70 years ago today it is probable that I was the 1st American to survive
knowing that Japan had plunged us into WW-2.
As radio officer on the SS West Cressey I heard the SOS SSS reporting a
submarine attack on the Cynthia Olsen which no one else apparently had yet
heard. Its whole crew were lost. Our captain forbade my answering the SOS as
the nearby sub could have caught up with us.
I had just transmitted our weather report on short wave because my captain
had ordered me to stay off the long wave calling channel where an enemy could
more easily locate us. We had just passed the attack location where the Jap
sub had let us go by for fear of an earlier warning to Pearl Harbor. Actually
the SOS came a few minutes before the Pearl attack. The Navy would have been
forwarned if they had been monitoring the SOS channel as common sense would
have required. Over a month earlier the navy had been told they could expect
an attack without warning from the Japanese.
I had left one receiver monitoring the calling frequency. On the other
receiver I was listening to the Tabernacle Choir broadcast. Thinking perhaps
I had heard an SOS in the babble of ship calls, I phoned the bridge. The 1st
mate came to handle the phone so I could concentrate on the radio. Sure
enough, there was the plea from the nearby ship. No other ship responded to
the repeated calls for some time. Finally the Matson cruise ship Lurline,
enroute from Honolulu to San Francisco, was able to respond. That was the
last we heard from the sinking ship. I had been listening to the Lurline on
the calling frequency talking with both Honolulu and San Franciso. Despite
their powerful transmitter, that crowded passenger ship could not contact the
navy with their relayed SOS.
I could hear our ships engines speeding up & they swung out the lifeboats &
stocked them with water & food as our ship zigzaged to make it harder for the
sub to find us. They painted over my porthole with black paint so light
wouldn't show.
This is getting too long for more details. Long ago I wrote an account of all
my experiences at sea. I was told that the BYU war veterans project was
placing a copy of it in their library. Maybe that can be accessed or perhaps
it can be placed somewhere on the web.
About Me
- George Richards Cannon
- My early postings were intended to be in sequence, starting with “Why This Blog” posted on December 3, 2011. After reading this profile, you might want to start your reading with those early entries. I am a 93 year old husband, dad, grandpa and great grandpa. I've seen a lot of changes in the world. When I was young, vegetables were still delivered by horse and wagon. As a radio operator during World War II, I communicated via morse code. Now I use my voice-activated cell phone to stay in touch. My career as a university professor of computer science spanned the time when a single computer took up several rooms of in a computer center and was less powerful than today's $2 calculators to the present time where computers are an ever-present part of our daily life. I am now legally blind, but even there technology has come to the rescue. My computer monitor is a big flat screen T.V. with large print magnification. I type by touch with very limited ability to see and edit what I write, so either someone else will have to edit my writing or you will have to endure all the typos. I look forward to sharing my thoughts, perspectives, and memories on life.
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