A01=Jim Howe
Author_Jim Howe
Bahamas smuggling
boarding officer memoir
Caribbean
Caribbean patrols
Category=JB
Cay Sal Bank
Coast Guard
Coast Guard Academy
Coast Guard cutters
Coast Guard history
Coast Guard memoir
cocaine trafficking
counterdrug patrols
Cutter
drug interdiction
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eq_society-politics
Florida Straits
Grenada invasion
high speed catamarans
Jerry Lober
Jim Howe
Key West cutters
law enforcement boardings
marijuana smuggling
maritime interdiction
maritime law enforcement
Migrant interdiction
multi crewing
naval history
Operation Urgent Fury
Reagan era
Seabird class
Search and Rescue
SES cutters
Seventh Coast Guard District
smuggler chases
surface effect craft
Surface Effect Ship
Tongue of the Ocean
USCGC Petrel
USCGC Sea Hawk
USCGC Shearwater
war on drugs
Yucatan Channel
Product details
- ISBN 9781682475553
- Weight: 444g
- Dimensions: 152 x 228mm
- Publication Date: 01 Oct 2020
- Publisher: Naval Institute Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Red Crew is a first-hand account of U.S. Coast Guard anti-smuggling operations during the early years of the nation's maritime war on drugs. Jim Howe describes his experience as the executive officer of a specialized drug-hunting crew that sailed in then-state-of-the-art ""surface effect ships,"" a small flotilla of high-speed vessels pressed into the drug war on short notice.
In the early 1980s, South Florida and the Caribbean were awash in illicit drugs, with hundreds of smuggling organizations bringing huge loads of marijuana, and later cocaine, into the United States. To fight this epidemic, the Reagan administration led a massive effort to disrupt shore-side gangs while bolstering interdiction activity at sea. To increase the number of days at sea for each surface effect ship, a ""multi-crewing"" concept was employed, with four teams of sixteen sailors--the Red, Blue, Green, and Gold Crews--rotating among three hulls.
Through its first-person narrative, Red Crew offers a rare glimpse into the day-to-day pressures, challenges, failures, and successes of Coast Guard cuttermen as they carried out complex and dangerous missions. Red Crew provides a unique historical view of the early days in the Coast Guard's war on drugs, and is the only book-length history of the diminutive, one-of-a-kind surface effect ship fleet.
In the early 1980s, South Florida and the Caribbean were awash in illicit drugs, with hundreds of smuggling organizations bringing huge loads of marijuana, and later cocaine, into the United States. To fight this epidemic, the Reagan administration led a massive effort to disrupt shore-side gangs while bolstering interdiction activity at sea. To increase the number of days at sea for each surface effect ship, a ""multi-crewing"" concept was employed, with four teams of sixteen sailors--the Red, Blue, Green, and Gold Crews--rotating among three hulls.
Through its first-person narrative, Red Crew offers a rare glimpse into the day-to-day pressures, challenges, failures, and successes of Coast Guard cuttermen as they carried out complex and dangerous missions. Red Crew provides a unique historical view of the early days in the Coast Guard's war on drugs, and is the only book-length history of the diminutive, one-of-a-kind surface effect ship fleet.
Capt. Jim Howe, USCG (Ret.), served 27 years in the U.S. Coast Guard, eleven at sea and five in command. A graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, he has earned master's degrees in government, strategic studies, and space studies. Captain Howe works in the nuclear power industry.
