Gwen Jackson was with a few friends searching for sea shells and lost treasures along the Fort Morgan Peninsula when she reached down into the waters of Mobile Bay, and found an unusual artifact, the long-lost dog tag of Harold Davis. 

“We were carrying our little buckets, walking around, and looking for treasure,” Jackson said in a recent interview. 

The dog tag, the informal name of a small metal ID given to military personnel, had inscribed in it: Davis, Harold D. USCG (United States Coast Guard).

Jackson, who said that she is very persistent when a problem arises, wanted to find Davis, and that day, she began her search.

“I said to myself I’m going to find Mr. Davis,” Jackson said.  “At the time, I wanted to return the tag to the owner or his family, if at all possible.” 

So, she hit the best place nowadays, the internet and Google, which led her sleuthing to contact numbers for the Coast Guard.   The following day, she called their headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, but unfortunately, the Coast Guard could not give out personal information. 

They did confirm, however, that he was retired. 

Jackson then called a number of local Davises – all to no avail. 

But, she didn’t give up, and she stumbled upon a website called fredsplace.org, a site dedicated to “all Coasties.”

She posted on their electronic bulletin board that if anyone had any information regarding Davis or ways to contact him to let her know. 

Soon, quite a few retired Coasties emailed her, offering suggestions to aid her search, and finally after some time, a retired Coastie, Joe Cornell, contacted her saying that he searched a Coast Guard Officer Register directory and found that Davis was indeed retired and living in Mobile. One more clue, at least. 

Jackson called the Mobile residence, but the new homeowner said that he didn’t know Davis. 

Jackson took another shot in the dark. She wrote a letter to the Coast Guard’s Retiree Assistance Service in Topeka, Kansas. 

And around late July, Caroline Hern, who works for the service, called Jackson, saying that she had contacted Davis and yes, he would like to meet Jackson, get his tag, and surprisingly that he lived in Lillian. 

Last week, Davis and Jackson met at a local restaurant and Davis thanked her for finding his tag, and he said that it was good he “hadn’t kicked the bucket” yet so that she wouldn’t be disappointed. 

Davis, who served in the Korean and Vietnam wars, believes he probably lost the dog tag near his daughter’s house since she was building a vacation home on the peninsula in the early 70s, and it went missing about that time.

“We were also doing a lot of boat riding and fishing then,” Davis recalled.

And, his daughter’s house is only a half-mile away from where Jackson pulled it from the water – more than 30 years later. 

“It’s been rolling around for 30 odd years, that’s pretty incredible,” Davis said. 

Jackson chronicled her search for Davis, and showed him all the emails exchanges with retired Coasties, the bulletin board postings, the letter written to Topeka, and even a printout of some of the Davises she contacted.

“I would have traveled 3,842 miles if I had gone every place where everyone contacted me from,” Jackson said.