Cutterman Frank Newcomb and the Rescue of USS Winslow
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n 194 0, when asked by US Navy officials to choose a Coast Guardsman whose name should grace a new Fletcher-class destroyer, Russell Waesche, then serving as the eighth commandant of the United States Coast Guard, singled out revenue cutterman Frank Hamilton Newcomb as by far the best ca ndidate. A man of modesty, humility and a strong work ethic, Frank Newcomb was born in 1846 and raised in Boston. As a teenager, he went to sea in his father's merchant ship, and by 1863 at age seventeen, he was shipping out with the US Navy to serve with the South Adantic Blockading Squadron. After the C ivil War, Newcomb returned home to Boston and tried his hand in the merchant marine, and then the booming railroad industry. By the early 1870s, however, Newcomb was miss ing the sea, and he appli ed for an appointment w ith the United States Reve nue Cutter Service. In 1873, he received a third lieutenant's co mmission and served the res t of the 1870s on cutters Petrel, Crawford, and Joh nson. In 1879, Lt. Newcomb received a different sort of appointment, as an inspector for the United
Frank H amilton Newcomb (1846-1934) A veteran of the Civil War as a US Navy officer, and the Spanish-American War as part ofthe US Revenue Cutter Service, Frank Newcomb served for more than forty years in the US sea services.
States Lifesaving Service, which had been established the previous year as a separate federal agency (in 1915, the US Lifesaving Service wo uld merge with the US Revenue
by W illiam H. Thiesen, PhD
Cutter Service to become the United States Coast Guard). During the ea rly 18 80s, Newcomb helped oversee lifesaving stations along the North Carolina coast and was influential in establishing the first all-blackcrewed station, at Pea Island on the Outer Banks. In the 1890s, Newcomb was aga in at sea, serv ing in revenue cutters far from home, out in the Paci fic . Back in Washingron, tensions were mounting with Spain over C uba, a nd Newcomb was brought back to the Atlant ic theater in September 1897 to assume command of the cutter Hudson, home-ported in New York Harbor. When USS Maine exploded in Havana H arbor in February 1898, tensions boiled over and the United States began preparing for a war with Spain. Newcomb and his crew aboard the H udson did li kewise, and on 2 April, the cutter slipped her moorings and steamed sourh, bound for the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. The Norfolk Navy Yard prepared most units of the US Atlantic fleet for the war, so the facility was buzzing with activity when Hudson arrived to take on arms, armor, and ammunition . The Revenue
USR C Hudson's usual patrol normally kept her in the waters around New York City, but she was called into service for the SpanishAmerican War. Newcomb was given orders to bring the cutter to the Norfolk Navy Yard (shown here) to be outfitted for war.
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SEA HISTORY 157, WINTER 20 16- 17