The eighteenth amendment became law in January 1920 and the U.S. Coast Guard was instantly behind the eight-ball. Its force of oceangoing cutters numbered only 45, of varying utility: 19 were classified as cruising cutters and 26 as inshore cutters, but few were up to the task of intercepting the hundreds of high-speed boats deployed by the rum-runners. Amazingly, nothing much was done about this imbalance until 1923, when 20 ex-Navy destroyers of pre-World War I vintage, hopelessly unsuited to the mission, were assigned to the Coast Guard. Not long afterwards, however, the service initiated what would be one of the largest classes of cutter ever built- the "Six-Bitters." In total, 203 Six-Bitters were built, by 17 boatbuilders, and all were delivered within two years.
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