f the boat was still above water, then there was still a chance that the four men in the capsized sailboat could be found. Second

          class Petty Officer Boatswain Mate Terry Griggs went wherever the USS Henry B. Wilson went, and near the end of 1979, he

          found himself in choppy waters south of Hong Kong.

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The mission began in the Sea of Okhotsk, international waters that the Russians claimed the Americans could not navigate, as they deemed the area “their waters.”

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President Jimmy Carter sent the USS Kitty Hawk Battle Group, consisting of three war ships, to float around and “see what the Russians would do.”

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After a day of Russian warplanes nosediving only to swoop back up before impact, the Russian cruisers and frigates arrived.

The ships began to follow the Americans, often becoming close enough to take pictures of the other soldiers. It was like two enemies, side by side, becoming friends, Griggs said.

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The Kitty Hawk Battle Group decided to depart to the Sea of Japan, where two Japanese Destroyers intercepted the Russian ships, forcing them to retreat. The battle group was sent to the Indian Ocean, but the USS Henry B. Wilson was low on fuel and had to stay behind.

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Soon a typhoon left the ship surging toward Hong Kong for safe harbor.

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Before their ship could anchor, a message was received from a ham radio operator out of Hong Kong. Four American men, Dan Swavely, Mike Wilder, Henry Tucker and Dean Pregerson, were lost at sea aboard the Gambit and needed help.

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The sailboat had been caught in the typhoon and capsized. Still, it managed to right itself back up. The main sail had broken off, and the boat was surviving off of battery power used to pump out water.

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With choppy seas and no stars to reference, their position in the sea was left unknown.

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As the only ship in the area that could search, they set out in the rough waters to find the four men on the other end of the fumbled communication line.

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“We had to do a zig-zag pattern, and that put the destroyer at risk,” Griggs said. “We were taking on water, and the waves were beating us now.”

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The men took shifts manning the deck, and when Griggs got off watch at midnight, some life rafts and the motor oil boat had broken free. After assembling a group to help, he and several others spent the night being thrown by the ship's vicious up-down motion.

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Losing hope, the men were patched through USS Henry B. Wilson’s radio, through the ham radio operator and to Guam where their families were staying.

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“The guys on the sailboat had pretty much given up, and they knew they wouldn’t last another day unless they were found,” Griggs said. “I’ll never forget the last guy who spoke to his wife. The last thing he said was, ‘Goodbye, I love you,’ and the radio went dead for hours. We didn’t give up, we just kept doing what we do. Kept searching.”

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The sun was up, the storm had passed but the seas were still choppy.

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But finally, radio silence broke.

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“We see a plane, tell him to turn left,” one of the men said.

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Already having communications with the P-3 Orion search plane, they quickly received the coordinates.

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As one of four pilot rescue swimmers and qualified coxswain, Griggs was to operate the motor oil boat during the rescue, but when the time came, someone else took his place, as he had been up all night securing the escaped rafts.

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Overjoyed by their survival and rescue, the men stepped off of the motor oil boat and onto the deck, where Griggs watched from above with pride.

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“It’s nice to know we were able to rescue them, knowing they were going home to their families. There’s not another country in this world that would have put themselves out for their citizens that were lost out there, and we did.”

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Every year, the four men from the sailboat have a conference call and celebrate the rescue. One year, Griggs listened in on the call to hear their account of the journey.

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“When they saw our ship on the horizon, they said it was like the finger of God pointing their way,” Griggs said.