by Bruce Orr
One of the men David ended up saving that day was the Comanche’s executive officer, Lieutenant Robert Anderson. Anderson had fallen overboard, and after the exhaustion stage of hypothermia set in, he was unable to pull himself out of the water. Using the retriever technique, David was able to tie a line around Anderson, and the crew aboard the Comanche hoisted him to safety.
After the last of the survivors were pulled aboard, David began to climb the cargo net to the ship’s deck. One of David’s shipmates, Storekeeper Richard Swanson, had also volunteered to dive overboard to assist with the retriever technique rescue but was having trouble climbing the net due to the loss of feeling in his extremities. David encouraged his friend to continue, but Swanson was quickly succumbing to hypothermia. David again descended the net and, with the help of another crewmember, pulled Swanson back up to the Comanche’s deck.
After saving so many lives, David died a few days later from pneumonia that he contracted during his heroic efforts to save the Dorchester’s survivors and members from his own crew. He was posthumously awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his bravery, which was received by his wife and son, Kathleen and Neil David.
Richard Swanson, the last man he returned to save, described David as a “tower of strength” on that day, and his heart and commitment to his shipmates was something to be revered.
The Escanaba rescued 132 survivors from the Dorchester, but 4 officers, 98 crewmen and 558 passengers (primarily army personnel), as well as 16 Coast Guard members, perished. In the presence of the Comanche, 578 men died. Ironically, a year later, the hunter would find himself to be the hunted.
On March 29, 1944, three British ships searching north of Sicily located the U-223 by sonar. The three destroyers—Laforey, Tumult and Ulster—commenced a relentless chase that lasted about twenty hours. During the day, the group was reinforced by three other British destroyers: the Blencathra, Hambleton and Wilton; two American destroyers: the Ericsson and Kearney; and three American Patrol Coastal Ships: the PC-264, PC-556 and PC-558. In this hunt, the various Allied warships carried out twenty-two separate depth-charge attacks, but U-boat Commander Peter Gerlach went to a depth of 772 feet, and the boat survived.
With the large pack of hounds bearing down on him, the biggest problems for Gerlach and his crew were the lack of oxygen and battery power. Finally, after about twenty-five hours submerged, Gerlach was forced to surface in the darkness. He aired the boat and tried to sneak away on his diesels while charging his batteries. Four British destroyers—the Blencathra, Hambleton, Laforey and Tumult—detected U-223 and opened fire with guns. Gerlach and U-223 returned fire and destroyed the Laforey. The other ships rescued only 69 of the Laforey crew; 189 men perished.
Gerlach concluded that the U-223 was doomed, and he ordered the crew to assemble on deck in life jackets and abandon ship. The twenty-one-year-old engineer, Ernst Sheid, set the scuttling charges and was the last man out of the boat. Gerlach told Sheid that he, as a commander, was “no good without his boat” and chose to go down with her.
While the boat was underway at full speed, Sheid and the others leaped over the side.
As the destroyers hammered the U-boat with gunfire, it suddenly circled back. It is unknown if Gerlach was alive and still at the helm or if other forces were guiding U-223, but she turned and travelled directly through her crew bobbing in the water. U-223’s propellers, along with the gunfire that she attracted from the attacking allied ships, killed almost half of the German U-boat’s crew.
After destroying the Nazi submarine, the attacking allied ships rescued only twenty-seven of the fifty Germans who made up the crew of U-223.
On April 23, 1946, the Comanche was placed in reserve status except for a six-day period in 1947. On July 29, 1947, she was decommissioned and placed in storage at the Coast Guard Yard in Curtis Bay, Maryland. A year later, she was declared as surplus and sold to the Virginia Pilots Association.
In 1984, the Comanche was donated by the Virginia Pilots Association to Patriots Point. In the five years she remained there, approximately a half a million dollars was spent to repair and restore her.
Around midnight on September 22, 1989, Hurricane Hugo—a Category 4 storm with estimated maximum sustained winds of 135–140 miles per hour—made landfall just north of Charleston, South Carolina, at Sullivan’s Island. Hugo produced tremendous wind and storm surge damage along the coast and even produced hurricane-force wind gusts all the way into western North Carolina. In fact, Hugo produced the highest storm tide heights ever recorded along the U.S. East Coast.
Despite the best efforts of the staff at Patriots Point, the Comanche tore loose from her moorings at the stern, swung around to port and, for the entirety of the storm, repeatedly slammed into the pier, causing irreparable damage. According to a 1991 newspaper article, damages were estimated at another $130,000. After much controversy, the vessel was donated to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, and modifications were made in order to sink her and make her an artificial reef. She was scuttled in 1992.
For the past twenty years, Charleston Scuba owners Tom and Sally Robinson have been diving the site. They have never encountered anything out of the ordinary on any dive there, but even though she has become a popular scuba diving attraction, there are still occasional reports of fishermen observing red lights rising to the surface above this great Ghost of War as she rests over a hundred feet below the Atlantic.
THE CHARLESTON NAVAL SHIPYARD MUSEUM: THE INVISIBLE TOURIST
One of the very first exhibits to be created on the USS Yorktown was the Charleston Naval Shipyard Exhibit. The Charleston Naval Shipyard was created when the United States Navy acquired the waterfront property in 1901, and construction began in 1902. The shops and dry dock number one were in place by 1909. In 1913, the shipyard built its first vessel. It would go on to build another 252.
During World War I, the shipyard’s employment had reached over 1,700 employees, and it built its first warship, the USS Asheville (PG-21). The Charleston-built ship served for quite some time and entered into World War II. The USS Asheville was one of the few American surface ships lost without a trace and with no known survivors at the end of the war. It had just simply vanished, and her fate was not learned until quite some time after World War II had ended: on March 3, 1942, the Charleston-built warship was destroyed by the Japanese.
Hampered by engine troubles and sailing alone, the USS Asheville had been discovered by a Japanese scout plane and overtaken by a Japanese destroyer squadron consisting of the destroyers Arashi and Nowaki and the heavy cruiser Maya. As the cruiser stood by, the two Japanese destroyers closed and engaged the USS Asheville at close range with their guns. After an intense thirty-minute gun battle, the burning bulk of the USS Asheville, its superstructure almost completely destroyed, finally sank. After calling out to find out if there was an officer among the swimmers, one survivor—eighteen-year-old Fred L. Brown, from Fort Wayne, Indiana—was picked up by a Japanese destroyer. This was done, more than likely, simply to identify which ship the Japanese Imperial Navy had just sunk. Afterward, the remainder of the survivors in the water were shot to death with machine guns or just left to the sharks. Brown later died in a POW camp in March 1945. If not for the fact that Brown had told several of his fellow prisoners his story, no one would have ever known what had been the fate of the first gunboat created by the Charleston Naval Shipyard during World War I.
The Charleston Naval Shipyard Museum. Courtesy of KOP.
After World War I, the shipyard concentrated on the maintenance of minesweepers and gunboats. In 1933, it was upgraded to a new construction shipyard.
When the United States entered into World War II in 1941, employment was up to nine thousand, which made the shipyard the largest industrial employer in South Carolina’s history. By 1943, just two years later, employment had grown to just under four times that amount. Out of twenty-six thousand employees, five thousand of those were women. Those employees built,
repaired and maintained the ships involved in the war. The shipyard expanded with three additional dry docks, and the Charleston Naval Shipyard built 20 destroyers, 17 destroyer escorts, 92 medium landing ships, 9 fast troop transports and 1 destroyer tender, plus an additional 77 ships. Out of these 216 vessels, 12 were lost, including a quarter of the destroyers it had built.
After World War II, the shipyard’s emphasis turned to the repair, overhaul and conversion of ships and submarines. By 1959, the shipyard prepared to begin refueling and overhauls for nuclear submarines. Even though the Charleston Naval Base was the third-largest in the United States, it became a casualty, along with the Charleston Naval Shipyard, as the Cold War drew to an end.
On March 15, 1996, the Charleston Naval Base and Shipyard closed. Thirty-six employees of the shipyard joined with staff at Patriots Point and gathered and contributed artifacts and memorabilia to expand the exhibit onboard the USS Yorktown. The exhibit fully encompasses every aspect of the Charleston Naval Shipyard’s ninety-five-year history. It has always been an exhibit of great interest to many who have taken the tour of the USS Yorktown during her open hours, but there was an occasion, many years ago, when the exhibit apparently created some after-hours interest.
During her time in service, the USS Yorktown’s security was enforced by the ship’s personnel and also the United States Marine Corps. Today, the ship’s security falls under the care of Patriots Point security personnel and also the Mount Pleasant Police Department when they are called to assist the security division.
On one occasion, a security officer was working the night shift and was present for an occurrence he had never witnessed before. During that time, the Charleston Naval Shipyard Museum had motion-activated speakers that, when activated, would provide the visitor with information regarding that particular display. According to the officer, it was not unusual for one or even two displays to simultaneously activate on clear nights due to Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) from their radios. This particular incident was much different.
As the officer was making his rounds, he heard one of the boxes activate. He thought little of it initially because he had heard the boxes activate before. What eventually raised concern was when another box activated a short time later…in order of the display. As the boxes continued to activate, the officer requested back-up and a second officer arrived on the scene to hear the next sequential box activate. Ironically, the officer used his radio to call for assistance, and his partner responded using his. Neither device activated any of the boxes in the exhibit. The fact that their radios were not causing the issue and the boxes were going off in order alarmed the security officers who now believed they had cornered a trespasser in the Shipyard Museum. Both officers cautiously and quietly entered the exhibit from the exit and proceeded to search the area backward from exit to entry in order to intercept the interloper traveling toward them. They fully expected to find a human trespasser wandering through the exhibit. Much to their surprise they found absolutely nothing…and the boxes stopped.
The two security officers continued to search the exhibit backward and forward. They searched all possible hiding spots, but nothing made sense as to what may have activated the boxes in sequential order.
The officers even looked for non-human sources, such as perhaps a rodent or even a raccoon, but even this rationalization made no sense due to the fact that it would have had to get out past one of them and it would have had to be well over two feet tall to even activate the sensors.
Try as they may, the two security officers could not find any source, malfunction or reason for the boxes to have activated as they did.
THE CHARLESTON NAVAL SHIPYARD MUSEUM: THE SHADOWY INTRUDER
Several years ago, in the early morning hours, another security team discovered what they believed to be an intruder below decks. One of the Patriots Point security officers had observed a large shadowy mass moving about the area. This officer observed the shadow to be in the form of a person, and he believed that it was indeed being cast by an unknown subject caught in some of the ambient light below deck. Having seen enough to cause the officers to believe there was a human interloper on the USS Yorktown, this particular team contacted the local police department, and two uniformed police officers were dispatched to look for the possible trespasser.
The staircase within the Charleston Naval Shipyard Museum, where several people have encountered a dark apparition. Courtesy of KOP.
Once again this particular incident took place at the Charleston Naval Shipyard Museum. When the officers arrived, they were briefed by security as to what they had seen. The two officers responded to the exhibit, and there they also observed an extremely large dark “mass” moving below them. In a recent interview, one of the officers stated that he and the other officer exchanged glances at the moment of initial contact and each officer asked the other simultaneously, “Did you see that?”
The officers confirmed that they both were indeed observing the same black mass.
As they observed the mass from above, it began to move quite rapidly. The officer stated that the mass was twice his size. Both officers proceeded downward to investigate the shadow, and both observed it move rapidly away from them and vanish. There was no way for the mass to have left the area without passing the officers, and they made an extremely thorough search of the area. The direction that the shadowy mass traveled led to doors that were secured from the opposite side and prevented any possible avenue of escape.
According to Patriots Point personnel, the police officers, eventually satisfied that the area was secure and no threats existed, stated that the shadowy mass “was not human” and “decided to let the security team figure it out.”
SHADOW PEOPLE: “SHADOW ED”
Through the years, many additional stories have surfaced concerning shadow figures on board the USS Yorktown. Little is known about the paranormal entities known as shadow people, although they are considered to be one of the primary paranormal entities experienced by witnesses.
On the website “The Official Shadow People Archives,” Susan Fowler describes this entity as follows:
Sometimes it appears as the mere silhouette of a person, usually male, but generally lacking any other characteristics of gender. However, in no way does the description end there. There are “hatted” shadow beings, hooded shadows, cloaked ones, and solid or wispy, smoky types. Some are seen only from the waist up. Others clearly have legs that are seen fleeing from their observers. They dart into corners, through walls, into closets, or behind television sets, bushes, and buildings. Sometimes they simply fade into the dark recesses of the night. Lacking in the description is one common denominator unifying the many different types of shadow people that enter our world, except that they are “intensely dark.” But even then, there are exceptions.
Finally the question is asked, “What is their purpose?” One thing is for certain, the personalities and intentions of shadow people are just as varied as any one of the six billion people populating this planet. While a number of witnesses believe that shadow people act as benevolent guardians watching and guiding us; just as many witnesses have no doubt of the evil soul-wrenching potential of these beings. Originally, I believed the shadow people to be ghosts, but the stories received, read, compiled and uploaded are more convincing that shadows are a type of inter-dimensional beings, from which ‘ghost’ is only one sub-category. One can only hope that serious research into this paranormal (or psychological) genre will paint a clearer understanding of the nature and make-up of these dark mysterious ‘people’. That day has not yet come.
Many of the shadow people experienced onboard the USS Yorktown have been attributed to a figure that has been called “Shadow Ed” by Patriots Point personnel. This term has also been picked up by some visitors as well.
The name “Shadow Ed” was derived from a military term meaning “Enemy Designated” or “E.D.” Therefore “Ed” is not truly the name of anyone or anything onboard the shi
p. The term is simply referring to a “Shadow Enemy Designated.” According to one Patriots Point employee, there are too numerous occurrences in various locations to be attributed to just one entity.
Around 1998, Chief Electrician Brian Parsons had his first encounter with the entity he referred to as “Shadow Ed.” He states that at that time, he was a security officer with Patriots Point and was making his rounds on the second deck in “Officers Country” on the starboard side of the ship. This is the area known as the Forward Officers’ Area. As he was walking out of room 200, he felt as if he was not alone, even though the ship was closed to the public and it was after hours. Brian looked over his shoulder and saw someone cross the corridor. He turned to investigate, but once he got to the location where the person should have been, he discovered nothing.
Brian turned around and began heading back in the direction he had originally been traveling. Just when he had chalked the occurrence up to his imagination, he again observed the shadow cross directly in front of him and block out the light at the end of the corridor. At this time, he was convinced that someone else was in the area. Brian contacted his supervisor, and the two of them searched the area without locating anyone.
The following day, Brian shared his story with an employee on the graveyard shift. The employee was not surprised and stated that his shift had experienced the same thing.
Several employees have experienced the shadow people. As one Patriots Point employee, Vernon Brown, states, “You see them just out the corner of your eye. I don’t think they want to hurt you, but they will sure make you hurt yourself trying to get away from them.”