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A Coast Guardsman on ocean station in the North Atlantic prepares to release a 



weather balloon. 



from the Navy in 1946, were reduced to 

 two. 



At the present time, the Coast Guard 

 operates four ocean stations in the North 

 Atlantic and two in the Pacific. 



What these ocean station vessels mean 

 for ocean air travel, over and above the 

 weather reports they supply, was demon- 

 strated in October 1947 by the cutter 

 Bibb. She was on her ocean station 800 

 miles east of Newfoundland, when the 

 flying boat Bermuda Sky Queen, bound 

 from Ireland to Newfoundland, flew over 

 her. A hundred miles beyond, the plane 

 had spent so much of its fuel bucking 

 headwinds that it would not have been 

 able to make land. So it turned back and, 

 despite 35-foot waves, landed near the 

 Bibb. 



A large raft put off from the Bibb made 

 three round trips, taking passengers from 

 the plane to the ship. Returning on the 

 fourth trip, the raft, with 16 persons 

 aboard, began to drift away. A motor surf- 

 boat from the Bibb went after it, but both 

 the small craft were swamped. Quickly, 

 the Bibb bore down on them and men 

 over the side of the cutter in landing nets 

 whisked the people from the raft and the 

 surfboat out of reach of the sea. Twenty- 

 two persons spent the night on the plane 

 after darkness made further rescues im- 

 possible. These were taken off next morn- 

 ing. Four days later, the Bibb steamed 

 into Boston with 69 survivors. A broom 

 was lashed to her mast. She had made a 



clean sweep. 



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