On 7 November 1984-The tank ship Mara Hope suffered a fire in her engine room that quickly got out of control. She had lain idle at the Coastal Marine Shipyard on the Neches River for more than a year but the owners of the Liberian tank ship had crewed the vessel and were working to reactivate the ship when the fire broke out. Coast Guard personnel and a 32-footer from MSO Port Arthur soon arrived on-scene as did a 41-footer from Station Sabine. Local firefighters also assisted. It took almost three days to get the blaze under control. The ship was declared a total loss. There were no serious casualties. On 8 November: 1942- Operation Torch, the Allied landings in Vichy-French-held North Africa, commenced. Coast Guard-manned Navy vessels participated in the assault, including the attack transports USS Leonard Wood, Joseph T. Dickman, and Samuel Chase. Coast Guardsmen also manned the landing craft on the Navys USS Arcturus, Charles Carroll, Joseph Hewes, William P. Biddle and Exceller. 1959- The tanker Amoco Virginia, with a cargo of aviation gasoline, exploded and caught fire at Houston, Texas. U.S. Coast Guard units in the Galveston-Houston area assisted local and Federal agencies in extinguishing the blaze. For 10 more days, Coast Guard air and surface units controlled a dangerous situation by spreading foam to reduce the fire hazard of leaking aviation gas, directing harbor traffic, pumping out the damaged vessel, and moving her to a safe dock. 1979-The crew of Coast Guard LORAN Station St. Paul Island, Alaska, rescued the crew of the Japanese factory fishing vessel Ryuyo Maru NR Two which had run aground near Tolstoi Point on St. Paul Island during a storm. The Coast Guardsmen used a makeshift breeches buoy to effect the rescue of all of the 81 crewmen aboard the fishing vessel.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 11:09:11 +0000
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