Every year, the Commandant releases his annual recommended reading list on New Year’s Day. This year we are transitioning from a Commandant’s Reading List to a Coast Guard Professional Development List and intend to release it on 21 April in conjunction with World Book Day. Admiral Schultz and other senior leaders will choose content for the list with a focus on leadership, culture, history, strategy, and other contemporary issues relevant to our Service.
Archived Recommendations
The Commandant is also looking for recommendations on books, blogs, podcasts, documentaries, reports, and other sources of information that should be considered for list. Any person or group (i.e., LDAC, Chief’s Mess, etc.) in the Coast Guard can make a recommendation, and we would like to receive submissions from a broad spectrum of the workforce.
Submissions should be sent using the Recommendation Template to cag@uscg.mil prior to 29 March 2019.
Prior to 2015, the Office of Leadership maintained a Coast Guard Reading List, which was a standing list of reading recommendations related to leadership, Coast Guard history and culture, and contemporary issues. These archived recommendations can provide additional learning opportunities to expand your knowledge and skills. In addition to the standing list, the Commandant selected one book annually as the "Commandant's Choice" for professional reading from 2002 until 2015.
2015 Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II by Mitchell Zuckoff (ISBN: 0062133438) Two harrowing crashes ... A vanished rescue plane ...A desperate fight for life in a frozen, hostile land ...The quest to solve a seventy-year-old mystery. On November 5, 1942, a U.S. cargo plane on a routine flight slammed into the Greenland ice cap. Four days later, a B-17 on the search-and-rescue mission became lost in a blinding storm and also crashed. Miraculously, all nine men on the B-17 survived. The U.S. military launched a second daring rescue operation, but the Grumman Duck amphibious plane sent to find the men flew into a severe storm and vanished. In this thrilling adventure, Mitchell Zuckoff offers a spellbinding account of these harrowing disasters and the fate of the survivors and their would-be saviors. Frozen in Time places us at the center of a group of valiant airmen fighting to stay alive through 148 days of a brutal Arctic winter by sheltering from subzero temperatures and vicious blizzards in the tail section of the broken B-17 until an expedition headed by famed Arctic explorer Bernt Balchen attempts to bring them to safety. But that is only part of the story that unfolds in Frozen in Time. In present-day Greenland, Zuckoff joins the U.S. Coast Guard and North South Polar -- a company led by the indefatigable dreamer Lou Sapienza, who worked for years to solve the mystery of the Duck’s last flight -- on a dangerous expedition to recover the remains of the lost plane’s crew. Drawing on intensive research and Zuckoff ’s firsthand account of the dramatic 2012 expedition, Frozen in Time is a breathtaking blend of mystery, adventure, heroism, and survival. It is also a poignant reminder of the sacrifices of our military personnel and their families -- and a tribute to the important, perilous, and often-overlooked work of the U.S. Coast Guard.
2014 The Finest Hours, by Michael J. Tougias and Casey Sherman (ISBN: 1416567224) On February 18, 1952, New England was battered by a brutal nor'easter and the freezing Atlantic became a zone of peril with 70-knot winds and 60-foot seas. Two old oil tankers, the Pendleton and the Fort Mercer, proved no match for the storm and both were torn in half just off Cape Cod. The Finest Hours highlights the captivating, true story of the valiant attempt of four Coast Guardsmen aboard the rescue surfboat CG36500 to overcome insurmountable odds and save the 32 stranded Pendleton sailors huddling inside the ship's stern section which was still afloat. The CG36500's crew, led by then-Petty Officer First Class Bernard Webber, conducted what is arguably the most dramatic rescue ever undertaken by the Coast Guard. All four Coast Guardsmen were awarded the Gold Lifesaving Medal for their proficiency and heroic actions in extreme conditions. In 2012 the Coast Guard commissioned the cutter BERNARD C. WEBBER, the lead ship in the Sentinel Class cutter fleet, in honor of the heroic boat coxswain. (Note: A young adult version -- age 10-16 -- is also available as The Finest Hours: The True Story of a Heroic Sea Rescue).
2013 Bearing Drift, by Peter Eident (ISBN: 1450765327) 35 years ago on October 20, 1978, the 125-ft training vessel USCGC CUYAHOGA collided with a 521-foot freighter while underway near the mouth of the Potomac River. Following the collision, CUYAHOGA sank, killing 11 Coast Guardsmen in one of the worst peacetime accidents in Coast Guard history. The author, who was standing watch on the bridge as CUYAHOGA was rammed and sank, explores a Coast Guardsman's intricate relationship with the sea and seeks meaning in the loss of his shipmates, an event he vividly recalls. Bearing Drift is about heroism and mistakes, and how the fatal mishap forever changed the author and the Coast Guard itself. Along with the USCGC BLACKTHORN collision 15 months later, the catastrophic sinking of the CUYAHOGA caused the Coast Guard to recommit itself to proficiency and reexamine the requirements for training, qualification standards and bridge manning requirements. A captivating tribute to the "long blue line" of shipmates who gave their last full measure of devotion in service of our country.
2012 Fire on the Beach: Recovering the Lost Story of Richard Etheridge and the Pea Island Lifesavers, by David Wright & David Zoby (ISBN: 0195154843) Fire on the Beach recovers a lost gem of American history. It tells the story of the U.S. Life-Saving Service, formed in 1871 to assure the safe passage of American and international shipping and to save lives and salvage cargo. A century ago, the adventures of the now-forgotten “surfmen” who, in crews of seven, bore the brunt of this dangerous but vital duty filled the pages of popular reading material, from Harper’s to the Baltimore Sun and New York Herald. Station 17, located on the desolate beaches of Pea Island, North Carolina, housed one such unit, and Richard Etheridge -- the only black man to lead a lifesaving crew -- was its captain.
2011 The Skipper & The Eagle, by Gordon McGowan (ISBN: 978-0-930248-09-3) In 1996, then-Captain Robert J. Papp, Jr., took command of USCG Barque Eagle, the US Coast Guard’s sail-training vessel. Shortly after assuming command, he was to take the Eagle on a historic journey to Hamburg, on the 50th anniversary of the Eagle’s inaugural journey to the US from Germany. Capt. Papp was eager to learn as much as he could about those early chapters from the Eagle’s history, and he set out to find a copy of The Skipper and the Eagle, the memoir of the Eagle’s first commanding officer, but soon discovered that the book was out of print. Capt. Papp’s search inspired Howard Slotnick of the National Maritime Historical Society to set the wheels in motion for a new edition of the book, published by Sea History Press in 1998.
2010 Rescue Warriors: The U.S. Coast Guard, America's Forgotten Heroes, by David Helvarg (ISBN: 978-0312363727) Since its founding more than two hundred years ago, the United States Coast Guard has rescued over a million people. On any given day, “Coasties” respond to 125 distress calls and save over a dozen lives. Yet despite having more than 50,000 active-duty and reserve members on every ocean and on our nation’s coasts, great lakes, and rivers, most of us know very little about this often neglected but crucial branch of the military. In Rescue Warriors, award-winning journalist David Helvarg brings us into the daily lives of Coasties, filled with a salty maritime mix of altruism and adrenaline, as well as dozens of death-defying rescues at sea and on hurricane-ravaged shores. Helvarg spent two years with the men and women of the Coast Guard, from the halls of their academy in New London, Connecticut, to the frigid, storm-tossed waters of Alaska’s Bering Sea, to the northern Persian Gulf, where they currently guard Iraqi oil terminals. The result is a masterpiece of adventure reporting -- the definitive book on America’s “forgotten heroes.”