No Banners, No Bugles

by Edward Ellsberg

  I wasn’t interested in dragging the Thomas Stone off the beach just as a stunt; I wanted a repairable ship when we got her afloat. And to keep on with the dragging while her bottom was riding as hard as it evidently was over solid rock, and with that difficult turn to be made still ahead of us, could only result in the ship’s having no bottom at all to keep her afloat when she finally got to deep water. And if we took the shorter and direct route to deep water, we’d ride her over a ridge of rock which would break her back. It was no go. We should have to wait till more elaborate equipment, preferably submersible pontoons which could take most of the load off the bottom, was available to us.

  It hurt to break the news to Benny. It would at best be months yet till pontoons could be obtained from the United States; unless we could persuade the authorities there to remember that the Thomas Stone was an American warship and to forget that she was stranded in an area of British responsibility, it would be never. I told Benny we must suspend operations or we’d ruin his ship. He’d have to wait again; how long, I couldn’t say. I’d do my best to get lifting pontoons as quickly as possible so we could make another try with success assured that way. He took it philosophically; at least he was no longer neglected; some day we’d get his ship afloat again. Gloomily all hands began to unrig the hauling tackle.

  We were still at it next morning when just before noon I got a message that the Admiral of the Fleet wanted to see me. Dressed as usual in my nondescript collection of army woolen olive drab, I left the Thomas Stone and went up the hill to the St. George.

  I was shown in to Cunningham’s office. For once he was alone; usually his Chief of Staff was there. He smiled genially at me, asked me to be seated.

  “Now, Ellsberg,” he began, “at last you’ll have to wear your blue uniform again.”

  I sat up with a jolt. Now I was finally going to catch it. Several of his staff captains had already warned me that no one was ever allowed to see the admiral save in his best blues, worn out though they might be. They had always marveled he hadn’t thrown me out before, for never except on the one occasion I had first reported to him had he seen me in navy blue, the solitary such uniform I had in Africa. Ever since that day, with that uniform always in Oran, I had seen him only in my army working clothes, all I ever wore. And he’d never said a word about it. However, with my headquarters now in Algiers, I guessed he’d concluded I could begin to toe the line with all the Royal Navy. But he took a different tack.

  “Yes,” he continued, “you really ought to wear it this time. General Eisenhower has asked me to tell you you’re invited to tea at his villa this afternoon, and to dinner with him later. And I think you’ll meet an old friend of yours there. So you’d better wear your blue uniform. That’s all.”

  I left to get back to my quarters and drag out my one and only set of blues. They looked rather wrinkled from overlong stowage in bulging canvas aviation bags. But it was too late to get them pressed; I flattened them out as best I could, shoved them under the mattress, and sat on them in hopes that might help a bit. After all, Cunningham was right; if the C-in-C was honoring me with an invitation to dinner, I ought not to discredit the Navy any more than I could help. I passed up lunch to sit on that uniform. When I finally dragged it out from under the mattress, it did look a trifle smoother.

  But all the while I sat, I was puzzling over Cunningham’s cryptic statement. Who might the old friend be for whose benefit, as well as for General Eisenhower’s, I ought to dress up? I couldn’t even hazard a guess. So I concentrated on my clothes.

  Once completely attired, I went back to the St. George to have Private Stacy first pass judgment on me. She looked me over critically, finally concluded that as the lighting even in the general’s villa would probably be dim anyway, I might pass. Besides, she pointed out, I’d lost so much weight the uniform was too big for me now, and anyone would naturally (and charitably) conclude that the wrinkles I hadn’t eliminated resulted from that cause. I could safely chance it. So, stamped with Private Stacy’s much-qualified approval, I set out, though I judged she wouldn’t herself have been found dead with her uniform in no better state of press than mine.

  I had only a vague notion as to where Eisenhower’s villa was, other than that it was somewhere in a garden adjoining the St. George. So I asked one of his military aides for sailing directions. I should have had a pilot. There were barbed wire entanglements all over the place, with the path leading through harder to follow than the channel threading the torpedo-defense nets guarding Mers-el-Kebir against U-boats.

  Then in addition, there were vicious-looking armed sentries popping out at unexpected moments from the shrubbery, demanding to see my pass. It was evident that between the barbed wire and the sentries, no Nazi paratroopers dropped thereabouts were going to have an easy time kidnaping or killing the C-in-C, nor was any deluded French student going to be allowed, unquestioned, to take a seat at the General’s doorstep and shoot him, a la Darlan, when he came home. I didn’t blame Eisenhower, but it caused me trouble.

  Finally, a little late, I made it. Lieutenant Commander Butcher, naval aide, greeted me to say the General would be down before long, but meanwhile there was someone else who’d like to see me. Still wondering who that might be, I was let into a long living room.

  I received a first class surprise. There, hand outstretched in greeting, was Ernie King, Commander-in-Chief of the United States Fleet, Chief of Naval Operations, and the highest ranking admiral in our Navy! I could hardly believe my eyes. What could he be doing in an area of British responsibility, where besides we had no active warships of our own?

  But I was certainly happy to see him again. We’d first met long years before on a salvage job, when he, a captain, had been Officer-in-Charge of the Salvage Squadron detailed to raise the sunken submarine S-51, and I, a lieutenant commander, had been his assistant as Salvage Officer on her. Since then our paths had crossed many times, the last occasion in Washington a few days after Pearl Harbor when he’d just been dragged in from sea to take command of the whole Navy and this time to salvage a nation.

  I’d said goodby to him then just before I shoved off myself for Massawa, feeling that if any man could save America from disaster, Ernie King could. I had worked under him in time of stress before; to me, he was the best all-around officer the Navy had. And there wasn’t a man on earth I was gladder to see at that moment than Ernie King.

  We sat down, Butcher left. My astonishment at seeing Admiral King in Africa was so apparent, he explained. He’d just come from the Casablanca Conference between Roosevelt and Churchill. My eyebrows lifted again; I hadn’t heard the slightest whisper around Algiers of any such conference. And in Casablanca, he went on to tell me, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound, First Sea Lord of the British Admiralty (and Ernie King’s opposite number in the Royal Navy) had taken occasion to thank him for the salvage results I’d produced in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.

  “Well, Ellsberg,” continued Admiral King, “I told him it was only what I’d expected of you; you were the best salvage officer in the world. And he heartily agreed with me.”

  Though at the moment he didn’t know it, Ernie King was playing right down my alley; soon enough he’d find it out—what I wanted of him was not compliments but a little help and some badly needed pontoons for saving the navy’s best attack transport, the U.S.S. Thomas Stone.

  We talked on about other things; how different the situation was then from the day when last we’d parted when it seemed all but hopeless between the Japanese tide flooding westward toward India and Rommel starting his victorious rush eastward across Africa towards Suez. Now, only the day before Tripoli had surrendered, Rommel was fleeing into Tunisia. At the Coral Sea and Midway we had smashed the Japanese advance and were starting on the road back ourselves with the result no longer doubtful—only how much longer would it take.

  King looked me over critically. Evidently my appearance didn’t suit him. He suggested I take things a bit easier
now. That was my cue.

  “Admiral,” I replied, “I could, if I had some help in keeping up with the wrecks. You send me six young officers with engineering training to lend a hand; I don’t care if they’ve had no salvage experience. I’ll make salvage officers out of them. And I desperately need a dozen salvage pontoons right now for the Thomas Stone!” and I explained why.

  King was, of course, keenly interested. Right there I turned to, making pencil sketches of exactly the kind of pontoons I wanted, very simple ones, but big. I outlined also my requirements for officer assistants. He made a note of that, slipped my pontoon sketches into his pocket. Then he explained to me that it was a tough situation—the Mediterranean was wholly an area of British responsibility. But for what little I so badly wanted, I needn’t worry. He would see the six officers were shortly sent to help me; he personally would see that from some navy allotment somewhere was squeezed out the few hundred tons of steel necessary to build the salvage pontoons to save the Thomas Stone now and other wrecks later. The officers would be along in a few weeks; the pontoons, just as swiftly as they could be built and shipped—two months perhaps.

  At that moment, General Eisenhower came down, our tete-a-tete on salvage ceased abruptly. Eisenhower welcomed me genially, congratulated me on getting Oran open again, and we all sat down to tea. King steered the conversation in a different direction—what did Eisenhower think of Darlan?

  He couldn’t apparently have touched a subject to open Eisenhower up more vehemently. Eisenhower, still smarting under heavy attack from American opinion, told him. Knowing what he now knew, if he had it all to do over again, he’d do exactly the same. It had been the right and the only move open to him to get along with the war against the Nazis. As for Darlan himself, whether he had been a patriot or merely a turncoat anxious to be on the winning side, Eisenhower would not pretend to pass judgment. All he knew for a fact was that from the moment he and Darlan had reached an agreement, Darlan had always played square with him to the day of his death, wholeheartedly and effectively co-operating in a difficult situation to defeat our enemies and the enemies of France. No man could have done more. What were his motives? Only God knew; Eisenhower would not presume to judge; Darlan was dead now—his conduct with us entitled him to the benefit of all doubts.

  Once again there was an interruption. In through the front door came General Alexander, Commander-in-Chief of the British Eighth Army, still in dusty battle dress, hot off the desert from the taking of Tripoli not twenty-four hours before! Apparently generals could come to tea in working clothes, even if it were inadvisable for salvage officers to try it. Eisenhower introduced him to King and to me, and poured some tea for him. The conversation shifted to Rommel and the conditions of desert warfare, where sand, not mud, was the problem.

  But that wasn’t all. Very shortly down the stairs from the second floor came to join us the Army Chief of Staff, General Marshall! My eyes bugged out. I had certainly hit into something. Eisenhower, Alexander, Marshall, King—the Allied Commander-in-Chief for Torch, the British Commander-in-Chief for all the rest of Africa, the Army Chief of Staff, the Chief of Naval Operations—what a collection! If a rain of Nazi paratroopers had descended from the skies just then to seize Eisenhower, they would have fallen dead at the sight of their actual bag. I understood better now why I had run into so many tough-looking sentries amongst all the barbed wire entanglements outside.

  I was introduced to General Marshall, then Eisenhower proceeded to pour more tea. The conversation began again, all shop talk-how quickest to win the war with the least loss of men. I listened silently.

  But as the afternoon waned and the little knot around the tea table broke up, in all probability to give Eisenhower and Alexander a chance for a private discussion as to how best they might now squeeze Rommel in Tunisia between the two of them, I became a little uneasy. After all, though I’d been invited for dinner also, this was more than I had bargained for.

  I drew Admiral King aside and suggested that I might be a trifle out of place at dinner with all the gold lace and silver stars gleaming around there; I could easily excuse myself on urgent salvage business and leave them freer for top echelon discussion. But King said no; I must stay. Nobody would be embarrassed. So I stayed for dinner.

  CHAPTER

  38

  WE HAD A BUSY SESSION IN MY office next day. I had brought Lieutenant Ankers ashore once the Thomas Stone was unrigged, to start working with the Royal Navy staff on making up our salvage program for the assault on Bizerte when spring came. There was to be no repetition of the unpreparedness at the taking of Oran. We should have an overland salvage party and their gear all loaded in trucks to enter Bizerte on the heels of the army, ready to cope with sabotaged ships. The King Salvor and the Salvestor (with other salvage ships if by then we had any more) were to be lined up to enter instantly from the sea side when the city fell. A large amount of preparatory work was necessary for the set-up. Ankers turned to on it.

  Meanwhile the King Salvor was hurriedly preparing to sail at long last for Bône to rejoin her regular salvage officer. I spent some time in instructing Captain Harding on the situation there.

  In the midst of these discussions, in walked Captain Bennehoff to say goodby to me. He had just been detached from the Thomas Stone and ordered to Arzeu to take command on the beaches there and train landing craft crews in amphibious warfare—that had been his speciality. Where would the men he trained work? My guess was the next beachhead assault would be on Sicily, once Tunisia was taken. But Benny was non-committal—my guess was too good to make discussion safe. Whether Benny was glad or sorry, was hard to make out. He was certainly sorry to leave his ship still on the beach; unquestionably he was glad to have an active assignment again, even if only with flotillas of small craft. I wished him luck.

  Then a dispatch came in from Captain Reed in Oran. Once the Grand Dock was up, before leaving Oran I had started Reed’s men on the lifting of the Moyen Dock, capsized with the capsized French submarine Danaë on top of it. Reed wired that he had run into a peculiar salvage situation. Could I come back to Oran? The instructions I’d left him didn’t fit conditions he’d found on his new wrecks.

  Leaving Ankers and Reitzel to run the Algiers office, I returned next morning to Oran. Shortly I was out in a small boat over the sunken port side of the capsized Moyen Dock. Somewhat to my left was the starboard side wall of the dock, mostly out of water. Beneath me, completely invisible, was the sunken Danaë. Bill Reed explained to me his problem; Buck Scougale and Al Watson filled in the details.

  After a brief rest from their labors on the Grand Dock, they had turned to on the Moyen Dock. It was a shallow water job, hardly thirty feet down and comparatively simple. It lay close to the quays, to the right of the Môle Millerand. My instructions had been to waste no time in sealing up the submarine Danaë or in attempting to raise her first. They were to disregard her, seal up the sunken side of the Moyen Dock, and blow that to the surface with compressed air, bringing the sunken submarine up with it.

  That had been the idea and they had tried, but it wouldn’t do—they couldn’t. It appeared that the Danaë in rolling off the keel blocks to port inside the dry dock, had capsized about three-quarters round and her conning tower had punched a hole in the steel floor of the dry dock, making it non-watertight. When they blew compressed air into the dry dock, all the air amidships promptly blew out that hole and the dock wouldn’t float up. They had tried to get to the hole to patch it, but in that they’d been baffled also. The capsized submarine was lying so close on top the hole, an eel couldn’t get to it. Both Buck and Al had tried to worm their way under the sub to that hole but they just couldn’t squeeze in; it was wholly inaccessible.

  There was no way out except to lift the submarine off the dock first to expose the hole so it could be patched. Reed had done all the preparatory work toward that already, but so long as I was available, he felt I should know before he went contrary to my orders. Did I mind if he li
fted the submarine first? It was that or nothing.

  Of course I didn’t mind. They could begin right away; I’d watch. Reed started up his air compressors and began to blow air into the almost upside down submarine. It wasn’t a very big one; around 600 tons. But after a little on the spot figuring, I doubted it would float up. Reed could get only about 400 tons buoyancy into it before the air started to escape from the open conning tower hatch which he couldn’t get to to batten down.

  That was what happened. In less than an hour, air started to bubble up freely but the sub hadn’t floated. Still, the remaining weight of the Danaë couldn’t be great; a big floating crane should be able to lift either end. We sent tugs for the only crane Oran had, the one we had used on the Spahi. Soon they were back with it. By that time, the divers had put a heavy wire sling around the submarine’s tail.

  The crane hooked on to that and with no great effort heaved the Danaë’s stern to the surface.

  But at that point, all hands started to scratch their heads. We had the Danaë by the tail, all right, but what next? There was only one crane in Oran. If we let go the stern to lift the bow with the only crane there was, the stern would promptly sink back again on top the Moyen Dock. We were stymied.

  The French captain of the crane got tired of hanging on to the Danaë’s tail and asked me what I wished of him next. In Spanish we fought the situation out. It appeared there was nothing to be done except for him to slack away and let the stern sink again while I thought it over.

  Reed and I finally concluded there was only one way out. There was no other crane. We must find some sort of scow or barge in Oran harbor which could float a load of about 100 tons. With that available, we could lift the stern to the surface again with the crane, then carefully transfer the load to slings on the scow, let go with the crane, shift the crane over the bow, lift the bow, tow the whole floating assembly of crane, submarine, and scow off the Moyen Dock, and then sink the Danaë in the mud somewhere near by where she wouldn’t annoy us any further while we proceeded to raise the Moyen Dock.