60 OCEANOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES 



the subject matter ^Yhich is the prime concern of this special subcom- 

 mittee, the Coast Guard has not had the opportunity to devote any 

 great amount of study or thought to the requirements of the Coast 

 Guard in this field, or to the place that the Coast Guard might take 

 in the development of the subject matter. Therefore, anything that I 

 may say is, I confess, a very superficial review of what is admittedly a 

 very broad field, and that a more detailed study by the Coast Guard 

 might develop areas of research in the field of oceanography that would 

 be of particular value to the Coast Guard in the discharge of its duties. 



At the outset, I am sure this committee recognizes that the Coast 

 Guard is a service organization discharging specific statutory duties 

 laid down b}'^ Congress after careful review of those duties by the Mer- 

 chant Marine and Fisheries Committee. Therefore, in the past it has 

 been customary and mandatory to limit research in any field to those 

 areas that could specifically lead to the more efficient and economic dis- 

 charge of the specific statutory duties imposed by Congress. Even in 

 using the word "researcli" I am using language loosely because, in 

 fact, the Coast Guard, through its limited size, has been precluded 

 from engaging in pure research. Persomiel and budgetary limita- 

 tions geared to day-to-day operational efficiency have been an effective 

 bar to such endeavor. We have, in recent years, developed in our 

 corps a small group of personnel engaged in activities allied to re- 

 search work, but in order to make the distinction between pure re- 

 search and the work carried on by this personnel, we have referred to 

 our activities in this field as testing and development rather than re- 

 search. This may appear to be a very fine distinction in semantics, 

 bu the concept has been that basic research must be left to others and 

 we merely take the results of their efforts and through testing, de- 

 velop these items for our own better use, always keeping in mind 

 that those things tested must generally be an extension of our statu- 

 tory duties. 



Oddly enough, the only field in which we have probably approached 

 true research is in, the area of oceanography, the matter of principal 

 concern to this committee. This has come about, I would say, largely 

 because of our being charged with the duty of maintaining the inter- 

 national ice patrol. We recognized over 30 years ago that the proper 

 and efficient discharge of this responsibility required more knowledge 

 on the part of the officer in charge of the ice patrol than the mere 

 locating and counting of the icebergs in a given area during the ice 

 seasons. We therefore undertook to train a limited number of our 

 officers in oceanography, and this practice has been continued to date. 

 We also maintain on our rolls a civilian oceanographer, and have had 

 his services available for a number of years. 



As part of the program of conducting the ice patrol, we have 

 tlirough the years, particularly since the war, authorized a number of 



i)ostseixson, and occasionally preseason, cruises to make studies of the 

 Labrador currents as well as the areas around Greenland where the 

 bergs that constitute a menace in tlie shipping lanes are generally 

 calved. The result of these cruises, as well as the report on the con- 

 duct of the ice patrol, is a matter of public record which has for years 

 contributed to the general knowledge in the field of oceanography. 



The small staff that correlates and prepares this information, fol- 

 lowing the actual gathering of it, is located at the Woods Hole In- 



