“Completed in 1992, the Bertholf Plaza is named after Ellsworth P. Bertholf, the first Commandant of the modern-day Coast Guard. He was awarded the Gold Medal of Honor during the Port Barrow Overland Relief Expedition of 1897-1898. In 1915, Bertholf was instrumental in implementing the merger of the U.S. Life Saving Service with the Revenue Cutter Service creating the Coast Guard. The plaza is the site of several plaques commemorating Coast Guard personnel who served in WWII” (Campus). As previously stated, Ellsworth P. Bertholf was the first Commandant of the Modern Coast Guard.When he was sixteen, Bertholf received an appointment to the United Naval Academy but was court-martialed and dismissed for participating in a hazing incident at the beginning of his sophomore year. Nearly a year after his expulsion from the Naval Academy, he was appointed as a cadet at the Revenue Cutter Service School of Instruction (History, Bertholf). Bertholf graduated on October 18th 1887 and was assigned to USRC Levi Woodbury on December 15th to be commissioned as a 3rd Lieutenant in June of 1889. Eventually, Bertholf was transferred to …show more content…
In the fall of 1944, the ability to predict the weather dictated Nazi Germany 's capacity to strike at the Allied armies marching steadily toward Germany 's borders. “The Luftwaffe had been whittled down and Allied fighters and bombers now streaked through the skies at will, strafing and bombing German army units and their supply lines, limiting the ability of the Germans to launch any attacks” (Alexander). The German 's only hope was inclement weather that would ground Allied aircraft, thereby permitting the relatively unobstructed movement of their armies. The problem was in predicting when such bad weather would occur (Thomas). It was the Coast Guard that prevented their ability to get that information from where weather patterns for Europe were born – the island of