The Kid from Hoboken

by Bill Bailey

  We went down to the engine room and found the shipyard crew with open-neck quart milk cartons, dousing the engine with oil. The oilers were clad in rain gear and much of the oil splashed on them. They poured it on the engine, a quart every fifteen minutes. Every motor, every pump, was being tested at that moment. In fact, the testing had started at eight in the morning and here it was three in the afternoon, and the engine was still racing wide open.

  While I walked around the engine room looking at the newness of everything, the port captain was consulting some of the big wheels in the shipbuilding business. I heard one of the yardsmen say to the port captain, "She's all yours now, cap. Let's shut her down for a rest." The engine came to a stop and men started mopping up oil and washing down the rods. A short while later the port captain said to me, "She belongs to us now. Take good care of her, Bill."

  The next day the rest of the crew came aboard, including the chief engineer, a nice old character who had been coaxed out of retirement. The second assistant and third assistant engineers were young men and took to the responsibility immediately.

  The Samuel Gompers steamed empty down to Port Hueneme, near Los Angeles. There we picked up a load of war materials, then took off to points in Alaska where we would engage in the battle to win back the Aleutian Islands from the Japanese. It was new territory for me. With a crew of eager-beaver youngsters--with the exception of a few old-timers who preferred the cool north to the hot South Pacific--we merged our energies to make the trip a success. After all, it was a brand-new ship, and what could go wrong on a brand-new vessel?

  The first crisis came quickly. One of the crank pins on the main engine got hot from lack of oil and ended up scorching the babbitt, creating a totally new sound in the engine. In the beginning the engine had a beautiful purring sound. Now there was a horrible-sounding clunk-clunk every time the engine made a revolution. There were a few moments when I could have lassoed the young, lazy-ass oiler to the connecting rod and watched him go up and down for the rest of the voyage.

  We spent close to four months running up and down the Aleutian chain feeding supplies to our troops. It was always cold and gray and one hell of a place to ever get torpedoed in, since the waters were frigid. But we came through it okay. New orders took us down to Seattle for refurbishing and new assignments. I was sitting at my desk there when a young man came to the door. He introduced himself and said he was from the FBI. He did not address me by name, but by rank.

  "I hear you have some Communists on board," he said. "How is their performance? Any problems with them?" I smiled politely at him and gave him the best answer I could, "Hell, if you know where I can get my hands on more of them, let me know. They're the best darn workers on board."

  He looked a little taken aback, but that was the end of the conversation. Apparently he had not been cued in as to who the Communists were on the Gompers.

  Before the Gompers was to sail again she would have to undergo some repair work on her engine, especially on the connecting rod, as well as minor repairs on the air extractor. It would take maybe two weeks before the Gompers would work her way to the head of the list for a machinist gang. I packed up my bags and took a train for San Francisco.

  It was at about this time that the Party leadership, being so wrapped up in winning the war, forgot what the bourgeoisie was all about. It was true that there was a lull period when most differences--that is, class differences--were set aside while the war raged on. Such things as strikes, stoppages of work, or lockouts were not the main issues. Labor had given a no-strike pledge for the war's duration. Most beefs and complaints were settled quickly. Both management and labor were pulling together to win the war. Of course, both the workers and shipowners had viewpoints of what life would be like after the war ended. The employers were thinking of how they were going to reap bigger profits once the war was over, and, foremost, they were thinking of how to handle the union situation. Meanwhile, the workers were being lulled to sleep with dreams of grandeur.

  At this stage, the head of the American Communist Party, Earl Browder, wrote a book called Teheran and After. The unity and determination of these nations in the war was above reproach. Browder--and most of the Party leaders--had come to the conclusion that the capitalists and the working class were now sitting down and working together to win the war and to work out the peace, and that the future was going to be a great time. What the leadership was telling us was that "progressive capitalism" was anxious to let bygones be bygones, and from now on they would sit down at the same table with the workers. Together they would work in harmony to make the world a heaven on earth. This was the way the heads of the Communist Party were seeing things. The class struggle as defined by Karl Marx was about to be swept under the rug, and perhaps Marx with it.

  Chapter XII: The PT Boat

  I joined the George Powell, a Liberty ship, as first assistant. Walter Stich was chief engineer on this vessel. He was a fellow Party member with whom I had had the good fortune to have sailed several other ships. Walter was the kind of guy I loved to sail with. He was knowledgeable, an excellent engineer, and an easy man to talk with. I looked forward to a good trip.

  On board our ship was a wonderful skipper named Ole Olson, a guy about 70 who had retired from the sea and was now brought back for the emergency. In the tropics he loved to walk around in his underpants and nothing else. His body was covered with hair, lots of it, and the crew hung a nickname on him, The Bear. His pot belly seemed out of control as it lopped over the top of his trousers. He cursed anything and everything: the military, the ship, the crew, the sea. Nothing was safe from his wrath. In spite of his temper, he was a great seaman and a great poker player. I liked him immensely, and he liked me.

  Across from my room was the purser's office. A desk, some file cabinets, lots of paper and a typewriter were its main furnishings. When the purser was not around, I would make use of the typewriter to type my letters. While typing a letter one fine afternoon, I heard The Bear shouting in the alleyway. "Oh, purser, where are you?" He came to the purser's door and looked in. He was surprised to see me at the desk, typing away. "My God, I thought you were the purser. My, but you can type faster than the purser. Where did you learn all that? In college?" Before I had a chance to play with the answer he was gone on his way, looking for the purser.

  That great navigational instrument, the sextant, always fascinated me. It was the age-old instrument that mariners had been using to crisscross their way across the oceans of the world. My opportunity to use one came one morning as the third mate was using his. He showed me how to bring the sun down to the horizon and obtain a reading. It just so happened on that The Bear appeared on deck and saw me with the sextant as I was giving my reading to the mate. "Hold it," he said, surprising me by coming directly to me to check the reading. He looked at my instrument, then took his own test. "By golly, I get the same reading as the first assistant." He turned to me with a surprised look on his face. "You sure are one smart guy."

  I suppose the biggest surprise came to him a week later as we were being escorted through some islands in the Philippines, heading for the invasion of Subic Bay. In a ten-ship convoy that we caught up with about fifty miles from Subic Bay in the south China Sea, we had one destroyer and a smaller vessel, a destroyer escort. The destroyer headed the convoy, slowly zigzagging across the path of the slow-moving ships. The weather was hot, not a cloud in the sky. I stood on the bridge talking to the radio operator as we both rested our arms on the bridge railing, watching the antics of the destroyer and the other ships in front of us. Suddenly the destroyer's Morse code signaling light went into operation, dash-dot-dash. "He's saying something," I said to the radio operator. "I wonder what he's saying?"

  "Looks like he's saying PQ, PQ, PQ, whatever that means. I don't know," the radio operator replied. "I better go into my shack and stand by the set in case he decides to reach me." He left the bridge. At this time The Bear came charging out from the wheel house, excited as a wet hen.
"What the hell is that fool on the destroyer saying?" he asked, not really expecting an answer from anyone. "I think, captain, he's saying PQ, PQ, PQ, whatever that means," I replied, feeling safe that the radio operator knew his Morse code.

  "PQ, PQ," replied the captain. "What the hell does PQ stand for?" The captain shouted to the chief mate in the wheel house. "Come out here and tell me what that silly bastard up ahead is talking about," he said to the mate. The mate, acting quickly, picked up his field glasses and stepped out on the bridge, focusing on the signal emanating from the destroyer. Then he replied, "It's PQ, PQ. He keeps repeating PQ, PQ."

  "I know it's PQ, PQ. That's what the first assistant said it was! What I want to know is what the hell PQ means!"

  "I don't know," said the mate.

  "Well, damn it," shouted The Bear, "go and find out. Why the hell does the first assistant have to know everything? I must have the dumbest men on deck while the engine room has the smartest! Maybe I should become an engineer." I felt sorry for the mate, who surely didn't deserve all that pressure The Bear was putting on him.

  After consulting the code book, the mate returned quickly to the bridge. "Well, what is it?" the captain asked.

  "It means, batten down the hatches, a severe storm is ready to hit us."

  The captain looked at the sky. It was never so clear as it was at that moment. "The silly bastards," he mumbled while looking at the destroyer.

  An hour later a few drops of rain fell on the deck, not enough to glue a postage stamp.

  The battle for Subic Bay was waged from the beach as our troops pushed back the Japanese soldiers and drove them inland. It all happened so fast that the Japanese were caught by surprise. First, the destroyer and escort rounded the lee side of the island, then came charging into the Bay with guns blazing away. This drove the Japanese from the beach area and put them to flight as the troop carrier moved in quickly to take advantage of the surprise and panic to get our troops onto the beach. Our Liberty ship was ordered to pull into the Bay right after our troops landed and got a foothold on the beach. We dropped anchor and stood by, waiting for word to uncover our hatches and prepare to unload the necessary supplies. Bullets coming from the Japanese soldiers in retreat were bouncing off our superstructure. We were fortunate that there were no big guns for the Japanese to use against us, since we were a stationary target. We were ordered to stay off the deck for fear we'd be hit.

  The next morning things started to shape up more to our liking. The Japanese had been pushed to a safe distance from the beach. No longer were we in range of their trench mortars or rifle fire. We could still hear the sound and feel the tension of the raging fight up ahead and wondered how long it would take before the troops captured the main highway leading into Manila. This was the important phase of this battle, to divert part of the enemy troops away from the defense of Manila while another part of our invading army would attack Manila from another flank.

  On the third day I took a rifle and a belt of ammo from our ship's armory, and with the third mate went ashore. We took advantage of our rank; none of the rank-and-file unlicensed personnel were allowed ashore. Only officers were, providing , of course, they were armed. Wearing the officer's cap gave us the privilege of moving anywhere we cared to.

  The mate and I worked our way slowly toward the front lines, passing jeeps and ammo carriers on the way. The roadway was the scene of dead Japanese soldiers lying where they had fallen. A few had been hit with flame throwers and their bodies still smoldered. Some had been hit by shell fire and pieces of their bodies were everywhere, including a leg dangling from the limb of a tree. The stink of decaying corpses was nauseating in the hot and humid canyon we were traversing. It brought back memories of Spain. As we got closer to the front lines we came across a first aid and hospital waylay station. Many men who were wounded seriously at the front would have died had they been hauled to hospitals in the rear to be operated on. Here the doctors operated quickly on the wounded and tended those in shock, then moved them to safer and quieter surroundings for the long haul back to health. The front line "hospital" was a big morale booster to the soldier. At least he knew he would get immediate attention if he needed it.

  In a small tent I saw at least 20 soldiers lying on cots with bandages wrapped around different parts of their bodies. They looked ashen and exhausted. None spoke, most slept. They had been operated on just a few hours before. Within the day they would be moved to a hospital at the rear. I asked the young doctor about some of the problems they were having in a hospital so close to the front lines. "The front is well-secured at this stage," he said. "We have no fear of being overrun by a counterattack or of being wiped out by a battery of cannon fire. The enemy has no cannons here and their strength has been sapped by our overpowering attacks. If we have a handicap, and we do have problems, it's a lack of whole blood. Our plasma is great, but whole blood is better. We must manage with what we've got."

  That was all I needed to hear before my thinking processes took over. We headed back to the ship and reported what we saw. We talked to our crew about the hospital and the men lying there and the work of the doctors operating on men while the bullets whizzed over their heads and the need of whole blood for the wounded.

  That night I wrote out a plea for blood donors to offer their blood to the wounded soldiers. All that was required was for them to sign their names to the list and when called on, to make the blood donation. In posting the notice on the bulkhead, I assumed I would be lucky to get half the crew. The next morning I looked at the board and almost went into a happy state of shock. The entire crew including officers, had signed the notice. The biggest surprise came when I saw The Bear's name.

  I notified the command at the hospital and all that afternoon groups of five were hauled up to the hospital by jeep. They made their donations, and safely returned to the ship under a well-armed escort. Each donor was handed a short letter of commendation by the commanding officer. One of the nice things that would remain in the minds of the donors was that after they made the donation they were taken through the little hospital, and the wounded were told what the crew of the ship had done. The smiles on the faces of the patients were gratitude enough.

  On about the fifth day at Subic Bay one of the young wipers came running to my room. "First, there's a PT boat alongside and the commander is asking for some water. I told him I would check with you."

  The commander of the PT (patrol-torpedo) boat, a young man of 25 or 30, was waiting for me. Most of his crew of youngsters was also standing on deck, all with their eyes focused on me. The PT had her bow nudged against our ship's side while her motors created a small wave astern of her. "Yes, commander, what can I do for you?" I asked.

  "Sir," he replied, "we are without water. I have asked three other ships for water and they turned us down. Are you going to turn us down, too?"

  I could see all those young faces looking up at me. I had the feeling that if I turned them down they would all jump into the Bay. My first reaction was shock. How the hell could anyone turn down another soldier for some water? What the hell kind of people did we have on those other ships? Of course water was a scarce item, and an important one, too. But we were in a better position to make water. All it took was some oil and energy to turn salt water into fresh water. To deny another fighting man this essential was hard to comprehend. "Commander," I shouted down to him, "you can have all the water you need. Get out your hose. We'll have you connected up in a moment."

  There were shouts of joy. I had the wiper bring up some water hoses and extend them down to their boats, and at the same time dropped down a line to secure their boat to our ship. I invited the commander to come aboard for a cup of coffee and had a Jacob's ladder put over the side for him to come aboard.

  The young commander told me of the days he spent on his boat without any fresh food and nothing but canned army and navy rations. I was appalled by the injustice of the situation. These guys were not getting a decent shake of the dice. I
asked him to have another cup of coffee and stick around, and I would be right back.

  I headed for the captain's room. I was lucky to find him and the steward together. I explained to him about the PT boat and its water problem and the crew's food problem and the treatment they were getting. Then I suggested that we take the crew aboard, let them all bathe and clean up, then sit them down for a good meal on board. The captain looked at the steward. "Do we have enough to take care of the PT boat's crew?" he asked. The steward nodded. "We can manage." I raced back to tell the good news to the commander. He was pleased. His crew was jubilant.

  Soap and towels were supplied and the trek up the ladder by the youngsters began. Hot water, perfumed soap, and the thought of a good meal made the men happy. Our crew members did everything possible to make it a festive occasion. The young commander told me he was awaiting orders to take his craft to Manila Bay in a day or two to cut off any retreat by the enemy. I asked him if he ever took "outsiders" along for the ride. "Yes,"he replied, "as long as they sign a waiver not holding the Navy responsible in case something should happen to them."

  "I would like to make such a trip, if at all possible," I told him.

  "I can't promise, but I'll keep it in mind."

  I was enjoying an afternoon snooze the next day when someone came pounding on my door to tell me that a PT boat was standing by and an officer was shouting my name. I raced out on deck to be greeted by the young commander shouting to me to get a life jacket and come down the Jacob's ladder to his boat. Our purser, a San Franciscan named Schreve, followed me down the ladder. Our chief engineer, Walter Stich, shouted to the commander to make sure he brought us back alive.

  Always alert, we followed the shoreline down the coast. Early that same morning, our Air Force had flown over our heads plane after plane of paratroopers bound for the fortress that dominated the entrance to Manila Bay, Corregidor. It had been extremely fortified since the Japanese had taken over the fortress. They put some of their best troops to man the guns we had left behind. Now, hundreds of paratroopers were being dropped on the fortress because the Japanese were so dug in that the only way they could be dislodged was by hand-to-hand combat. Of course, this put our paratroopers in the position of sitting ducks. Many were dead before they hit the ground. Others found it hard to land on the fortress grounds and ended up drowning in the waters around the objective since no small craft could get to them. Those that did make a safe landing were now engaged in some terrifying struggle to wrest control of the island from an enemy that knew their lives might come to an end if they lost control of the last remaining piece of real estate.