* Dramatic rescues retold in rich detail by a former US Coast Guard
*Gives a comprehensive digest of Coast Guard equipment
throughout the ages
*Contains first-hand accounts of lifesavers' heroism

Although the US Coast Guard enjoys a reputation as one of the best maritime rescue services in the world, details of its heroic history are lesser known. Dennis Noble redresses this with a book that highlights dramatic rescues carried out from shore-based Coast Guard stations and aircraft and patrol boats since the end of the nineteenth century.

Noble writes of a day shortly before Christmas in 1885 when keeper Benjamin Daily and his US Life-Saving Service crew rowed five miles in seas almost higher than the length of their boat to pick up shipwrecked sailors and bring them safely to shore. He also describes a 1918 rescue when a US Coast Guard boat crew pulled through burning gas and oil to extricate sailors from a sinking tanker.

Among the most memorable accounts is that of pilot Paul A. Langlois, who during the darkness of a gale-swept night manoeuvred his helicopter through rocky pinnacles to rescue two people from a sailboat. But as Noble makes clear not every rescue is successful, and attempts that ended in deaths are included aswell.

Everyone who enjoys man-against-the-sea stories will appreciate this book. Maritime-rescue specialists and historians will be drawn to the author's overview of the developments in equipment and the array of aircraft used by Coast Guard lifesavers.