The United States Coast Guard traces its origins to 1790, but was not officially named until 1915. At last there is one definitive volume describing its history from inception to the present. The author, Thomas P. Ostrom, served in the USCGR from 1961-69, and had basic and advanced training at the USCG Base, Alameda, California. He served subsequently in the Port Security Reserve Unit in Duluth, Minnesota, and participated in monthly and active duty assignments each summer, earning petty officer rank.

The United States Coast Guard traces its origins to 1790, but was not officially named until 1915. At last there is one definitive volume describing its history on The Great Lakes from inception to the present. The author, Thomas P. Ostrom, served in the USCGR from 1961-69, and had basic and advanced training at the USCG Base, Alameda, California. He served subsequently in the Port Security Reserve Unit in Duluth, Minnesota, and participated in monthly and active duty assignments each summer, earning petty officer rank.

The history of the U.S. Coast Guard and its predecessor agencies dates from 1790, with missions in both domestic and international waters. The service has provided aids to navigation, enforcement of maritime laws, environmental protection, search and rescue, immigration and narcotics interdiction, maritime safety assistance, port security, natural disaster response and national defense missions, including overseas with other U.S. armed forces and federal and state public safety agencies.

The Service has operated under the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Transportation and, since 2003, the Department of Homeland Security. Its maritime mission regions have included Arctic and Antarctic waters, inland and coastal U.S. waterways and the seas and oceans of the world. This history describes how the Coast Guard has manifested its legacy and motto, Semper Paratus (Always Ready), in changing conditions under each of its leaders.

At home and overseas, the United States Coast Guard served a variety of vital functions in World War II, providing service that has been too little recognized in histories of the war. Teaming up with other international forces, the Coast Guard provided crewmembers for Navy and Army vessels as well as its own, carried troops, food, and military supplies overseas, and landed Marine and Army units on distant and dangerous shores.

This thorough history details those and other important missions, which included combat engagement with submarines and kamikaze planes, and typhoons. On the home front, port security missions involving search and rescue, fire fighting, explosives, espionage and sabotage presented their own unique dangers and challenges.

In addition to port security, ship inspection and safety, law enforcement, and search and rescue, the U.S. Coast Guard assumes an important role in national defense at home and abroad. To that end, the Coast Guard has carried out separate and coordinated missions with other armed forces from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, Mediterranean, Persian Gulf, and North Polar region. This chronicle of the Coast Guard's contributions to national defense examines participation in World War I, World War II, Korea, the Cold War, Vietnam, and the War on Terror. Among the topics explored are defense threats, drug trafficking, and border security, as well as Coast Guard personnel, training, leadership, and assets.

Covering the history of the U.S. Coast Guard from 1790--when it was called the U.S. Revenue Marine--through World War I, this book describes the service's national defense missions, including actions during the War of 1812, clashes with pirates, slave ships and Seminole Indians, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War. During World War I the USCG supported U.S. Navy operations across the Atlantic, escorted merchant convoys and engaged in anti-submarine warfare. Original maps are included.