A U.S. Coast Guardsman leans on a section of the tail aboard a patrol boat Thursday near the crash site. (AP Photo)

Shortly after a State Police boat unloaded its grim cargo of 17 body bags, a medical examiner turned to one of the black plastic pods and zippered it open.

Inside, the body of a girl lay wet and still.

The sight left a rescue worker who watched from nearby shaking with emotion, and another worker tried to console him.

"Remember, it's just the shells of their souls," he said softly. As hopes that a single survivor might be found faded in the dawn light, rescue workers Thursday set upon the grisly task of recovering and identifying the bodies of the 230 passengers and crew that had roared into the dusk sky 12 hours earlier aboard TWA Flight 800.

The recovery effort - which began immediately after the wide-bodied jet exploded at nightfall Wednesday 13,800 feet above and 10 miles south of Moriches Inlet - exacted a heavy toll on rescuers who hurried to the scene in a desperate race to find survivors, only to encounter one floating corpse after another.

"You think you'd be hardened by this," said Regan Kelly, an emergency medical technician with the Mamaroneck Fire Department in Westchester County, who said his resolve was tested when the "first few boatloads" of bodies included those of children and teenagers.

"A lot of them were burned, and some were pretty badly mutilated," Kelly said. "It was very sobering."

Although investigators said the identities of a few of the victims could be determined as early as Thursday, the explosion, crash and fire left many of the bodies unrecognizable, meaning it could take days or weeks before all of the passengers are identified.

Investigators say victims also will be examined for evidence of a pre-crash explosion, including an X-ray search for bomb fragments and chemical tests for explosives.

"If there was a bomb, and this is strictly hypothetical, the bomb fragments would be in the bodies, the bodies themselves would be holding clues," said Suffolk Police Commissioner Peter Cosgrove. "We're also looking for evidence of accelerants in the bodies."

Crew members on Coast Guard cutters, confronted with scores of floating dead, used 15-foot grappling poles to snare corpses from where they bobbed in a becalmed sea littered with luggage, toys, aircraft parts and the oily residue of jet fuel.

"We pulled at least 14 bodies aboard," said Ron Prokop, a supervisor at the East Moriches Coast Guard Station - which coordinated the search.

As bodies were brought aboard, decks and equipment became smeared with blood, which crew memebers washed away with bleach.

Coast Guard rescue boats began returning ashore at the East Moriches station about 1:45 a.m. Thursday, bringing body parts with them, including a limbless torso charred beyond recognition and the intact body of a woman wearing a black dress and a gold chain.

By morning, more than 100 bodies had been placed in black plastic body bags and carried by emergency workers in white jumpsuits and surgical gloves to a temporary morgue in a Coast Guard boat warehouse near the water's edge.

New York City police officer John Hallaran spent all night combing the waters in a 36-foot police launch, helping to recover the bodies of two women and three men.

Even the sight of personal effects - traces of lives he never knew but would be forever connected with - left him melancholy, he said.

"I just have to do this so families can have some closure."

Lauren Terrazzano contributed to this story.