During World War II, the US Coast Guard effectively became America's fourth armed service. Among their many wartime duties, Coast Guardsmen played an important role in the battle of the Atlantic and the long series of amphibious landings in the Pacific. In the merciless struggle to keep the supply lines to Europe open, Coast Guardsmen manned cutters, frigates and destroyers charged with protecting the Atlantic convoys from Germany's U-boats. The Coast Guard's boat-handling expertise was often crucial in landing troops on Japanese-held islands throughout the Pacific campaign, where they manned hundreds of ships and thousands of amphibious craft, and their skills were also put to full use during the Normandy landings of June 1944. This book provides a concise account of the Coast Guard's war, fully illustrated with wartime photos and uniform plates. Book jacket.

Alejandro de Quesada is a Florida-based military history writer, an experienced researcher and collector of militaria, photos and documents and runs an archive and historical consulting for museums as well as for films as a secondary business with a strong Military History content. He has written over 100 articles and over 25 books, including several for Osprey, and is a leading authority on Latin-American subjects. 

Author of the following Osprey titles to date: The Spanish-American War and Philippine Insurrection; The US Home Front 1941-45; Roosevelt's Rough Riders; The Bay of Pigs; The Mexican Revolution; The United States Coast Guard during World War Two; Spanish Colonial Fortifications in North America.