Military Life

Raymond  enlisted in his home town of Philadelphia  on June 30, 1942. At the time of his death, he was a Machinist Mate 3 Class (MM3) on the USS Rich. As a MM3, Raymond would be responsible for operating and maintaining the ship propulsion machinery, like the oil, steam, air, and water systems. Taking care of the boilers and turbines is also normally a job for this rank.

Image of the USS Rich after the second sea mine exploded.

The USS Rich (seen left) was launched on June 22, 1943. For most of its service, it patrolled the United States coast as part of the 19th escort squadron. In May of 1944, it becomes a convoy escort across the Atlantic Ocean and makes its last trip on May 10th.

On June 4th, 1944, the USS rich landed in Plymouth, England and was sent to escort the USS Nevada and lead the Task Force 125 to Utah Beach. On D-Day, the USS Rich employed a smoke screen to hide the most important warships from the German E-Bootes and their torpedos. 

On June 8th, the USS Rich lead an rescue mission after the USS Glennon hit a sea mine at 8:30 am. At 9:20 am, the USS Rich hit its own mine, but only the electrical system was damaged and the ships engines were started after about a minute. Three minutes after, another mine exploded directly under the ship and Lieutenant Commander Michel gave the order to abandon ship. As the ship sank, German batteries opened fire on it and the smaller boats intended for rescue.

The USS Rich sank in 15 minutes, killing or injuring 91 out of the 213 crew members. 62 soldiers, like Raymond Benjamin went missing.

Raymond Benjamin died on June 8th after the second explosion and his body was never recovered.

Below are soldiers during the rescue mission for the USS Rich. The ship in the upper left corner is the British ML-116 which was one of the lead rescuers. 

Many people were honored because of their bravery for the rescue mission of the USS Rich. Many more men could have loft their lives if not for the rescuers, and the rescue could have gone badly with the German batteries firing on the sinking ship.