Rum Patrol vs. Rum-Runners

It's time to tell a bit about the world's most unusual navy.

While we (OK, some of us) are looking forward for the third Boardwalk Empire season, it's good to learn something new - or rather, something well forgotten. How do you imagine the invisible Coast Guard, a body so often mentioned in the serial? What kind of craft the USCG used during the Prohibition - motorboats? Cutters? The answer is positive but incomplete. For your knowledge, there were much larger and powerful ships - destroyers. Actually, the Coast Guard flag was carried by a destroyer force which could easily arise envy in some second-rank naval powers like Brazil or Spain.

The warships were not the latest word of technology, their crews were untrained. Anyway, the Destroyer Force a.k.a. Rum Patrol posed a substantial threat for the smugglers a.k.a. Rum-runners.

Here is a paper published by the USCG (you can download it as a PDF file):

On 17 January 1920, “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes” was declared illegal by Constitutional amendment. The era generally known as Prohibition had begun.

The Coast Guard was to become one of the foremost means by which Prohibition would be enforced. Having just been returned to the control of the Treasury Department on 1 January 1920 after its service under the Navy Department in World War I, the Coast Guard was not adequately prepared for this new mission. It lacked the manpower and, most glaringly, the ships and patrol craft to conduct enforcement on a national level.

U.S. Coast Guard officer examining a suspected smuggler

In order to meet the demands of this new mission, it was initially determined that it would be faster and more cost-effective to borrow destroyers from the US Navy and adapt them for the law enforcement mission, than to build new ships. In the end the rehabilitation of the vessels became a saga in itself because of the exceedingly poor condition of many of these war-weary ships. In many instances it took nearly a year to bring the vessels up to seaworthiness. Additionally, these were by far the largest and most sophisticated vessels ever operated by the service and trained personnel were nearly nonexistent. As a result, Congress authorized hundreds of new enlistees. It was these inexperienced men that made up the destroyer crews and contributed to the service’s greatest growth prior to World War II.

A total of 31 destroyers served with the Coast Guard’s Destroyer Force. These included three different classes, the 742-ton flivver-class, 1,000-ton class, and the 1,190-ton Clemson-class flush-deckers.

A gun crew prepares to fire one of a Coast Guard destroyer's four-inch 50 caliber batteries

Capable of over 25 knots, the destroyers had an advantage in chasing large rumrunners. They were, however, easily outmaneuvered by smaller vessels. The destroyers’ mission, therefore, was to picket the larger supply ships ("mother ships") and prevent them from off-loading their cargo onto smaller, speedier contact boats that ran the liquor into shore.

A rum runner afire.  The crew of the rum-runner Linwood set fire to their vessel
after being pursued by a patrol boat in order to destroy the evidence

The destroyers were primarily stationed at bases in Boston, New London, and New York with the largest number of the ships being homeported at New London. As a result, the ships primarily operated off the northeast coast of the U.S., though a number of them were detailed for overseas duty.

In 1933 eight of the destroyers were part of a US Navy task force responding to political unrest in Cuba. The ships returned after only a short deployment.

One of the most noteworthy of the destroyers was USCGD Paulding (CG-17). In February 1927 Paulding, under the command of LCDR (later CAPT) John S. Baylis, was dispatched in a gale to assist the 75-foot patrol boat CG-238. In the unsuccessful attempt to locate the “six-bitter” (it had already foundered), the ship took a horrific beating. Despite losing much of her topside equipment and one of her four stacks, the ship was able to return to her base in Boston. For their effort several of the officers received commendations from the Commandant and six of the enlisted were advanced.

CG Destroyer Paulding with seized rum runner alongside

Later that same year on 17 December, Paulding accidently rammed and sank the US Navy submarine, S-4, while it was surfacing off Cape Cod. The result was the loss of all hands on board. An inquiry into the collision absolved Baylis of all blame.

Late in 1933 the states ratified the 21st Amendment repealing Prohibition. The end of Prohibition saw a scaling back the service’s law enforcement mission requirements. That along with the construction of the 250’ Lake-class cutters resulted in the decommissioning of the Destroyer Force. Those that were sufficiently modern and could be put to good use were returned to the Navy. The others were sent to the breakers and scrapped.

Despite existing for only a small part of its total history, the Destroyer Force left an indelible mark on the Coast Guard. After all many of the junior officers and enlisted men who served on these vessels in the 1920s and 1930s would later become the commanders and senior NCOs on cutters and Coast Guard-manned US Navy vessels in World War II. The Destroyer Force also helped shape the service’s most senior command as every Commandant from Hamlet to Roland had served with the Destroyer Force at sometime during his career.

And now, of men and beasts:

Ensign Charles L. Duke carried out one of the most remarkable arrests ever conducted by the Coast Guard during the enforcement of Prohibition.  While on patrol in New York harbor, he single-handedly captured the freighter Greypoint and its crew of 22 in a daring and heroic act.  The freighter carried over a half-million dollars worth of illegal liquor on board.

Horace Alderman, convicted of killing two Coast Guardsmen and one Treasury officer and also wounding two other Coast Guardsmen during a boarding and seizure near Bimini.  He was later hanged at Coast Guard Section Base, Fort Lauderdale.  He is the only person ever executed on Coast Guard property.

Leopard Mascot of Hunt (CG-18)

All images: United States Coast Guard Historian's Office