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Thoughts on military status
I just remembered my late father and late uncle talking about the military around WWII and how its status changed so suddenly.
My uncle, George Ferguson, enlisted in the Coast Guard before WWII. At one point he was in Norfolk, the big port, in then-segregated Virginia. The restaurants had signs up: "Negroes and Sailors Not Admitted."
After the war, he was demobilized far from home, and it took several days to get back. In all that time he didn't buy one meal. He'd eat, put money on the counter and the owner would push it back to him, grinning and saying "Your money's not good here, sailor," meaning it was on the house. Or when the check was put down, a civilian would snatch it up and say it was his privilege to buy his meal.
Dad was demobilized on the east coast (he'd been USAAF and it left him terrified of flying... he drove from Tucson to D.C. for our wedding and the baptism of our first kid rather than fly. He set out to return home by thmbing a ride. A guy picked him up, and said they could make Arizona in two days by driving day and night -- the one not driving would sleep in the back seat. Off they went. That meant the owner was trusting a perfect stranger to drive his car while he dozed, but he was a serviceman, wasn't he?
In 1940, a serviceman was treated as scum. In 1945, a man in uniform was treated as at least a completely trustworthy fellow, and often as a hero. [More below]
Chuckle--Uncle Fergie had enlisted in the Coast Guard, figuring it'd be a safe assignment. He wound up escorting convoys thru the frigid North Atlantic. He talked of going past frozen bodies clustered in the water where a torpedoed ship went down. You froze to death in minutes in those waters, and the ships were forbidden to stop and rescue (that'd just make them sitting ducks for the next torpedo). If you got into a life boat, you had a small chance of survival, but if there was no time to launch those, there were no survivors.
From his description, I guess he was on a destroyer escort -- a merchant ship converted into a sort-of destroyer, with projectors for depth charges. He attributed his survival to the fact that the ship was not worth expending torpedos on (U boats had a very limited supply of reloads, and it took a spread of several to be sure of a hit). Their ship was shot at once, and I believe he said the helmsman made a mistake and turned it contrary to the captain's orders, but in some way it created a wave that made the warhead detonate before the torp got to them (or maybe they just thought it caused the detonation).
Dad enlisted in the Army Air Force in 1940. The recruiting officer spun a great line to him and another guy from little St. David, Arizona. Why, he had clout, here's a list of bases, pick the one you want and I'll make sure you get sent there. Dad picked Hickham Field, Hawaii. He had visions of the beach and hula-hula dancers. Of course he never got sent there, kept on asking and being put off.
Then on December 7, 1941, he was happy he'd been deceived. He was a flight line mechanic, and probably would have been right there when the bombs started coming down.
· Personal
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You wrote: "From his description, I guess he was on a destroyer escort -- a merchant ship converted into a sort-of destroyer, with projectors for depth charges." Destroyer escorts, or DEs, were purpose-built warships; they were not converted from merchant vessels. They were, however, on the low end of the firepower spectrum. As you noted, they served yeoman duty during the Battle of the Atlantic. They also served in the island-hopping campaign in the Pacific, distinguishing themselves on several occasions. Look up Taffy 3 at the Battle off Samar, when a small force of escort carriers, destroyers and destroyer escorts took on the Japanese fleet (battleships, cruisers, destroyers) and _won_. See http://home.grandecom.net/~cvproj/battle-samar.htm
According to my readings, and the local lore of the few left who remember these things, the Navy and Coast Guard were in the habit of "appropriating" vessels suitable for conversion to escort or anti-submarine patrol duty.
Most large yachts on both coasts suffered this fate, unless their owners had some Congressional buddies. Special officers were assigned to scour all the ports and yacht harbors for suitable vessels.
If your ship or boat was picked, you had the option of "selling" it to the Navy or Coast Guard, taking a fraction of what it was worth, or they would "borrow" it from you, and promise to return it, in pre-taking condition, at the end of hostilities.
It varied, but most Coast Guard Districts actually made an effort to return the yachts to their owners, and they paid boatyards to remove the weaponry, extra berths, etc that had been installed and restore the yacht to pre-war shape.
There was a bonus in this. The USCG didn't like to have to deal with a variety of different yacht engines of the time, so they usually refitted the yacht with a military engine, which were far superior to the pre-war yacht engines, for the most part. When returned to previous owners, these military engines were left in the yachts, giving the owner a modern re-power job.
Most were repowered with the then-new, (now dinosaur) 671N diesel, which is the only engine from that era still being made in relatively unchanged form (Now by Detroit Diesel). There are millions of the engines still in service, and a variant of it became the first standard heavy truck engine (the 155-hp Detroit of the late 50's)
The renowned yacht architect Ed Monk Sr got his start designing a "corvette" for the Coast Guard. The Corvette was simply a largish yacht (70 to 95 feet) hull of a narrow design. Powered by two 671s, it could make almost 20 knots, so it could outrun a submerged sub. It did not chase sufaced subs, which seriously outgunned it. It carried three to five depth charges in one roll-off rack astern, and a M2 or a brace of them forward. It's main job wasn't attack, it was there to keep any enemy subs submerged and thereby limit their operations, and to attack when no other warship was available, or to drop a depth charge or two just to keep the sub skipper's head down while heavier craft came to lay bigger depth charge patterns. I don't think most corvettes were even equipped with any detection gear, so depended on their lookouts.
When I first got to Norfolk, Virginia in January, 1974, the saying was"Sailors and Dogs keep off the grass" This was toward the end of the War in Vietnam. I am originally from Havre, Montana. It was quite a shock. It was not good for those of us in The Armed Forces of The United States until Jimmy Carter left office.
In recent years, since my retirement from Active Service in 1993, people come up to me and thank me for my service. I wear a US Navy Retired baseball cap all the time now. It has taken a very long time to see any recognition, of any kind. I understand this family's frustration at times. Even my own high school classmates at times seemed to disown me.
My memory of my separation was not good. Suffice it to say I was in the Army 64/66. Upon coming home, I found it easier to stay quiet about my service among strangers. The first time, I heard anything favorable was in '02. My wife and I were in a capsule coming down from the top of the St. Louis Arch. With us were two soliders on leave. My wife quizzed them about the service at that time. One of them asked me if I had been in and I answered yes and said nothing further. My wife gave them more details. Both them said "thank you." I asked why. They said "for your service. " Once down, I had to go off in a corner and cry. I don't think they saw me. I hope not anyway.
Willliam Hughes writes, 'You wrote: "From his description, I guess he was on a destroyer escort -- a merchant ship converted into a sort-of destroyer, with projectors for depth charges."'
There might be a memory here of the Naval Armed Guard, which placed a deck gun and Navy crew, typically under the command of an ensign, on merchant ships. Since U-boats often attacked on the surface when escorts were not around, in theory the deck gun gave the merchant ship a chance to fight back/
My stepmother's first husband was one of those ensigns. Unfortunately, the ship was sunk in the fall of 1942 with the loss of all hands, both Merchant Marine and Navy. So the plan did not always work.
The six years I spent in the Navy left me with the most intensive memories in my lifetime. I do remember signs in Virginia: Dogs and Sailors-keep off the grass.