Adventure on the High Seas: Jul 1943-Sep 1943

Elwood Edward Bradish (1921-2018)

father

When my father returned to Naval Station New Orleans from a temporary duty assignment in San Francisco in July 1943, he probably prepared himself as best he could for what was ahead. He was shipping out. The destination was Pearl Harbor, Oahu Island, Territory of Hawaii. It was going to be a long voyage with no guarantee of safe travel across the vast Pacific, no guarantee of not being wounded, no guarantee of ever going home again. For a young man who hadn’t been anywhere, Dad must have been filled with apprehension.

 

– THIS ISN'T THE RITZ –

The mode of transportation to the island of Oahu was an LST (Landing Ship, Tank). The journey would be unpleasant. These ships were 328 feet in length and 50 feet wide, with a blunt bow that didn’t cut through the waves very well. LSTs – often called “large slow targets” by crew members – had a maximum speed of 10-12 knots (12-14 mph), depending on when they were built. An LST was not easy to navigate due to its size and bulk, nor did it deliver a smooth ride. The combination of a flat bottom, slow speed, and somewhat flattened bow had a result that was twofold: a ride that pounded each wave, shaking every bone in a seaman’s body, and seasickness for nearly everyone on board, unseasoned sailors and seasoned crew alike. Then there was the smell. One LST veteran remembers the ships “stank of diesel oil, backed-up toilets, and vomit.”¹

Two Coast Guard-manned LSTs open their bow doors into the surf on Leyte Island beach in the Philippines, as soldiers strip down to build sandbag piers out to the ramps to speed up unloading operations in October 1944.² (Wikimedia Commons)

 

Despite their drawbacks, LSTs were the workhorses of the Navy and quite versatile. Cargo, such as tanks and vehicles, could be off-loaded via a ramp that could be extended through the closeable doors in the bow, or from the hold up to the main deck via an elevator before being loaded onto a dock. These ships were also capable of delivering both weaponry and troops right up onto a beach.

 

My arrows point to the compartments where up to 217 troops could be quartered on either side of a 200-foot-long hold.³  

 

 

Space was at a premium on an LST. These accommodations look like a recipe for claustrophobia.

 

 Sailors in bunks in the crew quarters of a landing ship-tank bound for North Africa on the way to invade Sicily, 1943.⁴  (Library of Congress)    

 

– THE JOURNEY BEGINS –

The voyage to Hawaii began with a stop at Naval Base Key West. But soon after departing New Orleans, Dad's ship encountered rough weather. “Riding out a hurricane” in the Gulf of Mexico was one of the few experiences he brought up whenever he talked about his time in the Navy. 

Some research showed a tropical depression was reported in the eastern part of the Gulf on July 23, 1943. It's path is labeled "1" on the map below.

        A portion of the 1943 National Weather Service 

         North Atlantic Hurricane Tracking Chart.⁵ 

 

 

 

 

  

 

The yellow portion on the right side of Storm 1's path shows where it strengthened into a tropical storm. At that time, it was located about 110 miles southeast of the Mississippi Delta – directly in the path of Dad’s ship. 

• July 25 at 7:00 p.m. - The storm is declared a Category 1 hurricane, indicated by the black circle (0000 UTC) at the start of the red portion of the path.
  

• July 26 at 7:00 a.m. - The first white circle (1200 UTC) shows the hurricane's position as it moved NNW. 

• July 27 early morning hours - The storm made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane near Galveston, Texas. As the first hurricane of the 1943 season, it was called Hurricane 1 since naming did not begin until 1950.^{7, 8, 9}

As a tropical storm, the winds of the depression increased into the 32-38 mph range, a 7 on the Beaufort Wind Force Scale. That meant the ship was encountering at least 13- to 19-ft waves.¹⁰ The paths of the slow-moving (5-7 mph) tropical storm and Dad’s ship, probably traveling at less than its 12-14 mph range due to conditions, intersected sometime on the afternoon of July 25. Looking at the approximate speed of the ship and the location, speed, and estimated size of the storm, I believe Dad could have been in the midst of it for 12 hours or more.

– A MEMORY –

In trying to imagine what it would be like on a ship under those conditions, I recalled a trip I made on October 30, 2012. Right after school that day, and on pure impulse, another math teacher and I made the 45-minute drive to St. Joseph, Michigan. We wanted to see the predicted 20-ft waves on Lake Michigan caused by Superstorm Sandy’s sustained 50 mph winds. We parked, surprised at the number of people who were braving the nasty, cold weather to satisfy their curiosities, just as we were.

As soon as we opened the car doors, we were assaulted by the sound of howling wind and roaring waves. We walked up the back side of a small dune to get a clear view of the lake, keeping our heads down so our faces wouldn’t be blasted by the blowing sand. At the top, the wind hit us so hard it nearly knocked us over. 

 

When I looked out toward the lake, I was stunned to see an almost apocalyptic view of immense, dark gray, angry-looking waves exploding against the lighthouse. The waves were so big and violent they looked as though they could swallow the lighthouse and everything else in their path. The breakwater was completely submerged as wave after wave washed over it. I had never seen the lake look like that. I remember thinking at the time the last place I would want to be was on that lake on any kind of boat, no matter how large.

 

– SWINGING HAMMOCKS & THE CROW'S NEST –

Of course, my experience doesn’t even begin to compare with what Dad and his shipmates went through, but recalling it gave me a better perspective of his circumstances. Dad described how, during the storm, he and the other sailors were in their hammocks which were swinging back and forth as the ship rocked; water sloshed from side-to-side on the floor beneath them. Their hammocks were probably the safest place to be so they didn’t get thrown around in the ship. I am not sure why there was water inside the ship, and I didn’t ask Dad any questions about that, unfortunately.

Dad was also fond of telling a story about a crew member who was sent up to the crow’s nest during the storm. He told us the ship was rocking so much the crow’s nest would hang way out over the water on one side then the other, as the LST rolled back and forth in the waves. He always mimicked the movement with his arm when he described that. Once again, I didn’t verbalize the question that was in my head. Why on earth would anyone be in the crow’s nest in that kind of weather? All these years later, I think I have a possible explanation. 

 

A crow’s nest can be 100 or more feet above the deck of a ship. From that vantage point an observer can see about 25 miles farther than can be seen from the deck below – and that was important in this situation.¹¹ As it turns out, the captain needed weather information obtained the old-fashioned way – through direct observation – because he could not communicate with the coastal weather stations or ships. The reason? Both the military and civilians were observing strict radio silence due to the fact that the enemy was at our door. 

 

Left: A “barrelman” in a ship’s crow’s nest c. 1867.¹²

  

German U-boats were frequenting both the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, attacking and sinking ships. Under those circumstances, radio transmissions of any kind could endanger the lives of military personnel and civilians alike. But without radio communication the captain would not have been forewarned about the increasing intensity of the storm ahead of the ship. Even though he would have been able to see that conditions were rapidly deteriorating, a sailor in the crow’s nest would be able to provide additional information.

Note the crow’s nest on LST-942. Photo taken in late 1944.¹³ 

(Wikimedia Commons)

Even if an advance warning had occurred, Dad’s ship would probably have been in a similar situation. When the Navy is notified of severe weather, it declares “sortie condition alpha.” Under these orders, ships are sent out to sea to keep them from being damaged while moored to a pier. With sufficient warning, ships can move to areas unaffected by the storm, although that might not have been possible in this situation.¹⁴ Otherwise, they have to ride it out, just as Dad’s ship did.

Despite the danger presented by the July storm, ships and land-based weather stations followed the radio silence directive, resulting in the public and military being taken completely unawares. Hurricane 1 was subsequently dubbed the “Surprise Hurricane.” Damages totaled nearly $256 million in 2020 dollars, hundreds were injured, nineteen lives were lost, five planes were destroyed at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, Texas, and damage to oil rigs slowed the production of aviation fuel for months – a serious problem in the middle of a war that relied heavily on fighter planes on two fronts. 

 

Details about damage were censored even after the hurricane was over to prevent our enemies from detecting any weakness in the country’s ability to combat them. However, due to the massive destruction and the number of injuries and lives lost, information about severe weather threats was never withheld again.¹⁵ 

 

*               *               *

 

– NAVAL BASE KEY WEST - Key West, Florida –

673 statute miles from New Orleans, Louisiana – arrived about 29 Jul 1943

Number of days at sea: 4.2 

 

[This includes an estimated one-day delay due to the Surprise Hurricane.]

 

The approximate routes of Dad's ship are marked in red on the maps below.

(Google Maps 2020)

Naval Base Key West was used for training, as well as support for destroyers, submarines, and patrol seaplanes. It was also an important defense against the German U-boats that were boldly torpedoing and sinking tankers and freighters within sight of Florida’s shores. The severity of the threat is illustrated by the fact that forty-nine ships were sunk in May 1943 alone. U.S. Navy and Allied antisubmarine forces mounted a serious effort to detect and destroy the U-boats, slowly reducing the number of attacks.^{16, 17}

Aerial view of the U.S. Naval Air Station Key West (Boca Chica Field), Florida (USA) in the 1940s.¹⁸ (U.S. Navy photograph)

 

Naval Base Key West, later renamed Naval Air Station (NAS) Key West, was originally an Army base, officially becoming a Naval base on April 1, 1943. According to "The United States Navy and the City of Key West, Florida Information Pamphlet," the condition of the base left something to be desired. The facilities were described as follows:

The field when the Navy took over, presented all the comforts of an advanced 

base on some far Pacific atoll. The existing buildings were all constructed of wood 

and tarpaper. Mangrove swamps crowded about the buildings, provided an ideal breeding place and gave cover for vast clouds of mosquitoes which swarmed out each night to torment and harass personnel and eventually reduced the efficiency of night maintenance crews about 50%.¹⁹

I expect the Navy made substantial improvements in the four months before Dad’s ship arrived. After only a day, at most, his ship departed the Key West base and headed to Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

*               *               *

– NAVAL BASE GUANTANAMO BAY - Guantanamo Bay, Cuba –

650 statute miles from Key West, Florida – arrived about 1 Aug 1943

Number of days at sea: 3.1

Naval Base Guantanamo Bay was established during Cuban President Fragencio Batista's watch. When Batista declared war on Japan on December 9, 1941, one day after the United States, and two days later declared war on Germany and Italy, it became clear that Cuba was an ally in the war. 

(Google Maps 2020)

 

The base was originally set up as a generic postal operation for different branches of the military, with FPO (Fleet Post Office) assigned to the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and the U.S. Coast Guard, and APO to the U.S. Army. But after U-boats started attacking merchant ships in January 1942, the Guantanamo base proved to be very useful. It allowed the U.S. and Cuba to work cooperatively to protect vessels in Caribbean shipping lanes from attacks throughout the remainder of the war.²⁰

An aerial shot of U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, circa 1962.²¹ (Wikimedia Commons)

 

*               *               *

– U.S. NAVAL STATION PANAMA CANAL - Panama City, Panama –

827 statute miles from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – arrived about 5 Aug 1943

Number of days at sea: 4.0

 

Getting from the Caribbean coast of Panama to U.S. Naval Station Panama Canal, built in 1943 on the country's Pacific coast, meant transiting the Panama Canal. It's a 50-mile journey that takes about eight hours. The station’s location on the Pacific coast made a convenient stop for U.S. military ships to refuel, pick up provisions, and get other support before making the long journey to California ports or directly to Hawaii.

(Google Maps 2020)

(Enlarged map of the location of the Panama Canal - Google Maps 2020)

F4U-1A fighters of Navy Squadron VF-17 transiting the Panama Canal on the flight deck of an Escort Carrier, circa Aug 1943.²² (National Archives)

USS Yorktown (CV-10) transiting the Panama Canal, bound for the Pacific combat zone, circa 11 July 1943. There are Grumman TBF-1 and Douglas SBD-5 aircraft on deck. Note the camouflage screens alongside the canal lock. The deck-edge aircraft elevator* is in the raised position. (See my red arrow.)²³  Photographed by Lieutenant Charles Kerlee, USNR. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

*David Stubblebine, a knowledgeable and frequent contributor to World War II Database (WWIIDB) writes that "the Essex-class deck-edge elevator was designed to fold up strictly so the ships would fit through the Panama Canal."²⁴

 

The tail section and part of the fuselage of an AJ-2 Savage of Composite Squadron (VC) 6 overhangs a deck edge elevator on board the aircraft carrier Yorktown (CVA 10) during operations at sea in 1954.

 

Even with the ability to fold the airplane's wings and vertical stabilizer, the Savage was a challenge to maneuver around the limited confines of an aircraft carrier.²⁵ (National Naval Aviation Museum)

 

 

*               *               *

 

– U.S. NAVAL BASE SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco, California –

3387 statute miles from U.S. Naval Station Panama Canal, Panama City, Panama 

Arrived about 22 Aug 1943

Number of days at sea: 16.2

 

(Google Maps 2020)

 

Dad never mentioned stopping at another naval base before heading across the Pacific. However, Naval Base Treasure Island in San Francisco, California was the major hub for sailors leaving for or returning from the Pacific during World War II. It's likely his ship stopped there before it embarked for Pearl Harbor, instead of going directly to Hawaii from Panama. 

*               *               *

– NAVAL AIR BASE PEARL HARBOR - Oahu Island, Territory of Hawaii –

2701 statute miles from U.S. Naval Base San Francisco, California 

Arrived about 4 Sep 1943

Number of days at sea: 13

Dad said the entire trip from New Orleans to Hawaii took 42 days. In that time, he sailed over 8200 miles.

(Google Maps 2020)

After two days at Ford Island, which sits in the middle of Pearl Harbor, my father was transferred to Naval Air Station Kaneohe* Bay on the east side of Oahu Island. This is where he would spend the next twenty-one months doing his part to defeat the enemy in the Pacific.

*Kaneohe is pronounced pronounced cä–nay–oh’–hay (with the ä as the o in cot). 

 

NEXT: NAS Kaneohe Bay & CASU #38 (TBA)

 

*               *               *

 

– IN THE WORDS OF OTHERS: A FEW THINGS DAD DIDN’T TALK ABOUT –

 

~ Experiences of Other Seamen: 

• US Navy Boot Camp in WW2
• Experiences Aboard the USS Clarence K Bronson DD668 During World War 2
• Veteran recounts life aboard Navy landing ship in World War II
• A sailor's story: Concord WWII vet recalls his war in the Pacific

 

– DIG A LITTLE DEEPER –

~ A brief history of the LST: https://www.lst393.org/history/lst-general.html

~ The Big Ditch: http://navy.memorieshop.com/World-Ports/Panama/Third-Locks.html

~ Building the Panama Canal – photos illustrate the magnitude of this engineering feat: 

https://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/Panama-Canal-2012/Rogers-Panama-Canal-EWRI-May2012.pdf

 

*               *               *

– CITATIONS –

     ¹Symonds, Craig L. The unloved, unlovely, yet indispensable LST. June 6, 2019.  https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/06/06/the-unloved-unlovely-yet-indispensable-lst/. Accessed November 26, 2020.

     ²Two Coast Guard-manned LSTs open their great jaws in the surf that washes on Leyte Island beach, as soldiers strip down and build sandbag piers out to the ramps to speed up unloading operations. 1944. (Coast Guard). NARA FILE #: 026-G-3738, WAR & CONFLICT BOOK #: 1210. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Two_Coast_Guard-manned_LST%27s_open_their_great_jaws_in_the_surf_that_washes_on_Leyte_Island_beach,_as_soldiers_strip_down_and_build_sandbag_piers_out_to_the_ramps_to_speed_up_unloading_operations_HD-SN-99-02869.jpg. Accessed November 28, 2020.

 

     ³Landing Ship, Tank technical drawing All Hands Magazine Sept 1959.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landing_Ship,_Tank#/media/File:Tank_landing_ship_technical_diagram_1959.png  Accessed November 25, 2020.

 

     ⁴(1943) Sailors in bunks in crew quarters of landing ship-tank ship bound for North Africa on way to invade Sicily. , 1943. [July] [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/90706611/.  Accessed November 25, 2020.

 

     ⁵Past Track Maps of U.S. Landfalling Major Hurricanes, Atlantic Basin, 1943. National Hurricane Center and Central Pacific Hurricane Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tracks/tracks-at-1943.png. Accessed December 19, 2020.

 

     ⁶ Day, John. [Airman] Who Is Duckworth? March 28, 2014. Columbus Air Force Base. https://www.columbus.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/618754/who-is-duckworth/. Accessed December 19, 2020.

 

    ⁷https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1943_Atlantic_hurricane_season. Accessed December 11, 2020.

 

     ⁸Sumner, Howard C. North Atlantic Hurricanes and Tropical Disturbances of 1943. The Monthly Weather Review, November 1943, Vol. 71, No. 11, W. B. No. 1402, p. 179-180. https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/general/lib/lib1/nhclib/mwreviews/1943.pdf. Accessed December 9, 2020.

 

     ⁹Bates, Josh. How Are Hurricanes Named? Here’s What You Need to Know. October 15, 2019. https://time.com/5696288/hurricane-names/. Accessed December 11, 2020.

 

     ¹⁰Haddon, Sarah. Sea State and Swell. https://blog.metservice.com/sea-state-and-swell. Accessed December 18, 2020.  

 

     ¹¹https://flatearth.ws/crows-nest. Accessed December 11, 2020.

 

     ¹²https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:(1867)_p184_I_SCORESBYS_TUNNA.jpg. Accessed December 11, 2020.

 

     ¹³https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LST-942_underway_in_late_1944.jpg. Accessed December 11, 2020.

 

     ¹⁴Lockie, Alex. 30 ships ordered to flee US Navy’s biggest base in Virginia as Hurricane Florence closes in. Business Insider, September 10, 2018. https://www.businessinsider.com/us-navy-ships-flee-virginia-base-as-hurricane-florence-approaches-2018-9. Accessed December 10, 2020.

 

     ¹⁵Moore, Tom. “Hidden Hurricane” of July 1943 Was A Deadly and Destructive Surprise to Coastal Texas. July 26, 2018. https://www.weatherconcierge.com/hidden-hurricane-of-july-1943-was-a-deadly-and-destructive-surprise-to-coastal-texas/. Accessed December 9, 2020.

 

     ¹⁶NAS Key West, FL History. https://www.keywestnavalhousing.com/history. Accessed November 19, 2020.

 

      ¹⁷Naval Air Station Key West. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Air_Station_Key_West. Accessed November 19, 2020.

      ¹⁸Aerial view of the U.S. Naval Air Station Key West (Boca Chica Field), Florida.(USA) in the 1940s. [US Navy Photograph] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Air_Station_Key_West#/media/File:NAS_Chica-Fla_NAN9-47.jpg. Accessed November 19, 2020.

 

     ¹⁹The United States Navy and the City of Key West, Florida Information Pamphlet. The Key West Press, about 1946, pp.12-13. https://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00005067/00001/17x. Accessed December 12, 2020.

 

     ²⁰Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_Naval_Base. Accessed December 17, 2020.

 

     ²¹View of the U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, circa in 1962. [Official Department of Defense Photograph] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Guantanamo_Naval_Base_aerial_photo_1962.jpg. Accessed December 17, 2020.

 

     ²²F4U-1A fighters of Navy Squadron VF-17 transiting the Panama Canal on the flight deck of an Escort Carrier, circa Aug 1943. https://ww2db.com/image.php?image_id=22760. (NARA) National Archives and Records Administration. Accessed December 18, 2020.

 

     ²³Kerlee, Charles, photographer. USS Yorktown (CV-10). [United States Navy Photograph] Naval History and Heritage Command. (NHHC) Catalog #: 80-G-K-15334. https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/nh-series/80-G-K-15000/80-G-K-15334.html. Accessed December 18, 2020.

 

     ²⁴Stubblebine, David. Comment on May 26, 2019. https://ww2db.com/image.php?image_id=28693. Accessed December 18, 2020.

 

     ²⁵AJ-2 Savage on Aircraft Elevator on Board USS Yorktown (CVA 10) [Photograph], 1954. National Naval Aviation Museum. https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nnam/explore/collections/aircraft/a/aj-2-savage0/aj-2-savage-on-aircraft-elevator-on-board-uss-yorktown--cva-10-.html. Accessed December 18, 2020.

 

 

 

 Bradish-Scott Family History – July 2021