June 10, 1944

Saved by British Destroyer Which Threatened to Ram Them When Their Rubber Boat Was Mistaken for Nazi Vessel

A Shickshinny crew chief and a Pittston radio operator started to France in a glider-towing twin-engined Dakota and came back on a British destroyer which tried to ram them in their rubber boat because they were mistaken for Germans, a dispatch from the Ninth Air Force Troop Carrier Base in Britain revealed last night.

The two men are Sgt. James P. Franklin, Jr., crew chief of Shickshinny, and Sgt. Samuel L. Latona, radio operator of 155 South Main Street, Pittston.

In command of the plane was Lt. Seymour Rutberg, of 28 York Street, Worcester, Mass., who told of the experiences of his crew after they had left England to participate in the big invasion.

Rutberg said a burst of flak caught their plane right under the chin, knocked out one engine, and riddled the gas tank. They made a forced landing in the channel about 10 miles off Cherbourg Peninsula and piled into the dinghy which the crew chief, Sgt. Jack L. Breckenridge, Grove City, Ohio, had in the water by the time they reached the back door. The plane stayed afloat about 20 minutes.

The co-pilot was Lt. Emmett Gaulding of Winter Park, Fla., and the radio operator was Sgt. Harold Worth, Los Angeles.

"The waves were about 20 or 25 feet high and we all got sick after about an hour," Rutberg said. "We radioed our position and sent up flares, but nobody was watching or listening, I guess. About 3 a.m. the black hulk of a warship was sighted. We were so sick and weak and cold it took all our strength to load the flare pistol and pull the trigger. When we did this the ship started to ram us. The commander later told us he thought we were a German E-boat. We shot another flare and shouted ‘ahoy’ and they let down their ladders and took us aboard."

Two other crews first listed as lost in Tuesday night’s glider landings have been rescued in the channel.

Emmett M Gaulding