Longtime Gloucester Disabled American Veterans Chapter 58 member Carl Dize Sr. of Urbanna was recently honored by the local chapter as one of its “Heroes Among Us.”

Dize, who has been a member of the DAV for 38 years, was recognized for receiving a U.S. Coast Guard Commendation Medal in 2011 for his “extraordinary lifesaving efforts while serving in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II.”

According to an article written by the U.S. Coast Guard News, Dize and his fellow crewmen aboard the USS Menges came under attack the night of April 20, 1944 by a German vessel. During the attack, the destroyer USS Lansdale was heavily damaged.

Afterwards, the article states the crew was forced to abandon ship. The crews from the Menges and her sister ship, the USS Newell, rescued over 200 men from the Mediterranean Sea. Dize himself, it states, swam out to the edge of the Menges’s spotlight illumination to rescue sailors.

Dize “is 94 years old and he went th...