The parents of James Patrick Carrick waited days for news of their son after a harbor accident in Barcelona on January 17, 1977.
The Lawton Constitution (Lawton, Oklahoma) reported that Carrick was able to get a call through to his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Bertie L. Carrick, on January 20 to let them know he was unharmed. A liberty boat carrying 124 Sailors and Marines from the USS Guam and USS Trenton collided with a freighter in the Barcelona harbor, causing forty-nine servicemen, including a number of Carrick’s shipmates, to lose their lives.
Carrick, a Yeoman 2nd Class assigned to the USS Guam, was in a group left on shore because the launch was full. He witnessed the accident, which occurred a short time after the launch pulled away from the pier.
“Officials said that only the fast action by Spanish tugboats, which righted the launch and rescued more than a dozen men from the 1½-foot airspace below the inverted deck, prevented the death toll from being even higher,” according to the article in the Lawton newspaper.
LCM-6 Accident - Barcelona, Spain - 17 January 1977 