Notes for: Harold Sloop Berdine
From Ronny Bodine:
Obituary, The Binghampton Press (Binghampton, N.Y.)of 19 March 1966.
A Binghamton - born Coast Guard rear admiral, Harold S. Berdine, died in Bethesda, Md., last week and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. His career covered every facet of Coast Guard seaborne life, from nabbing liquor smugglers on the high seas during Prohibition to sinking a Nazi submarine in the Atlantic during World War 2. When he died of a heart attack Saturday, he was 64 years old and retired. Admiral Berdine lived at 29 Wheeler Avenue (now Crestmont Road on the West Side) when he was a student here. His parents were the late Mr. and Mrs. Harry Berdine. DURING WORLD WAR 2, he was awarded two Legion of Merit medals. The first was for the performance of the cutter Spencer, under his command, which sank a Nazi submarine and captured many of its crew in the Atlantic April 17, 1943. He received the Gold Star in lieu of a second medal for duty as commanding officer of Task Force 64 on convoy escort operations in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean from January, 1944, to March, 1945. Admiral Berdine entered the Coast Guard Academy as a cadet July 24, 1922, and was commissioned an ensign in 1924. He was assigned to a destroyer force, the duty of which was to run down and bag rum-runners during Prohibition in the 1920s and early 1930s. During the 1930s, he served as assistant coordinator of Treasury Department activities in the Boston District, which was busy preventing illegal entry of liquor into the United States. WHEN WORLD WAR 2 BEGAN, he served both in combat and in such duties as commander of the Advanced Officers Training School in St. Augustine, Fla. After the war, he commanded the troop transport Breckenridge, was chief of staff of the CG Miami district; operations officers of the Third District, New York; and as assistant chief of operations in Washington. His last tour of duty was as commander of the 17th Coast Guard District, with headquarters in Juneau, Alaska. His rank of captain extended from 1943 to 1957, when he retired with the rank of rear admiral. His widow is the one survivor, the former Beulah Elizabeth Springfield, who lives in Chevy Chase, Md. Admiral Berdine died in National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda.
Burials at Arlington National Cemetery.
(Find A Grave Memorials # 49121035 & 49121034)
Harold Sloop Berdine Maryland Rear Admiral U.S. Coast Guard World War II
July 15, 1901 March 12, 1966 LM GS
His Wife Beulah E.
August 11, 1898 May 20, 1976