On D-day approximately 2/3rds of the CG  manned vessels were 83 footers.

The original plan was to have five of the 83-foot Coast Guard cutters in positions between Navy transports and the Normandy beaches. Planners had anticipated that another 25 would stay near the transports, where they expected the most casualties. The U.S. sector of Omaha and Utah beaches had 30 boats (CG-1 to CG-30) assigned to them, while 30 more (CG-31 to CG-60) were slated to assist in the British assault area at Gold Beach, the Canadian objective at Sword Beach, and the combination British and Canadian objective at Juno Beach. Now the Match Box Fleet and their crews would be put to the test off the coast of France. That night, heavy seas contributed to a difficult voyage from England to Normandy for the cutters as well as problems with uneven speed in the transports. Currents in the English Channel were so great that courses sometimes shifted as much as 12 degrees. The rolling seas also made the troops seasick as they approached the far shore.

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.

Thirty of these 60 cutters were returned to the United States, 24 remained in Europe, 4 were transferred to the Royal Navy, and  the 83415 and 83471 foundered  off Normandy on 21 June 1944 in a storm  from damage sustained during rescue operations.

50 Years Later