Mayday! Mayday!

This action-packed collection of true stories reveals the scope of the Coast Guard's 200-year mission, demonstrating how this small, underfunded service plays an essential role in the war against drugs and attempts to avert offshore hazardous-waste accidents. The emphasis is on teamwork and individual heroism, presented here in dramatic stories of drug busts, cleanups after offshore oil spills, and rescues of shipwreck survivors. Several unusual cases, such as the violent and bloody confrontation between Coast Guardsmen and bootleggers during Prohibition, the 1836 defense against Indian attack at the Cape Florida Lighthouse and the Coast Guard's role in rescuing civilians during a 1972 outbreak of civil disorder in the Virgin Islands, are described. Schreiner ( The Trials of Mrs. Lincoln ) gracefully weaves into his narratives a history of the Coast Guard, showing how the service attracts volunteers by offering ``the stimulation of risk and action in a good cause.'' Authentic, stirring tales from the annals of the unsung fifth branch of the military. (Nov.)