Hometown: Cutler, IL
Branch: U.S. Coast Guard
Unit: USCGC Escanaba (WPG-77)
Military Honors: Navy and Marine Corps Medal, Purple Heart
Date of Sacrifice: June 13, 1943 - KIA at sea off Ivigtut, Greenland
Age: 21
Conflict: World War II, 1939-1945

Forrest Oren Rednour was born May 13, 1923, in Cutler, Illinois. Cutler was a small village of a few hundred people in the farmlands of southern Illinois. He lived there with his parents, Nelson and Betty Rednour, and his older brother Leroy.

Tragedy struck the Rednour family when Forrest was 4 years old. His father—just 24—passed away, leaving Betty to raise the two boys alone.

A month after his 19th birthday, Rednour traveled 300 miles north to Chicago, where he enlisted in the United States Coast Guard on June 19, 1941. After training at the New Orleans Training Station and the Chicago Coast Guard Station, Rednour was assigned to the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Escanaba (WPG-77).

Two days before Christmas, 1942, Rednour married Ruth Harriet Larson.

Escanaba was given the dangerous duty of escorting supply convoys through the Labrador Sea, to the western coast of Greenland. The Allies’ North Atlantic Ferry Route, in which American aircraft were sent to Europe during World War II, included the U.S. Army-constructed Narsarsuaq Air Base.

Disrupting this flow of military assets became a high priority for the Germans. Due to frequent encounters with German U-boat submarines, the dangerous trip to Greenland aboard slow transport ships kept American service members on edge until they arrived safely on shore.

The Dorchester disaster

In early February of 1943, Escanaba was part of a convoy that included the USAT Dorchester—a loaded Army troop transport vessel that carried 902 people—soldiers, merchant seamen, and civilian workers. At 12:55 a.m. on the night of February 3, 1943, just 150 miles from their destination, German U-boat U-223 fired three torpedoes at the Dorchester. One exploded into her starboard side. A hundred men were killed instantly.

As Dorchester slipped beneath the waves of the Atlantic’s icy waters within 20 minutes, only two of the 14 lifeboats were successfully used in abandoning ship.

In the chaos and darkness, Escanaba came to the rescue. Ship’s Cook Second Class Forrest Rednour was among those who volunteered to go into the storm-tossed, frigid North Atlantic waters to rescue as many survivors as he could. The U.S. Coast Guard describes the scene:

The victims suffered from severe shock and hypothermia and could not climb the sea ladders or the cargo net. In fact, they were incapable of grasping a line to haul them aboard the cutter. Clad in his dry suit and secured to the Escanaba by a line, Rednour swam out to the floating victims and life rafts.

He checked for signs of life and secured the victims to a line so the deck crews could pull the survivors up to the cutter [Escanaba]. Even though many victims appeared frozen to death, 38 out of 50 that appeared dead were frozen but still alive. Rednour got the floating victims to the cutter immediately, saving time and more lives. Selflessly, Rednour remained in the icy water nearly four hours.

For his selfless courage in rescuing survivors of the Dorchester, SC2 Rednour was posthumously awarded the Navy & Marine Corps Medal. His citation reads:

Despite possible enemy submarine action, Rednour risked his life in the black and icy waters to aid in the rescue of unconscious and helpless survivors. Realizing the danger of being crushed between the rafts and the ship’s side or of being struck by a propeller blade if the engines backed, he swam in under the counter of the constantly maneuvering Escanaba and prevented many floating survivors from being caught in the suction of the screws, in one instance retrieving a loading raft.

Rednour’s gallant and voluntary action in subjecting himself to pounding seas and bitter cold for nearly four hours contributed to the rescue of 145 persons and his courageous disregard for his own personal safety in a situation of grave peril was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

Only 230 of the 902 men aboard Dorchester survived. After eight hours of intense and difficult rescue operations, SC2 Rednour and Escanaba’s other tethered rescue swimmers had saved 133 lives.

The mystery of the Escanaba

SC2 Rednour survived the icy North Atlantic that night. The heroics of Escanaba’s crew would inspire American seamen for the rest of the war and on through the years. But the vessel’s contributions to the war effort would not continue for long.

Four months later, in the early morning hours of June 13, 1943, Escanaba was escorting a convoy from Narsarssuak, Greenland to St. Johns, Newfoundland. Near Ivituut, Greenland, observers from another cutter in the convoy—the Storis—described a cloud of smoke and flame billowing upward from Escanaba. The cutter sank within three minutes, leaving only small bits of wreckage afloat. The ship sank so quickly that there was no time to send out distress signals.

SC2 Forrest O. Rednour, at age 21, was among the 103 lost with the ship. Only two men survived.

After the war, captured German sea records showed that at least six U-boat submarines were operating in the area near Escanaba. Naval experts say the most probable causes would be either a mine, an internal explosion of a magazine and depth charges, or a German torpedo. But there is not enough evidence available to be certain.

Honors and memorials

Two vessels have been named in honor of SC2 Rednour. The USS Rednour (ABD-102), a high-speed transport ship, was launched by the United States Navy on February 12, 1944. On November 8, 2018, the United States Coast Guard commissioned USCGC Forrest Rednour (WPC-1129) in San Diego, California.

In 1995, the Coast Guard established the Forrest O. Rednour Memorial Award, recognizing “those units and individuals who consistently epitomize the best in culinary support operations.”

Sources
Artist’s rendering by Craig Du Mez, from U.S. Coast Guard photo VIRIN: 221103-G-CG123-1002.JPG
United States Coast Guard: The Long Blue Line: Forrest Rednour—World War II rescue swimmer and FRC namesake
Star Concord, Jan. 23, 2023: Forrest Rednour and the Rescue of the WWII Transport Dorchester
Naval History and Heritage Command: Rednour (APD-102)
Hall of Valor by Military Times: Forrest O. Rednour
The Saturday Evening Post, Feb. 3, 2022—Heroism in the Face of Hopelessness: The Story of the SS Dorchester
United States Coast Guard: Escanaba,1932
Santa Monica Observer, USCG Public Affairs, Jul. 22, 2018: Long Beach Harbor will be the Homeport of four US Coast Guard Fast Response Cutters
Find a Grave: SC2 Forrest Oren Rednour