Early Coast Guard Presence in Pascagoula

Flotil­la Will Arrive From Atlantic Seaboard Lat­ter Part of May. Cham­ber of Com­merce Gives Effec­tive Co-oper­a­tion to Guard Officials.

Pascagoula Chron­i­cle-Star, April 8, 1927

Selec­tion of Pascagoula as the post at which six 100-foot type patrol boats of the Unit­ed States Guard Ser­vice will be sta­tioned was made Thurs­day night from Com­man­der H. H. Wolf, com­man­der of the Gulf Divi­sion of the Coast Guard sta­tioned at Mobile.

Cap­tain Wolf told Her­mes F. Gau­ti­er, pres­i­dent of the Cham­ber of Com­merce, that the flotil­la will leave the Atlantic seaboard depot at Arun­del Cove, Md., to pro­ceed for Pascagoula on or about May 15.

The new boats will con­sti­tute Divi­sion 8 of the Off­shore Patrol Force, and will be under com­mand of Cap­tain C. H. Hilton, who has been detached from the Destroy­er Force for the pur­pose of assum­ing this com­mand. The boats have a cruis­ing radius of sev­er­al thou­sand miles, and each is manned by about ten men.

Fol­low­ing arrival in the Gulf, Divi­sion 8 will be a part of the force assigned to the Gulf Divi­sion for assis­tance to ship­ping and law enforcement.

The flotil­la was to be sta­tioned at Mobile, as that port had been select­ed as head­quar­ters for the Gulf of Mex­i­co instead of Key West. An eleventh hour change, assigned the flotil­la to Pascagoula.

The Cham­ber of Com­merce of Pascagoula, not­ing the estab­lish­ment of head­quar­ters at Mobile and the inten­tion to con­cen­trate the large boats at that city, imme­di­ate­ly got into action and brought to the atten­tion of Coast Guard offi­cers the advan­tages here for a base. The munic­i­pal dock and ware­house were placed at the dis­pos­al of the offi­cers, and they were told of the Gov­ern­ment Ship­yard here, where prompt and effi­cient repairs could be made on craft at a very low cost. The splen­did hous­ing con­di­tions in Pascagoula were anoth­er fac­tor in inter­est­ing the Coast Guard officers.