LOU CARHART'S STORY

A native of New England, Lou Carhart joined the Coast Guard yet before he finished basic training he was sent to Quartermaster school on Long Island. “They really needed Quartermasters, so several of us were pulled out of basic when we were only about half way through.”  The Pequot was his first ship assignment in the fall of 1943. The following group of photos was donated by Lou, including all of the action shots of the “Ducks” and the Coast Guard crew wrestling the loop cables on the beach.  Lou tells of how very heavy those cables were and that for many operations, like when the Pequot would load on new spools of cable, all hands, including the cook, would pitch in to help.  He said that often during cable laying operations other Coast Guard electricians, who were not part of the permanent crew, would come aboard the Pequot, especially for cable repair work which he said could take several hours per splice.

57. Lou Carhart in his dress blues on liberty in 1943 sitting on the bumper of his father's 1937 DeSoto. (Lou Carhart).	58. Lou enjoying Liberty in Virginia, after he left the Pequot, with his friend Miss Ray. (Lou Carhart).	59. Lou in 1944 on the Hudson River Day Line Ferry going from Manhattan to Bear Mountain State Park. (Lou Carhart).

He served most of his time on the ship’s bridge as Quartermaster, and actually manned  the Pequot’s helm. While getting cables ashore he said, “Sometimes I’d be at the wheel and we’d put the ship’s bow in so close to the shore that there was land all around us and I could hardly see the ocean at all, especially behind me. We’d bring the bow in so close it was almost stuck in the sand.”  Lou said the Pequot worked very far up the North Atlantic coast.  “We would put in at Southwest Harbor, Maine, near Acadia National Park and we got up into Newfoundland many times and would be so far North we could see the coast of Greenland."

A Day to Remember. He recalled how in October of 1944 two Coast Guard cutters, the Eastwind and the Storis raided a weather station the Germans had established on the coast of Greenland and took 12 soldiers prisoner. They then captured the German weather ship Exernsteine which was stuck in the pack ice.  Since the Pequot was in the area they were radioed to help escort the Exernsteine down the coast to Boston Harbor. “They asked us along to help out,” Lou recalls, ‘I think there were more Germans than Americans on board during that trip south.”

60. German weather ship Exernsteine stuck in the pack ice at Greenland - Oct 1944. (US Coast Guard).	61. Exernsteine was taken to Boston harbor after being captured by USGC Cutters Eastwind and Storis. (US Coast Guard).

Lou vividly remembers the experience of bringing the Exernsteine into Boston: “As we came into the harbor there was about a two to three mile stretch where we were very close to shore. The Pequot was following right behind the German ship. Somehow the word got out that we were bringing in a captured ship and hundreds of people came running out and were lined up along the shore waving and yelling. They were so thrilled to see the Coast Guard had captured a German ship. The big flag with the swastika was up on the ship’s mast with the American flag flowing in the breeze above it. That was a very exciting day. It’s hard to believe that was more than 60 years ago. That German ship was tied up next to us at Constitution wharf for about three months and the Pequot crew got to go all through it.  It had just been built and was very modern for the times. Everything was push buttons. They even had motorized winches for the life boats. The word was the Coast Guard offered that ship to our skipper, but Sande turned it down. He said it wouldn’t suit our mission.”

You can read the details about that colorful chapter of Coast Guard history and see more photos at:  http://www.uscg.mil/History/articles/Externsteine.asp

We were out there for a reason. We didn’t know why.  Even though as Quartermaster Lou was on the Pequot’s bridge and right in the center of the action with the ship’s officers, he had no idea that the cables they were laying were part of a top secret submarine detection system: “We were out there for a reason. We didn’t know why. We just did what we were told.”  In June of 1945 Lou left the Pequot for a position with the 5th Naval District Coast Guard Receiving Station, where he was in charge of assigning sailors to duty aboard other ships. Lou also recalled that after he left the Pequot a sailor lost his life onboard, “He got tangled up in the anchor chain when it was being lowered and was killed instantly.” Lou didn’t have a name.
 

After he left the Pequot Lou served aboard several buoy tenders including the USCGC Mistletoe (WAGL-237) (US Coast Guard Photo)	Lou Carhart - Phoenix Arizona August 16th 2010