spencer was credited with two subs, and 

 the Duane for an assist. 



But there were losses, too. The Hamil- 

 to77 capsized while in tow after she had 

 been torpedoed off Iceland and had to be 

 sunk by gunfire. The Acacia was sunk in 

 the Caribbean; the Escanaba, Leopold, 

 Muskeget, and Natsek in the Atlantic ; the 

 Serpens in the Pacific. Only two of the 

 crew survived the Escanaba. Not long 

 before, the Escanaba had spent eight 

 hours in sub-infested waters rescuing sur- 

 vivors from a torpedoed transport. Some 

 of her crew went over the side in darkness 

 to tie lines to men who were too weak to 

 climb aboard. 



Another of the spectacular war duties 

 of the Coast Guard was manning the land- 

 ing craft that hit the invasion beaches with 

 assault troops. Guadalcanal, Attu, North 

 Africa, Salerno, Anzio, Tarawa, Makin, 

 Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Normandy, South- 

 ern France, Luzon, Guam, Saipan, Iwo 

 Jima, Okinawa — the Coast Guard made 

 all those stops, and a lot in between. The 

 Coast Guard's years of experience operat- 



ing small boats through the surf made it 

 the logical organization to train and supply 

 crews for landing craft — from the smallest 

 barges to the giant LST's (landing ship, 

 tanks). Coast Guard crews served also on 

 many of the big assault transports which 

 carried the barges and troops within strik- 

 ing distance of the beachheads. 



On D-day in Normandy, Coast Guard 

 83-foot cutters were given special life- 

 saving assignments. Under fire from Ger- 

 man defense guns, they saved 1,468 sur- 

 vivors of sunken landing barges. 



Coast Guardsmen distinguished them- 

 selves on other fronts. In September 1941, 

 the cutter Northland swooped down on 

 the sealer Buskoe and frustrated a Nazi 

 attempt to set up a weather station in 

 Greenland, effecting the first naval capture 

 in World War II. Then there was the 

 beach patrol, guarding 40,000 miles of 

 shoreline. Beach-pounder John Cullen 

 detected four Nazi saboteurs landing on 

 Long Island from a submarine. Their cap- 

 ture led to apprehension of four others 

 landed in Florida. 



D-Day in Normandy. 



