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DE
Tales and Other Stories |
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The author on the bridge of the USS Francis M. Robinson |
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There have been innumerable books about World
War II, but they are almost all written by or about the great political
figures who changed the course of history:
admirals, generals, presidents and prime ministers
Not much, however, has been written from the point of view of the
man who was down the line and in the middle.
What did he do and what were his feelings about the whole thing? Up until the last few years I, along with most others who were in World
War II, just wanted to forget the whole thing: I did not want to talk or write about it.
But when I turned I hope that my family and friends will find these personal reminiscences
of some interest. My wife,
Julie, of course shared them all with me from time to time during the
War. DE
as used in the title, stands for Destroyer Escort, as more fully
explained in Chapter Four. December 1981 One When I entered Princeton University in the fall of 1929, having applied
the winter before, none of us young fellows thought there would ever be
another war. World War I
had been fought
“to save the world for democracy,” in Woodrow Wilson's words, and
the middle and late 1920's were the greatest period of prosperity that
the world had ever seen. Money
and jobs were available to almost anyone and war was unthinkable to us.
The U.S.A. standing army was only 100,000
men. When I graduated from Princeton in 1933, I had
completed their only ROTC course, a four-year course in the U.S. Army
Field Artillery.
I
received a commission as 2nd Lieutenant. The main reason I took the
course was that my father urged me to before I entered Princeton. He thought there was a very good chance there would be another
war and he convinced me that I could be a lot more useful to my country
with a commission than as a soldier in the trenches. During World War I he was about to be called up, even though he
had a wife and two small children, when the war ended. As a matter of fact, he was sorry he never had a chance to go
as he was extremely patriotic and wanted to fight for his country. My father turned out to be right.
When I graduated in 1933 at the bottom of the Depression, there
were 16,000,000 unemployed in the U.S.A., about one-third of the labor
force. Between 1929 and 1933 over 10,000 banks failed out of a total of
25,000. The Dow-Jones
industrial stock average had dropped 90 percent (from 381 to 38) and the
gross national product had been cut in half from $104 billion to $56
billion. My classmates congratulated me because I was one of the few who had a
job lined up. It was at the
United States Trust Company in Wall Street.
I didn't even start as a “clerk,” but was hired as a “boy,” as they called it.
This meant that I wasn't important enough to be on the official
payroll and be paid by check, but was handed an envelope every Friday
with cash in it. Even
though I had graduated with honors in Economics, I was very glad to take
the job. After a year of working as hard as I possibly could, I was
promoted to a “clerk” and given a small raise. The economic turmoil in the Western world was
unbelievable. Currencies were devalued, workers were idle, and plants
were closed. The causes of all this have been the subject of endless
debate. But one thing happened which would change our lives:
the worldwide depression provided a breeding ground for political
upheaval and the rise of Hitler. World War II started in September 1939 with
Hitler's invasion of Poland. By
the summer of 1940, Hitler controlled virtually all of continental
Europe. To fulfill his
intention of bringing Great Britain to its knees, he assaulted her in
September 1940 with the “blitz,” which was one of the most decisive
battles in history. The
invasion was all set to go across the channel with landing barges and
troops at the ready. Although outnumbered five to one with airplanes,
Britain shot the Germans from the skies - and Hitler put off his
invasion of Britain. In 1940, the United States started rearming feverishly, and furnishing
supplies to Britain under “lend-lease.”
For example, we gave Britain 50 destroyers in return for a
long-term lease of part of Bermuda for a naval base, and other
considerations. In the rapid build-up of the U.S. Navy,
officers were badly needed. So
the Navy began offering commissions in a limited manner to college
graduates, particularly those with seagoing, yachting or other nautical
experience. I had been
sailing on many different kinds of yachts ever since I was about ten
years old and owned a Star boat when I was fourteen. I then graduated to sailing on larger yachts including schooners
such as the 50-foot RUMPUS and the 46-foot KUMALONG, which intrigued me
more because of the piloting and navigation problems. I went in the Bermuda Race of 1936 on the 40-foot cutter
PENDRAGON. This race was
the roughest, most dangerous in Bermuda history up to that time.
Although we were hove-to in the Gulf Stream for 17 hours in a 50-
to 60-knot northeaster, we arrived in Bermuda with everything intact. Many boats suffered damage and many withdrew, but there was no
loss of life and there were no dismastings. I also had raced on 12-metre
SEVEN SEAS, a New
York 50-footer (water line length) IBIS, a Sound Interclub, an Atlantic,
International One-Design, and many other types of craft. The author at the wheel of the Rumpus, in the Block Island race of 1928. I was 16 years old and felt like Columbus.
The Army told me that I would be automatically released if I accepted
the commission in the Navy. Thus
I was at an impasse, a typical bureaucratic mix up. I finally got the name of a Washington army officer, whom I
telephoned cold to explain my problem. He very kindly wrote me a letter stating that the Army would
release me provided I accepted the Navy commission. With this letter in
hand I rushed over to Navy headquarters in New York City and was
promptly sworn in as Ensign, U.S. Naval Reserve. My commission is dated February 1941, to rank from November 1940.
Thus, at the age of 28 I had the distinction of having had a full
commission in both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy.
I have always had a great love for the sea. I had not kept up with summer camps and other drills in the
Army reserve, as I was too busy trying to get a foothold in my career.
An additional reason for transferring to the Navy was that I
thought I could be more useful in that branch of the service. My love
for the sea was a great sustaining force on some of those long dreary
winter nights with the wind blowing a gale and the ship rolling her guts
out. I was somewhat afraid
that when the war was over I would never want to be near water again,
but the sea has continued its hold on me to this day. And so I continued working at the United States Trust Company, not
knowing when I would be called up. In the meantime I had been promoted to an officer of the bank,
the youngest in the bank's history, at what appeared then as a huge
increase in salary. I had
also married Julia Willets, and we had our first child, Paul III, in
January 1940. So these were
busy years. On July 14, 1941, I was called up for active duty in the Navy on the
Receiving Ship at New York. The
Receiving Ship was the U.S.S. SEATTLE, a heavy cruiser that had been an
admiral's flagship in World War I, but was out of commission at the
Brooklyn Navy Yard, New York City. It was used as a
mobilizing base for recruits who had completed their basic training and
who were being assembled for assignment to various new ships.
I was one of four division officers in charge of recruits and was
also made Assistant First Lieutenant to help in the general maintenance
of the ship. I learned much
about the operation of the Navy in this assignment. When I joined the Navy, the United States Trust Company gave me a leave
of absence, and paid me regularly the difference between my salary at
the bank and what the Navy paid me. Needless to say, this was most
appreciated. As my Navy
rank and pay increased over the years, I would inform the bank so that
they could reduce my paycheck accordingly. When the war was over and I rejoined the bank, my
responsibilities were increased rapidly and my salary was soon increased
substantially. I do not feel that I lost out in my banking career
because of the war, one important reason being that I survived.
As a matter of fact, it was generally conceded that the men who
returned to civilian life gained a great deal from their broadened
experience.
Two On December 7, 1941, five months after I joined the Navy as Ensign, the
Japanese sank our Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor. Within 24 hours the
U.S.A. declared war on Japan, Germany and Italy. On “this day, which will live in infamy” President Roosevelt
called a joint session of Congress, and the vote for war was unanimous. The country was galvanized into action instantly. Needless
to say, most of us young officers on the Receiving Ship were soon
itching to get into the action. My
friend Henry H. Anderson, who was about 48 at the time, and with whom I
had sailed on different yachts was given command of the three-masted
schooner yacht, the GUINEVERE. This schooner had belonged to Edgar
Palmer and was “sold” by
him to the Navy for the sum of one dollar. It was being converted to war use and was to be used for chasing
submarines along the Atlantic coast, where German submarines were
sinking shipping at a frightful rate. Captain Anderson telephoned me and asked if I
would like to join him on the ship, to which I answered an enthusiastic
yes. So he requested me
through the Bureau of Naval Personnel. I got my orders and reported for
duty in May 1942 at the Tebo Yacht Basin in Gravesend Bay, New York
Harbor, where she was being fitted out. As I was the second ranking officer aboard, I was made Executive
Officer, as well as Gunnery Officer. The Executive Officer is second in command. The GUINEVERE was 195 feet long on deck (plus bowsprit!) and was of
steel construction. She had
been built in 1921 with diesel-electric drive, the motive power having
been designed by Westinghouse. Amidships
she had two large diesels with generators, and at the stern one large
electric motor and propeller. The
propeller could be feathered for racing under sail. Although we did quite a bit of sailing without power, we never
feathered the propeller - a time-consuming, arduous process - as we
might need instant power for an emergency, such as dodging a torpedo. Our top speed wide open was 11.77 knots. For armament we had a model 1906 three-inch 50-caliber gun bolted on the
fantail; four 20-millimeter machine guns, two on the bow and two on the
stern; and two racks of World War I depth charges on the stern. We had no underwater echo ranging or
sound gear to detect submarines, and no radar. All we had were
binoculars and a radio with which we might get out a message if we
sighted a submarine before going down. At least the Commander Eastern
Sea Frontier would know there was a sub in the area and might dispatch
Piper Cubs with hand grenades or anything else they could get their
hands on. It really was that bad. Later on, we were given a primitive listening device: a fish-shaped
gadget about two feet long to be trailed over the stern a couple of
hundred feet back. It had
an electric wire connecting to a set of earphones and a battery box on
deck. This was used under sail with all engines, pumps and machinery
shut down, and was useless with the engines on. We were supposed to be able to pick up the noise from a
submarine, but of course we would have no idea of its direction or
distance. Needless to say, we were not thrilled with this machine. But it was interesting to hear fish and whales making noises. One day, as a trial exercise, we got the ship
to her top speed of 11.77 knots with everything shaking, and dropped a
few depth charges over the stern to see if they would work. They did. They almost blew our stern off, and there was much shouting and
yelling from below as to leaking rivets and fittings in the hull.
We never dared try it again. The crew of the ship was approximately 60 officers and men. The after owner's quarters consisted of four very luxurious
staterooms. Captain Anderson had the best one, but I managed to come up
with the second best. The
other four officers were relegated to the remaining owner's cabins. The
main saloon had been stripped, and rows of aluminum folding bunks were
installed, four deep. This,
plus the large forecastle, made up the crew's quarters. We had a somewhat mixed crew, as it was
assembled quickly by BuPers (Bureau of Naval Personnel) in Washington.
A few were quite competent, but most were raw recruits.
None of the enlisted men knew anything about sail. Imagine having to train a gun crew instantly in the handling of
live shells. Dropping a live shell on a rolling deck can spell disaster.
It was a tough job getting them all to work together. The GUINEVERE could sail very well in a hard
breeze. Sails were hoisted by a powerful electric winch with a
horizontal thwartships shaft, forward of the mainmast, and a large drum
on each end. Halyards and
sheets were led to these two drums by an elaborate system of blocks and
tackles. For example, to hoist the foresail, which was, like the
others, gaff-rigged, the peak halyard was led via a deck block to the
starboard drum, and the throat halyard was led to the port drum, with a
couple of sailors tending each. These
halyards were then cleated down and others were led in their place. It was an efficient rig.
(Do you remember how you know which side the throat halyard was
on in a gaff-rigger? “Port
goes down your throat,” I learned as a boy.). Our
assignment was the Northern Ship Lane Patrol, patrolling from Boston to
Lurcher Shoal off Nova Scotia. We
were in Boston every ten days or two weeks for fuel and supplies, always
berthed at the old State Pier. Our partner in this duty was the MIGRANT, another three-masted schooner
of approximately the same size under command of Rowe Metcalf of
Greenwich, Connecticut. We
would conduct our patrolling under pre-arranged plans--which were often
changed due to sightings or sinkings. On one patrol, we worked with a British steam trawler sent to the United
States to help train American crews and ships in anti-submarine warfare
(ASW). With our lack of proper sound gear and radar (both of which the
British ship had), we were reduced to the position of “taking
station” on his starboard beam at 1000 yards and steaming along with
him. This was very difficult at night in a rough sea with only
binoculars as a guide. Both
ships were completely blacked out, and we did not have anything like
very high frequency (VHF) ship-to-ship radio.
All signals were by flag hoist in daylight, and blinker light (in
a tube) at night. And our signalmen were not very competent.
One of our principal worries was not to collide with him when he
changed course, particularly if we were zigzagging. He was the OTC (Officer in Tactical Command) and gave the orders
for course changes. It was
a rather fruitless operation, but we did learn something from observing
the trawler's maneuvers. One day we had a surprising and rather hairy experience when a large and
brand new U.S. Destroyer overtook us at high speed, came alongside and
ordered us to stop. He was
about 500 yards on our port beam and had six five-inch 38-caliber guns
trained on us. Needless to
say, we stopped. He had
flashed us a demand for recognition signals by Morse code while
overtaking us, and we had answered correctly; but he still suspected we
might be a German Q ship or something similar, I suppose. The
GUINEVERE was completely painted in gray with large letters
and the numbers IX-67 in white painted on each bow (IX was the Navy designation for “unclassified vessels” and
we must have looked very suspicious.)
I'm sure the captain of the destroyer had never seen anything
like us before. He
apparently radioed Commander Eastern Sea Frontier for verification and
soon released us and steamed off. What
a powerful ship she was and a grand sight, particularly after she
trained her guns away from us! Sailing the vessel down the coast of Maine in
a hard northwester with all machinery shut off was quite a thrill.
I often would take the wheel on the quarterdeck. She was as big as many clipper ships but steered like a yacht.
(The famous clipper SEA WITCH was 178 feet on deck.) The GUINEVERE also had forward of the mainmast an open flying bridge
which ran from one side to the other. There were two steering stations on the bridge, one on each side,
with a small wheel approximately three feet in diameter, and a compass
on each side, the steering wheels driving an electric motor on the
rudder. The purpose of this
equipment was to enable the
sailing of the vessel as a yacht, from the leeward side, watching the
headsails; you would also have better vision ahead. The large steering
wheel on the stern, about six feet in diameter, was not electric but was
direct-drive. With the approach of the fall and winter of 1942, the open
bridge was enclosed with a wooden housing, giving much more protection. There was a good story going around the First
Naval District in Boston about the captain of a destroyer who came in to
headquarters to report the sinking of a German submarine. He had his log, a full record of course changes, depth charges
dropped, and the traces from his chemical recorder, which records the
signals from his sound gear plus the echoing signals.
The admiral looked at all the data and then said, “We can't
give you credit for a submarine on the basis of this information.”
Whereupon the destroyer skipper said, “Well, I have the captain of the
German submarine out in the hall. Would
you like to speak with him?” Later on, in the summer of 1942, our Captain Anderson received orders
for other duty in the Navy and was transferred to a very large
icebreaker. He was a very
fine officer and leader, and losing him from the GUINEVERE was a great
blow to us. Our new skipper was a former merchant marine captain, who
had recently joined the Navy. The
Navy's primary problem was to get its ships to sea; and ship-handling
experience, docking and undocking, and navigation were prime requisites
for captaincy. Although I had been promoted to Lieutenant j.g. (junior
grade) in June 1942, the Navy considered me too inexperienced for command, as I
had had only four months sea duty in the Navy. Although the assignment on a sailing ship seemed very glamorous, I came
to the conclusion that there must be a better way to catch submarines. So I applied for transfer to SCTC (Submarine Chaser Training
Center) in Miami with the hope and expectation of being assigned to a
more effective ship. Finally in August 1942, I received orders detaching
me from the GUINEVERE and ordering me to report to SCTC for training.
Three Miami was a beehive of activity, swarming with Naval personnel at SCTC
and with Army Air Force personnel who were being trained at the Air
Force Base there. The
U.S.A. had no separate Air Force at that time, and so flyers were either
Army or Navy. (Our separate
Air Force was not created until after World War II.) I can well remember large formations of Army Air Force personnel
marching down the streets of Miami to or from barracks and assignments
singing “Off
we go, into the wild blue
yonder. Atta boy, give her the gun.”
And other lines, such as, “Just remember, Pearl Harbor, as we
go to meet the foe. We will
always remember, as we did the Alamo.” Flags flying, uniforms immaculate, formations
perfect--traffic stopped and people cheered. It was a sight to remember. Our training at SCTC was arduous.
We attended classes and studied 12 to 16 hours a day. This regime was interspersed with sea-going training, mostly on
180-foot PC sub-chasers. (PC
stood for patrol chaser.) We
had training in ship-handling, gunnery, engineering, navigation,
signaling, damage control, aircraft and ship recognition, depth charges,
rockets, crew organization, sound gear, radar and many more mundane
subjects, such as how to requisition food and ammunition for your ship
(and get it!).
As we officers completed the courses at SCTC and graduated, we would
wait around Miami for orders, sometimes a few days, sometimes for weeks,
not having the vaguest idea what our assignments would be. My orders finally came through in January 1943, assigning me as
executive officer of the PC 561, a 180-foot sub-chaser, which was in the
Charleston Navy Yard for major overhaul after extensive sea duty. A new captain, Arthur F.
Chace, Jr. was assigned at the same time. So off we went to Charleston,
where we stayed for several months during the winter of 1942-43. The only accommodation Julie and I could find was one room at the
old Francis Marion Hotel in Charleston--and we were lucky to get that.
The Navy yard had thousands of personnel working on ships 24
hours a day, seven days a week, and the city was bursting at the seams.
So Julie took our son Paul back to the farm, and then she
rejoined me in Charleston. Although we had no idea where our ship would be sent when it was ready
for sea, we had to get everything ready for any assignment; it could
have been the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, South America, or the
Pacific. In March 1943 we received orders, totally unexpected, to report to SCTC
in Miami to act as a training ship for student officers.
Without knowing whether this was very temporary or an
extended assignment, PC 561 left Charleston and reported to Miami for
duty. There were hundreds of PCs built during World War II. They were fine
little ships, with twin-screw diesel engines of different makes,
depending on what was available. Ours
had two General Motors 16-cylinder engines of 1500 horsepower each, air
starting and air direct reversing. PC 561 had a top speed of 21 knots.
The fastest German subs had a top speed of 18 knots on the
surface and a normal underwater speed of four or five knots, with an
occasional burst of up to eight knots in an emergency.
All subs at that time were diesel-electric, using the diesels to
make electricity while on the surface, and running on batteries when
submerged. The armament of the PC was a single three-inch 50-caliber gun forward; a
40-millimeter gun amidships aft; three 20-millimeter machine guns;
depth-charges and side-throwers (K guns) aft; and ahead-throwing
rockets, called “mouse-traps,” forward of the bridge. We had reasonably good directional sound gear (echo-ranging), a
chemical tracing recorder for the sound gear, and moderately good radar
with a range of some 15 miles. Altogether a neat package, but not big
enough or with enough cruising range for transatlantic duty. The PC was for coastal work. The PC's were very lightly built of steel plating and
rolled like the devil at sea. On
the other hand, they were very maneuverable, which was a prime requisite
for getting into position to fire rockets at a submerged sub, or to drop
depth charges over him while he was moving. They were sporty ships to handle, to dock or undock in a breeze
of wind and strong current; and being able to judge how quickly the
engines would respond was important. At “special sea details” (the orders were given when going up a
channel to prepare for docking), a number of preparations were made. The
sound-powered telephone headsets were manned on the bridge, in the
engine room, on the bow, amidships, and at the stern on deck for
handling lines. An anchor was also made ready to let go. The best
helmsman was put on the wheel, and the best throttle men on the engines.
The throttle men, West and Long, on the PC 561 could really make
those engines sing! When
you called for “port engine back full,” you got it instantly. The
throttle man had to reverse the rocker arms, put the compressed air to
her, put the fuel to her, shut off the air, and open the throttle to the
proper RPM. If he missed
any of those steps, you had a nice collision!
We started our routine of going out all day from Miami into the
Gulf Stream with a couple of dozen green student officers aboard. There
would usually be four PC's working together, doing “ “formation
steaming,” changing station, carrying out various maneuvers,
simulating sub attacks, dropping depth charges and firing guns.
The student officers would take over most of the duties of the
crew, with a crewmember or officer standing by. Every night, several
PC's were sent out on night patrol to run up and down the coast looking
for submarines, coming back in at dawn ready to take out a new crew of
student officers. Julie and I finally found a good-sized house to rent on Miami Beach, and
our family was reunited. I
bought a real heap of a second hand Pontiac sedan for sixty dollars, and
my gasoline coupons were sufficient to take me back and forth from the
Beach to the city of Miami, where the ship was docked, a distance of
about 10 miles each way. That
is, when I had the nights off, which wasn't all that frequent.
(Incidentally, many months later when I was assigned to the DE
(Destroyer Escort), I sold the Pontiac for sixty-five dollars. Even though this one had a couple of windows missing and a roof
that leaked like a sieve. I have liked Pontiacs ever since--I'm still
driving one!).
In March 1943 I was promoted to Lieutenant, and in April 1943 I took
over command of the PC 561 from Captain Chace, who went to a
distinguished career as skipper of a DE. Some of our cruises with student officers were extended to
several days down the Florida Straits to Dry Tortugas, or over to the
Bahamas, operating alone. A
couple of times at night we made contact by radar with unseen and
unidentified vessels; they could have been submarines but we were never
able to make visual or underwater sound-gear contact.
By this time the U.S. Navy was beginning to get the sinkings
along the Atlantic seaboard under control. When I took over command of the PC, it was some thrill. There was no one
else to turn to. Our
“bridge talker” with the telephone headset was a regular Navy
pharmacist's mate 1st class, who was obviously known as “Doc” on the
ship. He was very bright and very humorous. When I got ready to back the ship out of the dock for the
first time, with everything ready to go, he turned to me and said,
“Are you nervous, Captain?” I said, “Hell, no:” and held my arm
straight out towards him, to show him how steady my hand was.
He said, “who are you waving at?” We also had a regular Navy boatswain's mate,
1st class, named Fortier. He
was a French Canadian, tough as nails, but with a straight-faced, earthy
humor. One day when it was particularly rough, I didn't notice many
student officers at their posts, so I asked Fortier where they were. He
said “All them God damn student officers are aft hanging over the rail
heaving their ass-holes in and out.” We had a pretty happy crew.
On
many ships there is a rivalry between the deck gang and the engine room
gang, each group claiming that the other does not know what it is doing.
When we were at sea on our own, on a number of occasions I had our own
ship's deck officers go down in the engine room and work the throttles,
and the throttle men come up on the bridge to maneuver the ship. For example, we would throw over side a tall buoy with a flag on
it, and I would tell the man handling the maneuver to bring the ship
alongside ten feet away, on a heading of 270°, simulating docking. This
gave both groups a much better understanding of the other's problems. Our chief engineer, by
the way, was a regular Navy chief petty officer (chief machinist's mate)
and he was extremely capable. It
was no easy job to keep those engines functioning in wartime with spare
parts so hard to get, and little time for proper maintenance. The chief engineer did one of the finest jobs on the ship
maneuvering from the bridge during these exercises, though he had never
done it before. I soon
recommended him for a commission, which meant a great deal, as he was
regular Navy. The commission came through, and the crew thought it was
wonderful. I knew it meant
he would be transferred off the ship to greater responsibilities, but I
found that to be an excellent policy in motivating the crew. If you got
a man promoted you were “over complement,” you soon lost him; but on
the other hand most of the rest of the crew would see that they had a
real chance of promotion. One morning at dawn when we were entering the Miami ship channel, one
engine-room telegraph cable broke so that we could not signal the
starboard engine what we wanted. But
our back-up system of telephones worked perfectly and we docked with no
problems, though we took some extra care with the very narrow channel. Those telephones were very hard to hear standing beside two
16-cylinder diesels in a crowded engine room. The skipper of a PC was also the navigator. Behind the wheelhouse of the PC 561 there was a cabin with a
large chart table and navigating equipment.
I had a folding pipe berth built over the chart table and did
what little sleeping I could
at night on this berth. I
was always fully dressed, and could hear the sound gear as well as the
orders to the helmsman. I was very careful with the navigation, as the
first rule in the Navy is to keep your ship off the bricks. A ship hard aground is useless.
So when we went on our night cruises down the Florida Straits, I
took sun and star sights whenever we were out of sight of lighthouses or
other known navigational objects. The current in the Straits runs very
strongly, up to 4 1/2 knots, as it is right in the Gulf Stream.
It also meanders unpredictably. We had no Loran (long range
navigation electronic instruments). One morning at dawn as we were headed
north, I got a seven-star fix with all seven lines crossing within 3,000
yards--not bad from the deck of a small ship in a rough sea. I was certain of my position, which indicated that I should pick
up a lighthouse very soon. The lighthouse never appeared. What had happened was the quartermaster set the stopwatch one minute off
from the chronometer, so all seven sights were wrong. We were off 15
minutes of longitude, about 14 miles. (You remember the old rule that every four seconds of time means
about a mile error in longitude, depending on latitude). I might say that our DR (dead reckoning) was much closer to
our true position. Luckily
we were further at sea than the incorrect fix showed, so we were in good
shape. All we had to do was
change course slightly closer to shore. But it was a lesson I never forgot, and I still carry those
plotting sheets aboard our sailing yacht JULIE today. I had thought that if
you got seven lines to cross you couldn't be wrong.
But you can! My rule
for a navigator is “Never trust nobody or nothing.” One final story about the PC's before we leave them behind. Gordon
Cornell was the skipper of a PC in the Aleutian Islands off Alaska. One
day in the fog he saw a periscope suddenly appear.
He turned his ship at full speed and rammed and sank a Jap sub in
a fraction of a minute. He
was awarded the Navy Cross and sent back to SCTC for further training to
become the captain of a Destroyer Escort. He got through the school reasonably well but flunked mightily
the ASW course, which was all about the new, sophisticated gear for the
larger DE. At the end of his training he went before a board of senior
officers for a verbal exam. Commander Kinney, regular Navy, looked at
Cornell's record at the school and said sternly, “I see you failed the
ASW course.” Then Kinney
read further in the record until he came to these words: “Awarded Navy
Cross for ramming and sinking a Japanese sub in the Aleutians.”
Kinney said, a little more kindly, “But I guess you prefer to
sink subs your own way.” Cornell
got the command. As the DE's (Destroyer Escorts) began to come out of the construction
yards in large numbers, officers and crews were needed for them. Since I wanted more action, I requested assignment to SCTC for DE
training and further assignment to a DE.
I received orders detaching me from the PC 561 in Miami in
October 1943. The crew was
lined up at quarters on deck, by division, in dress white uniforms. The chief boatswain's mate called out, “Attention on deck!”
and I appeared before them and read my orders detaching me from the
ship. 'This is normal Navy
custom. I then ordered the
chief quartermaster to haul down the commission pennant and give it to
me, putting a new one in its place. I still have the pennant. At this point, amid some embarrassment, but
obviously prearranged, the leading petty officer of each principal
division--Deck, Gunnery and Engineering--stepped forth in turn and
handed me a present. One
was a fine pen and pencil desk set, one an electric clock mounted in a
fancy square-rigger, and one a clock-barometer set that I still have in
my den. Each man said “Compliments of the Division, sir,” as he
handed me the gift. I was
flabbergasted, as this was strictly non-regulation. An officer is not
supposed to receive presents from his crew, but since I was being
detached from the ship, I thought allowances could be made. So I made a little speech thanking them, wishing them good
luck, and saying “I will remember this as long as I remember
anything.” The new
captain, Shull Bonsall, then read his orders, and I was piped off the
ship by the boatswain's mate. Four At SCTC I took the advanced DE course, which was even more arduous than
the first one. There was
tremendous competition, as everyone wanted a top assignment. Again the course consisted of long classes and studying,
interspersed with periods at sea. I
kept the house at Miami Beach with my family, and commuted back and
forth to Miami in my faithful sixty-dollar Pontiac. After completing the course, I got my orders in
November 1943 attaching me as executive officer to the U.S.S. FRANCIS
M. ROBINSON (DE 220), under construction at the Philadelphia Navy
Yard. The Captain was
Lieutenant Commander John E. Johansen, who had been a merchant marine
captain before the war, and who had previously had command of another DE
in the Atlantic.
Sills at the helm.
One young seaman named Sills had written
“All I want is to be quartermaster and steer”. He had his heart set on it. So I assigned him as the leading
helmsman for general quarters (action stations) and special sea details,
or any other special maneuvers. The
DE was a difficult ship to steer, but Sills turned out to be a superb
helmsman, who really had the feel of the vessel almost instantly. The ROBINSON was 306 feet long, equipped with
twin-screw turbo-electric drive, with a total of 12,000 horsepower. There were four engine spaces, and 13 watertight bulkheads. The For armament, she carried two 3-inch 50-caliber guns forward;
ahead-throwing rockets called hedgehogs forward of the bridge; eight
20-millimeter machine guns; a very full load of depth charges and K guns
aft; and a twin 40-millimeter gun aft (originally she had four torpedo
tubes aft, but these were removed in favor of the 40-millimeters). All conning was done from the open flying bridge with the sound
“hut” at the forward end of it.
This “hut' was an enclosed small room with our underwater sound
gear controls and space for two soundmen to work. It contained a lot of complicated equipment.
The flying bridge was very cold in winter, and hot in summer; but
it provided excellent (360-degree) visibility--which was a great blessing. Captain Johansen, who had spent the latter
part of 1943 with the ROBINSON in Philadelphia as she was being
completed, came down to Norfolk once to inspect the crew and go over the
assignments I had made. I
had the crew all lined up by division, in dress blues, for his
inspection; he seemed very pleased with their appearance, and with the
organization I had done. Johansen was about 40 years old and had spent most of his
life at sea in the Merchant Marine. He was very quiet, never once shouted or lost his temper, but
expected everyone to do his job without any excuses. When we went to sea together, I learned much from him; he was one
of the finest ship-handlers I have ever known. Commissioning ceremony of the USS Francis M. Robinson. Captain Johansen at the microphone.
The ROBINSON was commissioned at the
Philadelphia Navy Yard on January 15, 1944, in a light snowstorm. The ship was named after a seaman killed in action in World War
II. His mother was present
at the commissioning. The
Captain of the Yard read the orders placing her in commission, Captain
Johansen read his orders as Commanding Officer, and her flags were
raised to the accompaniment of a band. The crew and officers were lined up on the deck by division.
Julie was standing on the dock along with the families of many
of the crew. After the
commissioning, Captain Johansen turned to me and said, “Dismiss the
crew from quarters.'“ The
families were then invited aboard, shown around the ship and treated to
a lunch aboard. So began a whole new episode. Five
After about a week of daily exercises, as we
were approaching the tender to tie up, with the crew at Special Sea
Details and everything ready, Captain Johansen turned to me and said,
“All right, Campbell, you take her alongside,” and walked off the
bridge down below. It was
blowing rather fresh, and a ship like that will drift sideways rapidly
if you don't keep her moving fast with plenty of power.
I looked the situation over for a few seconds and decided to back
off and make a new approach at a slightly different angle. Then I went ahead smartly, got a bow line and bow spring line
over, backed the outboard engine and tied up, all on one bell to the
engines Later
Johansen said, “Very good.” From
that moment on, he knew I could handle the ship. Our first major assignment was part of the escort group of a 17-knot
troop convoy bound from Philadelphia to Londonderry, Ireland, on March
22, 1944. There were
approximately 30 ships loaded with troops and about a dozen escorts
consisting of destroyers and destroyer escorts, as well as a heavy
cruiser out in front of the troop ships in case we should run into a
German heavy cruiser or battleship. The destroyers and DE's were deployed in front of and along the
sides of the convoy. The weather was very rough, and we had to maintain
a speed of about 20 knots in order to patrol our assigned area properly. But there
was no slowing down with troops, and we took plenty of green water over
the bow. About the second day out, the large troopship
S.S. JOHN ERICSON lost an engine and could not keep up with the convoy.
The ERICSON was ordered back to New York with the ROBINSON as its
escort. After safely
returning to New York, we were ordered to refuel immediately and rejoin
our convoy. We knew where we had left the convoy and knew its base
course, but the convoy changed course at frequent intervals depending on
reports it received about the location of submarines. The convoy did not break radio silence and sent no messages. So here we were chasing around the North Atlantic at full speed
trying to find them. It was
an impossible mission. We had to keep our eye on our fuel capacity so as
not to run out of fuel and be helpless in mid-ocean. Finally we were
forced to return to New York; in fact, we made it by the skin of our
teeth, nearly out of fuel.
It
was on this return trip to New York that I saw the roughest seas I have
ever seen in my life. The
whole ocean was white with breaking seas and huge waves.
The ROBINSON's flying bridge was forward, and the stack was about
amidships. There were two wire cables running from the bridge to the
stack with sheaves spaced every three feet or so. Hanging from these sheaves were flexible lighter wire cables. One cable ran to the ship's steam whistle, and one to the
steam siren, both of which
were on the front of the stack. As
we would go over a huge sea, the whole ship would bend amidships thus
tightening the cables and blowing the whistle and siren in a spasmodic
fashion. It was an eerie
sound in the middle of the night--a disembodied voice and the unseen
hand of the sea. Incidentally, our total fuel capacity was
100,000 gallons. At a cruising speed of 15 knots we used about 10,000
gallons a day. So our
cruising range was not tremendous. This is the reason that ships like destroyers and DE's were
refueled from tankers at sea every couple of days, to keep them
“topped up” as much as possible in case of a fracas lasting many
days. It is quite likely that we would have made many troop convoy trips to
England and Ireland if it hadn't been for that breakdown. In April we escorted the brand new heavy cruiser U.S.S. MIAMI from
Philadelphia to Boston. I can well remember the signal we received as we
cleared Cape May in the evening: “My speed 23 knots. Take station 1000 yards ahead
of me and patrol station.” So
there we were, with only one-knot faster speed than his, ordered to
zigzag in front of him while he kept a straight course. We were there to protect him from submarines, and the faster he
went the better. But he was
mighty big and unwieldy. We
tried not to be exactly in front of him any more than possible in case
we should suddenly lose an engine. After several hours of steaming, a faint red glow appeared along
the sides of our smokestack--but we made it safely. We also escorted two other battleships, the
U.S.S. NEVADA and H.M.S. INDOMITABLE, on various missions. We were then assigned as an escort for Task Group 22.2 leaving Norfolk
on May 2, 1944. Task Group
22.2 consisted of a small aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. BOGUE
(CVE9), and
five DE's. We were what was
known as a “killer group”; our sole mission was to roam the Atlantic
looking for subs. All
German subs surfaced and radioed their positions and other reports once
a day in code to Berlin. Their
transmissions were extremely
fast and brief, in order to make it difficult for the Allies to get
radio direction-finder bearings on them. The German subs reported to
Berlin so that the High Command could order them to areas where Allied
shipping was concentrated or expected. But a superb team of code-breakers, called “Ultra,” not only
got bearings but also rather consistently broke the German codes
The Allies relayed the position of the German subs to the Navy,
and we used the information to send our “killer groups” to areas
where the subs were--and also to reroute our convoys as far as possible
away from the subs. The code-breaking operation, “Ultra,” which was originally British,
then joined by the Americans when we entered the war, was based
principally outside London at Bletchley, but included other groups in
various places including the USA. On the way across the Atlantic, the BOGUE received a message in code
from Washington that a Japanese and a German sub were to rendezvous at a
certain point near the Cape Verde Islands off Africa. So we proceeded at full speed toward the rendezvous area.
(The BOGUE was a converted merchant ship and had a top speed of
only 20 knots, but we were purely an offensive group without the
responsibilities of any accompanying convoy.) On our way to the rendezvous, on May 13, 1944, the ROBINSON picked up a
strong underwater echo-ranging sound contact.
The soundman had difficulty in convincing the officer of the
deck, named Kaye, that it was not a whale or school of fish, because we
had no information of a sub in that particular spot.
However, the
signal was so strong that Kaye sounded general quarters and we proceeded
to attack. Johansen did a
superb job and we fired our ahead-throwing rockets (hedgehogs) as we
approached the submerged sub. Two
of the rockets exploded on contact, followed by magnetic depth charges,
which exploded as we crossed over the sub. (There were two types of depth charges; magnetic ones that
exploded when they neared a sub and
regular ones that were set to explode at pre-determined depths.)
There was no question that we got direct hits although no debris
or oil came to the surface. The
sub must have gone down like a stone. When we first established contact, the BOGUE quite properly left the
area with the other DE's and headed for the horizon, so as to avoid
being torpedoed. We ran
back and forth in a search pattern for several hours looking for the
sub, but could not regain contact. The sinking was at latitude 18°08'
North, and longitude 33°
13' West, approximately 500
miles west of the Cape Verde Islands off the west coast of Africa.
Finally the BOGUE signaled us to rejoin her; it was getting dark
and she was anxious to proceed to the previously mentioned rendezvous of
the German and Japanese submarines. It was soon determined by radio messages received by the
BOGUE from
Washington that the sub we got was Japanese, -- and the news was flashed
to us. Needless to say,
this caused a tremendous surge of morale on every ship in the entire
group. One of the ROBINSON's crew who had considerable artistic ability came
into the officers' wardroom and painted the outline of a sub on the
bulkhead in red, with the Japanese flag under it. He also painted one on
each side of the flying bridge. Later
when we got back to the USA we were told to eliminate the Japanese flags
and change them to Nazi flags. The
point was that if word got around that we knew that this was a Jap sub,
it would be proof that we were breaking the German and Jap codes, which
the Allies obviously did not want known. Incidentally, this was the first of the only two Japanese submarines
caught in the Atlantic during the entire war.
Our ship, along with a number of others that had operated with
the BOGUE, received the Presidential Unit Citation. This entitled our ship to fly a special yellow and blue flag
at all times, and every member of the crew to wear the Presidential Unit
Citation ribbon. The BOGUE carried 24 planes: 12
“Wildcat” fighters, and 12 torpedo bombers (TBM's). These planes usually flew in teams of two, one of each, both
night and day. At that
time, German doctrine was for a sub to stay on the surface if detected
and fire at the planes with his deck guns, one reason being that he
could not dive fast enough and deep enough to avoid attack. So our
fighter plane would go in first, firing his machine guns to clear the
deck, and also at night to drop a hugh white flare to light up the
scene. Closely following,
the TBM would let go his acoustic torpedo as close as possible to the
sub. After sustaining
heavy losses, the Germans soon changed their doctrine of fighting it out
on the surface and took to diving immediately. Flying from and landing on a baby carrier took a lot of skill and was
very hazardous, particularly at night, but it probably was the decisive
factor in breaking the back of the German sub offensive. There were no lights on the carrier until a plane was perhaps
1000 yards astern and coming in for a landing.
He had radar, and the carrier had radar and VHF (very high
frequency--line of sight) radio communication that was used as little as
possible. The only lights
to show were red ones from the two bats of the landing controller just
as the plane was about to land on deck. During landing operations there was always a DE on “guard duty” a
few hundred yards astern of the carrier, in case a plane missed and went
down. The ROBINSON had that
duty one night when a flyer of a TBM missed.
He immediately bailed out in his one-man life raft and lit his
single-cell white flashlight. We went over to him immediately and threw
over a chain ladder: he was
aboard the ROBINSON in a couple of minutes.
As his plane went rapidly down, his torpedo finally exploded
right under us, giving us quite a scare, as we thought for a moment that
we had been hit by a sub's torpedo. But although we were shaken up a bit no damage was done. We soon had the pilot in a hot shower, and then gave him clean
clothes, a drink of whiskey, some ice cream, and a nice dry bunk. He was obviously most grateful. Next day we
transferred him back to the BOGUE by breeches buoy. Lieutenant Howe ("Parky") was in charge of the sound team when we made our successful attack on the Japanese sub. Later he became executive officer and then skipper of the Robinson. Shortly after the war he entered the ministry. His wife, Helen, was godmother to our daughter Gordie, who was born in 1946. Parkie performed the ceremony for Gordie's marriage in 1969.
During normal
steaming with the BOGUE, the escorts were placed ahead of, and alongside
her, to form an anti-submarine screen.
When getting ready to launch or retrieve planes, the BOGUE would
two-block the “F” flag (two-block means to hoist all the way up) and
turn into the wind. The
word would go around our bridge “Execute:,” and we would two-block
“F” also. If there was a radical change of course, the five escorts
would change stations to reform the screen with as little maneuvering as
possible. This was done
much in the manner of a football team shifting to the right, or left,
depending on the play. And
it was usually done at full speed, which meant that our pre-planned
maneuvers had to be done with precision to avoid collisions,
particularly at night with no lights. The code flag “F” was used for daylight operations, but
at night a dim blinker tube aimed at each escort was used. The tube flashed the Morse code letter “F” (..-.),
followed by a long dash for “Execute.'“ One night while planes were in the air searching over a large expanse of
ocean, one of the fighter planes got lost. (They flew a predetermined
search plan, which would bring them back to the BOGUE before running out
of fuel; but the pilot apparently missed one of his turns.) We were all informed of this situation and ordered to keep a
sharp lookout both by radar and visually, though it was a very dark
night. The BOGUE broke
radio silence, calling the missing pilot numerous times by VHF. There
was no answer for a long time. Finally
we heard a plane and picked him up on radar. The
BOGUE talked him in and just about two miles from the carrier, the pilot
radioed “Too late, Butch,
I'm out of gas.” (Butch was
the code name for the BOGUE.)
We
could hear his engine stalling and then picking up several times. At last he made it to the
BOGUE and landed safely, though not
without some severe bumping. We
all cheered. After two weeks more of searching, we headed for Casablanca for food,
fuel, and ammunition. On our way, we joined up with the escorts of the U.S.S.
BLOCK ISLAND, another attack
aircraft carrier, which had just been sunk by a German sub. The
BLOCK ISLAND was operating with escorts as a “killer
group” just as we were. When
we all got into Casablanca--the date was May 29, 1944--the captain of
the BLOCK ISLAND gave a talk to the officers from our group and told us
what had happened. They were steaming along in formation on a fine clear day when the
BLOCK
ISLAND was hit by a torpedo that crippled the engine room and made the
ship a sitting duck. The
ship was under control and keeping afloat; then the second torpedo hit
them. This second hit finished them off.
One of the BLOCK ISLAND’s escorts, a DE named U.S.S. BARR was
also struck by a torpedo but remained afloat. Then another DE, the
U.S.S. ELMORE, made sound contact with the
sub and sank him with hedgehogs. After four days in Casablanca, we resumed operations. On June 24, while
flying at night, aircraft from the BOGUE made contact with a sub on the
surface and sank him with an acoustic torpedo.
This also was a Japanese sub, the 152. She was sunk at Latitude 15°16' North and Longitude 39°55' West. Thus, the two submarines sunk from our “hunter-killer” group were
both Japanese. These were
the only two Japanese subs sunk in the Atlantic in the entire war. The ROBINSON got the first one; and fliers from the
BOGUE
sank the second. When fuel began to run low our task force finally headed back for the
USA. We just made it into Bermuda by the end of June. After fueling up, we headed for New York, where we were
detached from the BOGUE group on July 3, 1944. A month later, on August 2, the ROBINSON joined as escort a group of
Liberty ships, UGS-50, from Norfolk, Virginia to Bizerte, Tunisia, in
the Mediterranean. (UGS
meant United States Gibraltar Slow.
We were limited to the speed of the slowest ship, which was
usually 9 1/2 knots. Hence
the name.) This trip was uneventful and we returned to Boston on Sept.
18, 1944, after returning the empty Liberty ships to Norfolk. A Liberty ship was 441 feet long, with a designed service speed of 11
1/2 knots. Her displacement
was 14,245 tons loaded, and her deadweight (basic) tonnage was 10,844.
There were 2,714 Liberty ships built during World War II. They were designed to carry war supplies, equipment and food from
the USA in support of the Allies both in the Atlantic and Pacific.
Change of Command of the Robinson (Click for a larger image)
Six On Oct. 1, 1944 I was made commanding officer of the ROBINSON.
Captain Johansen was transferred as commanding officer of an AKA,
(Attack Transport) in the Pacific. We were in Casco Bay, Maine, for further ASW and gunnery training
when my orders came through. Casco
Bay was the headquarters of COMDESLANT, Commander Destroyers Atlantic
Fleet; it was the principal center for the training of destroyers and
DE's when they were between assignments. This was my second command, and it was a great thrill, as the
ROBINSON was much larger than PC 561.
With the words “I relieve you, sir,” I took command. From
that second on, she was my responsibility. We made several more convoy trips from the USA to the Mediterranean. The officers of the Robinson, October 1, 1944.
Heavy weather in the North Atlantic. The "ready gun" is the higher gun on the left.
October 11, 1944, New York to Oran, Algeria, with UGS-57, returning to
Brooklyn Navy Yard on November 30. December 11, 1944, New York to Oran with UGS-63, returning to
Boston Navy Yard on January 20, 1945. On January 3, while passing
through the Straits of Gibraltar, Liberty Ship SS HENRY MILLER was hit
by a torpedo and escorted back to Gibraltar safely. Our escorts were successful in driving the sub down and
preventing any further attacks. In the fall of 1944, for the first time the Navy made it possible for
men at sea to vote. This
was the year of the Presidential election in which Roosevelt was to win
an unprecedented fourth term. Each
ship was given an elaborate set of papers and folders to be sealed and
mailed. We had a ballot for
every man on the ship expecting a large voting turnout, and set up a
voting area with tables and signs and arrows. Hardly anyone showed up.
We
were completely deflated. After a few hours, allowing for change of
watches, it finally occurred to us that about 80 percent of the men on
the ship were under age 21, the minimum voting age at that time, and
could not vote. On transatlantic crossings watches were automatically rotated because
the convoy commodore would signal a change of time of one hour for the
entire convoy as we changed time zones. After receiving the signal, the
officer of the deck would announce over the PA system, “At 2100 all
ship's clocks will be advanced (or retarded) one hour.”
Part of the crew would cheer
and part would boo, depending on who got a three-hour watch and who got
a five-hour watch. The higher of the two guns forward was called the “ready gun.”
It was mounted right over the officers' quarters. I can remember several times trying to take a nap in the
afternoon and being prevented by a dribbling, rattling sound
right over my bunk. So I
would telephone the officer of the deck and tell him to have someone
investigate the noise. In a
few minutes the officer would report that nothing could be found. One
day I told the junior officer of the deck to investigate personally.
(There were always two officers on watch on the bridge.) He went down to the ready gun and found the gun crew playing
dice. The decks were so
thin (1/4” steel) that the noise of the dice came right through like a
drum. He told them to knock
it off, but we didn't do anything further about it because it never
happened again. We had four lookouts on the bridge with binoculars, each one assigned to
a 90 degree sector. If a
lookout reported “An object on the horizon at 045 degrees,” it was a
temptation for the officer of the deck to say he'd been watching it by
radar for half an hour. I gave strict instructions that the OD was not
to do this, as it would discourage the lookouts. It was easily possible for a lookout to see a periscope, for
example, that the radar might have missed. Each crewmember had three stations: 1. General Quarters, in which every man had a battle station. 2. Condition Two, in which the crew was divided in half, and half the
guns were manned. This was
used when we were in an area of possible or probable action. The crew stood watches four hours on and four hours off. 3. Condition Two M (modified), which split the
crew into three sets of watches, four hours on and eight hours off.
This was the normal steaming condition and gave the crew time for
maintenance of machinery, guns and equipment. One
3-inch gun, called the Ready gun,” was manned, as well as a couple of
machine guns. The depth
charges and hedgehogs were also manned. Our usual procedure at sea was to have a drill
each morning at 0800 with the call
“Battle stations. All
hands man your battle stations” over
the PA system. After about
45 minutes of simulating action and checking equipment, the crew would
be released for watches and ship's work until chow time at 1130. The
afternoon was free of ship's work except whatever was urgent. On February 2, 1945, we left Norfolk with
UGS-72, a convoy bound for the Mediterranean.
The ROBINSON was one of approximately 12 escorts, including one destroyer (DD) , and 11 destroyer-escorts (DE'
s). We were escorting a
convoy of some 80 Liberty ship freighters, a USA tanker for refueling
the escorts, and some miscellaneous ships. We were bound from Norfolk, Virginia, to the central Mediterranean, where we turned the convoy over to British
escorts bound further east. Our escorts then proceeded to Oran, Algeria, for fuel and ammunition,
and to await a convoy of empty Liberty ships to take back to the USA.
We also gave the crew whatever limited shore leave we could (a
large part of the crew had to stay aboard to ensure that the ship could
get underway in an emergency). On February 17, we began entering the Straits
of Gibraltar, but in order to do so had to form “narrow column,”
which meant a considerable
reshuffling of both freighters and escorts, with many freighters slowing
down to fall in behind. This
provided an attractive target for a U-boat. All of a sudden a British tanker, the HMS REGENT
LION, was torpedoed right
alongside us, perhaps 400 yards away. Although she was loaded with some millions of gallons of aviation
gasoline, she did not catch fire or explode.
She was torpedoed in the stern by an acoustic torpedo, and the
stern was soon awash, while
the engine spaces in the stern were flooded. The entire engine room gang
was killed. Somehow the
main bulkhead held, although it was probably damaged and leaking.
The Liberty ship MICHAEL J.
STONE was also torpedoed near us. Our crew immediately went to general quarters (battle stations), and we
radioed the escort commander on the destroyer. All escorts under
predetermined orders began to execute “Operation Observant,” which
meant maneuvering up and down alongside the convoy at full speed,
dropping depth charges at their discretion. The purpose was to drive any
subs down deep to prevent them from using their torpedoes effectively,
and to inflict whatever damage we
could to them in the process. Two significant things happened as far as the
ROBINSON was concerned: First, as we were dropping our initial depth-charge pattern (17
depth charges, including side-throwers, all set to explode at various
depths), an acoustic U-Boat torpedo, aimed toward
us exploded about 200 yards away, the explosive of our depth charges
having activated the acoustic torpedo. Although we had put over our foxer, we did not have much
confidence in it. (A foxer was a vibrating, noisemaker on the end of a
reeled cable that was supposed to attract acoustic torpedoes away from
our propellers.) We came
very near suffering a devastating torpedo hit--only a matter of seconds. We later found out that we had severely damaged the U-Boat,
putting her out of action and leading to her destruction five days
later. She fired no more
torpedoes at our convoy. Second, the convoy got through Gibraltar without further damage.
The ROBINSON radioed the escort commander and asked if we should
assist the tanker or rejoin the convoy, which was now
many miles ahead. The
response was “Use your own discretion. We then went alongside the
tanker, put a damage-control party and pumps aboard, and stayed there several hours keeping her afloat.
The Robinson alongside the Regent Lion. Click any for a larger image In the meantime, a large British tug, the ROLLICKER, and a British
escort had been dispatched from Gibraltar to take over the REGENT
LION.
When they arrived, we departed and, putting on full speed,
rejoined our convoy, which was now out of sight ahead. The
MICHAEL J. STONE made Gibraltar under her own power. To cap it all, the British tug had the misfortune to tow the
REGENT LION
over a shoal spot when entering Gibraltar, and she
sank there as a total loss. We
saw the wreck as we came back through Gibraltar on our return trip some
days later. For our part in this action, I received a Commendation from the U.S. Navy, as did Lieutenant Charles A. Krull and J. T. McCollum, Ship fit |
