OCEANOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES 61 



stitute, SO there is a very fine correlation between what we are doing 

 in this field and the general work of the Woods Hole Institute. It 

 may also be a matter of interest to this committee to know that the 

 first officer trained by the Coast Guard as an oceanographer was, after 

 retirement, the director of the Woods Hole Institute for 5 years. 



In addition to the above, during the years following the war a num- 

 ber of our officers have become quite interested in, and in many in- 

 stances on their own made a considerable study of wave motions pri- 

 marily for the purpose of analyzing the effect of wind and sea, and 

 arriving at the most desirable heading to land an airplane in the un- 

 happy circumstances where it is necessary to ditch a plane at sea. In 

 this particular field, I would suppose that these officers might well 

 have wished for a more exhaustive means of pursuing their studies, 

 even to the point of actually researching this activity. Due, fortu- 

 nately, to the rather infrequent number of times when the problem 

 of ditching an airplane, commercial or otherwise, arises, and the fact 

 that in these cases the circumstances may dictate arbitrary considera- 

 tions on the pilot in choosing his ditching heading apart from the 

 wave motion, the Coast Guard to date has not seen the wisdom, nor 

 oould it afford to conduct a full-scale research study mto this prob- 

 lem, even though, as I say, it has been a matter of considerable in- 

 dividual study by a number of officers of the service engaged in search 

 and rescue. I mention this phase as one that, as the committee con- 

 ti]iues its study, it may want to pursue further. 



One other area in which the study of oceanography might offer 

 direct benefits to the Coast Guard in the application of its statutory 

 duties arises, it appears to me, in the matter of oil pollution of our 

 coastal waters. As the committee is aware, for a number of years 

 many of our coastal areas have been plagued by deposits of oil on 

 their beaches. Such deposits are not only harmful to the fish, shell- 

 fish, and bird life, but can be exceedingly annoying to the many 

 bathers along our shores. The beaches along the Florida coasts are 

 a particular example of this. The source of this oil can usually not 

 be traced directly to its source, though the general consensus of 

 opinion is that it stems from the pumping of bilges, particularly of 

 tankers, at sea. In fairness, I should say first, so long as the vessel 

 is outside of the territorial waters of tthe United States, there is no 

 offense against the laws of the United States, and secondly, that the 

 companies engaged in transporting oil have fully cooperated in at- 

 tempting to minimize this problem by issuing stringent orders against 

 the practice of discharging bilges in areas where the sludge deposits 

 would in all probability be thrown up on the beach. 



In addition, the oil companies have even employed a special in- 

 vestigator to patrol certain beaches with the idea of tracing the source 

 of oil, insofar as practicable, and attempting to find a solution to the 

 situation. It is possible that if the law were broadened to make it an 

 offense to discharge bilges in an area where the normal trend of ocean 

 currents would be likely to deposit the sludge on the beaches, and 

 the prosecution provisions eased to permit the assessment of a penalty 

 or prosecution without the necessity of actually witnessing the dis- 

 charge of oily bilge water or ballast, as is presently the case for 

 effective prosecution, research in this area could be well justified. 

 However, it seems to me it would be fruitless to spend funds in re- 



