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Andrew Assimos by 5NR Historian Steve Marthouse
Several years ago , I attended a historical association convention and listened to presentations by some noted maritime historians . At a social mixer following the last scheduled event of the day , I had a conversation with a noted author , and he made a statement that has stuck with me over the years . He stated that history should always be about the people . Too many stories focus on events , artifacts , dates etc . but he believed the most critical area was the people involved or how the events affected people . Over the years , I have devoted a great deal of time researching the history of the US Coast Guard , its predecessors ; US Revenue Cutter Service , US Life-Saving Service , and the US Lighthouse Service . Thirty-four years ago , I joined the Coast Guard Auxiliary and that opened a whole new subject area . What I learned quite quickly was that , just like the Coast Guard , the Auxiliary did not consider its history a priority . Trying to find a source document to answer a simple question required major effort and many times simply could not be located .
Last Spring , I began to write a series of articles for Topside with a goal to inform our members of the contribution the Coast Guard Auxiliary has made over the years . Finding information beginning with the WWII era was easy but to drill down to our specific District presents a serious challenge . I was able to determine the difficulty the Auxiliary went through trying to establish itself and its missions following the war . The 1950 ’ s brought about the Courtesy Marine Examination and Public Education , but Operations was really limited and far different than what we have today . Patrol activity was at the discretion of the District Commander and usually was assisting at marine events and regattas . Beginning in 1952 , the first AUXOPs were established . An AUXOP was a special trained unit consisting of around fifty members , five surface vessel facilities , 2 aircraft facilities and 2 radio facilities . The Auxiliary formed these units to demonstrate their effectiveness and it was expected that the Coast Guard would recognize the greater operational potential of these units .
This past September , I received an email about a member who had joined the Auxiliary in 1960 and had decided that it was time to retire . The individual it turns out , was heavily involved in operations during his entire Auxiliary career . I jumped at the chance to interview him not only to discover what motivated him to spend over 61years contributing to the organization , but to understand the evolution of the Auxiliary from 1960 to when I joined in 1987 . I was privileged to meet and spend the day interviewing Andrew Assimos this past October .
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