Grandpa wrote some exposition which he informs the reader can be found in a book by Walter Lord, "Lonely Vigil". I excluded that to get straight to his account of events. - Clint Douglass
June 18, 1942 – Today I was promoted from Ensign to Lieutenant (Junior Grade) USNR. The officers with whom I work call me “Dauntless”. This is not a complimentary nickname. The scouter-bomber airplane on the Big E was manufactured by Douglas Aircraft and was called the “Dauntless” and so the young officers called me “Dauntless Douglass.” I am on the flag allowance of the USS Enterprise (CV-6) or the Big E as it is affectionately called by the crew of the ship.
June 30, 1942 – We got a new Captain, Arthur C. Davis and a day or two later, a new Executive Officer, Commander, John Crommelin.
July 14, 1942 – We are docked in Pearl Harbor. In addition to a new Captain and Exec, we now also have a new Rear Admiral, Thomas C. Kincaid, whom I haven’t yet met. Today, I get to meet him rather informally. While casually walking down the hangar deck by the quarterdeck, I can see the Officer of the Deck talking to several officers. All of a sudden the OOD points to me and one of the officers comes over to greet me. It was Admiral Kincaid himself. Admirals don’t generally hang around the quarterdeck, so I was quite surprised. I salute him and he screams, “Why are you so slow? You were due to make this trip a half hour ago!” When I told him that I wasn’t scheduled to make the trip, he asks my name and when I answer, “Ensign Douglass sir” (forgetting that I had been promoted to Junior Grade Lieutenant), he said, “Yes you are the one.” You don’t argue with an admiral so I make the trip. When we make an Officer Messenger trip, we are supposed to carry a firearm. I start to go get my 45 automatic, but he shouts “Forget about that and just get a going.” He handed me some documents and as I am going down the gangway to get in the Admirals Gig, he leans over the lifeline and hollers to me not to dilly-dally on the way. Several enlisted men hear the whole thing and I can feel their snickers. They like to see officers get railed upon. I should have a great feeling of importance, because a trip such as this is generally done by the Admiral’s Flag Lieutenant. When I first reported aboard the Big E, I was in awe of LCDR Douglas Moulton, who was Admiral Halsey’s Flag Lieutenant. Next spring, I will get my wish and be a Flag Lieutenant, but that is another story.
The gig takes me to the new fast battleship, USS North Carolina. It has nine 16-inch guns, but more important, it has many anti-aircraft guns. There is a flag officer on the quarterdeck of this newest addition to the fleet as this ship carries a Battleship Division Commander. As a representative of the Admiral, I am treated as royalty and am asked to come to have coffee or a drink with some of the staff. I remembered Admiral Kinkaid’s instructions though and thanked them but that my instructions were to return immediately. I would have enjoyed going with him to get a glass of ginger ale or 7-up, which most high ranking officers have in their quarters. I would also have enjoyed going on a tour to compare the USS North Carolina with my old battleship, the Oklahoma.
After I had delivered the documents and had returned to the ship, I go to ask the Flag Secretary, “What was the problem with the Admiral?” The Flag Secretary asked, “Wasn’t that a juvenile way for an admiral to behave?” Well, it was Ensign Lovelace that was supposed to make the trip. Our names sounded similar so the Admiral assumed that I was the offender. I had more trouble with Ensign Lovelace than with any of the other officers or men in the Flag Division. He was a continual source of annoyance.
Last May when we were on our way to the Battle of Coral Sea, Ensign Durkin was lost at sea while he was on a routine scouting trip. Today he casually came back aboard ship dressing in the swashbuckling uniform of an Australian officer. He had quite a tale to tell.
July 15, 1942 - The top-secret documents, which I delivered yesterday, told of our next operation. Three hours after getting underway today, the captain of the North Carolina as well as the captain of the Big E, opened the documents. No one who didn’t need to know was allowed to know our destination. It is interesting to note however that the coastwatchers knew when and where we were going. If any of the coastwatchers had been captured by the Japanese, the whole operation could have been jeopardized.
We are heading toward the south pacific, as Task Force 16. Accompanying us are: USS Portland (a heavy cruiser), USS Atlanta (a light anti-aircraft cruiser) and the destroyers; Balch, Maury, Gwin, Benham and Grayson. The North Carolina with other ships will meet with us later.
July 22, 1942 (about) – Commander Dow, the Flag Communications Officer called a meeting of all of the flag and ship CWOs (Communications Watch Officers) and a few others. There were about 12 of us in the room. He said that he wasn’t at liberty to tell us where the marines were going to land, but that a landing was scheduled soon. He called for three of the flag and/or ship CWOs to volunteer to go in with the marines to set up communications with the marines ashore and with our carrier airplanes so that we could direct the bombing of the target island. He said, “Think it over and I’ll be back tomorrow to ask for volunteers.” (Note: The armed services are very jealous of one another. This is good and it is also not good. It is good because they all try to do better than the other services. It is bad because of the vast duplication of effort and waste. For example: Each service has its own sets of codes and ciphers. Bolts and nuts are categorized differently. Each has its own hydrographic office. Radio frequencies are different. The Marine Corps is actually part of the navy, but their grid charts are different than those of the navy. If the services were more uniform, we could have one hydrographic office to make maps for all of the armed services and the merchant marines.
Up to this time I had seen the war from the coding room. It was our airplanes that were in all of the action. I felt that I could see some action from an island. Aircraft Carriers are the prime targets so I’ll be just as safe on an island. . . My main concern was that I didn’t think that I knew enough about the assignment that I could do it properly. Most of the other CWOs indicated that they were going to volunteer. I had decided to volunteer, even though the three basic laws of the navy man are, “never hurry, never worry and never volunteer.” I needn’t have raised my hand so quickly, because it was the only one in the air. Ensign Max Graham finally raised his hand and said, “Well, I would like to go sir.” Commander Dow said, “No Max. As I told you yesterday, we don’t have time to transfer the Registered Publication to another officer.” Commander Dow got Ensign Fox from the plotting room and Lieutenant Commander Townsend, who was the Flight Deck Officer. Everyone called him “Slim”. We also had three enlisted radiomen. Two of them were 1st class radioman and one was a 3rd class radioman.
I would have been in charge of the group if we had another of our officers volunteer for the mission. Lieutenant Commander (Slim) Townsend though, was in charge of our unit, which we called the “Transport Air Support Director Group.” He was slender; about six foot four and had a gravelly voice. He was gruff and took his work very seriously. He was the kind of a man you wanted on your side in a fight. He was killed later in the war. He assigned himself to coordinate the bomb drops with Admiral Kelly Turner. I’m glad that Slim was in charge, because he had more experience and knowledge in the matter than I. My job was to use grid coordinates to determine the location to drop the bombs. Ensign Fox was a small dark man with dark, almost black eyes. He looked Italian, but his name was not. He was confident and optimistic. His job was to use the headphone set to talk with the aircraft. The job of the three radiomen was to set up and operate the radio transmitter and receiver. They also received by radio, information on the enemy so that we could direct bombs to the grid chart locations.
July 26, 1942 – We joined with Admiral Fletcher and his task force which included: Carriers, USS wasp and USS Saratoga; Cruisers, USS Minneapolis, USS New Orleans, USS Vincennes, USS Quincy, HMAS Canberra and several destroyers.
The planning was done quickly and was probably not as meticulous as it could have been. Admiral Kinkaid went by high wire to the USS Saratoga (Sara) to confer with Admiral Fletcher, Admiral Kelly Turner and General Vandergriff. A motor launch came over from Sara carrying a radio transmitter and receiver. I believe that Admiral Kinkaid also returned to the Big E in this motor launch. (In peace-time, we would have had a fancy gig for transporting the Admiral.)
Marine General Vandegrift who was to go ashore during the landing would not have suitable radio equipment to communicate with our carrier based airplane bombers. The function of our group was to set up two-way communications with the General as well as with the airplanes. We then would relay any enemy positions from the general to the airplanes so that they could drop their bombs on selected targets.
July 31 (about) – LCDR Townsend, Ensign Fox, the three enlisted men and I went to the Big E’s hangar deck, portside and boarded a motor whale boat along with the radio gear that had come from Sara. We waited and waited some more. Slim was of a restless nature. He finally went to see the OOD to determine what the holdup was. He came back and said that the sea was very turbulent and so they were waiting for the waves to subside. I looked down at the ocean and it didn’t seem all that turbulent to me. The seas didn’t subside and time was flying by so we were finally lowered away anyway. Our little group still didn’t know what island we were to attack, nor the code name for the operation. This was for security reasons in case we were washed overboard and rescued by the enemy. I’m at a distinct disadvantage now. Prior to today, I had been working in the coding room, decoding dispatches. Now we have no access to any kind of information, except what may be told to us the next few days.
Meantime, on Guadalcanal, Coastwatcher Martin Clemens had scheduled himself to leave the island today. He stayed on though, living on taro roots and pumpkin. His natives were getting restless and could desert him at any time. Clemens periodically sent by radio to his home base in Australia info concerning the location of Japanese radio facilities, number of troops etc. The info was forwarded on to CINCPAC and was in turn forwarded on to us on Radio NPM.
The hanger deck of the Big E was so high above the water that I hadn’t realized how rough the ocean was. Being a civilian sailor, such that I was, was a handicap. I had probably seen the ocean dozens of times just as turbulent as it was today and didn’t realize how rough the ocean had been. Men on smaller ships though would have recognized what was imperceptible to me. When our little whaleboat touched the water, it was tossed about like a tumble-weed I a windstorm. One moment we were down in a huge canyon surrounded by mountains of water and the next moment we were sitting on top of a mountain peak of water looking down into water valleys in all directions. The coxswain guided our boat toward something that I couldn’t even see in the turbulent waters, mist and fog. We caught up to a tin can (destroyer) whose name I don’t remember. The coxswain guided us up to the port side of the big black hulk in the stormy sea. The boatmen expertly held us closely to the ship, but had to loosen the lines as the tin can sank and then tighten the lines as the tin can came up out of the water again. We really had to be careful as we grabbed the ladder on the destroyer. Only one of us could leave the boat at a time. Slim, being senior, left first. He grabbed the ladder to pull himself up and the boat plunged down into the water again and coming up again, almost hit Slim’s legs as it climbed up the side of the ship again. I was next to leave. When the boat was high in the water, I hurriedly debarked as I was afraid of having my legs crushed. Each time the boat sank down into the sea and then belched back up out of the water, seemingly spitting out another person, striving to smash his legs between the boat and the ship. I thought this was quite an ominous beginning of our adventure.
After unloading the officers and men, we are all escorted out of the way while the equipment is unloaded. Commander Dow sent an extra radio transmitter with us. It was a good thing that he did, because although Sara had sent a nice, new transmitter, one of the main tubes was defective and we didn’t have a replacement. Once aboard the destroyer, we took off like a bullet through the rough seas.
August 1, 1942 – Early this morning we arose to see this task force. It was the largest group of ships that I had ever seen. We are transferred by boat, in calm seas, from the tin can to the USS McCawley. Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner’s title is “Commander Amphibious Force, South Pacific.” He is also the Task Force Commander of task force 62 and is aboard the USS McCawley. Commander Dow had said that we would set up our operations ashore. This was not true. We were to remain on the USS McCauley. Our office and radio will be next door to Admiral Turner, who approves any and all bombing drops. At Northwestern University in Chicago, I had learned the names and titles of many naval officers. One of them was Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, Chief, War Plans Division. This name was just a name to me until now. This is the same Admiral Turner.
As of December 8 1941, Admiral William Hasley on the USS Enterprise discontinued all or at least most of the superfluous military etiquette, such as saluting etc. After Admiral Halsey left, these traditions were carried on in turn by Admiral Raymond Spruance and Thomas Kinkaid. The officers and chief petty officers were not to wear ties anymore except when going ashore. Also, the officers and chiefs could wear the little overseas hats instead of the hats with brims and gold braid. Vulgarity and profanity were not tolerated; however, Halsey’s Chief of Staff, Captain Miles Browning was quite salty. Morale was higher on the Big E (USS Enterprise) than I saw it anywhere else during the war. Here on the USS McCawley, there had been no promotions of reserve officers since the war began. The commanding officer was another die hard naval academy officer who believed that there was nothing lower than a reserve officer. The morale was as low among these officers as I had ever seen. One day just prior to the invasion, four ships’ officers were throwing coins at the life-lines. If the coins hit the line they sometimes bounced back on the deck to be thrown again. Mostly the coins went into the ocean. Being as scotch as I am, my jaw dropped open. I asked why they were throwing their money away. One of them, who was a big physical specimen, had played as a guard on a mid-western college football team said, “Why not? The ship is going to be sunk anyway.” I told him that we were going to make it OK, but he was pessimistic and despondent as were his three friends. I told them that the operation was well planned and that the ones to worry about were the marines who were going ashore. I said, “If you don’t think we’ll make it, why don’t you go make out money orders and send all your money home instead of throwing it away?” One of them said, “What good would that do? The mail will never leave the ship.” I guess that I’m an incurable optimist, because I refused to believe that we wouldn’t be successful.
August 6 – This morning I am on a superstructure deck looking down at the marines who are sunning themselves. A ship officer comes up to talk with me. I said, “Every other morning that I have been here, the marines have been playing poker. Today they are not.” He said, “Didn’t you know? See that fellow sitting alone over by the ventilator? He’s won all the money, thousands of dollars. He can only send $200.00 home in money orders. He now fears for his life when he goes ashore. He’s afraid his own buddies will kill him for the money.”
Ensign Fox now seems very worried and asks me what I think our chances are. I tell him that if we can manage a surprise attack that we will do OK. I remind him that the airfield isn’t operational yet so they can’t launch airplanes against us. Also, the navy wouldn’t sacrifice all of these ships on a foolhardy venture. Ensign Fox said, “Gee, I’m glad I talked to you. Slim is really pessimistic. Tonight I went up on the main deck to get a breath of fresh air and to look out over the ocean. It was a dark, dark night and it seemed as if the stars were shining brightly down, through a moonless sky. This may not be true, but it is the way I remember it. All of a sudden we blow tubes. A black billow of smoke came up out of the smoke stack and hundreds of burning, sparking cinders flew up into the sky. I had no idea how high the hills were on Guadalcanal so I worried that someone ashore could see the bright glow on the horizon, or that we would be seen by an enemy submarine. I knew that tubes had to be blown for the well being of the boilers, but I felt that they could have just as easily waited until tomorrow when we will be seen anyway.
August 7, 1942 – This operation was named Operation Watchtower. The code name for Guadalcanal was “Cactus.” I felt a little bit on the dump side, because I had never before heard of Guadalcanal. Later I revised this, because I learned that General Vandegrift also hadn’t heard of it either. A reference is made to our group in a book, “The Big E” by Commander Edward P. Stafford, USN page 120. “Shortly after seven, Ray Davis arrived over Tulagi with 18 SBDs of Bombing Six, armed with 1000-pounders, which were promptly delivered according to the desires of the Wasp’s air group commander, LCDR W.M Beakley. Beakley, in a TBF controlled and coordinated the supporting aircraft over Tulagi and was in direct communication with the Ground forces as soon as they got ashore.”
“On the Guadalcanal side, M.F.Leslie, the Big E’s new group commander, with two fighters as escort performed the same task from 9:00 AM until 6:20 PM His contact, the transport group fighters director officer, was Slim Townsend.” The Big E’s aircraft were given the Guadalcanal assignment, because the aviators were more experienced and Guadalcanal was presumed to be the more difficult job. The opposite was true though as Tulagi was occupied by hardened Japanese soldiers. Guadalcanal, on the other hand, was occupied mostly by laborers, who knew little about fighting.
We are at GQ (General Quarters) early this morning. Our three radiomen have set up the transmitter. It is ready to go, but we can’t check it out because of radio silence. We always maintain radio silence when at sea, because an enemy receiver with a direction finders would learn our exact location.
Our group won’t have anything to do until General Vandergrift gets on the beach in a command post and is able to send us enemy position reports. We went to the main deck and watched the marines disembark from the ship. Landing boats came alongside our ship and the marines. There was a huge network of ropes that enabled about 10 marines, side by side, to climb down into the landing boats. The first bots loaded in the dark, but by the time the last men were leaving it was getting light. The boats that took the marines were quite large and were manned by coastguard men. It was quite evident that many of the marines had never disembarked from a ship before. They looked as inexperienced as I had felt when I boarded the destroyer.
We are now able to start our operation. We test the radio transmitter, but it doesn’t work. Our lead radioman tested every link of the galaxy of wires that are strewn about. After about ten minutes of frustration, we get positive results and are able to set up communications with the aircraft. Wow! What a relief. Earlier I mentioned how we each had assignments given to us for an efficient operation. It didn’t work out that way. We had just received a message from General Vandegrift and Ensign Fox had the phones on to relay the word to the planes. He pulled the phones from his head and shouted, “I can’t stand this!” and ran away. Slim was in talking to Admiral Turner at the time. As soon as Slim returned, I told him what happened. Slim calmly put the phones on and left the rest of the work to me. I was glad that he did this, because I hadn’t had any experience using head-phones. At first General Vandegrift had difficulty in locating targets so we had Scout Bombers Douglas (SBDs) above the island with armed bombs, but the airplanes were running out of fuel. If no targets were found for the bombers, the bombs would have to be jettisoned. We desperately wanted a target so as not to waste the bombs. We finally received a target, which required three bombs. Admiral Turner authorized all ten bombers to drop their bombs on the target so that they could return to the ship and refuel. This gave the pilots some expensive target practice. This procedure was repeated several times before we finally started getting regular targets. My job with the grids was complicated. For example, if the General requested four bombs dropped at Visale and the marine grid showed it to be at coordinates 6-D, on the charts which were used by the bombing planes the grid may have been 5-H. I had to correct the grid numbers on every bomb drop. Then I asked Admiral Turner’s permission to authorize the bombs to be dropped. Slim did a good job on the phones. The pilots would get concerned about getting back to the ship. Slim had been a pilot and understood the problems that the pilots had. He reassured them that they wouldn’t have to wait very long. Time went shooting past us. It seemed that we were just getting started and General Vandegrift sent us word that he was securing (shutting down) the operation. It was still quite early in the day. I went in to see Admiral Turner to get any instruction from him. He told me, in a thousand flowery words or more, the manner in which I should thank the aviators for their part it the successful operation. I said, “Admiral, they would appreciate it very much more if it came from you personally.” He said, “No. You tell them.” I took a pencil and paper to write what he had said, but he told me, “Just tell them as you remember it.” And so I went back, put on the head-phones and mike not knowing where Slim went. I said, “Admiral Turner says, ‘Well done to all concerned with this operation.” I turned around and there stood Admiral Turner behind me. He shook his head in apparent disgust and picked up the mike, thanking the pilots, using a completely different set of words than were first imparted to me. I know that this sounds foolish, but I was quite disappointed that our work was finished so soon. I didn’t understand why our operation was closed down entirely. There were lots of things that I didn’t understand though. Regardless, we closed down and put our equipment away. I asked Slim how we knew that the airfield was about to become operational by the Japanese. He explained to me how the “Coastwatchers” had notified us. This was the first I had ever heard about the “Coastwatchers”.
When I left I went to the side of the ship to look out toward Guadalcanal. Ensign Fox was standing there. He seemed sad and apologized for running off and leaving us with all the work. I didn’t know what to say to him. I just said that we got along OK. Ensign Fox had been with me most of the time up until now, walking the deck for exercise, eating meals etc. He avoided me the rest of the time we were on this operation. Even later, when we returned to the Enterprise, I saw him only at a distance, never close enough to have a conversation.
About 11:30 AM, we received word that 27 high level, twin-engined bombers were on their way to attack us. I didn’t know where the message came from at the time. I didn’t know what direction the planes would be coming from. Slim told me that we had “Coastwatchers” on Bougainville who had seen the bombers coming and had sent a radio message to CINCPAC. CINCPAC in turn sent the message to us. The message gave the height, speed and ETA of the enemy aircraft. At the time that they were due to arrive, our unit had no assignment so I went upside to watch the action. This was to be the first action I would see of the war.
I don’t know what the admiral knew that I didn’t, but he kept the ships at anchor. I would have had them all underway, because moving targets are harder to hit. Finally at about 1330, a lookout spotted the Mitsubishi bombers. They had come over Guadalcanal and were on their way over our task force. Just about the time that I was wondering where I should go when the bombs start dropping, the bombers turned to their left. They were thousands of feet high. I found out later that they jettisoned their bombs and then they were all shot down by our Big E’s F4Fs. (I didn’t see any of the airplanes come down. I didn’t see any of the bombs drop. I didn’t see any dive bombers. I thought that they were all high level bombers.) I was glad that it was the Big E planes protecting us. They were too high for our ship guns to fire at them. Mr. Clement’s coastwatchers gave a conflicting report that at least 16 of the 27 airplanes had been shot down. It seemed to me that the bombers were too far away to hurt our task force. The USS Mugford however, was hit and damaged by a bomb from a dive bomber.
August 8, 1942 – At breakfast in the McCawley wardroom, there were copies on our breakfast table of a syndicated column as received by our radiomen. It said, as nearly as I remember, “The United States Army assisted by the Navy and Marines have attacked Guadalcanal and Tulagi. They have established a beachhead and have control of the situation. Signed, General Douglas MacArthur. One newsman, who was still aboard was fighting mad. He said that he was going to write all his articles to downgrade MacArthur. This part of the Pacific was no longer even under General MacArthur’s control. It didn’t seem all that important to me, however the only thing that the army did was to send over a couple of high level bombers early in June or July to take pictures. I thought that perhaps, General MacArthur wanted to mislead the enemy into thinking that the army had attacked instead of the marines. The photographs that the army airplanes had taken were important, because it confirmed the information which had been given us by the Coastwatchers, that the Japanese had almost finished the aircraft landing field. When we later captured this field, we renamed it, “Henderson Field”
I mentioned earlier that we had sent boats ashore with supplies. We were waiting for these boats to return, but they didn’t come. Admiral Turner wanted them to come as soon as possible, because we had overstayed our welcome here and had stayed longer than was planned. At about 11:00 AM, we received word that another group of about 45 enemy bombers were coming. Only eight of these were bombers though. They were low flying torpedo planes and zeros. (Note: I had remembered this group of airplanes coming over us on Aug.7)
This time, Admiral Turner waited unit it was about time for the enemy to arrive. He ordered the task force to get underway and to head away from Guadalcanal. When the low flying planes came over Guadalcanal, the enemy planes were at our sterns. The planes made a long turn to the left so that they could attack us from our port side. Our task force circled to the right again so that they were at our stern again. I was standing on an exposed deck on the port side of the ship and could only see what was happening on our port side. I was told later that the planes were being shot down by our ship guns and by the F4Fs from the carriers. The enemy planes, in desperation, wasted their torpedoes by dropping them at the sterns of our shops and missing the targets.
What I actually saw from the port was several rings of water with smoke coming from the middle of the ring. It looked like targets with smoke coming up out of the bull’s eye. I didn’t know what had caused these rings of water, but presumed that it was some of our AA shells or enemy torpedoes that had gone into the sea and detonated under the water. All this time there was a constant cacophony of noise from out anti-aircraft batteries shooting at enemy aircraft. Only being able to see to port, I saw some enemy aircraft flying low alongside some of our ships, but didn’t see any of them get hit; neither did I see them hit our ships. The USS Jarvis, a destroyer, was hit by an enemy torpedo.
The battle itself was a beautiful sight. It was like watching a colorful giant panoramic movie. (Note: We didn’t have giant screen panoramic colored movies at this time) The water in the bay was many shades of green and blue. Our machine guns and all the funs on all of the other ships in the task force were firing. A huge brown torpedo plane approached us slowly from the rear. I watched it and noted that no guns seemed to be firing from it at us. Our guns had been sporadically firing; but this built up into a huge crescendo of noise. I felt as if I should hide behind some of the steel plate, but I was too interested in watching the approaching airplane. There was a part of a superstructure, which I could dart behind so I stayed to watch. I also prayed. The plane had spent its torpedo and was making a kamikaze attack. Our gunners were really peppering it good and just before it was to crash into our stern, it shuddered, kind of rocked back and forth, shot upward and did a loop. As it came down from its loop, it slipped sideways, just missing another AKA (Troop Transport), which was forward of us and to our port side. I watched in awe, realizing that probably three lives had just been lost in this one aircraft. On the other hand though, hundreds of lives were saved. As the plane crashed into the water, it immediately went under. American aircraft were constructed to protect the crew, but the Japanese seemed to care nothing for the lives of their men. During this time, we were still circling, so we passed right by the place that the bomber had submerged. Where the plane crashed, there was a little wisp of smoke surrounded by a circle of water so now I knew where the other circles came from that I’d seen. I watched several other planes, which possibly crashed into the bay, but they were much farther away. This was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. It was also so beautiful, with a jungle in the background and the many colored pockets of water all around. Somehow, I had a hard time realizing that men had died in all this. We heard a report that all but one of the enemy torpedo planes were shot down. During this time the eight enemy bombers had dived on ships of our task force, but I hadn’t seen any of them.
My room on the McCawley was a miserable little hot cubby-hole compared with my nice room on the Big E. As soon as practical, I went and commandeered one of the rooms that had been vacated by a marine officer. The marines abandoned their khakis and now wore greens. They will not be returning to the ship. I picked up several shirts and trousers that had been left behind. Khakis were quite hard to buy. I had been assigned a black steward to take care of my room so I located him to tell him my new room number. I instructed him to awaken me at 0500 the following morning. (Note: I remember the second bombing attack to happen on August 7, as I have written. The author of “The Big E” said it happened on August 8).
August 9, 1942 – This morning I awaken leisurely. The steward had evidently forgotten me, because it was now too late for me to have breakfast before GQ. Once we go to GQ, we don’t know when we may be able to eat again. I quickly dressed and ran through the wardroom. The steward was clearing up the room after breakfast. I stopped to chastise him for forgetting to awaken me. His eyes turned as big as saucers and he said, “Suh, are you just getting up?” I said, “Of course I am, you forgot to awaken me.” He replied, “Suh, you done slept through the greatest battle in all naval history.” Even though I was concerned, I couldn’t help but laugh. I hurried to my battle station just about 5 hours late. There was gunfire in the distance. Slim was there and was pacing back and forth. He was worried and said nothing about my late arrival. When I asked him what was going on he said that I knew just as much about it as he did. He said that he had been up on deck since about 1:30 AM. He said that evidently our cruisers had tangled with a Japanese task force and he had no idea what the outcome was. We later learned that the USS Quincy, USS Vincennes, USS Astoria and the HMAS Canberra had all been sunk. The USS Chicago was severely damaged. Fortunately for us, Admiral Mikawa retreated to Rabaul or he could have sunk our whole take force as well.
Early in the afternoon, Admiral Turner finally sent word to the boats to return to the ship even though the supplies were still aboard the boats. The marines were fighting men. They said that it wasn’t their job to unload the boats. There were too few coastguard men to do the unloading so the supplies just stayed in the boats. The boats were no sooner hauled aboard the ships than we departed. We left the marines on their own. The marines had captured guns, ammunition and food. Much of the food supply that we had sent ashore though was back aboard our ships.
We were traveling southeast and met the USS San Juan, (a sister-ship to the USS Nashville, that had all the fun during our attack on Tokyo.) We boated over in calm waters to the San Juan. The San Juan was a cute little light cruiser.
One of the officers on the San Juan had a 45 automatic, which had been converted to shoot 22 caliber ammunition. I went over to watch a group of officers shoot at tin cans, which had been thrown over the side. A can would float until it had about 4 holes in it. After 2 or 3 of the officers had a turn, an officer took the gun to reload it and the gun was aimed at the others of us. I yelled at him to aim the gun away from us. He said, “Hey listen. I’ve handled a gun since I was five years old so I know how to handle it properly.” I said, “Well if that is a proper way to handle a gun, remind me to keep a steel plate between you and me.” I left them.
These people were all officers. You would think that they would know how to handle a handgun.
August 15, 1942 – We heard that a supply ship went into port at Guadalcanal. This time the marines didn’t argue who was to unload the boats. They had the boats unloaded in record time. I guess they didn’t care for Japanese food.
While in San Juan wardroom on day, I met a group of newly commissioned Annapolis Ensigns. They were aboard ship to be transferred to various ships in the task force. We talked and they asked me how the reservists got along with the naval academy officers. I told them that in the beginning there had been some friction, but as time went on things became better. I said that most of us became specialists and we were good at what we did. I told them of reservists on the Enterprise who stood top deck watches and took the ship into dock and also got the ship underway. I said that these officers would be lost in the engine room or the communications office. I said that quite often, I couldn’t differentiate between a reservist and an academy officer. I think they assumed that because I was a Lt. (JG), that I was a naval academy officer. One of the new officers spoke up and said that their graduating class had talked together and had decided to ignore reservists. He then said, “We have been watching the San Juan officers though and we feel that the reservist are just as proficient as the academy men.” These officers were very immature and I thought to myself how much and how quickly they were going to learn. Because of the war, these officers had been graduated on year early from the navel academy.
August 19, 1942 – We were taken to Task Force 15. The San Juan joins up with the carrier task force. The San Juan pulled up on the starboard side of the Big E. The Big E, using a special rifle, shot a line over to us. The San Juan Bos’n attached a heavy manila line to it and it is pulled over from the San Juan. A breeches Buoy was attacked on this line. Slim Townsend being senior was supposed to go over first. He gave me, Lt. (jg) Gordon Douglass the honor of going first because he had some business to do. The trip on the breeches buoy seemed dangerous when I had watched it in times past. Now that I was on it, it seemed life threatening, but was very exciting.
The ships being of different sizes were out of sync and rolled together at times and at other times one rolled to port while the other rolled to starboard and vice versa. A time or two, the line was so taut that I thought it would break. A couple of times it was so limp that I was almost dumped into the ocean. I wondered if Slim had sent me first to see if it was safe. After my successful trial run, Slim and the rest of our group, one by one, made the trip also. Some of the new officers from Annapolis and some reserve officers who had been passengers aboard the San Juan and being transferred to the Big E for duty or temporarily to the Enterprise were among them. It didn’t look so dangerous when the others made the trip. One new Ensign carried his golf bag and tennis racquet across with him. (I learned later that Ensign Marshall Fields IV had reported aboard the Big E for duty and I wondered if this was he.)
Ross Glassman, Max Graham and others were there to welcome me back to the ship. Ensign Lovelace, Horner and Woltemate, I noticed watched me from a distance. Later Woltemate came up and said that he didn’t volunteer because he felt like he was coming down with a cold. Most of the communications officers acted kind of sheepish for the next few days. I knew that Ensign Kelley couldn’t volunteer because he was married.
A ship’s officer came over to me and very seriously told me that we had dropped a bomb on our own troops. I thought, “Oh No! Here comes my court martial.” He then said, “Just Kidding.” He said that it was a pilot’s error. The pilot was lucky because none of our marine troops were injured.
Our three enlisted men each received a spot promotion. This was quite ironic, because the man, who was so savvy, was due to be promoted to Chief Petty Officer (CPO) in just a couple of weeks. The other two men had just received a promotion before coming on the mission. Instead of a court martial, I received the following “Letter of Commendation.” Slim Townsend also received a similar letter. I have wondered if the Coastwatchers were ever thanked for their services. If we hadn’t received the warnings from them, the entire Watchtower Operations would have been a terrible disaster.
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