By James Heinz
On June 6th, 80 years ago, (story was posted June 6, 2024) it was the Day of Days. It was The Longest Day. It was the day the Great Crusade began. It was the Greatest Day of the Greatest Generation.
It was D-Day.
On This Day 80 years ago, June 6, 1944, the largest and most complex military operation in human history took place. Over five thousand warships covered by 14,000 aircraft sorties landed 136,000 men on the Normandy beaches of Nazi occupied France. 10,000 of the men would become casualties. It was an operation that could not fail, since failure would have meant waiting another year to return.
D-Day became the iconic day of World War II. The black and white film footage of heavily laden soldiers wading through the waves and trudging wearily up the beach only to suddenly slump to the ground as if sleeping, never to awaken, have become burned in our memories.
And On This Day, a tiny warship built in Wisconsin led the way.
At the start of World War II, the U.S. Navy felt the need for small vessels to be used to hunt enemy submarines. The Navy then ordered 403 ships of the PC-461 class submarine chaser, of which 343 were completed before war’s end.
The PC-461 class were made of steel. They displaced 450 long tons full and were 173 feet long and 23 feet wide with a draft of six feet. They were driven by two 1,440 hp diesel engines driving two propellers. They had a top speed of 20 knots (23 mph) and a range of 3,000 miles. They had a crew of 5 officers and 60 enlisted men.
Their armament varied but usually consisted of one 3”/76mm deck gun forward, one 3”/76mm or one 40mm Bofors gun aft, between three and five 20mm guns next to the bridge and amidships, either two or four K-gun depth charge launchers, and two depth charge racks on the stern.,
One of their sailors described them as “unkind to those who sailed them.” They had the incredible ability to roll 110 degrees and recover. Their ability to roll 20 degrees past vertical and come back was proven many times in stormy waters.
Photo at top of page: PC 1261, Great Lakes Marine Collection of the Milwaukee Public Library and Wisconsin Marine Historical Society
WMHS files show that PC-1261 was laid down on November 20, 1942 at the Leathem D. Smith Company shipyard in Sturgeon Bay, Wis. She was launched February 28, 1943. She was commissioned May 22, 1943.
Everett Keffer courtesy of Find a Grave
In an interview published in 1994 in the Reading, Penn., Eagle newspaper, PC 1261 crewman Everett Keffer said PC 1261 spent seven months escorting convoys between Cuba and New York until March 1944, when the ship was ordered to England to participate in the Normandy landing. The voyage took 26 days and according to one source, “The journey was long, slow, and filled with hazardous and terrifying incidents” and took place in twenty foot seas and thirty knot winds.
By this time the Allies had conducted enough amphibious operations to know that the selection of beaches appropriate for the landing force was key to success. The beaches’ size, locations, gradient, composition, tidal conditions, currents, the presence of obstacles on and behind the beach, and the ability of the invasion force to exit the beach and advance inland was absolutely important.
Landing on the wrong beach would spell disaster for the invasion
In addition to choosing the correct beaches, Allied planners had to make sure that the landing craft could find the correct beaches. The landing craft would head for the beaches in the darkness before dawn. Most stretches of the Normandy coast are featureless and look pretty much the same. The beaches would be obscured by smoke and dust kicked up by naval and air bombardment rendering the correct beaches even more indistinguishable to landing craft with only rudimentary navigation equipment.
The Navy’s solution to this problem was to retrofit 34 PCs to become Patrol Control Craft (PCC). PC 1261 was selected to become a PCC. PCCs were the mother ducks of the invasion fleet. Their job was to lead columns of landing craft towards their designated beach.
PC 815 as a completed PC courtesy of Wikipedia
According to the book “PC Patrol Craft of World War II”, in order to accomplish this task, each PCC was given additional navigational and communications equipment and 12 additional crewmen to operate it. The book “Utah Beach” described this equipment as “highly accurate and top secret navigational gear and search radars yielding near perfect navigational fixes and revealing coastal features with decent clarity, even through dust and smoke.”
At Normandy, there were five invasion beaches. The British landed at Gold and Sword beaches, the Canadians at Juno Beach, and the Americans at Omaha and Utah beaches. Utah Beach was the furthest west of the beaches, and ran roughly north/south on the east side of the Cotentin peninsula.
Utah Beach courtesy of Wikipedia
Utah Beach had been further divided into two beaches, Tare Green to the north and Uncle Red to the south. The beaches were more simply referred to as Green Beach and Red Beach. PCC 1261 was assigned as Primary Control Vessel for Red Beach.
The 84h infantry regiment of the 4th Infantry Division (“Iron Horse”) was slated to land on Red Beach. PCC 1261 was assigned to lead the first wave of ten small LCVPs (Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel-commonly known as Higgins boats) each carrying a 36 man infantry platoon. The plan was to land in a column of regiments on a two battalion front about 2,200 yards wide.
At the same time, PCC 1261 would also guide four LCTs (Landing Craft, Tank), carrying Company B of the 70th Tank Battalion. Each LCT carried four 35 ton Sherman tanks, which had been modified to float and propel themselves through the water using the same duplex drive (DD) that drives the famous “Ducks” at Wisconsin Dells today. In a previous article, I wrote about LCT 203 which is still afloat in Bayfield WI.
At this time according to the book “The U.S. Navy at Normandy”, PCC 1261 was assigned to PC Squadron 1 along with 17 other PCs. She was made part of Red Assault Group Task Force 125.5.
She was commanded by Lt. Cmdr. Rency Sewell USNR. He was from Atlanta GA and had worked as a telephone installer before the war. Everett Keffer was also aboard. He was assigned as a loader for the aft 40mm Bofors gun.
According to Everett Keffer, at 4 am on the morning of June 6, 1944 the invasion fleet anchored off the Normandy coast. At that time the preparatory naval bombardment of the beach began.
He described PC 1261 “swaying” with each salvo of ten 14 inch/356mm shells fired by the battleship USS Nevada, a Pearl Harbor survivor, stationed a mile away. The muzzle flashes from the bombardment were so powerful and so continuous that in the pre dawn darkness Keffer could clearly see people moving around on the beach as if it were broad daylight.
Rency Sewell’s official report, taken from the website of the U.S. Naval Institute, states “When the initial wave arrived, we proceeded to the beach. The initial wave consisted of the DD tanks.”
“For the next 20 minutes we proceeded . . . with very little occurring. Upon reaching about 5,000 yards from the beach the coastal batteries opened fire upon us with shells that seemed to hit about 30 yards off the starboard quarter.” PC 1261 could only move at the same speed as her LCTS, a slow 9 mph.
Everett Keffer remembered that one German shell hit just off their stern and then a second round landed ahead of their bow. Both Keffer and Sewell realized that they had just encountered every surface sailor’s worst nightmare:
The Straddle.
Because estimating range at long distance on a featureless sea is difficult, naval guns fire at different angles trying to find the correct range of their target. If a ship is straddled, or bracketed, with one shell falling short and one falling long, it means that for their third shot the gunners have found the correct range. Sewell himself said: “I knew immediately that they had our range and the next one would probably hit us…”
Everett Keffer said that PC 1261 began to zig zag to avoid being hit. As the ship began its first left turn, it turned broadside to the German guns.
Sewell went on, “… which it did. It hit us right in the starboard side aft midships.” Keffer said that the shell hit the starboard side between the engine room and the magazine and travelled across the ship before exploding when it hit the port side.
Sewell’s report goes on to say, “The ship immediately took a 20-degree list to starboard with the fantail under the water. The order was not given to abandon ship for we felt that we might be able to save it. However, two minutes later the ship took a 90-degree roll and the order was given to abandon ship and all hands walked over the side as though you could walk over a treadmill.” Keffer said that one of his crewmates told him that the hole in the hull was big enough “to drive a tractor through.”
Wikimapia says: “Her Captain ordered all ahead full to move his stricken ship out of the swept lane so the landing craft could get through, and after proceeding as far as possible before the PC-1261’s screws were out of the water passed the order to abandon ship.”
Everett Keffer might have remembered it differently if he could have remembered it at all. His only memory of the explosion is an image that “looked like a spray of oil.” The explosion knocked him unconscious and threw him 250 feet through the air. It blew off his shoes, socks, and pants. It also shattered his feet and his lower legs.
“PC Patrol Craft” says that many of the crew were thrown into 48 degree Fahrenheit water. One crewman dove into the water and saved a floundering shipmate and held him up until two other shipmates pulled the two of them onto the capsized hull. Lt. Ralph Noble was said to have died from exhaustion from trying to save too many men.
As Keffer regained consciousness he slowly saw a blue blur in front of him, which turned out to be the shattered remains of the captain’s dinghy. He swam to it and hung on to its shattered hull. He could hear but could not swim to the crew members clinging to the upside down hull of PC 1261.
Sewell’s report concludes “We all realized it was impossible for anyone to pick us up at this time for all the waves that passed us had a specific job to do and we did not want to stop them; so actually we were cheering them to the beach as they passed by. We realized that we would eventually be picked up.”
Many of the soldiers on the landing craft heading to the beach cheered the PCC 1261 survivors clinging to the hull of their sinking ship. One PCC 1261 sailor wrote of his comrades, “There was no whimpering, no self pity-only concern about rescue and thinking about other shipmates.”
Many of the crew were later picked up by landing craft returning empty from the beach. Sewell said that he was in the water for three hours before being picked up by a small Coast Guard boat which contained so many survivors from PCC 1261 and three other ships sunk in the same area that he was afraid there would not be room for him.
Everett Keffer had nightmares after the war about the next 2.5 hours of his life. He floated in a sea of dead bodies and dismembered body parts and broken equipment, a sea roiled by the muzzle blast of the USS NEVADA every time she fired her big guns. He saw Lt. Noble sink below the waves due to exhaustion. Eventually he heard a “crumpling” sound and saw his ship sink.
Eventually at 8 am Keffer and two shipmates were picked up by a small Coast Guard boat. A corpsman from PCC 1261 administered morphine to Keffer for the rest of the day and night, even though he did not think that Keffer would survive.
According to “History of United States Naval Operations in World War II” the sinking occurred in 36 feet of water as PCC 1261 was crossing the Cardonnet Bank just south of two small islets called St. Marcouf. PC 1261 was the first American ship sunk at Normandy and the 133rd U.S. Navy ship lost in WW II.
Marcouf battery courtesy of Wikipedia
The German coastal defense battery that sank PCC 1261 was the Crisbeq or Marcouf battery. The hulking concrete structure housed three 8 inch/210 mm type 39 guns that could fire a 298 pound shell filled with 41 pounds of TNT to a maximum range of 21 miles.
Retribution for the sinking of PC 1261 was swift. According to Wikipedia, at 8 am the battleship USS NEVADA hit and silenced one of the Marcouf guns. At 9 am one of NEVADA’s shells penetrated the casemate of the second gun, killing the entire crew. The third gun was damaged so that it could no longer fire out to sea but could fire onto Red Beach.
One of the soldiers who noticed the capsized hull of PC 1261 as he sailed past it was the deputy divisional commander for the 8th Infantry Division. In his report his aide noted “As light began to improve, the first casualty I saw was a Navy boat…One sailor was lying on the keel of the boat, holding on to a man who was obviously wounded or dead. The boat had been stationed to mark the lanes for approaching the beach.”
Troops landing on Utah Beach courtesy of Wikipedia
When the deputy commander landed on Red Beach, he noticed that none of the landmarks he could see corresponded to the landmarks he was supposed to see. He soon realized that his ultimate nightmare had come true.
They were on the wrong beach.
As noted above, it was critical that the landing force land on the correct beach, and they had not. The Allied planners had not understood the strong and complex tides and currents of the Normandy coast. They had landed at low tide, as the current was flowing south at four knots. As the tide came in, the current flow reversed itself and began flowing north at 4 knots.
As a result, the landing craft had landed 2,000 yards farther south than they had planned. The loss of PCC 1261 had caused the invaders to land in the wrong place. The U.S. Navy had a backup ship for PCC 1261 and a backup ship for the backup ship, but both had been disabled.
The invasion was staring complete and utter disaster in the face. Everything depended upon what the deputy divisional commander decided in the next few moments. Which was ironic given that he really should not have been on the beach. In fact, he shouldn’t have been in the Army at all. He was completely unfit for military service.
At age 56 he was the oldest man on the beach. He walked with a cane due to arthritis and wounds suffered in World War I. He had a serious heart condition, which he had concealed. He was the only general who landed with the first wave, something that he had demanded he be allowed to do. When his CO reluctantly gave him permission to do so, the CO did not expect to ever see him alive again.
He was Brigadier General Theodore “Ted” Roosevelt Jr. Note the junior. He was the son of the legendary 26th President of the United States, Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt. His father must have been a tough act to follow, and Ted Jr. had always wanted a chance to surpass his father’s heroics in the Spanish-American War. On This Day he would get his chance.
Ted Roosevelt with his cane in France courtesy of Wikipedia
Ted Roosevelt Jr. looked around and said, “We’ll start the war from right here.” He had determined that the new beach was in fact a better beach than the original Red Beach. The new, wrong beach had fewer obstacles and enemy positions that the original Red Beach, which was now under the fire of two heavy Germans guns. One of them was the Marcouf battery, which had gotten its third 8 inch gun back in action and was busy lobbing 298 pound shells into the original Red Beach, which soon became known as Bloody Beach.
Ted Roosevelt Jr. proceeded to walk up and down the new beach, saving the largest military operation in history from complete disaster by waving his cane at incoming landing craft and directing them where to land. As clods of earth blown up by German artillery shells fell on top of him, Ted reorganized and redirected the invasion force to a successful landing and movement inland.
The reversal of the tide meant that subsequent waves of landing craft would have been carried north back to the original Red Beach, right into the fire of the Marcouf battery.
In one of the greatest ironies in history, PCC 1261 had completed its mission by failing to complete its mission. Had PCC 1261 not sunk, the landing force would have landed on the original Red Beach, which would have caused a mass slaughter of American soldiers. There has never been a case where men truly did not die in vain more so than that of PCC 1261. Their sacrifice saved thousands of others from sacrifice.
As we know, the largest and most complex operation in military history continued, and the surrender of Nazi Germany now lay 11 months in the future.
As for the men mentioned in this story, Rency Sewell was appointed executive officer of a high speed transport ship in the Pacific. He was discharged in 1945 and apparently went back to Georgia to study electrical engineering. He died November 8, 1969.
Ted Roosevelt Jr. died of his heart condition on July 11, 1944. Gen. George Patton said “He was one of the bravest men I ever knew.” When General of the Army Omar Bradley was asked what was the bravest deed he ever witnessed, he said “Ted Roosevelt at Normandy.”
Ted is buried in the American cemetery at Normandy next to his brother Quentin, who had died in action in France in World War I and was reinterred next to Ted. Ted was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously for his actions on Utah Beach. His Medal of Honor citation is below.
Everett Keffer spent a month in an English hospital, where doctors wanted to amputate both his legs above where his ankles had been. He was sent home on a hospital ship with hundreds of other casualties.
When he arrived home, he and the other wounded received the welcome that all combat veterans deserve and do not get. Hundreds of ambulances with a police escort transported the wounded to Bethesda Naval Hospital. People lined the roads to welcome them back. “It was like a parade,” he said.
At the hospital he was visited by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and then vice president Harry Truman. Eventually President Franklin D. Roosevelt himself visited. President Roosevelt himself pinned the Purple Heart on Everett’s pajamas. At the time of the 1994 interview, he still had it.
The war continued for Everett Keffer long after the fighting stopped. He spent 18 months in a military hospital, and the next 50 years visiting VA hospitals in an ultimately successful effort to save his feet.
When asked to reflect on his military service, he replied, “I felt really proud.” He paused and then said, “I wouldn’t want to go through it again.”
Everett Keffer died on November 22, 2016 at the age of 93. His remains were cremated and rest in a columbarium at Indiantown Gap National Cemetery in Pennsylvania. Photos of him and his grave are from the Find A Grave website.
So, On This Day, remember them all. Remember Rency Sewell holding his position, knowing that the next 298 pound shell has his name on it. Remember Ralph Noble, a man who died of exhaustion trying to save his fellow man and who is buried in the American cemetery in Cambridge, England. Remember Ted Roosevelt hobbling up and down Utah beach under German fire. Remember Everett Keffer floating in a sea of corpses. Remember the killed, wounded, and missing casualties of PC 1261, listed below.
Remember them all as the avatars for all the others who died on all the beaches and battlefields and ships and aircraft, known and unknown, remembered or forgotten, in all our wars both recent and past.
Remember them all.
On This Day.
Ted Roosevelt’s Medal of Honor citation:
For gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty on 6 June 1944, in France. After two verbal requests to accompany the leading assault elements in the Normandy invasion had been denied, Brig. Gen. Roosevelt’s written request for this mission was approved and he landed with the first wave of the forces assaulting the enemy-held beaches. He repeatedly led groups from the beach, over the seawall and established them inland. His valor, courage, and presence in the very front of the attack and his complete unconcern at being under heavy fire inspired the troops to heights of enthusiasm and self-sacrifice. Although the enemy had the beach under constant direct fire, Brig. Gen. Roosevelt moved from one locality to another, rallying men around him, directed and personally led them against the enemy. Under his seasoned, precise, calm, and unfaltering leadership, assault troops reduced beach strong points and rapidly moved inland with minimum casualties. He thus contributed substantially to the successful establishment of the beachhead in France. (from Wikipedia)
The casualties of PC 1261 are listed below, from the book “The US Navy at Normandy.”
Missing in Action, declared lost:
Nicholas Colagrande Ward Walter Farlow Frank Godlewski John Maguire Richard Lambert Robert Mattulina Paul Polinski William Repsher Francisco Sanjuro Thomas Stamm Charles Umstad
Died of Wounds:
Clayton Obersheimer Ralph Noble Lester Norby Mart Hurst
Wounded In Action:
Halsey Barrett Leslie Buckstel Ancil Adkins Raymond Savage Orrin Tebbets Clarence Wurtz
Everett Keffer is not mentioned as wounded, nor is a Lt. Barrett listed as wounded in “PC Patrol Craft.”
