On December 7, 1941, Coast Guard aviator Frank Erickson was stationed in the control tower of the naval air station overlooking Pearl Harbor. From his vantage point he watched helplessly in horror as sailors drowned in oily water during the Japanese attack that day. Erickson had recently read about the new invention of the helicopter by Igor Sikorsky, and vowed to himself that he would someday use the helicopter to save lives.
The Coast Guard already had a plan in place for saving sailors from the sea. Their aviators worked with aircraft engineers to develop a seaplane that could land on water near a stricken ship. It was a terrible idea, causing the death of several Coast Guard pilots as they attempted to land rescue plans on stormy seas. Coast Guard Commander William Kossler, who inspected Coast Guard seaplanes at the Hall seaplane factory, blamed himself for the death of two Coast Guard pilots. The pilots, one a personal friend, where attempting a seaplane rescue near Brooklyn in 1939. Their plane hit a wave, and likely due to faulty parts, its engine tour through the cockpit killing both pilots. Despite the obvious failings of seaplane rescue, Coast Guard leaders and pilots alike insisted that this was the best and only way to rescue sailors at sea.
Commander Kossler, desperate to find a better way of air/sea rescue, and Executive Officer Erickson, determined to address the tragedy at Pearl Harbor, joined forces. Kossler worked from Coast Guard headquarters in Washington to set up a helicopter training program and then get Erickson transferred to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn in 1942. There Erickson flew the newly invented helicopter and worked with a devoted team of pilots to transform helicopters into an effective way to conduct a rescue by air.
On January 3, 1944, Frank Erickson conducted the very first rescue flight by helicopter, delivering blood plasma from New York city to wounded sailors at Sandy Hook, York in a heavy snowstorm. Three years after feeling helpless at Pearl Harbor, he achieved his goal by delivering lifesaving aid to sailors by helicopter that morning in 1944. Erickson went on to hold public and military demonstrations of air-sea rescue using the newly invented hoist.
Despite many successful demonstrations of helicopter and hoist pulling sailors from the sea, most Coast Guard pilots clung to their seaplanes and forcefully rejected the helicopter claiming it lacked the engine power to be effective. Coast Guard officials removed Frank Erickson from his position after Commander Kossoth died in 1945. it would be another fifteen years before the Coast Guard realized the effectiveness of Erickson's original vision and fully adopted his helicopter rescue techniques Frank Erickson lost his Coast Guard career, but he lived to see his idea eventually adopted by the Coast Guard. Since 1960, Erickson's helicopter hoist has saved thousands of lives from forest fires, sinking ships, swamped cars, and flooded homes.
