THE BARQUE OF SAVIORS: Eagle's Passage from the Nazi Navy to the U.S. Coast Guard.(Review)(Brief Article)

RUSSELL DRUMM. Houghton Mifflin, $25 (250p) ISBN 0-395-98367-3

Drumm, senior writer at the East Hampton Star, chronicles some of the "hidden" history of the U.S. Coast Guard's three-masted sailing ship Eagle, currently serving as a training vessel and oft visited by dignitaries for photo ops. The Eagle was originally named the Horst Wessel and was launched in 1936 at a German shipyard, with Adolf Hitler and the chief Nazis of the party present. It served as a training ship for German seamen and officers, many of whom went on to careers in U-boats during WWII. The ship barely survived the war and was taken by the Coast Guard as part of America's share of the former …