* Dramatic rescues retold in rich detail by a former US Coast Guard
*Gives a comprehensive digest of Coast Guard equipment
throughout the ages
*Contains first-hand accounts of lifesavers' heroism
Although the US Coast Guard enjoys a reputation as one of the best maritime rescue services in the world, details of its heroic history are lesser known. Dennis Noble redresses this with a book that highlights dramatic rescues carried out from shore-based Coast Guard stations and aircraft and patrol boats since the end of the nineteenth century.
Noble writes of a day shortly before Christmas in 1885 when keeper Benjamin Daily and his US Life-Saving Service crew rowed five miles in seas almost higher than the length of their boat to pick up shipwrecked sailors and bring them safely to shore. He also describes a 1918 rescue when a US Coast Guard boat crew pulled through burning gas and oil to extricate sailors from a sinking tanker.
Among the most memorable accounts is that of pilot Paul A. Langlois, who during the darkness of a gale-swept night manoeuvred his helicopter through rocky pinnacles to rescue two people from a sailboat. But as Noble makes clear not every rescue is successful, and attempts that ended in deaths are included aswell.
Everyone who enjoys man-against-the-sea stories will appreciate this book. Maritime-rescue specialists and historians will be drawn to the author's overview of the developments in equipment and the array of aircraft used by Coast Guard lifesavers.
- ISBN10 1591146259
- ISBN13 9781591146254
- Publish Date 1 December 2004
- Publish Status Transferred
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Naval Institute Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 328
- Language English