No, the Navy, Coast Guard working together isn’t a sign of war

The sight of U.S. Navy barges assisting a Coast Guard-led effort to clear the Francis Scott Key Bridge wreckage from the water and help reopen the Port of Baltimore had one social media user convinced it was a sign of war.

"The Navy doesn’t support the Coast Guard," an April 1 Facebook post’s caption said. "The Coast Guard is a Department of Homeland Security during Peacetime. During WAR, the Coast Guard is transferred to the Department of Defense UNDER the Department of the NAVY. Tell the world it’s a Military Occupation without telling them it’s a MILITARY OCCUPATION." 

The post shared a Stars and Stripes article detailing the Navy’s role in recovery efforts. The post’s author also shared a follow-up Facebook post linking to a Defense Department webpage about U.S. military forces to back the claim that the Coast Guard operates under the Navy during times of war.

The Facebook post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

During war, the Coast Guard — which is part of the U.S. armed forces and provides maritime safety and law enforcement and military naval support — operates under the Navy, rather than under the Department of Homeland Security. But that doesn’t mean that the Navy doesn’t support the Coast Guard at other times or that the two agencies’ cooperation is a sign of a military occupation or war.

(Facebook screenshot)

The Coast Guard-led Unified Command is coordinating efforts to clear bridge wreckage from the Fort McHenry Channel in the Patapsco River after the Key Bridge’s March 26 collapse. It’s working with the Navy, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and others, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters April 1.

The joint effort includes several Maryland state and local agencies — such as the Maryland Transportation Authority — and a private sector emergency management consulting company, the Defense Department said in an April 1 news release. The Baltimore mayor’s office and Baltimore City Office of Emergency Management are also coordinating with the Unified Command.

A small U.S. Coast Guard response boat observes, March 30, 2024, as demolition crews cut the top portion of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge for safe removal in the Baltimore’s Patapsco River.  (Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Kimberly Reave)

The Naval Sea Systems Command has contracted three barges already on the scene in Baltimore with more cranes and support vessels on the way. They’ll be used by the Navy’s Supervisor of Salvage and Diving to remove parts of the bridge from the water, the Navy said in a March 29 news release.

William Donahue, a spokesperson for the Joint Information Center in the Unified Command, told PolitiFact the Baltimore efforts are an example of a typical "whole of government response" to disasters.

Donahue said each agency brings a skill set that other agencies might not have. The Navy brings salvage work, the Army Corps of Engineers does surveying and is in charge of debris removal and the Coast Guard is opening the channels, he said. 

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"It's essentially a rich tapestry. We all work together," Donahue said. Joint efforts between military branches such as this are not unusual.

"The Navy routinely assists with operations inside the United States," Defense Department spokesperson Martin Meiners wrote to PolitiFact in an email. 

After wildfires devastated the Hawaiian island in August 2023, the military mobilized its forces to aid in recovery efforts. The Navy’s maritime strike squadron sent two MH-60R Seahawk helicopters to assist the Coast Guard’s search and recovery efforts. A team of Navy divers also assisted in the search for remains and underwater salvage operations in Lahaina harbor. 

Donahue pointed to the military response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill in 2010 as other examples of multiple agencies responding "to something that's beyond the scope of any individual agency, but by working together we can get the job done."

More than 60,000 troops and Defense Department civilians aided in recovery efforts in New Orleans and the U.S. Gulf Coast post-Katrina. The Coast Guard and Navy were part of a government-wide response to the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

A Navy spokesperson told PolitiFact in an email that the Navy and Coast Guard consistently operate together and the Navy is ready to support any contingency around the globe. The spokesperson pointed to joint efforts in 2007 after Minnesota’s Interstate-35W bridge collapsed as an example of the Navy and Coast Guard cooperating in the recovery.

We rate the claim that it’s a sign of war or military occupation that the Navy is supporting the Coast Guard in the Key Bridge cleanup False.