Greenland Patrol service With the outbreak of war in 1941,
Escanabas home port was shifted to
Boston, and she was assigned to the
Greenland Patrol, performing escort duty and search and rescue operations in the
North Atlantic. On 15 June 1942, while escorting
convoy XB-25 from
Cape Cod to
Halifax, Nova Scotia,
Escanaba had two
submarine contacts and made attacks on them. No sinkings were confirmed. After making these attacks, the ship rescued 20 people from SS
Cherokee, which had been sunk by a
U-boat. In that same month,
Escanaba was credited with the sinkings of two enemy submarines in a single day. However, German records show no U-boats were sunk. From 1 July until 23 August 1942, she was on weather patrol.
SS Dorchester rescues On 3 February 1943,
Escanaba participated in the rescue of the survivors of , which had been torpedoed by a German submarine. The rescue was marked by the
Escanabas historic first use of
rescue swimmers clad in
survival suits to aid survivors, who were too weakened by
shock or
hypothermia in the icy water to pull themselves up cargo nets or sea ladders to the safety and warmth of rescuers' ships, or even to hold on to ropes cast to them from the rescue vessel. By way of the lines the rescue swimmers tied around those who were having trouble helping themselves, many struggling survivors who -- debilitated by the cold -- would have otherwise died, were hauled aboard
Escanaba by crewmen on deck. Even those in the water who appeared to be dead were harnessed by the retrieval swimmers and pulled aboard – it was found that only 12 of the 50 apparently dead victims thus brought aboard by the retrieval teams actually turned out to be dead. The rest proved themselves to be quite alive once given the benefit of warmth, dryness, and medical attention. In all,
Escanaba plucked 133 survivors from the water that day, only one of whom went on to die aboard the cutter after rescue. For their work in supervising and organizing the rescue, commanding officer
Lieutenant Commander Carl U. Peterson received the
Legion of Merit and executive officer
Lieutenant Robert H. Prause Jr., whose experiments in a tethered rubber suit off a dock at
Bluie West One had paved the way for this new "retriever method," received a letter of commendation.
Ship's doctor Assistant Surgeon Ralph R. Nix of the
US Public Health Service also received a letter of commendation for his work saving the lives of the critically chilled survivors. Three crew members who went "over the side" to bring in survivors,
Ensign Richard A. Arrighi, Ship's Cook 2nd Class
Forrest O. Rednour, and Steward's Mate 3rd Class Warren T. Deyampert, were awarded the
Navy and Marine Corps Medal for their actions in the water. All decorations and commendations, however, were to be awarded posthumously.
Sinking of Escanaba On 10 June 1943,
Escanaba began escorting her last convoy, GS 24 from
Narsarssuak to
St. John's, Newfoundland, in company with (Flag), , , and
Algonquin. The vessels they were tasked to escort were
USAT Fairfax and the tug . At 0510 on 13 June, a large sheet of flame and dense smoke were seen rising from
Escanaba, though no explosion was heard by the other ships in the convoy. She sank at 0513, going down so quickly that she did not have time to send any distress signals.
Storis and
Raritan were ordered to investigate and rescue survivors while the rest of the convoy began zigzagging and steering evasive courses to avoid enemy submarines. Although
Storis and
Raritan were able to arrive on the scene within ten minutes, only two survivors and one body could be found. At 0715 the two vessels returned to the main body of the convoy. The entire crew of 13
officers and 92
ratings was lost to the explosion or to rapid hypothermia in the water with the exception of the two sailors who were recovered and whose survival was attributed to their soaked clothing having frozen their unconscious bodies to floating debris, which prevented them from following their shipmates to the bottom. The exact cause of the explosion could not be determined at the time, but was commonly attributed to a torpedo fired by one of several U-boats which were in the area at the time. However, no U-boats claimed the kill, and, according to Browning, it is now considered more probable that the cutter was sunk by a drifting
mine. ==Legacy==