This Day in Coast Guard History – Feb. 9

1965-A commercial DC-7 with 84 persons on board exploded in midair off Jones Beach, Long Island.  Despite an extensive search by seven Coast Guard cutters, six Coast Guard aircraft, and a US Navy tug, no survivors were located.  Only nine bodies and various pieces of debris were located and recovered.

1968-CG cutters Androscoggin, Minnetonka, and Winona, along with 82 footers and Navy assets, on patrol in Vietnamese waters, thwarted a Communist attempt to run four trawlers through the Market Time blockade off the coast of South Vietnam.  The cutters sank three of the trawlers and forced the fourth to return to Hainan Island without landing her cargo.  The defeat of this attempted re-supply was hailed as "the most significant naval victory of the Vietnam campaign."

(Source: USCG Historian’s Office)