Starting out as the Revenue Cutter Service, the US Coast Guard was initially tasked with tracking down smugglers trying to bring in goods without paying the proper duties. Over time, several other tasks were added to the roles of the Coast Guard, including maritime safety as well as rescuing sailors whose ships had foundered or sunk.

During times of peace, the Coast Guard was under the auspices of the Treasury Department, but with war, it was mobilized under the US Navy, though allowed to operate somewhat independently.

It was during WWII that saw the greatest expansion of the Coast Guard and one could find 'Coasties' in pretty much every theater of operations. If you can think of an aspect of Naval operations, then there is an excellent chance that somewhere, there was a Coast Guardsman or woman who was performing that same duty. They did convoy duty with cutters and destroyer escorts, manned guns on civilian transports, flew anti-submarine patrols as well as performed air/sea rescue. Manned radio and weather stations in Greenland and Alaska, were in command of landing craft of various sizes for amphibious operations and the list goes on.

In this particular volume of Osprey's 'Elite' series, author Alejandro de Quesada looks at the variety of jobs performed by the Coast Guard and while it is impossible to do into any real depth, a goodly selection of their accomplishments are covered in this book. This includes operations in the Aleutians, Southwest Pacific, Central Pacific, European and Mediterranean theaters. As the Elite series is as much about uniforms and personal equipment as anything else, we have a superb batch of artwork by Stephen Walsh to cover these aspects of the book. This includes some superlative period photos that show these men and women as they were during this time.

It makes for a most interesting addition to the series and is one that every enthusiast of the Coast Guard needs on their shelves.

May 2010

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