This Day in U.S. Coast Guard History – November 22

1906-At the second International Radio Telegraphic Convention, which was held in Berlin, the attendees agreed to adopt the wireless signal "SOS" as the internationally recognized signal for distress at sea.  Their thinking was that three dots, three dashes and three dots could not be misinterpreted.

1953-A great boon to ocean navigation for aircraft surface vessels was the completion of four new LORAN stations in the Far East.  The stations were built at Mikayo Jima, Ryuku Islands; Bataan and Cantanduanes Islands, Philippines; and Anguar, Palau Island in the Carolinas chain.  Now replaced by the more accurate LORAN-C network, these stations on sparsely-populated, remote and typhoon-battered islands.

1993-NATO began enforcing United Nations' Resolutions 713 and 757 that set in place an embargo against the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro).  Four Coast Guard LEDETs were deployed to Southern Europe to support the operation and were placed aboard 11 NATO warships.

(Source: USCG Historian’s Office)