[3] On 28 October 1923, Torpedoman Second Class Breault was a member of the crew of USS O-5 (SS-66) when that submarine was sunk in a collision in the Panama Canal.

He received his Medal of Honor from President Calvin Coolidge, in ceremonies at the White House, Washington, D.C., on 8 March 1924.

He died at the Naval Hospital at Newport, Rhode Island, on 5 December 1941, two days before the attack on Pearl Harbor brought on U.S. entry into World War II.

Master Chief Petty Officer William R. Charette received the Medal of Honor for heroism while a Navy corpsman during the Korean War and later joined the submarine service.

At approximately 0630, USS O-5, under the command of Lieutenant Harrison Avery, was underway leading a column of submarines consisting of O-5, O-3 (SS-64), O-6 (SS-67), and O-8 (SS-69) across Limon Bay toward the entrance to the Panama Canal.

Through a series of maneuvering errors and miscommunication, the SS Abangarez collided with O-5 and struck the submarine on the starboard side of the control room, opening a hole some ten feet long and penetrating the number one main ballast tank.

[2] The steamship picked up eight survivors – including the commanding officer – who had either been topside or climbed up quickly through the conning tower hatch.

Both men headed aft to exit through Control, but the water coming into the Forward Battery compartment made that escape route unusable.

They made it through the rising water to the torpedo room and had just shut and dogged the door when the battery shorted and exploded.

In those days before modern safety and rescue devices, the only way the salvage crew, under the command of Captain Amos Bronson Jr., could get the men out of the boat was to lift it physically from the mud using cranes or pontoons.

There were no pontoons within 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of the site, but two of the largest crane barges in the world, Ajax and Hercules, were in the Canal Zone.

The excavation shifted into high gear and by 2:00 pm on the afternoon of the sinking, the crane barge Ajax squeezed through and was on its way to the O-5 site.

Sheppard J. Shreaves, supervisor of the Panama Canal's salvage crew and himself a qualified diver, had been working continuously throughout the night to dig the tunnel, snake the cable under the submarine, and hook it to Ajax's hoist.

As noon on 29 October approached, the crane was ready for another lift, this time with buoyancy being added by blowing water out of the flooded Engine Room.

Men from the salvage force quickly opened the torpedo room hatch, and Breault and Brown emerged into the fresh air.

[4] The Commanding Officer of the O-5, LT Avery, began the award process, initially recommended Breault for a Navy Cross.

In view of the extraordinary heroism displayed by Breault, H., TM2c, when the O-5 was sunk in collision with the S.S. ABANGAREZ, it is earnestly recommended that the above named man be awarded the Navy Cross.

By the time this door was closed the boat had sunk in forty feet of water with every compartment flooded except the torpedo room.

They both concurred with Avery's assessment on 23 November 1923, and forwarded their recommendations to the Control Force Commander, RADM Montgomery M. Taylor.

Taylor felt Breault was more deserving, Taylor's recommendation reads:The Commander Control Force is of the opinion that the unusual heroic conduct of Breault and his devotion to duty, particularly in that he almost surely saved Brown's life at the risk of his own and in that his devotion to duty saved a [considerable] loss of Government property, deserves recognition.

Citation: For his role in the rescue, Sheppard Shreaves later received the Congressional Life Saving Medal, presented personally by Breault and Brown that same year.