William Thiesen
“No Greater Love": Billy Flores, Hero of the Cutter Blackthorn
There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. - John 15:13, New Testament In the long history of the U.S...
Forrest Rednour and the Rescue of the WWII Transport Dorchester
. . . his courageous disregard for his own personal safety in a situation of grave peril was in keeping with the highest tradition...
The Long Blue Line: Capt. von Paulsen’s New Year’s Day Rescue
Ninety years ago, on Sunday, New Year’s Day 1933, Lt. Cmdr. Carl Christian von Paulsen started out on what would become one of ear...
Capt. Fraser: The U.S. Coast Guard's Forgotten Visionary
. . . [Captain] Fraser opposed an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and this official’s hostility proved fatal to the Captain’s...
Guadalcanal at 80: The USCG and the Island-Hopping Campaign
. . . this Reinforced Division not only held their important strategic positions despite determined and repeated Japanese naval, a...
12 Years Later: The Deepwater Horizon Spill
"Even Exxon Valdez pales in comparison to the volume, scale, number of Coast Guard resources, how much time has been devoted to [D...
U.S. Coast Guard Commemorates the 80th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor
In his war declaration speech, President Franklin Roosevelt labeled Dec. 7, 1941, as a “date that will live in infamy.” On that da...
Catching Rumrunners: How Prohibition Built the Modern Coast Guard
[Prohibition] was a hard unremitting war with few of the rewards normally accompanying performance of such duty. Yet under the law...
150 Years of U.S. Arctic Operations
If you are subjected to miserable discomforts, or even if you suffer, it must be regarded as all right and simply a part of life;...
Profile: Rear Adm. Edward “Iceberg” Smith and the Greenland Patrol
"To the officers of the Greenland Patrol vessels: This is your command. Your first command. Your first great chance. It is hard, r...