This Day in Coast Guard History – May 4

1882-The Secretary of the Treasury was authorized to discontinue any lifesaving station, transfer apparatus, appoint keepers, etc.

1910-Congress required every passenger ship or other ship carrying 50 persons or more, leaving any port of United States, to be equipped with a radio (powerful enough to transmit to a 100-mile radius) and a qualified operator.

1942- The Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Ernest J. King, ordered the Coast Guard Auxiliary to organize into a anti-submarine patrol force, which becomes known as the "Corsair Fleet" for service along the east coast.  The Corsair Fleet was made up primarily of private yachts, crewed by their owners, and converted for ASW use.

1944-The Coast Guard-manned destroyer escort USS Pride (DE-323), with three other Allied escort vessels, sank U-371 in the Mediterranean.  The U-371 had torpedoed the Coast Guard-manned USS Menges the previous day.

(Source: USCG Historian’s Office)