Reefer on the Reef

The lashing rain-heavy southwest wind which the Italians call libeccio roared down on the U.S. refrigerator ship Grommet Reefer one night last week outside the crammed seaport of Leghorn. In the raging seas, the ship's engines were powerless as eggbeaters. Within minutes, the Grommet Reefer was hung up on a reef only 150 yards from shore.

Coolly the ship's captain, a ruggedBrooklyner named Henry P. Saukant, ordered the watertight doors secured, and jettisoned oil and fresh water to lighten ship. Then he turned over his engines again in a futile hope of pulling clear. Within half an hour, the 3,800-tonner began to buckle amidships; minutes later, when all 39 crewmen had made their way to the stern, the Grommet Reefer tore in half as if broken over a giant's knee. From her holds spewed turkeys, fish, meat, beer and other supplies bound for the Christmas meals of U.S. troops in Austria.

All night long, in the stern, the bluejackets hung on as best they could. Next day, a hastily assembled crowd of Americans and Italians ashore set to work with what equipment they could scrounge or improvise, and urgent S O S's were radioed to the U.S. carriers Midway and Leyte, bucking the heavy winds some 150 miles away. Through a second tense night and most of a second day, rescuers managed to get a few of the crew ashore by breeches buoy. A dozen others plunged into the sea. to be fished out by a crazily weaving Italian rescue launch. By midafternoon, with 15 bluejackets still aboard, the stern half of the Grommet Reefer was lurching dangerously.

Suddenly, thousands of Italians lining the shore let up a roar and pointed seaward. Out of the horizon sped the Leyte and the Midway. Well off the port, they dispatched four helicopters, and within minutes they were hovering over the Grommet Reefer; one by one, the survivors were plucked off to the resounding applause of the onlookers and set ashore. By nightfall, the 37-hour ordeal was over, and the happy crew was giving a banquet for Captain Saukant, last man off the broken Reefer, and in many a Leghorn household that night, Italians feasted happily on American turkeys, which tasted a little of diesel oil and salt water.

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