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Photo of unidentified dog and handler from US Coast Guard Historian's Office. I'm still hunting for photos of Bayocean's patrol. |
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The first 22 Coast Guard patrolmen listed in Bayocean logbooks. If you recognize any please contact me. |
BM1 Edwin (Ed) Russ. Photo courtesy of his daughter-in-law Lady Russ |
Based on interviews with those who were children at the time, the dogs of Bayocean did their job quite well. Vance Mason said they were large German Shepherds that sometimes got loose and terrorized the neighborhood. To him, they looked like deer loping through the brush. He'd scurry to climb the nearest tree in terror. Joann (Dolan) Steffey, whose father A.T. Dolan bought one of the houses after the war dog patrol left, came very close to being mauled by one of the dogs. Donny Meyers fondly recalls watching movies at the main house (later owned by the Hicks) on Sunday afternoons with his buddies. He was befriended by one of the guardsmen, who would take him along when he fed his dog. It was friendly then, but he knew better than to approach it - or any other dog - at any other time. These dogs had all been someone's pet before the war. They were recruited and trained by Dogs For Defense. Men at the station, who were not their handles, would regularly "agitate" them to make sure they continued being ferocious to anyone who was not their handler.
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Pat Patterson. Photo courtesy of his daughter Dee Cherry |
After D-Day the threat of invasion by Germany and Japan was no longer feared, so beach patrols were fazed out, with the Pacific Coast being last. Some of the men, who were mostly reservists recruited from farms in mid-America because of their experience with animals, went home. Most of the dogs were retrained for civilian life. But some of both went on to serve in remaining oversees battles. One group helped train Chinese Nationalists in the use of war dogs and horses (information in this paragraphs is from Prints in the Sand). Pat Patterson of the Garibaldi horse patrol stayed to marry a local girl and become a port commissioner. Now in his 90s, he fondly recalls stories from the time he served his country in this special way.
Where is Bay Ocean? Never heard of it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your interest, David. Bayocean (one word) Spit forms the western edge of Tillamook Bay. The buildings mentioned in this post, and the rest of the resort community built there, no longer exist. See the tab "The Bayocean Story in Brief".
DeleteGreat stories, thanks so much for sharing them.
ReplyDelete