By August, he had become an assistant beach officer attached to the Coast Guard-manned troop transport . That fall, Gill helped direct amphibious landings at Morocco. After the capture of North Africa, Allied planners focused their attention on capturing Italy. The campaign began in July 1943 with an amphibious landing on the island of Sicily. In that operation, Gill commanded a flotilla of small craft that landed elements of Gen. George Patton’s Seventh Army near Gela, Sicily. During the landing, not a single man was lost in Gill’s flotilla. For his leadership, Gill received the Legion of Merit and promotion to lieutenant junior grade. Gill next saw combat in mid- September 1943 when he took part in the invasion of Italy’s western coast. This time, he served on board the 328-foot LST 357. It was one of 76 LSTs, or landing ship-tanks, manned by the Coast Guard in World War II. The landing at Salerno, Italy, would be far different from the one at Sicily where the biggest challenge had been a storm that struck during the operation. Gill and Allied troops expected to meet only light resistance since Italian dictator Benito Mussolini had been deposed and placed under arrest, and the new Italian leadership had signed an armistice with the Allies the day before the landings. Unknown to Allied forces, the Germans had rushed large Lt. Warren Gill’s official portrait in dress uniform, photographed by the U.S. Coast Guard. (Courtesy of the Gill Family) first wave to the beaches when the first salvo hit his boat. An 88-mm shell sent shrapnel tearing through Gill and his assistant. His deputy’s body absorbed much of the shell fragments while Gill received the rest of the shrapnel in his back and chest. Several more crew members and 25 soldiers were wounded by the same shell hit. Although severely wounded and fighting for breath, Gill remained at his post and oversaw the landing of his craft on the beach. After the deadly explosion, the medical officer aboard the LST gave Gill an immediate blood transfusion. Gill refused to take morphine until he received word that the boats had beached successfully and the Germans were falling back. A boat then took him away for medical treatment. Gill spent the next three months in a British hospital in the North African desert before transferring to an American hospital in Algiers. During hospitalization in Algiers, he was awarded the Navy Cross Medal by Vice Adm. Henry Hewitt, Navy commander of amphibious forces in North Africa and Southern Europe. The Navy Cross is the Navy’s second highest decoration for valor in combat. During the war, he was one of only six Coast Guardsmen to receive the Navy Cross, and he received the Purple Heart Medal for the wounds sustained at Salerno. Later sent home to the U.S. for treatment, he ended up at numbers of battle-hardened troops to Italy to prevent its fall. The Germans installed sound monitoring devices miles offshore and had their artillery ranged for amphibious vessels. As the invasion ships approached in the pre-dawn darkness, German artillery opened up. Gill’s landing craft was waiting to lead the the Navy Hospital at Long Beach, Calif., for another 20 months. During his hospitalization, Gill participated in the nation’s war bond campaign in southern California. He was the guest of honor at a rally held at the University of Southern California to salute Trojans’ purchase of war bonds. The student newspaper Daily Trojan announced, “Lt. Warren C. Gill, known as the Coast Guard’s most decorated man, will appear today.” He spent the next several months undergoing repeated surgeries to remove pieces of shrapnel from the right side of his torso, but doctors failed to locate all the shrapnel in Gill’s upper body. On August 20, 1945, he was discharged to his hometown of Lebanon pending his medical retirement. In April 1946, he was medically retired from the Coast Guard due to physical disability. Since the Secretary of the Navy had commended him for performance of duty in combat, Gill received the rank of lieutenant commander on the retired list. Back home, Gill practiced law and served as an elected official for the State of Oregon. He later retired from politics to devote his later years to serving his hometown. He became the Lebanon City Attorney in 1961 and held that office until his death. During these years, his personal interests returned to the water. He founded Lebanon Boat Works, built boats and joined the Lebanon Outboard Racing Association. He became an avid racer himself, and in 1975, he joined the Coast Guard Auxiliary. In 1981, Gill was chosen as Linn County, Oregon’s Photograph of Lt. Warren Gill receiving the Navy Cross Medal during his recovery from near-deadly shrapnel wounds. (Courtesy of the Gill Family) “Veteran of the Year,” which he called “my greatest honor,” because his fellow veterans had selected him. Warren Gill died in 1987 while making a series of take-offs and landings in an ultralight “autogyro” aircraft he had built at home. His valor in combat during World II and his service to his state and community truly made him a great Coast Guard combat hero and honorable citizen of the State of Oregon. � Issue 2 • 2019 � RESERVIST 47 Samuel P . C hase
