AMERICA’S COAST GUARDS

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6602, 21 May 1925, Page 2

AMERICA’S COAST GUARDS

ALWAYS ON THE WATCH An alert army of thousands of men will soon begin again its regular patrol of America’s 13,000 miles of coast line, says the New York Times. The organisation of the Coast Guard and its mechanical equipment is the most complete in the world. Scattered along the coast are hundreds of stations, fleets of boats and wrecking machinery units, linked together by telephone and by the new radio receiving and broadcasting stations. Let a distress signal from a ship at sea be picked and the machinery of life saving for hundreds of miles can be set in operation in a few minutes. The coast line is patroled as methodically as a ship’s deck. Two men are on each watch at every station. One looks out from the top of 'the tower over a long stretch of beach. The other patrols the beach to a house half way to the next station. The guards from adjoining stations do not meet on their patrols. At fixed hours they all start out along the beaches in the same direction and turn at about the same time. By this ingenious device there is always. a guard on the look-out at regular intervals for thousands of miles and no long stretch of beach is at any time left unguarded. The entire army of guards struggles up and down the beaches in all extremes of weather. Throughout the winter there are four watches during the night. In the summer the vigil is from sunset to sunrise, but if the weather is bad the patrol stands as long as he is needed.