Chincoteaguers and Eastern Shore Men in World War II - A Look Back On July 4th

 From The Daily Times newspaper of Salisbury, Maryland, on Saturday, 5 August 1944, pages 1 and 2:

  "Heroism of Chincoteague Men Noted On Coast Guard Birthday

When the accounts of World War II are complete one of the brightest chapters will relate the efforts of the men of the Eastern Shore, steeped in the lore of the sea, in bringing final victory to the Allied nations.

   This week ... as the United States Coast Guard celebrated the 154th anniversary of its founding, a good deal of the spotlight turned to Chincoteague and the Coast Guardsmen who live and serve there for gallant achievements during the war.

   Fighting on every battlefront in the world, men drafted from Chincoteague and Assateague Life Boat Stations have formed the nucleus for the great amphibious forces which opened beachheads in France, Africa, Italy, the Aleutians and the Pacific Islands.  They were these men, coxswaining landing barges, who landed the first Marines onto the Japanese-held beaches of Guadalcanal and swung the momentum of offense from the Axis to the Allies.

   -  Heritage Is Strong  -  

   The heritage of the Coast Guard is strong in Chincoteague.  Fathers and then sons have enlisted in the Coast Guard.  The lives of the natives there, inexorably tied to the sea, are intwined with the spirit of lifesaving and the constant battle against the sea - and skill in handling small boats.  They were, then, the logical people for America to turn to when in the early days of the war it was necessary to build an amphibious force with a minimum amount of training in order to stem the tide of Axis aggression in the Pacific and Atlantic.

   Foremost in the stories of war which Chincoteague natives have brought back from battle zones are the tales of Raymond S. White and Daniel Tarr, both chief boatswain's mates in the Coast Guard.  White, grandson of the officer-in-charge of the Assateague Lifeboat Station 50 years ago, was aboard the "unsinkable" cargo ship "Alchiba" which was torpedoed three times and was afire on the beach of Guadalcanal for five days while epochal sea battles raged all around.  He received a Presidential Citation for his share in the action.  Tarr, a good name for a sailor, received the Silver Star from Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief Pacific Fleet, for his "conspicuous gallantry in the invasion of the Solomons."  He became one of the first four Coast Guardsmen to receive that award in the present war.

   Chief White has been in the Coast Guard for 16 years.  He was aboard the "Alchiba" for two years and sailed more than 50,000 miles all over the world.  He now is stationed at Assateague Lifeboat Station.  Twenty-six-year old Daniel Tarr was coxswain on a landing barge which put Marines ashore on the island of Tulagi during the initial invasion of the Solomons.  He was aboard one of the World War I four-stack destroyers which were converted to auxiliary transports at the beginning of the war.

   Then there is John Kollock, chief boatswain's mate, who after 19 years of service in the Coast Guard landed Marines in the first wave at Tulagi.  Kollock was in charge of all landing craft aboard his transport, also a converted four-stacker.  In his crew were Raymond J. Russel, chief boatswain's mate, and Harry S. Birch, chief boatswain's mate, Chincoteague men.  Birch contracted malaria after being stationed with the Marines in the Solomons for three months.  In describing his initial trip to the beach, Birch said, "The flare of bombs exploding on Tulagi and Guadalcanal looked more like an electrical thunderstorm than anything else from where I was."

    -  Five Brothers Serve  -

    Edwin E. Fish, chief boatswain's mate, one of five brothers in the Coast Guard, is another Chincoteague man who was in the initial invasion of Guadalcanal.  

   The recipient of the Silver Life Saving Medal in 1936, he landed troops onto the Solomons' beaches August 7, 1942 and then spent six months on Guadalcanal.  He had six attacks of malaria while in the South Pacific and was treated for a seventh when he returned to the United States.  Away from home 18 months, when he returned he was greeted by an 11-month old daughter whom he had never seen.

   Another of the Fish brothers who has seen action in this war is Louis A. Fish, motor machinist's mate second class, who was aboard the Coast Guard-manned transport "Wakefield" when she was bombed by the Japanese while evacuating civilians from Singapore in early 1942.  He was also aboard the "Wakefield" when she caught fire in the ATlantic later that year.  Louis Fish was one of the men who voluntarily reboarded the ship and successfully fought the fire.  He was hospitalized for six weeks as the result of his action.

   Elwood C. and Floyd W., both chief boatswain's mates, and James A., chief yeoman, and Elwood's son, Harold E., seaman first class, complete the roster of the Fish family serving in the Coast Guard.  The story of the sons and grandson of Charles H. Fish, 73-year-old Chincoteague fisherman, is one of the proudest in the annals of the Coast Guard.

    -  Others Participated  -

   Others from the Eastern Shore who participated in America's first large scale offensive action in the Pacific are Calvin Pearson, boatswain's mate second class, and Louis T. Birch, Chief boatswain's mate.  Louis Birch, before his actions in the Solomons, received a commendation from the British Government for his work in connection with the rescue of the "S. S. Clan Skene" which was sunk by enemy submarine action in the Caribbean Sea May 10, 1942.

   All these men received from Admiral Nimitz official commendations for their share of the Guadalcanal campaign.  In his letter to all men in the Transport Division, Admiral Nimitz said, "To the best of my knowledge the movement of large numbers of troops into and out of the Guadalcanal-Tulagi area has been accomplished without loss of a single soldier from enemy action."

   The role of men from Chincoteague was not confined to invasions in the Pacific.  They were in North Africa, Italy and France.  James J. Berry, boatswain's mate first class, for instance, was in combat areas in the Mediterranean and Pacific.  After landing troops at Fedala, North Africa, he was transferred aboard a transport operating in the South Pacific and landed troops in New Guinea invasions.

   Louis Holloway, chief machinist's mate, and Vernon White, Jr., machinist's mate first class, were in the invasions of North Africa and Sicily.  Lawrence Jester, chief motor machinist's mate, has been in both the Mediterranean and Pacific.  Joshua E. Breasure, Jr., chief boatswain's mate, has been in Iceland for 20 months.  Breasure was one of the group of Coast Guardsmen who before Pearl Harbor struck a blow at the Axis by capturing a German weather station which had been set up in Greenland in violation of international agreements.

   In the early days of the war natives of the Eastern Shore virtually had the battle on their doorsteps.  That was when German U-boats were operating along the Atlantic coast and merchant ships by the score were being blown to bits off shore.  As Herman A. Jones, chief boatswain's mate said, "We were pretty busy in those days - - airplanes on patrol would spot a box in the water and we were called out almost every day and night."

   All alarms weren't false, however, and many survivors of torpedoings were pulled from the water.  Witness the time Jones and Wilmer Clark, chief motor machinist's mate, led a crew of lifesavers 30 miles into the ocean.  Clark, who has two brothers in the Coast Guard, was on duty in the Assateague station June 24, 1942, when a report from District Coast Guard Headquarters in Norfolk notified him of a tanker torpedoed 30 miles off the island.  It was a rainy afternoon with the seas rough and foggy.  But they went out in a motor lifeboat and after seven hours of sailing arrived at the remains of the tanker - "a big oil slick" -  and found 11 survivors hanging onto a lifeboat.

   The torpedoed seamen were picked up and the rescued and the rescuers started back for the island when the submarine surfaced and gave chase.  Clark related "We ran under full steam until darkness, then zigzagged out of sight."  With just these few words he dismissed the incident.

   Chincoteague, "Land Across the Water,"  today is one of the important hubs of Coast Guard activity.  Lieut. John T. Dukes, himself a veteran of many sea rescues, is commanding officer of the Coast Guard Station there, including the lifesaving stations at Pope's Island, Wallop's Island and Assateague."

   Daniel James Tarr, Jr was the son of Daniel James Tarr, Sr and Bertie May Bloxom.  He married Nina Glyer.  He was also my maternal Grandmother's first cousin; his father and her mother were siblings.

  I have been unable to find the parents of Raymond S. White.  His wife, whom he married in 1929, was Nellie Lee Driscoll, daughter of George A. Driscoll, Jr. and Drucilla Jester.