USCG in WWII - Video Tribute & Photos

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          The U.S. Coast Guard in World War II   

                                  A preview video presentation by the Coast Guard Channel THE COAST GUARD IN WWII

USCGC INGHAM ON CONVOY DUTY DURING WWII

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World War II Coast Guard veteran BM2 MARVIN PERRETT passed over the bar at 81 on Sunday, May 6, 2007. This is his story of D-Day.




On June 6, 1944 Marvin Perrett was a coxswain assigned to the USS Bayfield, APA-33 Landing Craft #21. This is what he saw when his Higgins landing craft hit Utah Beach as 36 Army assault troops scrambled down the ramp into the water and on to the beach. 

THIS IS MARVIN'S STORY:
Marvin Perrett was born on Sept. 17, 1925, in New Orleans and was the adopted son of J.N. and Alice Perrett, brother of J.N. Jr. and Judy, and father to Melissa. After enlisting in the Coast Guard and receiving his assignment, Perrett was sent to St. Augustine, Fla., where he spent six rigorous weeks in boot camp. After completing boot camp and advanced landing craft training, Perrett became a certified Higgins LCVP coxswain and was transferred to Norfolk, Va., where he reported aboard the USS Bayfield (APA-33), a Coast Guard-manned Navy ship.

"Once aboard the Bayfield, we traveled through Chesapeake Bay, Md., and continued our training - storming the beaches of Maryland," Perrett said. "After six weeks, in February 1944, we were on our way to our first foreign port - Glasgow, Scotland."  "When we arrived in Glasgow," Perrett said, "we continued to train - nighttime, daytime, fair weather, foul weather, it didn't matter. They were training us for what was to come. We knew we were going to invade France, but we didn't know where in France or when we were going."

At 9 a.m. on June 5, 1944, the Bayfield departed Plymouth, England, en route to Normandy, France. Perrett recalls the infamous trip, which took him from a safe, English port and challenged everything he knew. After traveling more than 17 hours, the Bayfield arrived approximately 12 miles offshore from Utah Beach, just outside the range of enemy gunfire.

"At 2:30 in the morning on D-Day, we received the call to weigh our boats, which meant it was time to put the landing crafts into the water," Perrett recalls. "Once in the water, 36 assault troops boarded my boat and we started circling the waters with about 10 to 12 other boats in complete darkness.

Once receiving the call to go forward, seven hours after they deployed, Perrett stormed Utah Beach on the morning of the D-Day invasion. After storming the beach and releasing the 36 troops, Perrett headed back to the Bayfield to receive his next batch of troops for transport; however, instead of a platoon of 36 soldiers, an Army vehicle, known as a Weasel, was lowered into Perrett's boat. Moments later, Army Major Gen. R.O. Barton, commanding general of the 4th Infantry Division, joined the transport, and Perrett proceeded to take him to shore.

After the invasion of Normandy, Perrett participated in the invasion of southern France ... Okinawa and Iwo Jima, Japan.

[ForeverSaginaw]

I remember watching the movie Das Boot.  Most likely those allied boats that were dropping depth charges on the German submarine were Coast Guard cutters.  I even read that the Coast Guard had 83 foot wooden? patrol boats that were extensively involved with hunting German submarines. 

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Saginaw, I remember as a kid at the Jersey shore that station Atlantic City had a wooden hulled 83 and I seem to recall seeing one at CGSTA Point Pleasant. The Coast Guard actually tried recruiting people specifically to crew the 83-footers using the two recruting posters shown in the photo above.  The 83-footers were workhorses during WWII, built to serve as escort vessels for coastal convoys.  In many ways they were like the Navy's PT boats.  Two hundred thirty were built and they saw action in combat theaters, including 60 that served off the coast of Normandy during the D-Day invasion, as well as in U.S. waters. The sixty Coast Guard 83-foot patrol boats made up Rescue Flotilla One operating from Poole, Dorset, England. They saved 1435 Allied lives, over half in the first 36 hours of the D-Day landings. These wooden-hulled, gasoline powered, open bridge vessels more than met the existing requirements for a coastal patrol boat and distinguished themselves until replaced by the 82-foot Point-Class in the 1960s.

You can read more about the 83-footers and the men who manned them by clicking on this link:  COAST GUARD WARRIORS

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A SURVIVOR'S STORY FROM A TORPEDOED CUTTER IN WWII

            LEFT:  Ray O'Malley on Coast Guard Day in Grand Haven recalls his surviving after the Escanaba was torpedoed and sunk.
                RIGHT:  The CGC ESCANABA, moored on a cold winter's day in her homeport of Grand Haven, Michigan before the war.
 
On Thursday March 8th 2007 the Coast Guard said goodbye to another beloved World War II veteran, Raymond O’Malley.  BM2 Melvin Baldwin who had passed over the bar some years ago and O’Malley were the only two crew to survive the German torpedo attack and sinking of the CGC ESCANABA (WPG-77).  O’Malley, shared his story of terror in the North Atlantic on Coast Guard Day in Grand Haven, Michigan a few years ago.

O’Malley grew up in Chicago and enlisted in the Coast Guard during the fall of 1938. After attending boot camp in Curtis Bay, MD., O’Malley was assigned to the CGC HAMILTON in Norfolk, VA. While on board, O’Malley worked as a seaman apprentice.  The Hamilton was one of the last cutters still using crows nest for lookouts. “To go up there to stand lookout in the North Atlantic with the freezing winds blowing on your face and being so high above the ocean with the waves rolling in, leaves an indelible print on my mind,” O’Malley said.

FIRST BRUSH WITH DEATH

O’Malley was not always kept out of harms way. After the Hamilton, he was stationed aboard the cutters Frederick Lee and the Spencer. While attached to these units, O’Malley said he got a first-hand glimpse of the war.  “While on the Spencer, we were involved with numerous running battles and took part in escorting about four large convoys through war zones in the Atlantic.” O’Malley said.

“The action is what made it exciting. It was the dropping of the depth charges on the German U-boats and then at night with general quarters coming on constantly that kind of pepped us up,” he said. “[It] kept on us our toes and made us sharp.

O’Malley recalled a scary moment during his time on the Spencer. “I was a pointer on one of its gun. And one night during a convoy run, a shot was fired at us. I didn’t know if it was the Germans or who was firing. All I remember is standing there looking through the lens and seeing the red glow of the tracer coming at us. And then at the last moment realizing that it was above us and we were in the clear. At that point, I was in shock over the thought of our ship possibly being hit,” he said.

A GERMAN U-BOAT STRIKES

O’Malley said his greatest trial on the face of death happened aboard the CGC ESCANABA. “This time,” he said “things were happening so fast, there wasn’t time for me to be scared.”

One June 13, 1943, around 5 a.m., O’Malley had just taken the helm as the ship sailed off the coast of Greenland. He was ordered to start zigzagging in an attempt to make the ship less of a target to the Germans. As he started the turn, O’Malley said, he heard a loud bang.

“The Escanaba was hit by a torpedo and was pretty well split in half,” he said. The executive officer yelled out for everyone to man their gun positions. O’Malley grabbed his life jacket and headed for the bridge’s starboard door. He stepped onto the bridge wing and was hit by a large wave. He was washed into the ocean and pulled under water as the ship started to sink.

“I was trying to swim, all along trying to fight the suction of the ship sinking. And then there was a second explosion, which popped me back up,” he said.

At the surface he found about 10 other crewmembers. Three of them were covered with blood and injured. O’Malley saw the CGC STORIS steaming toward them. He heard someone yelling for help and swam toward the crewman. He then told the man, “Relax, the Storis is coming, and they have a cargo net over the side. They’re going to pick us up.” As they watched the cutter come closer, they saw the Storis crew hoist their black flag, signaling that they had visual contact on a suspect enemy vessel. The cutter sailed past without stopping.
After the cutter left, O’Malley gave his life jacket to another shipmate. The captain of the Escanaba told him and another man to swim to a large piece of wood. “I started to feel the cold,” O’Malley said. “I turned around and all I saw was BM2 Melvin Baldwin. The captain and the rest of the crew disappeared into the water. Once we reached the piece of wood, we both passed out.”

                          LEFT:  The 110-foot Coast Guard tug Raritan WYTM-93 plucked O'Malley and Baldwin from the icy cold water.
                                RIGHT:  Baldwin (left) and O'Malley (right) on the bridge of the tug Raritan the day after they were rescued.


About 12 hours later, O’Malley woke up covered with a blanket on the CGC RARITAN. The first thing he did was ask for coffee and a cigarette. Baldwin and O’Malley decided to stay in the Coast Guard. The Commandant at the time, ADM Russell R. Waesche, asked O’Malley what duty station he wanted. After everything he’d been through, O’Malley requested sea duty again.

O’Malley left the Coast Guard at the end of the war in 1945 and became a Chicago police officer. He says he remembers those days as a young seaman as if they were yesterday, never forgetting the fate of his shipmates. With the passing of Baldwin, O’Malley is the last survivor of the USCGC ESCANABA (WPG-77).

O’Malley has attended the Escanaba Memorial Ceremony held in Grand Haven, Michigan., during the annual Coast Guard Festival every August for the past 57 years.

“Visiting this place always makes me remember. This is the least I can do for the 101 shipmates lost that day” O’Malley said.

[CGRDCS]

 

Here's a story from another Coastie LCVP Driver.  John M. DeMaria .  Big John Served aboard the USS Callaway (APA-35) a sister ship to the USS Bayfield (APA-33) that Melvin was assigned to.

                         INVASION OF SAIPAN DURING WW11

Serving as Coxswain of LCVP #8 on USS Callaway, APA-35 there was one unique beach landing on the island of Saipan, more memorable than it just being the third of the seven distinct invasions in which this teen-aged sailor participated. On D-Day, the usual modus operandi was to load the 38 foot LCVP with an assigned complement of US Marine warriors. On this occasion, several miles off-shore bobbing up and down alongside APA-35, a lone Marine descended down the net the end of which my seaman held taught inside the landing barge to ensure his safe boarding. This lone warrior was safely on board when he dashed to sit on the engine hatch next to me. In sailor jargon I barked for him to return his tail back to the net and help hold it into the barge in order that the remaining warriors could safely descend into the up-and-down-bobbing LCVP. He gave me a stern look, but complied with the order. When the last Marine descended safely into the LCVP that stern looking Marine’s insignia disclosed him to be a Marine Officer, a Major. He returned and sat on the hatch again. No words were exchanged with me, but I sure regretted my earlier use of ‘salty’ terminology.
With the loaded LCVP I joined the other barges that had formed into a moving circle some distance away from APA-35. This was in accordance with a safety requirement to hamper enemy’s attempt to destroy barges closest to the beach.. Unexpectedly, an Officer in the Wave Commander’s landing barge directed that my LCVP replace a disabled Marine tracked-vehicle loaded with combatant Marines, and to redeploy into a wave composed totally of tracked-vehicles. As we approached closer to the island the tracked-vehicles snaked their way around the opposite side of the island and I was obliged to follow, but ever mindful that my wood-bottomed LCVP was not impervious to coral damage. As my ‘heads-up’ crew, consisting of Cullison, Little and Ritter spotted shallow depths the barge occupants were instructed to move aft, then when the LCVP was midway over the coral they were told to move forward. This shifting of weight made possible to float over the impeding network of coral that was encountered. Nightfall had almost descended when the wave hit the beach.. Then, ‘all hell broke loose . . . shells were exploding all over the place with a cascades of bullets and tracers everywhere in the resulting thickened smoke from the enemy explosives. When the LCVP ramp was lowered and the Marine warriors scrambled onto the beach . . . the stern looking Marine Major turned around and smartly saluted me. He had guts, standing erect in the rain of all that firepower to render that salute. Then off he went into that cloud of smoke and firepower. How can one ever forget such an experience with combat Marine warriors on the island of Saipan in heightened combat operations.
John M DeMaria, LTC, US Army, Ret.

Special Note:   Big John  left the Coast Guard after the war and joined the ARMY.    He became one of the first Army Helo pilots and retired from the Army as a LTCOL,   Not to shabby for a Coastie Boat Driver.

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Jack

[rustybayonet]

The interesting story of the Coast Guard connection and the person involved with the Marine flag raising at Iwo Jima can be found at this site.


http://www.jacksjoint.com/CG%20on%20Iwo%20Jima.htm



Unfortunately from Newsday;


Obituaries
Resnick- Robert Lewis, on November 6, 2004.  Last survivor of the flag raising at Iwo Jima.  -  ...................................  Services Great Neck, N.Y