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Capt.Terrance
Hart U.S. Coast Guard
Ted Tripp
10/03/06
 GEORGETOWN – Late on
the night of December 26, 1970, in stormy seas 600 miles
off Cape May, New Jersey, the aging 540-foot Finnish
tanker Ragny broke in half without warning. An SOS went
out and was relayed to the Coast Guard station in New
York which immediately initiated rescue operations.
Thirty-one crewmembers were stranded on the stern section
and six, including the captain, were believed to be on
the bow.
The Coast Guard cutter Escanada, on its way to Atlantic
station Echo and 170 miles away, was immediately diverted
to assist in the rescue. After 20 hours traveling at full
speed, the Escanada reached the stricken tanker in the
middle of the following night. Another vessel, the SS
Platte, had reached the Ragny earlier but had already
lost a crewman when a rescue lifeboat capsized in the
rough seas. The Escanada established communications with
the stern’s survivors by sending them a portable
radio by shotline. The cutter’s commanding officer
then made the decision to wait until first light to
attempt any further rescue efforts for obvious safety
reasons.
But several hours later the Ragny crew reported that the
stern was sinking and the commanding officer of the
Escanada ordered a dangerous nighttime rescue. Two
lifeboats were lowered from the cutter into 10-15 foot
seas and, with great risk, successfully rescued all 31
crew from the stern. The bow of the Ragny, unfortunately,
disappeared from the radar screen just after the stern
rescue was completed. Throughout the following day, the
Escanada continued to search for the captain and five
missing crewmembers from the bow, but they were never
found.
Ensign Terry Hart, fresh out of the Coast Guard Academy,
was the boat officer of one of the lifeboats involved in
the daring rescue. He and nine other members of the
rescue team would later be awarded the Finnish Lifesaving
Medal by President Urho Kekkonen of Finland. The
Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, Admiral C.R. Bender,
also awarded a Unit Commendation Medal to the crew of the
Escanada for “exceptionally meritorious.service
… while engaged in the dramatic rescue of 31
survivors … .”
Terrance P. Hart was born in 1948 in Chicago, the son of
a career Coast Guardsman. As part of a military family,
Terry traveled throughout the country while growing up
but eventually would spend the last two years of his
secondary education at Mt. Diablo High School in Concord,
Calif. During his senior year he was student body
president and participated on the cross-country and track
teams.
 Always knowing he was destined for
a military career, he applied to and was accepted at both
the Coast Guard Academy and Annapolis. He chose the Coast
Guard, mostly because of his father, but also because he
was excited about sailing on the Coast Guard’s
tallship, the Eagle. He would subsequently spend three
summers hauling lines, climbing masts and furling sails
on the Eagle. Hart says that the first thing a cadet is
required to do is climb a mast – to overcome any
fear of heights.
Terry graduated from the Coast Guard Academy in 1970
– only a third of the entering class made it to
graduation that year - and was assigned to the Cutter
Escanada as an Assistant Gunnery Officer and Deck Watch
Officer. The 255-foot Escanada was an ocean station
vessel which would travel out to a specific point in the
Atlantic and stay on watch for 30 days, collecting
weather information, providing navigation assistance to
aircraft, and monitoring radio traffic.
Terry spent two years on the Escanada where he would
participate in a number of rescues, recoveries and the
towing of disabled fishing boats. However, he was also
fortunate to participate in the exciting America’s
Cup races off Newport, R.I. in 1970 where the Intrepid
defeated the Australian challenger, Gretel II.
In 1972, after being promoted to lieutenant junior grade,
Terry Hart became the commanding officer of the 95-foot
Cutter Cape Horn out of Woods Hole, Mass. He will never
forget his first tow job. It was the carcass of a huge
65-foot humpback whale which had washed up on the beach
at Provincetown. Most of the time, however, the cutter
performed search and rescue operations around Cape Cod
and out to George’s Bank.
Two years later Terry was transferred to the Coast Guard
District in New Orleans as a controller in the rescue
center. This station was responsible for all air and sea,
search and rescue operations in the entire Gulf of
Mexico. The controller coordinates all operations much
like an air traffic controller at an airport. The shifts
were 24 hours on and 48 hours off, but that was only if
you were lucky. It was here that Terry became an expert
on hurricanes and was preparing for the worst when one
headed directly towards New Orleans – but then took
a left turn at the last moment.
 In 1974 Terry volunteered to become
Commanding Officer of the Cutter Flagstaff, an
experimental hydrofoil formerly belonging to the Navy.
This was an era when Washington was beginning to
emphasize drug enforcement and the 50+ knot Flagstaff was
thought to be ideal for interdiction of drug smugglers.
Although stationed out of Woods Hole, Hart says the
cutter spent much of its time up in Boston for repairs.
Because of the continuing maintenance problems, the
Flagstaff was decommissioned after two years of trials.
Hart still remembers the thrill – and awe from the
bystanders on shore – going through the Cape Cod
Canal at 50 knots without creating a wake.
In late 1978 Terry Hart was transferred to Coast Guard
Headquarters in Washington, D.C. in the military
readiness division. He would subsequently become the
Current Operations Officer for all international law
enforcement activities involving the Coast Guard. During
his tenure he would be involved in 480 drug-bust cases,
all involving foreign boat seizures.
In 1980, Cuba’s Fidel Castro emptied his prisons and
told them and other “government-designated
undesirables” that they could flee to the United
States if they wished. This became known as the Mariel
Boatlift and involved over a thousand boats and rafts
headed for U.S. shores. President Jimmy Carter, alarmed
at the huge influx of Cubans, ordered a stop to it. Coast
Guard Headquarters sent Terry Hart to Miami to set up the
law enforcement and engagement procedures. The program
worked. Within two weeks, the number of Cubans fleeing to
the U.S. had dwindled to just a trickle.
In the summer of 1983, drug problems were sweeping the
country. President Ronald Reagan decided he needed a
“Drug Czar” and appointed his vice president,
George H.W. Bush, to that position.
Shortly afterwards, Terry Hart got a call from the White
House to join the Bush team. He was assigned to the staff
of the National Narcotics Border Interdiction System. He
ended up spending three years with Bush fighting the war
on drugs.
By now Terry Hart had been away from sea duty for seven
and a half years. The Coast Guard had a stipulation that
after seven years away from a sea command, you are no
longer permitted to return to the sea.
So Terry was relegated to shore duty from here on. In
1986 he asked for and was appointed Chief Law Enforcement
& Intelligence Officer for the First Coast  Guard District in Boston. (The
district encompassed all waters from Toms River, N.J. to
the Maine/Canada Border.) Four years later he became
Deputy Group Commander of Coast Guard units performing
law enforcement, aids to navigation and search and rescue
operations from the Cape Cod Canal to the New Hampshire
border.
In 1992 Terry was the Coast Guard’s
“logistics coordinator” for Sail Boston
’92, the international parade of tall ships through
Boston Harbor. This was also the year that Terry was
promoted to captain and became Director of the Coast
Guard Auxiliary for all of New England.
After a short stint as Chief of Boating Safety, in 1994
Terry Hart was transferred to what was to become his last
station – San Francisco. He was the Coast
Guard’s Group Commander of search and rescue, aids
to navigation and law enforcement for most of the
northern California coast as well as inland to Lake
Tahoe.
In 1997, Terry retired after 27 years in the Coast
Guard. His military awards include the Legion of Merit,
the Meritorious Service Medal, six Coast Guard
Commendation Medals, and the Life Saving Medal from
Finland.
Terry is a life member of the Disabled American Veterans
and the Military Officers Association, and a member of
American Legion Post 104 in Hamilton.
While Terry was at the Coast Guard Academy, he met a
young nursing student by the name of Barbara Haneberg.
He married her in 1970, in a ceremony just three hours
after he graduated from the academy. Terry and Barbara
have three children: Kari (Richards), John and Kevin; and
five grandchildren. Only John acquired a taste for the
sea; he is a merchant mariner currently aboard the USS
Mercy hospital ship.
After he retired, Terry Hart eventually decided he wanted
to help other veterans. In 1999 he became Director of
Veterans’ Services for the towns of Georgetown,
Essex, Hamilton, Ipswich, Rowley, Wenham and West
Newbury.
Terry says the job doesn’t pay as much as some of
his command posts, but the satisfaction of helping others
more than makes up for the difference.
Terry Hart, we thank you for your service to our country.
To Nominate a veteran to be our
Valley Patriot of the month please email us at valleypatriot@aol.com
*Send your questions comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com
The October, 2006
Edition of the Valley Patriot
The Valley Patriot is a Monthly
Publication.
All Contents (C) 2006, Valley Patriot, Inc.
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