WWII 2
For the present generation wwii is after the Civil War; isn't it?
Some of us old heads had better do something to make it remembered. That's our purpose here today:
Back then: For a teenager the war in Europe was an interest second only
to the baseball scores and ratings. In those days the radio was our
chief source of information. We listened eagerly to dispatches from
Europe-- a miracle by gosh.
But it wasn't until Dec. 7, 1941 when a 15 year old kid was coming home
from Golden Meadow LA with his Dad and listening on the miraculous car
radio that we heard the dire news. Father and son both knew that things
would now be different.
Back home in New Orleans we continued listening; FDR's fireside talk was
played over and over. Strangely enough the program he set out was to
focus our resources on Europe, although we had just been cruelly and
treacherously betrayed by the little yellow men (as they were called in
those days) or the Japs.
Some years later we heard about Casablanca (which I was to visit in
1944), Rommel, the Desert Fox, and Stalingrad: things were looking up
for the Allies.
They were looking up for the teenager, too; my 18th birthday was looming
large. I was scheduled to become a doughboy, but I found a better way. I
dropped out of LA Tech, took a crash course in radio, and qualified as a
radio operator for the War Shipping Administration. We were deferred
from the Army; merchant ships were a critical element in the Allied
Victory.
(In 1990 Congress, in its infinite wisdom, decided that we were
veterans, and I received a discharge from the USCG ('Coast Guard');
unfortunately no back pay accrued. I had become a veteran in the USNR during the Korean Police Action.)
About twenty blocks along Esplanade from Rampart St. was a McDonough
'something' school, where my draft board had its location. Here on my
birthday I duly registered and informed them of my status with the WSA.
It happened that the first merchant seaman 2B deferment had emanated
from this very board, and I immediately became another. The draft board
had no further interest in me until 8 years later when I began to
approach my 26th birthday. About that, more later.
I was on standby status at WSA; we had to report once a day, for which we received good money.
Some time in March I got word to report to the Wood Lake, a new T2
tanker being commissioned at the shipyard in Mobile. (Here's material
about the Wood Lake including a beautiful picture.) I went over and got
aboard in time for the shakedown trip, which lasted a few days and
happened largely in the gulf in the immediate environs of Mobile. I was
just a passenger on that trip because a special crew used the radio
equipment. Later two other radio operators came aboard. Since I was so
young and inexperienced the Captain decided I should be the 3rd officer;
it still seemed pretty impressive to me. I had a commission and uniform
as an ensign in the Maritime service, very similar to that of a naval
ensign.
Capt. Barton chose as the chief radio officer Drummond, a man in his
30's who seemed much older. Drummond was slightly limited intellectually
and especially in terms of vision. He would not go out at night because
he had no peripheral vision and was afraid of getting disoriented. The
second officer, Fitzpatrick, was 26, married, and considerably more
agile than Drummond. We made three trips on the Wood Lake over a period
of about 4 months. The first time we went to Liverpool. We carried
100,000 gallons of aviation gasolene and 12 Lightning pursuit planes on
deck. (Jimmy Thomas, my brother in law, flew that plane in the Pacific.)
We stayed only 2 or 3 nights in Liverpool. Tanks never stayed long. In
fact I came close to missing the ship because I had taken a train down
to London to see the place, thinking (correctly) that it might be my
only opportunity. I stayed in London one night and considered staying
another, but decided to go on back to Liverpool. It happened that I made
just about the last liberty launch back to the ship before she sailed.
I've often reflected that my life would have been vastly different had I
missed that ship. (About missing ships, more shortly.)
We traveled back and forth across the Atlantic in large convoys--of 50
or 100 ships at about 14 knots. Slower convoys made up of Liberty Ships
and other slower craft traveled in other convoys. We left Liverpool just
in time to escape a German air raid. This was the first of two
occasions when I was near combat, but never in combat. I suppose we were
near combat a few times during the voyages without necessarily knowing
it.
The Merchant Marine suffered higher casualities during the war than any
of the military services, one reason that draft deferment was virtually
automatic. The German submarines had inflicted heavy losses on Allied
shipping in the Atlantic in 1943, but by the time I got out there the
submarine menace had been brought pretty well under control.
On our trips back and forth across the Atlantic we often got submarine
alarms or rather possible submarine alarms. Sonar signals had suggested
the possibility, perhaps set off by whales or whatnot, perhaps by
submarines. The British corvettes and American destroyer escorts
constantly scurried around the convoy checking out these alarms.
We had large insulated wet suits to use in case of being sunk. Drummond
slept in one of these as I recall. But generally we became quite
accustomed to the alarms and paid little attention to them. However when
I got home, I was napping on the living room sofa when someone rang the
doorbell, and I jumped about two feet. Strange. I had grown accustomed
to the alarms, so they didn't bother me. But apparently at home I had
let down my guard and released the genie out of the bottle, the residue
of fear of which I was unconscious.
Radio Silence
Allied merchant ships preserved radio silence throughout the war, so I
never sent a signal until after VE day. Our work consisted of spending
four hours sitting beside the radio and monitoring incoming traffic,
then 8 hours off, then 4 on and 8 off as long as the ship remained at
sea. The radio watch was secured in port, making us especially
privileged characters since we had nothing to do unless we were at sea.
Another facet of the privilege about the position was that no one knew
anything about our job. We had no supervision to speak of and lived more
or less in a world of our own. The only person we reported to was the
Captain, and he rarely had time to pay any attention to us.
During these watches I took up smoking to while away the time. I
remember I would allow myself one cigarette an hour and it would last
about ten minutes. Three cigarettes would get me through a watch. I
didn't stop smoking until some 13 years later.
Missing Ships
Our third trip took us to Bristol. Once again we stayed only a night or
two. Fitzpatrick, the second radio officer, was something of a lady's
man. we had just cast off our lines and were heading for the sea when he
came running up to the dock. We waved at him, but he had missed the
ship. Later we learned that he had managed to get aboard another tanker
belonging to our company. Of course his pay stopped the minute he missed
the ship. He worked in the galley of the other ship. The convoy got
almost to New York when the other ship got orders to proceed to North
Africa. I met him in New Orleans some years later. It had taken him over
a year to get back to the states. It seemed to me that his whole
personality had changed, perhaps as a result of that sobering
experience. He was learning to be a printer, and now seemed a very
serious sort.
Good Pay
We were paid well in the war zone. Base salary was about $150 a month
for me, but there was a hundred percent bonus plus $5 per day in the war
zone, all of which came to about $450 per month. In those days that was
a princely sum, or so it seemed to me at the time. With no living
expenses I saved a considerable sum of money--about $5000 over the
course of the years I went to sea.
Âs for the next overseas trip, I had been on the Wood Lake for about four
months. We signed on a voyage at a time. I started to sign over, as we
said, but decided I would go home for a visit. A lucky decision since
the ship went from New York to the South Pacific and was out there for
the next two years.
Going home from New York on the train I met a young woman who lived in
Pensacola. Up to that time I had had very little experience with the
opposite sex, but I suppose in my uniform I was a handsome devil. We
were taken with each other and agreed to write. After a couple of
letters in fact I went to Pensacola to see her, but nothing came of it.
I was a member of the Radio Officers' Union of the AF of L. When I got
ready to ship out again, I went down to the union office and met the
union rep. An old sailor, but a man of some culture; I don't remember
his name. He got me a berth on the Pan York. This was an old tub built
about 1900. We had given it to the Panamians, but due to the war we took
it back. It ran between New Orleans and ports in Panama and Columbia.
It's speed was about the same as the tankers; it had once been a pretty
good ship.
We almost always went first to Panama (the Atlantic side). There were
two towns on the coast there: Christobal, where we usually docked and
where the U.S.military reservation was located. We sometimes visited the
army installations and enjoyed their good and cheap ice cream. The
other town was Colon, the native place. About all we knew of it was the
bars and brothels. In Panama I took up drinking. I was still 18, and I
found that in port I was on the ship by myself; everyone else was over
in Colon drinking. So I went over and joined them.
The most common drink was rum and coke (20 cents). I consumed many a rum
and coke over the next six months; I did most of my drinking when we
were in Panama. I remember a couple of drinking friends. One was a
seaman who had absolutely nothing to say aboard ship. But when he went
ashore he usually lasted a couple of hours, and his shipmates would
bring him back all banged up (from a fight) and just about out of his
mind. This man was a great checker player. I had him up in the radio
shack a time or two for a game. As I say, he never had anything to say,
but he knew how to talk with checkers.
Another hard drinker was the purser. He was a fairly high class man, but he was bad to drink. One day in the saloon (that's what we called the officers' dining room)
in a half sober state he turned to me and said "Sparks, you're a nice
kid, but you sure are getting to be a terrible wino." Me, I thought, my
Lord; I don't drink half as much as you do. But he made me do some
thinking about it as a consequence of which I got off the Pan York at
the end of that trip.
Danger
That trip had an eventful end. We passed through a hurricane in the
gulf. The double bottom was flooded; a gigantic wave took off the
lifeboat just outside of the radio shack. The Captain decided we had
better break radio silence and contact the Coast Guard. So the Armed
Guard Officer, who had custody of the code books, encoded a message
telling them our position, course, speed, and predicament.
I had been up all day of course, and I didn't intend to keep working
without lawful compensation. So I asked the Captain if he wanted me to
work overtime. He said no, so I went to bed. I actually slept longer
than I should have and missed the 3 A.M. BAMS (Broadcasts to Allied
Merchant Ships).
At 6 I got a coded message asking for further particulars, but by that
time we were in the river. At New Orleans some Coast Guard brass came
aboard for an inquiry. In the course of the inquiry they called me in
and wanted to know where I had been between midnight and 8 A.M. "In my
sack" I said. No response. Lucky I was not some kind of poor devil of an
armed forces person.
After a brief vacation from the Pan York I was assigned to another
brand new ship; this was the Sea Dolphin, a C II that had just been
built in Pascagoula. These were superior types of cargo ships; they went
about the same speed as the tankers. I'm not sure which trip it was
that I visited Rouen and LeHavre. Seems like it must have been the first
trip of the Sea Dolphin.
I was the chief operator on this ship, and I have very little
recollection of the boys who worked with me. Going across the Atlantic
in a large convoy we were apparently rerouted with a radio message to
the south of France, but for some reason we didn't get the message and
showed up in Rouen. I don't suppose it made a great difference since
hundreds of ships were going to all those ports at that time. I had gone to London from Liverpool, and now I
figured I had better see Paris while I was in France, so I took a train
up the Seine. It was beautiful, but I was completely out of it there.
No one spoke English, and no one seemed in the least interested in being
of help. That is, until I found a USO. I walked in and met a GI on
leave. He showed me Paris, but I don't remember much of what transpired.
The next day I went back to Rouen.
Calcutta
On our next trip we went from New York to Calcutta, through the
straits of Gibraltar (without stopping), Port Said, the Suez Canal and
the Red Sea. We stopped at Aden, a British Crown Colony for routing
instructions (It now goes by the name of Yemen.) The Captain, the armed
guard officer, and I went ashore about 8 A.M. It took about half an hour
to finish our business. The Captain asked the Limeys where we could get
a beer. They said no alcohol was served there before noon. The skipper
said, "Humph, I wouldn't stay here until noon for Cleopatra herself." It
was about 125 in the shade, but soon we were in the Arabian Sea with
cool breezes.
We got to Calcutta 28 days out of New York. We had set a record for a
freight vessel. I remember the excitement of going up the river to
Calcutta. From the deck you could see villages scattered around in all
directions with cultivated fields between them. Teeming with people,
tremendously exotic. At Calcutta we saw people whose only home was the
street, people dying of cholera, etc.
A rich man had opened his home to the Allies; it was like a museum,
certainly not the kind of place you would want to live, but with
European masterworks of art on the walls, big overstuffed sofas,
everything associated with western affluence. We heard that he fed 150
beggars every day.
We visited a temple with carvings of sexual intercourse in 50
different positions. We visited the burning ghats (?) where the dead
were brought. We saw one corpse being burned; the heat caused the
tendons to contract and the poor body started to rise up. The attendant
grabbed a stick and beat it back down. The sacred river was right there
with all sorts of dead things in it and people bathing.
Dozens of children followed us around begging. I bought a leather
suitcase from a merchant on the sidewalk. He asked $100 for it, but sold
it for $10. I could probably have gotten it for less, but I had gotten
tired of dickering with him.
Calcutta made a powerful impression on me. I felt the powerful need of
help that so many had there. I felt that I had a choice, to dedicate
the rest of my life to trying to help them, or to harden my heart. It's
obvious which choice I took, since I left a few days later and never
went back.
We went back around the Cape of Good Hope, stopping at several ports
of call in East and South Africa. During that trip and the next one we
visited Zanzibar, Mombasa, Beira, Port London, Elizabeth-town, Capetown.
and perhaps some others I have forgotten. I was deeply impressed with
the animal grace of some of the blacks; they moved like gazelles. And
they were so black. (We don't have many blacks in our country. We have a
mixed race which contains some black blood. Black in America is really
an ethnic rather than a racial term, although few people realize that.) I
rented a sailboat in the bay at Beira.
Mozambique was a province of Portugal. Of course it became independent
like all the rest of the European colonies. Kenya and Tanyanika each
became something else, and some of those graceful blacks became
bloodthirsty maus-maus. Zanzibar was a bazaar, a meeting place of Asia
and Africa; we westerners a microscopic minority.
The ports in South Africa were middle class, clean, more like us than
anywhere else I visited in my travels. Gen Jan Smuts was in charge, a
liberal. Apartheid settled upon the country suddenly and drastically a
few years later. The South African girls were very receptive. I remember
one party with about 4 couples that lasted most of the night. Everyone
had a lot of brandy. We all expected to go home with the girls, but by
the time that time came we were too inebriated to pursue them any
further.
Such is life. I was young and innocent.
VJ Day
On that or the next trip, which also involved east and south Africa, VJ
day occured--the end of the war. A wild celebration that I had little to
do with. As usual I lived in my own little kingdom--the chief radio
operator now, with a nice two room apartment on the boat deck, far from
any other quarters.
It must have been the next trip that the fog incident occurred. With
the war over convoys no longer sailed, it was every ship for itself. And
the Atlantic was about as clogged with shipping as it has ever been,
before or since. A mad rush to bring home the GI's and all their
paraphernalia. Hordes of ships in the main shipping lane between the
United States and the United Kingdom. We encountered a pea soup fog. And
we knew the sea was crowded with monstrous steamers going back and
forth. With the cessation of hostilities it became appropriate to use
radio communications.
Every four hours I would send out our position, course, speed. And we
were copying all the similar messages we heard. I would gauge their
position with my limited navigational ability. The ones that seemed
closest I would take up to the bridge. The Captain always thanked me,
but didn't seem too concerned. Then I got one that really looked close:
dead ahead and heading straight toward us. I took it up there, and he
was interested. He gave me a message to send back to the other ship. I
called it, readily made contact and sent my message; we were changing
course in order to avoid them. He acknowledged. We soon heard the ship's
fog horn in the distance over on the port side. Exciting. I must have
been 20 at that time.
