there were other perils at sea, however, most notably on 20 october 1918 when collided with "balch" during convoy escort operations. the collision knocked "balch"s port depth charge overboard, but boatswain's mate second class albert cerveny, coxswain frank sekowski, and gunner's mate second class frank h. sumner—all of whom received letters of commendation from the us navy—recognized that a collision was imminent and set the depth charges to "safe". "balch" did suffer steering gear damage which required two weeks of repair at queenstown. then, on 5 november, while escorting a convoy in the english channel, the "balch" helped american destroyer rescue 29 survivors of the foundering merchant ship "dipton", returning the survivors to queenstown.