THE OUTSTANDING NAVY SEAMEN

 As we sailed to Australia on the SS Mexican in the Spring of 1942, we had a gun crew of enlisted Navy seamen onboard who were commanded by what was commonly referred to by the Navy brass as a “ninety-day wonder”, who was commissioned as an officer upon graduation from a university, but who never attended Annapolis. One night I was awakened by the ship’s siren. I hopped out of my bunk, slipped on my life jacket and stood by the radio equipment listening to the intercoms that we had to let the bridge and the various positions on the ship speak to one another. To my utter amazement before the siren reached full pitch I heard the gun crew saying that they had a ship in their sites which was following us and asking for permission to fire. The rule was that if two ships were in sight of one another they should turn away from one another to indicate no war-like intent. I am amazed at how those sailor boys were able to wake up, get something on and traverse the great part of the ship over the hold and get to the gun position on the stern in such a short time.  Fortunately, the other ship turned away and saved getting fired upon.

The gun crew’s commander had transferred from an aircraft carrier which soon afterwards was sunk. He was critical of Navy brass and used as an example that on the aircraft carrier, life boat positions were assigned alphabetically rather than based on proximity to their battle stations. He said that boat drills were chaotic because sailors bumped into each other racing across deck to get to their lifeboat positions.  His explanation was that graduates from Annapolis were concerned officers and gentlemen capable of any assignment and often experts in gunnery were assigned in radio positions or radio experts were assigned to gunner positions. We used to joke that Annapolis had a required course for graduation in “Stupidity”. This is the last of my blogs bashing the Navy brass.