Haitian Coast Guard

The Haitian Coast Guard, officially the Haitian Coast Guard Commission (French: Commissariat des Gardes-Côtes d’Haïti) or G-Cd'H, is an operational unit of the Haitian National Police. It is one of the few law enforcement organisations in the world to combine water policing and coast guard duties while remaining as a policing unit. It operates primarily as a law enforcement agency, with secondary responsibilities in search and rescue.

The Haitian Coast Guard was formed in the late 1930s, 20 years after the disbandment of the Haitian Navy, and was equipped with two small picket boats named 1 and 2 and the 161-ton Sans Souci. The latter was formerly the American yacht Captain James Taylor.

During World War II, six 83-foot cutters, named 1 through 6, were transferred from the US Coast Guard in 1942. Three 121-ton SC class submarine chasers, Touissaint L'Ouverture, 16 Aout 1946, and Admiral Killick, were transferred in 1947, along with the 47-ton cutter Savannah and the light transport Vertières. The two picket boats were withdrawn at this time.

In 1948, a US Naval Mission arrived in Haiti.

The transport Vertières sank in 1951 and was replaced by the Artibonite, a LCT which had been previously wrecked on the Haitian coast and was subsequently salvaged.

The Coast Guard remained this way until the Admiral Killick was stricken in 1954 and was replaced by a US-sourced buoy tender given the same name in 1955. In 1956 a new 100 ton coast cutter, La Crête-à-Pierrot, was acquired from the United States. The two remaining sub-chasers were stricken in 1960 which is when the new Vertières, sister to the La Crête-à-Pierrot, was acquired. The US Navy netlayer USS Tonawanda (AN-89), renamed Jean-Jacques Dessalines, arrived in 1960 for a five-year, extended to 17-year lease. On April 21, 1970, three units — La Crête-à-Pierrot, Vertières, and Jean-Jacques Dessalines — mutinied and shelled the Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince. They were driven off by fighter aircraft and then interred themselves in the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. The US disarmed the vessels and relocated them initially to Puerto Rico and then back to Haiti. Duvalier celebrated this event by renaming the Coast Guard the "Haitian Navy" (La Marine Haitienne).

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Wikipedia