Sonarman Starr wrote that the prisoners were “skeletons, some too weak to walk unaided.” Starr added that nobody, crew or former prisoner of war, slept that night while Nicholas returned to Tokyo. “The POWs were too excited to sleep. They asked us questions, such as ‘Who won the World Series?’” Starr hoped to learn about their ordeals in prison camp, “but they didn’t talk much about that.”
The next morning, crew had to help the POWs to the mess hall, because walking along the rolling deck and maneuvering the ladders was too difficult a task for men who had gone without sustenance for so long. “The cooks served the All-American breakfast, pancakes, butter, and syrup. The POWs’ eyes were a lot bigger than their stomachs. They could have all they wanted, so they took 8, 10, 12, whatever pancakes. They ate one or two bites and couldn’t eat any more because the food was too rich. They weren’t used to eating so much at one time.”
The crews enjoyed liberties ashore, where they walked among the ruins of what used to be part of Tokyo. They were surprised by the friendliness of the Japanese civilians, who, once their emperor advised them to accept the surrender, switched from military to civilian mode. Starr wrote, “When we got liberty, which we did in Tokyo, Yokohama, and, later, Sendai, we were treated as tourists, walking about, looking, shopping, talking with people who could speak English, settling down for lunch, that sort of thing.”
Some ships, such as Nicholas, hired Japanese civilians to do the dishwashing and disposing of the garbage. “Normally we threw away our uneaten food,” wrote Starr. “But the Japanese were hungry; they took that food home, reheated it, and fed their families and neighbors.” The image of impoverished Japanese civilians hoarding scraps of food reminded Starr of the Depression era back home, when out-of-work men and their families, including his, had waited in breadlines. “My own family had stood in welfare lines for a pound of beans and a pound of rice,” he wrote, “so seeing the Japanese taking our discards home to eat did not seem unusual or out of the ordinary. Hungry people ate whatever they could find.” After observing the sad state of the civilians, Starr was convinced that if the atom bombs had not put an end to the war, hunger “almost certainly would have, and fairly soon.”27
Both ships hoisted their homeward-bound pennants in October. Nicholas arrived in Seattle on October 19, “a great day” according to the ship’s cruise book. The executive officer, Lieutenant Commander R. Townshend Jr., told the crew, “In looking back over the period of World War II and the record of the ‘Nick,’ it is my earnest hope that you feel as proud as I do to be able to say, ‘I was a Nicholas man.’”28
Three more Desron 21 destroyers returned to the United States in November, joining the four—La Vallette, Radford, Fletcher, and Jenkins—already in home waters for repairs. Taylor arrived on November 1, followed the next week by Hopewell. Howorth, which had been repaired from her kamikaze attack and was on her way back to the Pacific when the war ended, was the final squadron ship to return when she steamed beneath the Golden Gate Bridge on November 28.
EPILOGUE
Once hostilities ended, Commander MacDonald enjoyed a distinguished naval career during which he attained the rank of rear admiral. After leaving O’Bannon, he helped organize a school in the United States to instruct prospective commanding officers of destroyers before joining Allied forces in Europe, where he served as operations and plans officer and was reunited with his former London boss, Admiral Ghormley. Following the war, he commanded the presidential yacht, Williamsburg, during President Truman’s tenure. Upon retirement from the Navy, MacDonald became a military consultant for various industries and a stockbroker. He died in 1997 at the age of eighty-eight.
Doc Ransom returned to California, where for more than forty-five years he tended civilian patients in San Jose with the same care he had given his La Vallette sailors. Doc Ransom performed numerous surgeries and delivered hundreds of babies, becoming a respected member of the community. The proud father of four children also loved Stanford University, never failing to attend the football team’s home games and often accompanying them to away contests. In a sign of the esteem in which the San Jose area held Doc Ransom, the wake following his death from cancer on July 17, 1992, was heavily attended by his former patients and by many of the parents of the babies he had delivered.
Seaman Chesnutt returned to his hometown, Hope Hull, Alabama, where he and Betty, his wife of seventy years, enjoy a happy retirement. The explosions and noise from those battles of seven decades ago have receded, but the effects linger. Tom Chesnutt lost nearly half his hearing, making it difficult for him to discern softer sounds, such as crickets in the field or grandchildren at play. He deflects praise over what he and his squadron achieved so long ago, contending in 2016, “It was just a job we had to do.”1
Ray Ellen followed Orvill Raines’s wish that she remarry, but his memory never faded. In 1994, family granted permission to William M. McBride to edit and publish Orvill’s powerful letters in the moving book Good Night Officially: The Pacific War Letters of a Destroyer Sailor.
Russell Bramble still thinks of the shipmate he held in his arms as they floated in the water. “He’s on my mind quite often,” said Bramble in 2016 from his home in Hastings, Nebraska, where he has lived his entire life. That Bramble stood not far from Raines on the bridge—a brief distance that resulted in Raines succumbing and Bramble surviving—has not been lost on him, but he tries to put life in perspective. “Every day’s a holiday with me,” said Bramble, who with his wife, Joan, recently celebrated their sixty-seventh wedding anniversary. Nonetheless, the memory of Orvill Raines is never far from his thoughts.2
Seaman Robert Whisler returned to Gladwin, Michigan, where in 1950 he “married the prettiest girl around,” Lucille Koontz. He retired after a long career with Dow Chemical, and, as of this writing, enjoys a good life with Lucille and “lots of trout streams, golfing, and bowling.” One constant in his life remains the now dulled silver dollar given him before the war by his grandmother, which he believes helped pull him through. “I carried it all through the war,” he said. “It was always in my pocket. I had a guardian angel. I still have it. I still carry it in my pocket every day. I feel it is a part of me.”3
The war altered Quartermaster Martin Johnson of La Vallette in a positive way. He said in 2016 that the ship’s officers, who because of their college degrees held more important posts, inspired him to continue his education. “I saw the officers, who looked barely older than me, and they were officers because they had the education and I was a sailor because I didn’t.”4 After the war Johnson earned a degree in optometry and spent the rest of his life in that field. He is now retired and living in New Mexico with Frances, his wife of fifty-nine years, and proud of their three children, seven grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.
Seaman 1/c Jack O’Neill of Nicholas chooses not to forget his experiences or the people with whom he served. Most shipmates are now gone, but his membership in a veterans group in Connecticut helps keep their memories vibrant. “We do military funerals,” he explained in 2015. “That’s what keeps you going.” A sign in O’Neill’s home adorning the entrance to one room, filled with Nicholas memorabilia, reads, “USS Nicholas (DD-449) Crew’s Quarters,” and the former sailor proudly drives about town in a car bearing the license tag USS NIC.5
Tameichi Hara’s exploits in the war, from the conflict’s opening days in December 1941 until his nation’s collapse in 1945, gained the officer great prestige and acclaim. One of the few Japanese destroyer captains to survive such extensive service, Hara returned to his wife, raised three children, and wrote an extraordinary memoir of his wartime experiences before he died in 1980. He could justifiably claim that, due to his many contributions to his nation during the war and because of his daring as a destroyer captain, he had obeyed his samurai grandfather, Moichiro, who admonished his grandson to live as a samurai, be prepared to die, and restore military honor to the family.
It would take pages and pages more to com
pletely detail the record of Desron 21. Suffice it to say that ships of the squadron served in both theaters and in every major US offensive of the Pacific war save for the Mariana and Palau campaigns. In the Pacific, they began at Guadalcanal in 1942, swept up the Solomons and on to the Gilberts and Marshalls, moved along the New Guinea coast to the Philippines, and advanced north to Iwo Jima and Okinawa before being honored participants in the Tokyo Bay surrender. The twelve destroyers that served in the squadron earned more battle stars than any other unit, including seventeen for MacDonald’s O’Bannon, sixteen for Nicholas, and fifteen each for Fletcher and Taylor.
Ships from the squadron fought in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal and the Battle of Tassafaronga in November 1942, exchanged quick salvos in the furious fighting in the Slot and in the jarring 1943 Kula Gulf clashes, and evaded shells off Corregidor and mines in the Philippine waters. They held their breath as kamikazes swooped toward them in the Philippines and Okinawa, and again when they led Halsey’s ships into Tokyo Bay.
They did not always participate in those headline-snaring surface engagements in which battleships and cruisers slugged it out with the Japanese, nor did they glide across the waters in grand style as did the fast carriers and their air squadrons. Theirs was more often the grunt work—the bombardments, the escorting assignments, and the harbor screenings—that, while less glamorous and not as exciting for home-front readers, chipped away at the Japanese military foundation as steadily as waves erode a shore. That work was equally as vital as those titanic sea clashes, and Desron 21 excelled in these areas.
Most important, the fast carrier task forces never would have been able to dominate Pacific waters in 1944–1945 without the courageous deeds of Desron 21 and other destroyer crews in 1942–1943. When the nation needed time to expand its arsenal, those officers and enlisted helped stall the Japanese advance in the Solomons and begin the turnaround that led to victory. Their sacrifices in the war’s first half helped enable the nation’s armed forces to overwhelm a Japanese military plagued by depleted resources as the United States added to theirs.
Let one of the squadron officers argue the case. “The ships of Desron 21 achieved a remarkable record, sharing in the sinking of a Japanese battleship, several cruisers, a half dozen destroyers and dozens of aircraft,” wrote Ensign McCarthy of the Taylor. “They were credited with sinking ten submarines, three by the Taylor.” He said the unit “participated in countless shore bombardments, rescued 1,800 sailors and downed airmen,” and earned a record number of battle stars during the war.6 The initial trio of O’Bannon, Fletcher, and Nicholas each steamed more than 230,000 miles during the war, equal to nine times around the world at the equator.
Besides engaging the enemy, Desron 21 made other significant contributions to the war. Admiral Halsey’s belief that Desron 21 was a key factor in holding the line in the Solomons until help arrived, an achievement of the admiral’s that may have saved the Pacific war, led to Halsey selecting the final three destroyers from the squadron to lead his armada into Tokyo Bay. Cole and Wylie of Fletcher promoted the benefits of radar and helped develop the combat information center, which numerous commanders cited as a significant enhancement in their ability to wage surface combat. MacDonald and fellow skippers pushed for a reform of destroyer tactics, which blossomed under the guidance of Arleigh Burke.
It came with a cost, however. Three ships—De Haven, Strong, and Chevalier—were sunk, either from aerial bombs or by torpedoes. Five sustained heavy damage, including Doc Ransom’s La Vallette, Orvill Raines’s Howorth, Radford, Fletcher, and Jenkins. Almost four hundred men perished. Remarkably, while some destroyers were sunk, O’Bannon sustained little damage and its crew absorbed not a single battle casualty.
Nicholas, too, was fortunate. “We were a lucky ship,” wrote Ensign Gabelman. “When the De Haven was sunk by six dive bombers, eight more had gone after the Nicholas. We lost two men (our only two of the war) to a near miss. On at least two different occasions, we saw torpedoes passing our ship but missing. We were only 400 yards ahead of the Strong the night she was sunk by a torpedo fired from eleven miles away. Later in the war, a kamikaze tried to crash our ship. It barely missed the bridge but it did clip part of the yardarm high up on the mast. It took lots more than skill to remain afloat.”7
Service with Desron 21 affected the crews in different ways. Sonarman 3/c Douglas Starr packed a lifetime of experiences into just a few years. “I was one month over 18 years old and a sonarman 3/c when I joined USS Nicholas (DD 449) at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in mid-December 1943,” Starr wrote after the war. “Twenty-one months later, Nicholas and I had fought in 11 battles and island landings and sunk two Japanese submarines, and I was not yet 20 years old. All in all, it was a grand adventure; I would not have missed it for the world.”8
Commander MacDonald was proud to watch his crew coalesce before his eyes. The lessons he learned in London, where he worked side by side with English citizens as they stood resolute, united by Winston Churchill in their defiance of the Nazi threat, helped mold the skipper who so capably commanded in the Pacific. Like those brave London residents, his crew withstood everything the Japanese offered and emerged triumphant. “The O’Bannon is a great ship but the crews cannot be overlooked as they are what has made her so,” MacDonald wrote in 1964. “From the start of her life it seemed that someone above was looking out for us. We called it luck but it was more than that. The crew learned to fight together.”9
As far as Lieutenant George Gowen, Chevalier’s engineering officer, was concerned, the war prepared him and others to face future tribulations, for if they could emerge from the chaos that was the Pacific war, they could deal with anything. “I’m sure that you will all agree that our service in Chevalier affected our whole lives. Those who came through looked deep into their own hearts and souls and characters and they have marched forward through all their trials and tests with pride and confidence.”10
Soldiers and sailors returning from the war typically put those experiences behind them to concentrate on building families and careers. Reflection on what they did comes later, when an event or action jars the memory. One occurred in 1983 with a letter from Alvin Brooks, formerly of the cruiser Northampton, to Fletcher sailor Olon Henderson. After the Northampton sank in the November 1942 Battle of Tassafaronga, Brooks had been struggling to stay above the surface of the water when Fletcher’s crew came to his rescue. Forty-one years later he wished to thank those men for saving his life and for giving him years to fashion home and family that otherwise could have been denied him.
“I was one of those oily Gobs that you and your buddies pulled from the Pacific Ocean on Nov. 30–Dec. 1, 1942. I’m sure glad your shipmates were on the ball that fateful night because I was tired of swimming,” he wrote. “I sincerely owe my life to the USS Fletcher and her crackerjack crew.” He added that he wanted Henderson and every other member of Fletcher to know “how grateful I and my Northampton shipmates are that the Fletcher came to the rescue.”
Brooks wrote a poem titled “The USS Fletcher DD-445” to express his gratefulness for Fletcher’s actions of four decades earlier. Here are three of the stanzas:
Oh! What a wonderful sight it was
Her beacon lighting up the swell
To me she was an angel of mercy
Pulling me from the grips of hell.
Fletcher didn’t know the meaning of fear
And remained within harm’s way
She plucked us from the oily sea
To fight another day.
Yes, I hate to get hung up on numbers
But there’s lucky ones of every size
And on November 30th, 1942
My lucky one was 445 [Fletcher’s hull number].11
Thomas Chesnutt, one of the Fletcher crew honored by Brooks’s poem, considered that, except for his marriage, his time in the Navy was the noblest period of his life. His pride in his ship and his shipmates, who banded together to help defeat the Japanese, a
nd his love for the Navy, which was such a large part of that victory, still shine. “‘Anchors Aweigh’ still makes shivers run up and down my back,” he wrote. “I guess I will always be a United States Navy man at heart!”12
So, too, is Machinist’s Mate 1/c Willy Rhyne of O’Bannon, who continues to attend his ship’s reunions even though many of his buddies are no longer with him. The years have taken a toll, but the spirit of his destroyer, instilled by Commander MacDonald, continues to resonate. He is proud of the ship and of the officers and men with whom he served.
Rhyne is glad as well that they have not been forgotten. In 2015 he and a handful of World War II shipmates, as part of that year’s reunion, attended a San Diego Padres baseball game. “We were guests at the Padres game and had VIP seats,” said Rhyne. “They mentioned on the big screen that O’Bannon heroes were here, and we got an ovation.”13
Al Grimes of the Strong honors the memories of his shipmates, especially those who perished after the ship went down, but claims that victory was possible only because of the combined efforts of everybody who served. His words encapsulate the key ingredient to victory in the Pacific and the common thread that ran throughout the destroyers of Desron 21: “Each old sailor cherishes his own private inner shrine that is filled with the memories of those great old guys he knew so long ago. They did what was needed when it was needed, regardless of the hours and risk—and it was no big deal. Each of us knew many like this; they were everywhere. That’s the way it was on Strong.”14
That’s the way it was, too, in Destroyer Squadron 21. A career Navy officer, a civilian seaman, a gridiron hero, a doctor, and a romantic yeoman, backed by far-thinking officers and shipmates willing to sacrifice the utmost, melded to form the most honored destroyer squadron of the Pacific war. Together, they bested Hara and the Japanese in the Solomons and helped take the war to the waters of Tokyo Bay.
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