This Day in Coast Guard History – August 6

1878- The last true sailing cutter built for the Revenue Service, Chase (Salmon P. Chase) was completed on 6 August 1878 at the shipyard of Thomas Brown of Philadephia.  Barque-rigged, Chase displaced 142 tons and served as a cadet "practice vessel" for nearly 30 years before being decommissioned and transferred to the U.S. Public Health Service.

1918-The first American lightship to be sunk by enemy action, Lightship No. 71, was lost on her Diamond Shoals station.  LS 71 had reported by radio the presence of a German submarine which had sunk a passing freighter. That message was intercepted by the submarine U-104, which then located the lightship and, after giving the crew opportunity to abandon ship in the boats, sank LS 71 by surface gunfire. The lightship's crew reached shore without injury.

1984-CGC Point Divide seized the HMAV Bounty, a replica of the HMS Bounty that was used in the 1984 motion picture "The Bounty," for customs violations.

1997: The CGCs Basswood and Galveston assisted in the rescue of the survivors of the crash of a Korean airliner, Flight 801, in Guam.

(Source: USCG Historian’s Office)