NEW HAVEN — In the midst of the Cold War, a US Coast Guard ship dedicated by President Harry Truman embarked on a novel mission. The 338-foot ship had few weapons, but was equipped with antennas that were vital to its task.
The Coast Guard cutter Courier arrived at the island of Rhodes in Greece in 1952 and stayed until 1964, setting a record for longest deployment overseas. Under an initiative code-named Operation Vagabond, the ship served as a floating and mobile radio relay station, using its powerful transmitter to broadcast Voice of America programs into parts of the Soviet Union, communist bloc countries, and the Middle East.
Soviet attempts to jam the broadcasts were a constant challenge.
‘‘There was a thrill to it because you were playing a game and it was your skill against theirs,’’ said Robert James, an electronics technician on the ship in the early 1960s. ‘‘There was a fun aspect to it, because you knew you were participating in the Cold War, even though you weren’t shooting guns or anything like that.’’
The Coast Guard Museum at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., is marking the 50th anniversary of the end of the mission with an exhibit beginning June 19. The exhibit includes a model of the ship, along with photos and artifacts of the cutter and the community of Rhodes.
The Courier relayed broadcasts from the United States in more than a dozen languages seven days per week with a signal that was three times more powerful than a land-based signal and the most powerful transmitter ever installed on board a ship. It was the only mobile transmitter in the Voice of America’s network of overseas relay bases.
While there had been earlier experiments during World War II in broadcasting from ships, the Courier became the first lengthy ship-borne transmitter of Voice of America programming, said Robert Hickman, an exhibit organizer whose father ran electronics on the ship.
The Courier enabled Voice of America to quickly build up an audience because land-based installations took longer to establish, said George Jacobs, who served as assistant chief engineer for Voice of America.