At home and overseas, the United States Coast Guard served a variety of vital functions in World War II, providing service that has been too little recognized in histories of the war. Teaming up with other international forces the Coast Guard provided crew members for Navy and Army vessels as well as its own, carried troops, food, and military supplies overseas, and landed Marine and Army units on distant and dangerous shores.This thorough history details those and other important missions, including combat at Pearl Harbor, the Alaskan Aleutian Islands, the beaches of Normandy, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Pacific island campaigns against Axis forces, kamikaze attacks, and typhoons. It also describes how the home front presented its own unique dangers and challenges, as Coast Guard personnel faced dangerous search and rescue missions, firefighting, explosives loading, and enemy espionage and sabotage. Also included are illustrations of aircraft, vessels, personnel, and combat action, maps of maritime combat theaters, extensive source notes, and documents such as combat action reports and personal correspondence.