Quick Facts
Biography
Oliver Fuller Berry was a Chief Petty Officer in the United States Coast Guard who was chosen to be the namesake for the twenty-fourth cutter of the Sentinel class. He was one the first Coast Guard aircraft technicians trained to work on helicopters.
Early life
Berry was born in Marion, South Carolina and graduated from The Citadel in 1928; originally an Officer in the United States Army Reserves he gave up his commission to enlist in the Coast Guard.
Coast Guard service
Berry became a highly skilled mechanic working on early Coast Guard aircraft both land based and seaplanes, he was also one of the worlds first experts on the maintenance of helicopters and served as Lead Instructor at the first military helicopter training unit, the Rotary Wing Development Unit which was established at Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, North Carolina in 1946; he also helped develop the rescue hoist.
That same year Berry played a role in a helicopter rescue out of a US base in Gander, Newfoundland that earned him a commendation. Helicopters were new to search and rescue and one was urgently required to search for survivors of a commercial airliner crash in Newfoundland; Berry was able to quickly disassemble one of the primitive helicopters of the time so its parts could be flown to Gander in a cargo plane and then quickly reassemble it in time to find and rescue several survivors.
Legacy
The Coast Guard established an annual award named after Berry, issued to an outstanding aircraft technician who best followed Berry's tradition.
In 2015 the Coast Guard announced that one of the new Sentinel class cutters would be named after Berry. All the ships in that class are named after enlisted personnel who distinguished themselves through a heroic act. Bollinger shipyards completed the USCGC Oliver F. Berry (WPC 1124), and delivered her to the Coast Guard, in Key West, for her sea trials, on June 27, 2017.