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As with any meaningful career, that of Holly R. Harrison reflects
her hard work and devotion to duty. Harrison comes from a military
family tracing its connection to the nation's armed services back
several generations. Early in life, she continued her family's
tradition of service to country, gaining hands-on experience with
Coast Guard units while still in high school. She spent a year in
college working hard to fulfill her dream of entrance into and
graduation from the Coast Guard Academy.
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(U.S. Coast Guard
courtesy image with Lt. Holly Harrison, Cutter Aquidneck, and Bronze
Star Medal)
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After completing four years at the Academy, Harrison
received a variety of shipboard assignments, including ones
on Storis (WMEC-38), and 110-foot cutters Kiska (WPB-1336)
and Aquidneck (WPB-1309). A World War II-era cutter famous
for making the Northwest Passage in 1957, Storis proved an
excellent vessel on which to learn to drive ships. Harrison
served as an ensign on Storis in the stormy Bering Sea and
boarded numerous fishing vessels in support of the cutter's
law enforcement mission. Next, Harrison transferred to Hilo,
Hawaii, to serve as executive officer on board the 110-foot
patrol boat Kiska, which performed a variety of missions in
the mid-Pacific area. Harrison served aboard Kiska for two
years before receiving command of her own cutter, the WPB
Aquidneck, home-ported at Fort Macon, North Carolina.
Near the end of 2002, after well over a year in command
of Aquidneck, Harrison received orders to the Northern
Arabian Gulf, NAG, to take part in Operation Iraqi Freedom,
OIF. Harrison had to cancel an assignment to escort vessels
in the Delaware River, return Aquidneck to homeport to load
spare parts, and steam for the Integrated Support
Center-Portsmouth, in Hampton Roads, Virginia. In
Portsmouth, Harrison spent over two months preparing the
cutter and crew for deployment to the Middle East. These
preparations included rigorous training in small arms and
chemical, biological and radiological warfare. Harrison and
her crew also prepared Aquidneck for trans-Atlantic shipment
on board a Military Sealift Command ship. Trans-shipment of
Aquidneck and three other 110-foot cutters required a great
deal of logistical work and by January 2003, the four WPBs
were ready to load on board the commercial heavy-lift motor
vessel Industrial Challenger.
On Wednesday, Feb. 26,
2003, Harrison and her crew touched down in Bahrain. Not
long after her arrival, Harrison and her three fellow patrol
boat skippers boarded USS Valley Forge, a guided missile
cruiser and command ship for Task Force 55, under which the
cutters would operate. Task force commander, U.S. Navy Capt.
John Peterson, had specifically requested use of the patrol
boats during the September 2002 planning for OIF naval
operations. Peterson and his staff briefed the skippers on
their upcoming mission and the naval combat operations about
to begin.
After the WPB's arrived in Bahrain, the
work tempo heightened. Within ten days of Harrison's
arrival, motor vessel Industrial Challenger delivered
Aquidneck and the other 110's after a 35 day passage. A week
after Harrison and her crew touched down in Bahrain, a
heavy-lift crane off-loaded the cutters and Harrison and her
crew conducted sea trials for the next two days. On
Saturday, March 8, the crew stowed stores on board Aquidneck
and, the next day, the patrol boat sailed into the NAG with
sister Cutter Adak. Once the two cutters arrived, they began
maritime interdiction operations, boarding and inspecting
indigenous watercraft along the coast of Iraq.
In
mid-March, Coalition naval forces restricted the flow of
Iraqi watercraft along the Khawr Abd Allah (KAA) Waterway,
the primary maritime link between Iraq and the Gulf. Naval
planners believed that these Iraqi dhows and other
watercraft might hold mines, weapons or escaping Iraqi
officials. The dhows countered Coalition efforts by staging
breakouts, which involved dozens of watercraft trying to
escape simultaneously. These attempts included a large
breakout of 60 dhows on March 17. Aquidneck worked together
with the other WPBs and an HH-65 Dolphin helicopter from
high-endurance Cutter Boutwell to corral the watercraft and
board each of them. Together, they managed to inspect all
the vessels and found no weapons, illegal cargoes or Iraqi
officials.
In the evening of Thursday, March 20, OIF
combat operations began as Coalition warships launched
Tomahawk missiles toward Baghdad. Aquidneck patrolled around
the naval vessels during launch operations to screen them
from intruders. The missile launches proved an awesome sight
and none of the off-watch crew could sleep. Harrison was
unaware of the fact that, as captain of Aquidneck, she had
become the first woman to command a Coast Guard vessel in a
combat zone.
The next day, Aquidneck remained on
patrol in the NAG. Early in the morning, Aquidneck's lookout
spotted a Royal Navy Sea King helicopter approach while
another British Sea King vectored in from the opposite
direction. To the amazement of the crew, the two helicopters
collided in mid-air and exploded on impact. Aquidneck
reacted immediately and appeared at the site of the disaster
before any other Coalition vessel. As fuel burned on the
water's surface surrounding the wreckage, Aquidneck launched
its small boat and commenced search operations; but all of
the seven helicopter crewmembers, including an American Navy
officer, died in the crash.
After Coalition naval
forces wrapped up the initial phases of combat operations,
naval planners focused on opening the KAA Waterway to vessel
traffic. On Saturday, March 22, Aquidneck joined an escort
detailed to protect Coalition minesweeping vessels clearing
the channel to the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr. To do this,
Aquidneck and the other escorts had to navigate upstream of
the minesweepers. This mission proved to be a stressful one
because Harrison's crew knew they were sailing through
unswept waters and that their thin-skinned cutter would be
torn apart by a floating mine. This mission concluded
successfully with no casualties to the minesweepers or their
escorts, but later analysis indicated that Aquidneck had
passed through waters holding active mines.
Aquidneck
performed numerous patrol missions to safeguard Iraqi oil
platforms. On several of these patrols, Iranian gunboats
would appear, test Harrison and her crew's reactions, and
gauge the capabilities of Aquidneck. Harrison drew a fine
line between responding assertively and avoiding
hostilities. She chose the middle ground of having the crew
ready to man the cutter's loaded guns without aiming weapons
at the Iranians. Whenever Iranian vessels appeared in
Aquidneck's patrol area, Harrison paralleled their course
and matched their speed, sometimes exceeding 30 knots to do
so. Harrison made sure her cutter did not present a
threatening posture, but she never backed down and the
Iranians routinely broke off the encounters and retreated to
their territorial waters.
Securing the KAA Waterway
for regular commercial traffic required not just
minesweeping operations, but the clearing of other
navigational hazards. Wrecks and hulks of destroyed ships
dating back as far as the Iran-Iraq War dotted the KAA
Waterway's shoreline. Armed boarding teams from the WPBs had
to clear the shoreline of any potential threats hidden
within these wrecks. During these operations, a boarding
team from Aquidneck discovered military supplies within the
hulk of a tanker, including Iraqi military uniforms, money,
AK-47s, fresh food and drawings of Coalition naval vessels.
Aquidneck's shore parties also secured a number of coastal
bunkers that proved inaccessible to land forces.
Under Harrison's command, Aquidneck and her dedicated crew
conducted innumerable maritime interdiction, search and
rescue, escort and combat-related operations in the NAG. In
2003, Harrison received recognition for these achievements,
becoming the first female in service history to receive the
Bronze Star Medal in addition to her record as the first
woman to command a Coast Guard cutter in combat.
After re-deployment to the United States, Harrison
transferred to the Maritime Law Enforcement School, in
Yorktown, Virginia, and put her rich boarding experience to
use as a senior instructor. She moved with the school to
Charleston, South Carolina, to help established the Coast
Guard's law enforcement academy in that city. Following her
teaching work in Charleston, she served for two years as
executive officer of the medium-endurance Cutter Legare,
which performed several drug interdiction and illegal
migrant patrols in the Caribbean. Today, Cmdr. Harrison
serves at Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, D.C., and
remains one of the service's long blue line.
By William H. Thiesen, Atlantic Area Historian, USCG
Provided
through
Coast
Guard
Copyright 2015
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