October 16, 1942. Swearing in ceremony on the steps of the Los Angeles City Hall.
We then traveled by bus to the Naval Training Station in San Diego California and started “boot camp” by removing all or civilian clothing, which the Navy mailed to our homes. All our hair was removed and we received several shots. We got a sea bag and a whole outfit of navy clothing and gear including a mattress, hammock, towels, toiletries and puttees for our ankles which identified us as “boots”. We were fed a cold meal and told to hit the sack. It was about 2000 hours (8PM).
I will never forget that first night laying there in that bunk which was fine with me because I had spent every summer since I was 12 years old in summer camp and slept on cot type bunks just like these. All around the room I could hear whimpering, moaning, outright sobbing from some individuals that sincerely wished they were back in bed at home and had never even heard of the navy.
At 0400 hours we were rousted by the nastiness, meanest, loudmouthed chief petty officer in the world and mustered on the grinder. We were marched in parade order until 0500 then directed to the mess hall for breakfast. The entire day every day for 3 weeks was spent training for the various situations to be faced aboard ship including survivor skills, first aid and damage control. After 3 weeks we were tested to determine what type of jobs we were best suited for to perform aboard ship. I was sent to electrical school which lasted 16 weeks. This made me very happy. I knew this was my niche and I would become a good electrician.
The war was going on and we knew it wouldn’t be long before we would be assigned to a ship and headed out to sea. I could hardly wait. All during my youth my primary interest in books and reading was of sea stories. I spent every hour I could on a boat no matter what kind. If it could float I wanted to be on it.
After graduating from electrical school we were ordered to report for duty at the destroyer base in San Diego, where I was assigned to the USS Edgar G. Chase (DE16) Destroyer Escort. A destroyer escort is designed specifically to hunt and kill submarines in its effort to protect convoys of helpless freighters and tanker ships. It is also equipped with anti aircraft weapons.
The ‘Eddy G’ as we dubbed her was brand new. She had been built and outfitted at the Vallejo naval shipyard near San Francisco. The crew already aboard was almost all new to the navy. Some had been aboard ship before but not many. The trip down from San Francisco showed up a lot of problems so it was really important to get into the ‘Shake-down’ cruise and get us all trained before we had to face battle conditions. We spent every hour, day and night in intensive training. We knew how important this period was and made the extra effort to be the best ship in our squadron. Strangely there was very little complaining or griping from the crew during this time.
We went down the coast to Panama, went through the canal and out into the Caribbean Sea then on to Hamilton, Bermuda. We operated out of Hamilton for about three weeks then up to Charleston SC for some revisions to the ship. We slipped in there on July 21, 1943 which just happened to be my 19th birthday. We were then assigned to Miami Florida to patrol the coast and train brand new, 90 day wonder officers just starting their naval careers. During this time we had two encounters with German subs but no surface action. We dropped a lot of depth charges and were pretty sure of one kill but couldn’t prove it. No bodies or other hard evidence came to the surface. It was pretty exciting for a while. There was a lot of activity on our ship which lasted from about 2100 hours to just after dawn. But no cheers for a confirmed kill.
We spent a little over a year operating like this out of Miami when we got the call to escort a “baby” flat-top (undersized aircraft carrier) to Recife, Brazil. She was going down to relieve a sister ship that had been operating in that area for a full year patrolling the south Atlantic. On the way down we crossed the equator and spent a whole day initiating all us ‘Pollywogs’ into ‘Shellbacks’. On another day we had a torpedo from a German sub pass just ahead of our bow and just aft of the stern of the flat top. One of the ships in our escort group the USS O’Toole made contact and started dropping depth charges. We never did make a contact so our skipper just stood by ready to assist the O’Toole. She threw every depth charge she had aboard with no results and even asked us to step in and throw what we had but our skipper was so angry at this futile effort that he just said ‘no’ and went back into our assigned escort position. For ever after that, every time our skipper saw the O’Toole he would mutter “Damn the O’Toole”. I’m sure if he were alive today he would still be saying it.
In early August 1944, we were directed to report to New York. We anchored just a little ways off from the statue of liberty and swung with the tides until the skipper was ordered to proceed to Brooklyn navy yard and provision for 60 days. We knew something was up and we were excited to find out. We were informed a hurricane was headed for the coast and to make preparations to ride it out at the dock. We didn’t get the chance. We left port and headed out toward the gulf stream. To say the ocean was rough doesn’t even begin to describe the conditions we were headed into. The seas were running to 30 feet in height and a man could not walk the deck but had to make way through inside passages to go anywhere in the ship. We were assigned to escort a convoy of tugs towing barges to England. This group was called “convoy NY119”. Top speed of this gay little group would be 6 knots. The tugs were of sea going capability but the conditions of the sea far exceeded their design. They were pulling huge railroad type barges. We had no clue to the nightmare we were heading into. We wondered why it was so important to go out into such dangerous conditions with a bunch of rusty old railroad barges. We found out later that these barges were to be filled with sand and sunk near the coast of Normandy, France providing quickly ready-made docks for the ships involved in the Normandy invasion.
The waves kept building and were being measured at 65 feet. This is heavy seas for a large full sized battleship but for our little pint sized DE it was daunting. Then you think of the little, and I do mean little tugs it was just about impossible to cope. After two weeks of this punishment tugs began to capsize and it was literally impossible to help them when they did. The barges were such a drag due to their size and weight that when a wave would overtake a tug he couldn’t rise to go over it and would be twisted over in the effort and capsize. We lost 42 men in this way.
This operation was of such magnitude that it has been recorded in several books. The two that I have read are “Tempest, Fire & Foe” by Lewis M. Andrews (page 34) Also there are two pictures of me (pages 41 and 390). The 2nd. Book is Shepherds of the Sea by Robert F. Cross.
The return trip to New York was uneventful except the sea was still storm-tossed all the way to Norfolk where we dropped off the tankers we had been escorting from Plymouth, England.
After a few days rest we provisioned for sea and shepherded several tankers to Oran, Morocco. Spent 10 days in port then took them all back to the USA. We repeated this operation two more times over the next few months.
By this time the war was winding down. With no more convoys to escort we returned to Miami, Florida and patrolled the coast in and out of the Gulf of Mexico. The day the war ended we were patrolling along the over-seas highway. We could see cars driving along. The captain announced over the growler that the war had ended, and then ordered all deck guns to commence firing into the air. People on the highway were stopping and hiding under and behind their cars wondering what was happening. We steamed on back to Miami where crowds of people were systematically destroying the town breaking windows, burning and turning over cars and street-cars in their joy.
Shortly after this we were assigned to report to the Navy yard at Charleston, South Carolina decommission the Eddie G. and move all our gear to shore facilities. Most of the crew was mustered out and sent home but I was regular Navy with 3 years to finish out my 6 year hitch. Late in October I was reassigned to Norfolk, VA to wait for new orders. On December 24th I was given orders to go on ‘30 day delayed orders’ and report for duty on USS Lowry, DD770. Christmas day was spent on the train going to LA and home.
I was having a very difficult time trying to deal with being separated from the Chase and all the guys I had been so close to for two and a half years. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for that amount of time you get very closely attached and it is hard to make the break, but I was looking forward to serving on the Lowry a full blown warship covered with glory and the battle scars to prove it.
