WILLIAM H. “BILL” SWISHER
Age: 88
Born: Jan. 2, 1922
Hometown: Manhattan Beach
Residence: Desert Hot Springs
Military branch: U.S. Coast Guard; USS Eastwind (W-279)
Years served: December 1942-October 1945
Rank: Radar man second class
Family: Wife Elizabeth; four sons
About this series
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II through the end of 2010 — the 65th anniversary of the end of the war. Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
Coming tomorrow
U.S. Army veteran Ralph “Rudy” DeLateur of Rancho Mirage.
LEARN MORE: Read about other Coachella Valley residents who served in World War II at www.mydesert.com/WWII
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Bill Swisher was on top of the world while serving overseas in World War II.
Swisher, a radar man aboard the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker USS Eastwind, patrolled the waters in and around the Arctic Circle, not far from the northernmost point on Earth — the North Pole.
Swisher and a 250-man crew kept the supply line open to an Army Air Corps base on Greenland.
“We patrolled the east coast of Greenland,” Swisher said. “We kept the fjord open for supply ships and Navy tankers (refueling stations).”
The USS Eastwind plowed through the ice, breaking open a path through the frozen sea.
“We ran up on the ice and let the weight of the ship break the ice,” he said.
It was slow going. The ship could only travel nine knots an hour through the thick ice.
The specially designed ship was built without rolling chocks — fin-like stabilizers that run along either side of the keel to keep a ship from rolling.
Without the rolling chocks, the ship was able to bust through the ice without getting hung up.
The heavily armed ship also carried a Grumman J2F Duck, a single-engine amphibious biplane used for reconnaissance.
On one mission, a German trawler, the Externsteine, was spotted trying to establish a weather station on the east coast of Greenland.
Twelve, well-educated scientists had been left on North Little Koldewey Island by the trawler. The German camp was discovered and a landing party from the Eastwind went in and captured the men.
The German ship was gone by this time, but was spotted 11 days later. It was captured by the Eastwind and the icebreaker USS Southwind, the Eastwind's sister ship.
“We picked him up on radar a couple of miles from where he put these guys ashore,” Swisher said. “We fired a couple of shells over the bow they blinkered (a series of quick flashes), they ran up a white flag and they said, ‘We surrender.'”
The USS Eastwind put a crew aboard the captured trawler and towed the German ship out of the ice.
“We hauled down the nasty (German) flags and ran up the Stars and Stripes,” Swisher said.
The USS Eastwind took the scientists and 32 other prisoners aboard — and one little black and white dog, named Zipper.
Zipper got to run loose, while the men stayed in the brig.
“They ate with us in the mess deck,” Swisher said. “They spoke English. They were educated at the University of Chicago. They were smart guys. It was quite an experience to treat them as prisoners. They were down-to-earth guys. They fit right in.”
Besides rescuing stuck ships, rounding up prisoners and clearing frozen waterways for supply ships, the crew did work for the National Geodetic Survey (NGS).
NGS manages a national coordinate system that maps coastal zones and waterways of the U.S. and its possessions, among other geographic-related management services.
By the time World War II broke out, some of the areas in the Arctic were still uncharted, Swisher said.
The ship took “soundings” to determine the depth of water in the icy environs.
Once, when the ship was unable to get around an iceberg, the men creatively solved the problem.
“We threw a grappling hook around the iceberg and tied it to the anchor tow,” Swisher said. “We cut the engine and the silence was deafening. There was no sound. The iceberg towed us out to the open sea about three knots an hour.”
Swisher said he was amazed by the efficiency of the military's mail delivery system.
“Every time we landed somewhere, our mail was waiting for us,” he said. “Mail call was very important. You just looked forward to hearing from folks at home.”
Swisher enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in December 1942 and was sent Catalina Island for boot camp, where “rich bitches” donated their expensive sailboats to be used by the men for seamanship training, he said.
By the fall of 1943, Swisher was patrolling the beaches of the California coast.
“Congress decided we needed to protect our coast and asked the Coast Guard to figure out a program to protect it,” he said.
Swisher was assigned to a stretch of beach from Oxnard to Lompoc. The men rotated shifts on the 24-hour patrol.
The residents walked down from their homes, built high above the beach, to bring coffee and baked goods to the men protecting the coastline.
They'd sip the hot coffee out of paper cups — a relaxing treat, he said.
When it was finally time to go overseas, Swisher was assigned to a brand-new ship built by the Western Pipe & Steel Co. in San Pedro.
He didn't mind that he was headed to the Arctic.
“I was happy to go north,” he said. “People were getting killed in the South Pacific. Icebergs don't fight.”
