United States Coast Guard
Many Hispanics also served in the United States Coast Guard. Joseph B. Aviles, Sr., the first Hispanic to be promoted to chief petty officer in the Coast Guard was also the first Hispanic to be promoted to chief warrant officer. He spent most of the war in St. Augustine, Florida training recruits.
Valentin R. Fernandez was awarded a Silver Lifesaving Medal for "maneuvering a Marine landing party ashore under constant Japanese attack" during the invasion of Saipan.
Louis Rua was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for "meritorious achievement at sea December 5–6, 1944, while serving aboard a U.S. Army large tug en route to the Philippines. His craft went to the rescue of another ship which had been torpedoed by enemy action and saved 277 survivors from the abandoned ship." Rua was the first known Hispanic-American Coast Guardsman to be awarded with a Bronze Star Medal.
Gunner's Mate Second Class Joseph Tezanos was awarded a Navy & Marine Corps Medal during World War II for "...distinguished heroism while serving as a volunteer member of a boat crew engaged in rescue operations during a fire in Pearl Harbor, Oahu, T.H. on 21 May 1944. Under conditions of great personal danger from fire and explosions and with disregard of his own safety he assisted in the rescuing of approximately 42 survivors some of whom were injured and exhausted from the water and from burning ships." He was also the first known Hispanic-American to complete OCS training at the Coast Guard Academy.
Not everyone served aboard ships during the war. Some men like Jose R. Zaragoza served on missions on some lonely atolls. When 19 year old Zaragoza, a native of Los Angeles, California, joined the Coast Guard, he was sent on patrols in the Pacific coast of the United States defending against sabotage and invasion from the Japanese. Later he received instructions in the then-emerging and secretive field of Loran navigation and sent to Ulithi atoll, located between Guam and the Philippines where he worked in Long Range Aids to Navigation, which is akin to radar work. He served on Ulithi Island for 15 months.
Read more about this topic: Hispanic Americans In World War II
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, coast and/or guard:
“The United States is a republic, and a republic is a state in which the people are the boss. That means us. And if the big shots in Washington don’t do like we vote, we don’t vote for them, by golly, no more.”
—Willis Goldbeck (1900–1979)
“The United States is just now the oldest country in the world, there always is an oldest country and she is it, it is she who is the mother of the twentieth century civilization. She began to feel herself as it just after the Civil War. And so it is a country the right age to have been born in and the wrong age to live in.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“On the whole, the great success of marriage in the States is due partly to the fact that no American man is ever idle, and partly to the fact that no American wife is considered responsible for the quality of her husband’s dinners.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“On the Coast of Coromandel
Where the early pumpkins blow,
In the middle of the woods
Lived the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
Two old chairs, and half a candle,—
One old jug without a handle,—
These were all his worldly goods:
In the middle of the woods,”
—Edward Lear (1812–1888)
“There is only one element that can break the Afrikaner, and that is the Afrikaner himself. It is when the Afrikaner, like a baboon shot in the stomach, pulls out his own intestines. We must guard against that.”
—P.W. (Pieter Willem)