PC Patrol Craft of World War I PC 1134
Built at the DeFoe Shipbuilding
Established 1905 in Bay City ,
The Patrol Craft was a 173 foot Steel Hull Boat that was used for ASW (Anti-Submarine Warfare), Anti-Aircraft suppression and was used as a Control Boat that assisted the Amphibious Landing Operations in the Atlantic and Pacific Theatres in World War II. PC 1134 served Honorably in the Pacific.
PC 1134 shared the action in eight invasions as a control ship.
She survived five air raids by kamikazes and two dive bombers, and her gunners got revenge by knocking down öN0 Japanese planes at Leyte. On top of that she weathered two typhoons. Her career continued after VJ Day when PC 1134 made trips up the Yangtze River in China-She was one of the first ships to go there since before the war.
PC 1134 rescued the Crew of YP - 281
During the morning watch on 5 January 1944 aboard PC 1134, the ship got underway to escort six small ships from Pago Pago to Suva Fiji. For four days they zigzagged at four to five on one engine to screen the ships. Then the weather began to make up. Soon howling winds whipped the sea, and 50-75 foot waves buried the forecastle under green water. The men could "...feel the deck plates snap and pop under our feet. The ship rolled violently. "
Taking an even worse beating in the storm, YP - 281 signaled the PC that they were taking on water and feared that they would sink. The Captain of the PC knew nothing could be done at night, so all hands waited while the storm raged. When daylight arrived, the PC hove to near the and got a line over to the smaller vessel. Men on the YP lashed it to a life raft and tethered another line to it and their ship. With three to five men from the on raft at a time the PC crew hauled them to the PC. As they closed on the PC ship , waves bashed the raft against the ship that leaped up and plunged down as breath as
pounded them. Sailors on the PC battled in Knee-deep water against waves coming aboard that battered the men against bulkheads and knocked them down. Lashed to lifelines, some of the men on PC 1134 hung over the side. Others plunged into the sea to yank the drenched aboard as shown in figure 94.
Hours later twenty-one tired haggard men of the YP-128 gulped brandy and huddled in the relative safety of the PC. The exhausted sailors of PC 1134 trudged back to their watches to resume ship’s duties. Then the senior officer of the group ( SOPA ) declared the YP a menace to navigation and ordered the PC to sink it. Gunners on the PC 1134 stumbled back to their stations and blasted the derelict with all the ships guns. They and the YP crew, watched as "...she turned belly up and slid silently under the waves."
Seaman first class Phillip g. Musick was a crew member of PC 1134