Posted on 12/07/2006 7:15:35 AM PST by lightman
As a member of what some have called “the greatest generation” I felt duty bound to write something of my experiences.
December 7, 1941. One of my schoolmates and I were taken to Hershey area for the (Sunday) afternoon skating session When we were picked up after skating we were informed of the Pearl Harbor attack. All conversation on the way home was centered about the attack. Where is Pearl Harbor? Why is it important? And what will it all mean to a couple of seventeen our eighteen year olds? Will we be able to graduate from high school in June? Will we go right from high school into the Army?
Well, the initial draft missed us. I think it covered people 21-35 years old. Of course my brother, Ed, five years older fit into that bracket. I can’t give the exact timing of events but Ed was called up but didn’t pass the physical due to a hernia. He was eventually drafted for “limited service”. He did some time at Fort Dix, NJ, and during this period was hospitalized to repair the hernia. By the time all this was done the war ended.
Since I was seventeen at graduation from Camp Hill High School it was decided that I should start college at Franklin and Marshall. During this initial year there were all kinds of rumors flying about programs being developed for college students. Some who were Junior and Seniors in the spring of 1942 joined the Army Reserve. This allowed them to stay in school for a while, but most were called up in the spring of 1943.
December 15, 1942, was a deadline date for 18 year olds to join the Naval Reserve to participate in the forthcoming V-12 program. This program was intended to give a little more college [time] to participants and provide a source for Naval officers. During the days before the deadline there were long lines of applicants at the Navy headquarters in Philadelphia. At deadline time I was still seventeen so I waited for the rush to be over and had individual attention with no waiting time.
When the V-12 plan was made final it meant that I, a freshman, would enter active duty on July 1, 1943. The colleges involved in the program went to a trimester program, and freshmen, such as me, would stay in college for three terms. This would take me up to June 1944.
The Navy established a sick bay and a phys ed program. Phys Ed was run by several CPO’s (Chief Petty Officers) who had been professional athletes at one time. The classes taught by F & M staff were normal stuff. They did add a Naval history course; coastal piloting, navigation, and 7 AM calisthenics. We were free to come and go on weekends [within a] 50 mile limit. Food, prepared by local ladies, was great. Of course, some grumbled. I was able to participate in the green room club (theater) and with one or two helpers built sets for “Arsenic and Old Lace” and “The Man who came to Dinner”.
July 1, 1944. Reported to U.S. Naval Reserve Midshipmen School at Columbia University. This school was reported to be the hardest of all such schools. I thought that it was kinda fun. What wasn’t too much fun was the fact that my room was on the 13th floor of the John Jay building without much access to the elevators. As I remember, John Jay was at 110th Street and Broadway. Part of the school was the USS Prairie State which was the old battleship USS Illinois with the superstructure cut off and replaced by a barnlike structure. This was moored off 135th St. While stationed there the midshipmen had to march down to Columbia for the Saturday formation and review. This gets stale very quickly especially in the summer. The school had a band which played for the review. I found out that band members rode a bus to the review. Guess who decided to become a band member.
Subjects studied at Columbia involved navigation, gunnery, damage control, aircraft recognition, and phys ed (maybe more but I don’t remember).
We had a must Sundays at 6 PM followed by a church service at Riverside Church. Graduation was held on October 26, 1944 at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. My Mother, Dad, and June were able to attend. In class of 1500 I was # 312 with a grade point of 3.12. So what? Stay tuned.
After a week’s leave I boarded a train at Harrisburg headed west. I changed trains at Chicago and spend the next three days headed for San Fransisco. After reporting I found that I would be waiting around for a few days to board a ship headed to the South Pacific. While waiting I got to ride the cable cars and went to see a theater production of “H.M.S. Pinafore”. It was very “British”. They even served tea and biscuits between acts. It was great show--all local amateurs.
The day finally came for me to board the USS Admiral William S. Kapp, a transport ship operated by the Coast Guard. First was a stop at San Diego then off to Noumea, New Caledonia.
Noumea was a filthy place--sewage running in the gutters, etc. Left Noumea right away and headed for Guadalcanal. Spent one night at Guadalcanal and was sent to the bachelor officer quarters and Tulagai which was 20 to 30 miles away. I spent a couple days there and finally reported to the USS Arided (AK 73). Arided was a Liberty Ship built for the Navy. Arided was based a Noumea from her first arrival February 8, 1943 until the war’s end. During this time she made cargo runs to such places as Espiritu Santo, the various Solomon Islands, the New Hebrides, the Admiralties and Palav. The various ports of call were Eniwetok, Vlithi, Guadalcanal, Bouganville, Wellington New Zealand. We arrived after the action was over, except Okinawa. Cargo was varied. Trucks, tanks, pontoon bridge parts, ammunition, beer, etc. Beer was dangerous--we had to post armed guards.
The biggest danger to the Arided was from an occasional floating mine which we would spot. We would try to detonate them with gunfire from a safe distance. I should also mention that the weather (typhoons) was also a real danger. We rode out three such storms during my time aboard. That is really scary.
The liberty ship has an interesting history. The book “The Liberty Ships” by L. A. Sawyer and W. H. Mitchell published by the Lloyd’s of London Press, Ltd., contains a vast mass of information.
A few nuggets: There were about 2750 ships built between September 1941 and September 1945, mostly for the maritime service (Merchant Marine). They were built at 18 shipyards with engines built at 20 locations including Harrisburg PA.
There were somewhat over 200 ships lost, 50 on their maiden voyage.
64 Liberties were used by the U.S. Navy as AK 15’s (cargo ships). Of these only 3 were sunk (K72 and K78 sunk in convoy off Guadalcanal June 1943; K 76 damaged, K 97 exploded and sank off Lunga Beach Guadalcanal January 1945) 1 was damaged, towed back to San Francisco, repaired and returned to service.
Liberties were used in 17 different USN classifications (some just one or two in each).
All the Liberties except 2 have been scrapped (one in Baltimore, one in San Fransisco).
In November, 1942, the Robert E. Peary was launched after only 4 days , 15 1/2 hours followed by 3 days for outfitting. This was a publicity and morale stunt not to be repeated. This was accomplished in the Prometheus Metals Yard # 2, Richmond, CA.
The Arided left Okinawa on October 25, 1945, with orders to proceed via great circle to San Fransisco. When we were halfway home we received orders to divert to Pearl Harbor for decommissioning. The Navy suddenly found that it had a lot of extra ships and not too many places to handle them. No ship had ever been decommissioned at Pearl Harbor before. The job was finally done January 12, 1946. In October 1947 Arided was towed to the Reserve fleet site (San Fransisco) and finally scrapped August 1962 at Terminal Island.
So here is Ensign JWS at Pearl Harbor with no berth (and not enough points to get out). The bupers quickly assigned me to the USS Uranus (AF 14) as a replacement for their Navigator who had enough points to go. (I had been Navigator of Arided). It turns out that the Captain of Uranus also left and their Executive Officer (2nd in command) moved up to Captain and one of the remaining Officers was made the new Exec. The new Exec as in my class at Columbia. We both had the same date of rank, so what to do? In such cases rank in class was the determining factor. Remember I was # 312. The guy was # 78 in class so he stayed Exec and I remained Navigator.
Uranus was a much smaller and older ship than Arided. She was a refrigerator ship running mainland to Hawaii. She was meant to be at sea no more than a week at a time as she had no evaporator to provide fresh water. We were totally dependent on the water in the tanks. Also we had engine room problems. At least once a day the engine would stop. The Chief Engineer would tell us that this pump or that valve or something would fail. Luckily he was able to make repairs to get us going.
The new “Captain” was allowed to take the ship out for a trial run before we were given orders to sail. I don’t think he really learned anything and I am sure he wasn’t qualified to handle a ship.
Nevertheless we were ordered to go to San Diego which stretched our water supply. So you don’t argue, you just go. As a precaution we disallowed showers for the trip.
About three days and three breakdowns out of Pearl Harbor we got a radio message to go to the aid of ship which had some kind of trouble. This required a slight course change and we soon found the ship. We were circling around the ship while the Captains were sending messages about what to do. The other Captain kept insisting that there was a tug coming to their aid, and we kept saying that we were sent to them. Finally someone suggested the other ship should radio San Diego to get the name of the tug. Guess what came back. Right--”Uranus”. There was no way that we could tow them considering the water situation. I suggested that if we could get water from them it might be possible. This would require us to come alongside the other ship sot hat we could get hoses hooked up. Bad idea. Our Captain tried to do this maneuver, with almost disastrous results. He came too fast and at a bad angle. The fenders which are deployed, normally about 2 feet in diameter were scrunched down to about 6 inches. He kissed off the side of the other ship and we slid right on by. In this approach our “Captain” had reversed the engines to slow us. We missed by about half a ship length, finally stopped and started to go back to the other ship. So here we are backing toward the other guy and our “Captain” is standing there scratching his head! I shouted “Captain, your engines are backing!”. He did manage to order Engines Forward and we didn’t crash. Changing momentum of something as large as a ship requires skill far beyond the average officer. Incidentally, before his Naval service he had been a history teacher.
We informed San Diego of the water problem and were told to continue to San Diego.
I don’t remember much about San Diego. I can’t imagine that there was dock space for us. We were probably stuck in the anchorage and supplied with fuel and water by a yard tender. I do remember that there was a great discussion about our next move. Bananas, no bananas, yes banana, no bananas. Somebody in the Port Director’s office through we should go up into the Gulf of California to get a load of bananas. Cooler heads prevailed and it was decided that we should proceed to Panama and then to Norfolk for decommissioning. Guess what....we couldn’t carry enough water to make it from San Diego to Panama. OK, so we were told to stop at Tehuantepec, Mexico to fill up on water. Things proceeded normally until we were about a mile or two from Tehuantepec when the engine stopped. Chief Engineer reported that a plug had come out of a pump and we had lost all our water.
“Captain” decided to send some Execs (Bob Ehrenbaro) into the Port to see what could be done. Bob knew “un poco” of Spanish. After a couple of hours adrift Bob came back with the news that a harbor dredge was coming to tow us in to port. So we got there and were soon getting water. But we were using it as fast as we were getting it. So again we stopped showers and were filled up.
We were headed for Panama but within a day the engine stopped. This time the Chief said there is no way to fix it. Called San Diego for help and they diverted a ship to pick us up. So we were towed to Panama. We were put in a dock to get water and wait for the Atlantic to calm down so that we could be towed to Norfolk.
Somebody wasn’t paying attention as our tanks were being filled and they didn’t keep the ship balanced and we woke up to find ship listing about 30 degrees to the right.
A couple of us went to the Officer’s Club for lunch. When asked were we were coming from we replied “The AF 14”. “Oh, you mean the leaner”.
After a week or so we were towed through the canal. As you go from Pacific to the Atlantic you come to the final set of locks. Here you are, about 60 feet higher than the Atlantic and you wonder “how are we going to get down there”. But get down you do and are soon being towed toward Norfolk. A while in Panama our “Captain” had acquired enough points to be sent home. This meant Bob E. was the new Captain and I became Exec/Navigator. You don’t do much navigating when you are under tow, but I still kept track of our position by star sights...imagine how simple navigation must be with GPS!
About two days out of Panama we get a message from the tug that they had broken down. Another tug was sent from Charleston to pick up the two cripples. We were taken to Charleston where we were delayed a day or two until our first tug was made ready to continue.
Off to Norfolk. When we arrived we were told to anchor at a certain berth to wait in line for decommissioning. There was about a two month backlog. We told Port Director that we had no power and we had broken anchor winches. If we dropped anchor we would never get it up again. OK, we’ll put you at a dock.
When we were docked we were greeted by a man who said that he represented the Swedish shipping company that owned the Uranus. It seems that the US Navy had commandeered the ship years earlier. He told us that he had been waiting for us and was anxious for possession because he had dry dock reservations.
I told Bob that this was our ticket out of Norfolk without the wait. How so? You and owner’s rep go top brass to make a plea for priority. It worked. We went right into decommission and got the job done.
As Bob and I were in a taxi heading for the railroad station and home we noticed that the ship which towed us to Panama was just being moved into a dock for their decommissioning.
I stayed in the Naval Reserve for a year or two, was promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade and then mustered out since I was inactive.
-----
Let’s go back to the Arided. One of our trips was to Boufanville. After unloading we needed to get our sailing orders for our next adventure. I was given the task of going for the orders. Sounds simple enough. Get in the personnel craft, go over to the beach (no docks available), jump off the bow of the boat which was brought close to land, go get the orders from Port Director get back on the boat, go back to Arided and off we go. There was one little glitch in the process. Just as I was about to reboard the boat its engine quit. There was a little offshore breeze and gentle waves coming ashore so that there was a real possibility that the boat could become grounded on the beach which would have been bigtime trouble. So I threw my shoes and the orders into the boat and the coxswain and the engineer joined me on the beach and we pushed and shoved to get the boat into deep enough water to make us safe for a while. The crew got back in the boat to get it running again. The engineer discovered that a battery post had been corroded through so he held it in place and they could get the engine running again. They didn’t want to get too close to the beach so I had to swim out to the boat. We made it to the ship, but the Exec was P.O.’ed about me being soaked and the crew, which had shed a lot of their wet clothes, were almost nude. C’est la vie.
Thomas Heggen, author of Mister Roberts paints a pretty accurate picture of the part played by the AK’s in the South Pacific. On page xi of the introduction he write “It operates in the back areas of the Pacific, in its holds it carried food and trucks and dungarees and toothpaste and toilet paper. For the most part it stays on its regular runs from Tedium to Apathy and back, about five days each way. It makes an occasional trip to Monotony, and once it made a run all the way to Ennui, a distance of two thousand nautical miles from Tedium. It performs its dreary and unthanked job, and performs it, if not impressively, then at least adequately.”
I recommend that you read all of this little volume.
So there you have it. The wartime saga of one young kid. I really had a hard time of it. I never missed a meal, I slept in a bed with sheets except for a few nights while I waiting for the Arided....I used a folding cot for those few days.
“HERO”
Thank you for sharing. My grandfather (who raised me) was a Navy WWII vet also. I remeber being absolutely enraptured by his stories, even as a young child. I tease my dh all the time by saying my grandfather would have loved him if he weren't a Jarhead.
Thanks again for sharing your father's precious memories.
G-D bless your dad for his service.
My dad is a U.S. Navy WW2 vet, he served aboard the USS White Plains in the Pacific.
You'll like this one.
Thanks for the Thread.
That was a truly outstanding read on Pearl Harbor Day! Thank you very much for sharing it.
God bless you and your family.
Never been in the military, and now I am too old to be drafted unless the Muzzies blow up Washington, D.C. But I've played a LOT of Call to Honor (is that it? There are so many like it now.) And in advance of today's anniversary, I was thinking last night before bed of the cut scenes in Call to Honor Pacific of the Pearl Harbor assignment.
Your character's POV is in a Jeep as your new superior officer shows you around Pearl. Nurses walking to work in the beautiful weather, off-duty sailors eyeing the nurses, the long curve past the front of the Officers' Club...normalcy. Your CO talking about how the Pacific was the aft end of Hitler's War, about what a quiet posting it would be...and then the first zero goes overhead with the "meatball" on the wing, strafing. The insane drive down to the docks, the bloody work of gunnery from the rocking PT boat, the narrow escapes running like rats inside the sinking Arizona's listing and dead hull; that game brings home the experience I hope I will never undergo, and makes real what those who went before endured.
I sit in my padded recliner and watch the war news from a pivotal conflict that was lost the day the Democrats got voted in by disaffected "independent" idiots who, made fat on Bush's Recovery, got snookered by the Lies of the Left. We cannot do enough for these brave fighters, but I fear that I know how it will end. The last helicopter out of Vietnam plays over and over in my mind.
A salute to the remaining grizzled vets who were part of the age when we knew what elemental evil looked like.
You know the further down the road it gets age wise by the WW2 service people(male and female)I find the less the folks who were not born yet(The Depression era and the following WW2 era)give a "pinch of dirt" for our growing up and service related experiences.
I'm about "Heroed" out anyway and appreciate without measure our wonderful, brave, unselfish and many times under-appreciated service people who are serving without measure in spite of the oft-times ungrateful and un-American attitude of the "elitist" news media and the U.S. Congress!!
To whom I say "Wake up you dumb butts" before these service folk that have "our backs" now are no longer willing to serve to the death and are no longer with us!
I feel very strongly that these that now serve are the "Greater Generation"!
My PopPop was a SeaBee, stationed on Okinaka in '45. God bless your dad for his service, and all those.
Ro_Thunder
USN CTT3
1988-1992
Thanks.
The ship was torpedoed and sunk by a U-Boat, on 4 November 1942, at Latitude 71 degrees 05 minutes North, Longitude 13 degrees twenty minutes West, near Jan Mayen Island in the Greenland Sea. Not exactly warm waters in November. This is an account of the sinking:
After the heavy losses of convoys PQ17 and PQ18, it was decided to try to sneak some ships through unescorted. The Liberty ships Hugh Williamson, John H. B. Latrobe, John Walker, Richard B. Alvey, and William Clarke were dispatched from Iceland in this fashion in October and November of 1942.
The William Clark, with a cargo of planes, tanks, auto tires, ammunition, and a crew of 71 men, was an easy mark for a waiting U-boat shortly after noon on 4 November. The sky was overcast, with a moderate sea running. Visibility was seven miles. The first torpedo hit amidships, flooding the engine room. The order was given to abandon ship, and after the lifeboats pulled away, two more torpedoes broke the vessel in two and sent her to the bottom. The St. Elstan and the Cape Pallister picked up the 41 survivors. One of those survivors was of course my uncle, who lost a couple of toes to frostbit.
After discovering all this, I corresponded with a former Brit Naval Officer who had served on the St. Elstan, although sometime after this incident.
My maternal uncle served on a US Navy Seagoing Tug in the Pacific theater. He spoke of helping put out burning ships, towing them in, and of a bad typhoon that did more damage than the Kamikazes had. He spoke to me of all this, although aparently the had never spoken to my mother or grandparents about his experiences. That occurred at a birthday party for my grandfather, the last time I saw him in fact. Grandpa was about 97 or 98 then, he was 99 when he died.
My paternal Uncle died a couple of decades ago, but the maternal one is hanging on. And in fact I saw and spoke with him, along with his wife and four kids, just a week ago today, at my sister-in-law's funeral.
Thank you for your family's service, and for setting down some of their memories. My father seldom spoke of his Navy days, and I shall often wonder what he meant by "except Okinawa" in the paragraph describing the Arided's lack of combat experience, although I think I know.
lightman--thank you so very much for sharing your Dad's handwritten memoirs of his WWII service. Everyone's service played a part in the mosaic of over ten million people in service that contributed to the victory, and to the postwar prosperity.
Never is there is sense of whining or hardship--your Dad was just doing his part, as they saw it. How I wish we were as united in this present conflict as we were then.
Thank you for this glimpse to the past, as over 60 years rolls away, and we witness those actions unrecorded by history--present only in the minds of those who lived them.
This Christmas will be hard, but remember your Dad with pride. You are his legacy, and he is undoubtedly proud of you.
Thank you for sharing this!
BTTT, Pearl Harbor Day, A.D. 2007
BTTT for Pearl Harbor Day, Sunday December 7 A.D. 2008
BTTT for Pearl Harbor day, A.D. 2009
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