculpture threatening its stability the crew turned out on deck with baseball bats to knock away the ice. The book is filled with accounts of rescues of aircraft and ship survivors in terrible sea conditions. There are accounts of cutters so beaten up by storms that they came close to breaking up at sea. For reference, the book has illustrations, appendixes, source notes, a bibliography, and index.  It is well-researched. One of the appendixes lists all the cutters that pulled an Ocean Station since the beginning in 1940.

New technology in navigation, communications, weather-collecting, and jet aircraft made Ocean Stations obsolete. The final station, Hotel, was closed in 1977. After reading this book, those who pulled Ocean Station will say, “Yep, that’s the way it was.” Those who did not will say, “Whew! I’m glad I didn’t have to.”

 I wholeheartedly recommend this book. But don’t blame me if it makes you seasick.

Paul C. Scotti is the CGCVA President and author of Coast Guard Action in Vietnam.