This
Air Force Life Jacket was worn by left scanner/gunner
Sgt Robert P. Harrison. He was badly injured when Crew
21 ditched after a raid on Nagoya, May 1945. Our aircraft
was hit by flak that took out the number one engine.
The USS Doherty, a destroyer escort, picked us up. Peter
Nelson, a pharmacist's mate aboard the Doherty took
the life jacket home with him to Minnesota where he
became a medical doctor. He loved to fish and one day
when he was fishing alone, his canoe tipped over and
he used this life jacket to keep him afloat until rescued.
Thus this Air Force life jacket saved two lives many
years apart. It would still work with new CO cartridges.
At
the reunion of the Doherty Crew in May of 2001 the men
of the Doherty gave me this life vest along with a plaque
giving an account of how crew 21 survived until rescued
by the Doherty. The inscription on the plaque reads:
U.S.S.
DOHERTY (DE 14)
REUNION 5/6 to 5/9 2001
HILTON HEAD S.C.
This
memento was presented to Mr. Edward L. Bates and Dr.
Victor R. Durrance
by the crew of the U.S.S. Doherty in honor of the rescue
of the crew of the B-29
"Two Passes and a Crap" in the South Pacific on May
14, 1945. The B-29 had been badly damaged on a bombing
mission over Japan and had to be ditched. Two Airman
were killed and eleven men were rescued by the U.S.S.
Doherty.
Lt. Bates and Sgt. Durrance were awarded the "Soldier's
Medal" for heroism
displayed in enemy waters and were instrumental in getting
members of their
downed crew into life rafts, tending the injured and
enabling their crew mates
to endure the long night of violent rainstorms and heavy
seas.