Clark Green, Pg 2

	#1. This scale model of P-115 memorializes her late skipper, Donald deSomery who commanded this first 104-foot offshore rescue vessel to motor north from Sacramento to Alaskan waters in 1943. She was built in the Stephens Bros. yard, and was the first of a long series of these boats to be commissioned by the then 924th QM Boat Co. (AVN). In 1944 the unit was re-designated as an Air Force outfit, Tenth Emergency Rescue Boat Squadron. P-115 was 104', 9" long, 19 ft. beam, and 5 ft. draft. She was powered by three Hall-Scott gasoline engines of 640 hp each. She carried 4000 gallons of avgas in a metal tank, and could cruise at about 17-18 knots for twenty hours -- about 350 miles out, then return. Scale 1" = 4' Her designer, the late Benjamin Dobson, of Fair Harbor, MA, had designed rumrunners in the 1920s.
	#2. P-751 is shown coming to the aid of P-519 which had been struck by a williwaw (micro burst?) south of Chuginadak Island on her way back to the States in the fall of 1945. Located by an air search several days later, P-519 had blown-in pilot house windows, a section of foredeck peeled open, crew's quarters and clothing forward flooded, on-deck anchors ripped off and lost, and all radio gear soaked with salt water and useless. Fortunately, the main engines still worked, although the bilge pumps had failed. The 104' P-751 helped pump out the flooding 85' P-519 and accompanied her to safety.
	#3. On April 29, 1944, five shiny new 85-foot high speed offshore rescue boats were turned over to men of the 10th Emergency Rescue Boat Sqdn. in Long Beach CA. They were all destined for duty in the Aleutian Islands. Three were built at the Fellows and Stewart yard -- P-510, 511, and 512. Two others were constructed by Wilmington Boat Company: P-518 and P-519. Here, P-512 is shown on a trial run outside Los Angeles Harbor preparatory to departing up the coast to Seattle and eventually to Attu at the far end of the Aleutian Chain. Interiors of the three first-named were mahogany trimmed with royal blue accents on yellow-cream panels. Very yacht-like in appearance.
	#4. Two crash boats heading north.
	#5. (L-R) Skipper (Bill) Wilber Green and two crewmen, Axel Nelson and Bill Johnson, onboard the P-510 during its trial run out of Long Beach, CA. Bill Green was the skipper of the P-510 from Long Beach to Adak and then Attu, and was the P-510's skipper until it was sent home from the Aleutians at the end of WWII. Before being assigned to the P-510 and his trip south to pick it up, Bill was a WO/JG Executive Officer on the P-145 with Mike Hatton as the Skipper. These boats carried 3800 gals. of aviation gas in puncture-proof rubberized fuel tanks. They could cruise easily at 23 or 24 knots for hours, and could achieve 35+ knots wide open. Fourteen men comprised the crew with one of them as a medical technician. The boats were lightly armed with two pairs of Browning 50.cal air cooled machine guns and one 20-mm Oerlikon rapid fire cannon.
	#6. In November, 2000, veterans of crash boats from several areas and eras of war met in Newport Beach, CA, as guests of the Adventures at Sea Yacht Charter Co. The firm currently owns and operates the former P-510 as the Dream Maker, a harbor dinner, party, and excursion boat. Yes, it's really our old P-510 now all gussied up with an extra deck, dance floor, a carpeted saloon, state of the art sound system, bridal suite in the old crews' quarters, and more electronic gear than the whole 10th ERBS had in 1943-45. She's also been re-powered. Long gone are the two 1350 hp Packard-marinized Allison engines. She now has a pair of dinky diesels of 165 hp each, and dazzles onlookers at 6 to 7 knots. A "harbor queen," she is restricted by the Coast Guard to in-harbor use only.

Sherman Clark Green's Scrapbook, pg 2

11th USAAF 10th ERBS