Rescue-Ship Veterans to Sail Memory Lane

The main thing Bud Tretter remembers about serving aboard a crash boat 50 years ago is being cold all the time.

Joe Placente recalls having little room to move.

And Wilbur Green still feels the frustration of rushing out to rescue a downed pilot from the icy waters off the Aleutian Islands, only to end up skimming for parts of his body. “We didn’t pick many out of the water because not many survived,” said Green, 79, who skippered crash boat P-510 during World War II.

That boat, which was part of a fleet designed to rescue downed pilots in World War II and the Korean War, is now berthed in Newport Harbor, looking nothing like the gray, gun-laden craft it was. Now it’s called Dream Maker, and the 85-foot boat built in 1943 does its duty as a charter pleasure yacht for weddings and parties.

This weekend, though, a bit of its gritty past will be relived as Green and about 50 other crash-boat veterans from around the country converge for a reunion aboard the ship on which several of them once served. “I never thought I’d see it again,” said Green, the former captain, who now lives in Alaska. “You better believe it will be emotional. I haven’t seen any of my crew since 1945--those of us who can move around and cheer will certainly do what we can.”

The idea of the reunion was hatched by Kathy Leek, director of public relations for Adventures at Sea Yacht Charters, whose parent company, Charter Memories, acquired the craft in 1988. “I asked a broker to find me a vessel that we could use,” owner Phil Diorio recalled, “and he found me this one.”

Diorio immediately began researching the boat’s history and uncovered a saga spanning half the globe. Built at a shipyard in Wilmington, Calif., P-510 was originally one of 516 crash boats serving American interests during World War II. Armed with two double-barreled 20mm machine guns and a 40mm gun turret on its upper deck, the boat--designed to go fast and withstand the roughest seas--served in the Aleutian Islands picking up air-crash survivors until the end of the war.

Many crash boats went on to perform similar missions during the Korean War, after which most were sold as scrap metal. P-510, however, had a different fate: Purchased by a private yachtsman in the early 1950s, it was converted to a pleasure craft and has sailed the Pacific Ocean from Canada to Southern California ever since. Among its monikers: Noah’s Ark, Magnum Force and the current name, acquired more than 20 years ago after extensive remodeling that, among other things, added two upper decks.

When Leek, a history buff, came on the scene two years ago, she couldn’t believe her eyes. “I realized that it was a crash boat,” she said. Her father and grandfather served in World War II and she’s had uncles in the Navy. “I have a great allegiance to veterans and I just thought, ‘Wow, wouldn’t it be great to find these guys and thank them for their service?’ ”

But finding them proved to be daunting. A series of ads in military publications went unanswered. Then in April, Leek said, she heard from the president of the Crash Boat Assn., a national group of enthusiasts, and the rest, as they say, is history.

“We’ve had annual reunions since 1986, but never aboard a crash boat,” said Les Adams, 75, who commanded the crash-boat fleet in the Korean War and now commands the association from Florida. “We’re looking to shake hands with old friends and congratulate ourselves for being alive.”

Those congratulations began Friday evening with a gathering on the bow of the former P-510, where the group of veterans--which was expected to include at least one aviator rescued by the boat--was scheduled to hear patriotic band music and be saluted by the American Legion color guard. Today the group is slated to tour one of the few sister crash boats still in existence: a vessel docked in Long Beach, undergoing long-term historical restoration. And tonight they are planning a long cruise aboard the Dream Maker, from which they will toss a poppy wreath into the ocean.

Mostly, though, they will try to remember.

Such as the time Jim Jarvis’ boat got pinned down on North Korea’s Chinammpo River while rescuing a downed pilot during the Korean War. “They were shooting at us from the shore,” recalled Jarvis, 74, of Riverside. “Our cook got smacked in the nose with a piece of shrapnel. We got our pilot, got him on board and got the hell out. If we’d been there another five minutes, we’d have been a ball of fire.”

Or the time the old P-510 got caught near an air raid. “They bombed through the clouds,” Green remembered. “They were out of range, but it made us trigger-happy.”

This weekend’s reunion, he said, is something he’s looked forward to with a special kind of fervor shared only by his peers.

“It’s going to be emotional for those of us who were on the crew,” the former skipper said. “It’s hard for some of us to recall all the experiences we went through, so we’re going to have to compare notes about what happened. You’d better believe that that’s going to be exciting.”