As landing craft proceeded to the beaches, the rescue cutters took up their
places behind them. Each cutter's boatswain mate and seamen did the steering,
but all lent a hand when it was necessary to haul in survivors. All rank was
forgotten in the heat of battle; each man was too busy doing his job to think
about the danger.
Landing craft had the right of way, which often hampered rescue efforts,
forcing the cutters to back off and thus causing the loss of precious moments to
bring men on board. The rescue operation began even before H-Hour, when the
CGC-29, under command of Lieutenant (junior grade) William H. Williams, rushed
into action. Just before daylight, a marauding German motor torpedo boat
(E-boat) placed a torpedo into the side of one of a wave of English LCTs. The
resulting explosion forward left only the craft's stern afloat, with men trapped
on the blasted hulk. As other escorts chased the E-boat, the rescue cutter
picked up 14 crewmen and two badly burned officers. Diverted from the convoy,
the cutter sped to a British tank landing ship (LST), transferred the survivors,
then rejoined the wave of LCTs on their trip to the French coast.
At the Omaha sector, many of the landing craft were hung up on submerged
obstacles placed there by Germans. Troops became bogged down; the landing craft
continued to come it; rescue operations began. The men on the rescue boats tied
lines around themselves and pulled the wounded aboard. The water was so cold
that the soldiers could not reach up. Because they were so weighted down by
their heavy packs, it usually took two men to haul in the soldiers. Motor
machinist, boatswain mates, seamen, and even the skipper, all helped in the
rescues.
The person at the wheel would call out, "Over there". The boat would then
rush the survivors, taking care not to tangle them up in the engine's
propellers. Gasoline tanks filled with almost two thousand gallons of high-test gasoline
were amidships, adding to the danger.
Three Coast Guard-manned transports had delivered the troops and were
anchored offshore to receive the wounded. The Joseph T. Dickman (APA-13), the
Bayfield (APA-33) and the Samuel P. Chase (APA-36)-and many of the LSTs - were
equipped with hospitals, doctors, and dentists.
The CGC-16, commanded by Lieutenant (junior grade) R. V. McPhail, rescued the
most men on D-Day at Omaha Beach, and the CGC-34, commanded by Lieutenant
(junior grade) Gordon W. Crafts, rescued the most men in the Eastern Task Force,
which comprised the British and Canadian units at Gold, Sword, and Torch
beaches.
McPhail's cutter went right in behind the landing craft at Red Beach in the
Omaha Sector, where floating mines had sunk many of them. In addition, at about
0730, intense fire from the Germans ashore sank a landing craft that had been
converted to an antiaircraft ship 800 yards off the beach.
Immediately, the CGC-16 sped to her rescue. No sooner were all the survivors
picked up than a shell blew apart a patrol boat* nearby. All 90 survivors from
the boat were also put on board the cutter.
The relatively small cutter could hold only about 20 wounded men at a time, and
double that number were often taken aboard. But in one instance, 140 men shared
1,000 square feet. Casualties and unwounded survivors crammed the forecastle,
pilot house, and engine room, and those incapable of going below lined the deck
topside, side by side. Walking wounded were jammed into the tiny crew's quarters
and piled into bunks in three tiers of four.
The 140-square-foot pilot house accommodated eight men at a time. Many were
so weak that they were incapable of standing, so they lay prone, complicating
movement about the cabin. The engine room became the "thawing out" room,
accommodating the most severely chilled men. Five more men crowded the space
used by the motor machinist trying to answer engine signals from the bridge as
the cutter tried to navigate at various speeds.
Storing survivors' gear and clothing also presented a problem. Fortunately,
allied air support had virtually eliminated enemy aircraft, making it possible
to pile clothing around the 20-mm gun mount. The stockpile eventually reached
five feet high, ten feet in length, and ten feet in width, with heavy jackets,
weatherproof clothing, underway coats, gas-impregnated coveralls, underwear,
socks, helmets, gas masks, and dungarees.
Cutter crew gathered personal belongings, such as wallets, money, pictures,
pocket-bibles, and identification cards. Rifles, carbines, and automatic pistol
were stacked below.
Survivors were taken to the Joseph T. Dickman. Doctors boarded the cutter to
help with the stretcher cases. Those who were not wounded climbed the gangplank.
The doctors declared one man dead and another beyond hope. The dead man and the
dying man were placed in the lazarette until they could be buried at sea.
Crewmen in the transport lowered a piece of steel onto the cutter's deck.
Coast Guard crewmen secured the dead body to the steel plate. Lieutenant McPhail
appeared on the deck with a Bible and for the first time in 40 hours, the
cutter's engines were stilled. Men mustered by the rail of the boat and took off
their steel helmets in silence. With the far off sound of gunfire, the skipper
intoned, "For I am the life everlasting and the glory forever and ever, and do
receive this body unto the sea." McPhail then paused, nodded his head, and
watched two of his crew slide the body over the rail. As is disappeared into the
green water, he said "Amen," and several men crossed themselves. A moment of
silence followed, broken by the buzz of the bridge signal to the engine room for
the engines to push ahead full speed.
During the ceremony for the dead man, the supposedly dying man stuck his head
through the hatch and declared to the ship's company: "If you guys think you are
going to do that to me, you've got another guess coming. How about some hot
coffee but for God's sake gimme a cigarette." A half-hour later, he was
transferred to a medically equipped LST.
After delivering the wounded man, an LCT was sighted sinking by the stern,
1,500 yards from the beach under enemy fire. The CGC-16 maneuvered alongside the
discovered it was loaded with ammunition and on fire. The wounded made it off,
but as the cutter was pulling away, one of the survivors told Lieutenant McPhail
that a man with nearly severed legs was still on board the landing craft on one
of the guns tubs.
Chancing the possibility of the ammunition exploding from the raging fire
surrounding it, McPhail ordered the cutter to pull alongside again. Coxswain
Arthur Burkhard, Jr. jumped over the side of the rescue cutter and quickly went
to the man's aid. Placing a line around his waist in spite of the smoke pouring
from the LCT's hatches.
The man was so badly wounded he could not talk, but he still kept a grin on
his face. As the rescuers cut off his clothes in order to administer morphine,
the brave man even winked at those we were helping him. Burkhard tried
unsuccessfully to lower him from the sinking LCT to the rescue cutter.
As the LCT dropped lower and lower, it was impossible for McPhail to keep his
craft under her side, for fear of being pinned beneath it. Burkhard was forced
to throw that wounded man off the LCT's deck into the water. In order to save
him, he had the man pull himself hand-over-hand up to the side of the rescue
cutter, which had towed him to the boat's side.
Burkhard in turn jumped from the LCT and made his way back to the cutter. But
he could not swim and was dragged by his shipmates. Two minutes later, the LCT
sank.
All hands were involved in the rescue operation and in administering first
aid to the survivors. Even Cook Second Class George I. Banks, in charge of
feeding the crew of the CGC-16, said, "The boys were too busy to get hungry, and
so I didn't start any lunch that day. As a matter of fact, I was too busy myself
tending wounded on deck to go below to the gallery."
Most of the wounded had broken legs, split heads, sprained backs, and smashed
ankles. Many cried out for medication. Banks propped lifejackets under their
heads to keep them from knocking on the deck, as the cutter bounced around on
the water from the shock of shells from enemy shore batteries. He then took off
their sopping, oil-soaked clothes. Finding it impossible to untie some of the
knots, he went down to the gallery, got one of his sharp bread knives, and used
it to cut the wet clothes from the wounded. He then covered them with dry
blankets.
By mid-morning, the ship's medical locker was open, and Banks began doling
out first-aid supplies. Because the cutter could not speed directly to the
Joseph T. Dickman until all the men in the water were rescued, Banks
began to give the most seriously injured a shot of morphine to reduce their
suffering.
Banks remembers:
There were packets of morphine syrettes in our medicine chest, and each
syrette was good for one man. Before I'd inject a fellow, I'd check with the
skipper just to make sure that the man's condition justified morphine. If the
skipper agreed, and he did every time, I'd roll up or cut away the man's sleeve,
and give him morphine on his upper arm. Then I'd mark on his forehead with a wax
pencil "Morphine."
In addition, Banks applied tourniquets to those whose legs were dangling only
by skin and muscle and were losing terrific amounts of blood from cut arteries.
Not until the cutter pulled up alongside the Joseph T. Dickman to unload
survivors did the cook go down to the gallery to brew some coffee, making his
way to the stove. The coffee began to percolate, and the cutter sped to a
burning and sinking LCT that was also carrying ammunitions. Men were trapped in
a gun turret on her stern and included four soldiers with badly twisted limbs.
As soon as the cutter's crew rescued the men. Banks followed his routine
and had them put on board an LST. Then he returned to the gallery and cooked
pork chops, potatoes, peas, and raisin pie. The CGC-16 had rescued 126 men-only
one died. McPhail and his crew of 15 were awarded their Bronze Star for their
bravery.
Specialist First Class Carter Barber was a combat correspondent who assigned
himself to the CGC-16. As the cutter approached the beach, he remembers, the
noise was terrific, and nearby LCT took a hit.
When he saw the LCT hit and rushed to her aid, I noticed plenty of
men already floating face down in the water. They might have just been stunned,
sure. But I had to agree with the skipper that we couldn't stop for them just
then, but must keep on to get the other men floundering about.
Barber, also a Bronze Star recipient, started taking pictures;
after three minutes he went forward and began heaving lines to the other men in
the water:
Two or three of them were screaming 'Oh save me. I am hurt bad -
please, please.' And I yelled back, 'Hang on, Mac we're coming.' I watched one
man from the bow. He shouted: 'I can't stay up, I can't stay up.' And he didn't.
I couldn't reach him with a heaving line, and when we came toward him his head
was in the water. We didn't stop, and went on to seven or eight men we got them
aboard.
After what seemed like a long day of hauling men on board,
removing their wet clothes, tending to their wounds, and ferry them to the
Joseph T. Dickman - with no survivors in sight - the men of the CGC-16 took a
break. It was 0930, and Barber soon began to write material to fill his bags,
labeled PRESS in red letters a foot high.
The intensive first-aid training the men had received at Poole,
England, began to pay off, After rescuing badly wounded survivors from a sunken
destroyer, Chief Motor Machinist Mate Spaulding E. Michot took over as an
emergency pharmacist mate and laid the wounded out on the gallery table he
used to operate. Standing in a small compartment with the boat pitching back and
forth, he stitched wounds and splinted fractured legs, with blood smeared
bulkheads as a backdrop.
The crews transferred the wounded from the rescue cutters with skill
and care. Rough seas still presented a real challenge, crashing the smaller
boats against the larger ships. Litter cases had been covered with blankets in
an attempt to protect them from the soaking spray as they waited their turn for
transfer. Straps were slipped under the ends of the stretchers and quickly
hoisted to waiting doctors and corpsmen in the LSTs or transports equipped with
hospital facilities.