We always respected an officers rank but not always the man.
We liked some of them, had mixed feelings about some and disliked others.
Some officers were born leaders and we trusted them instinctively. If they were strict or demanding we knew this was the way it had to be.
We quickly identified those who were career obsessed and learned to stay out of their way.
Only one or two officers in our experience had no redeeming qualities and we sometimes wondered if they were on our side. We respected these men like we would a child with a loaded gun in his hand.
Other than some of the older junior officers who were ex-enlisted and with whom we felt a kinship, we never engaged them in conversation unless they initiated it.
Academy officers were a rarity and though they were derisively referred to as "ring knockers" by some of the reserve officers, we found they were often more approachable and sympathetic to any complaint we may have. They had three or four years of Navy indoctrination and experience when they came aboard our ship. Many reserve officers had only a few months service and sometimes were still civilians when we were in combat. It was hard to generate respect for them.
It was one of this type that I ran afoul of at a time when we weren’t making many long range plans for the future.
He was a young ensign who had been assigned a battle station on our gun deck. We wondered where he came from but there he was properly attired in helmet and life jacket. Once or twice he dutifully applied his "war paint". We had no personal feelings about him one way or another but were giving him his space and otherwise ignoring him.
When condition "one easy" was set it meant we stayed on battle stations but could relax with one or two men staying alert. The rest of the men could try to sleep, play cards or just talk about the home town and good times of the past.
I almost felt sorry for this little ensign, he was like a lost soul. He surely felt he couldn’t lay down on the deck or play cards with the men. He could have, I’m sure had he sat in a game he would have been dealt a hand. What ever ground rules there were for fraternization under those circumstances, he set them. He would just pace around the relatively confined space on the gun deck, at times having to step over sleeping men.
One day while at condition "one easy" Hughie had the phones on and I was scanning the horizon with the binoculars. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular when he came up to me and asked, "what do you see out there". This was the first time any of us ever heard him say a word. The question took me by surprise and because I had been telling my gun crew mates at times I saw spots, I blurted out "spots." A couple of my buddies heard this and started laughing. He walked away from me and I didn’t realize at the time he probably thought I as making fun of him. I wasn’t.
It was a few days later, same conditions, when we secured from general quarters at sunset. Since I had the 8 to 12 watch I stayed on the gun deck. Sunrise GQ would probably sound at around 5AM so at midnight, seeing a good sleeping spot was available on top the ready box, I decided to take it until GQ sounded.

Either because I subconsciously knew I was already on my battle station or because I was exhausted I slept through the gong, bugle and bosun pipe.
I was dreaming I heard it and gotten up to routinely start the motors and test the gun control. Somebody was hollering at me in the dream. One of my buddies touched me on the ankle and I woke up to the little ensign screaming at me about not responding to GQ. I tried to explain about my dream but he kept on until I though he would have a stroke. I almost lost my temper, I said, "for God’s sake I’m only six feet from the damn gun what do you want me to do, go hug it."
"I want you on your feet!", said the Ensign.
At this point it took all will power I could muster to not say anymore or worse, make the biggest mistake of my life and swing at him. In retrospect, he had it in for me ever since the "spots" incident and felt this was his chance to pay back. Anyone hearing him carrying on would have thought next stop for me was a firing squad.
He finally shut up but one of my friends reminded me he could make trouble for me. I agreed.
Later that day I saw my division officer and figured I’d better get my side of the story in before ensign (never did know his name) could get any disciplinary procedure started. Guilty or innocent you can never be sure of the outcome. I was thinking of Billy Budd’s fate.
Not surprisingly the division officer had already heard about the incident and told me to "forget about it." I did, but not completely, over half a century later the sights and sound of that day remain clear in my memory
We never saw the little ensign again. Not that anyone really cared, we never even heard about him.

Action on Mt 5

I was on Mt. 5 40MM for these two events; it was sometime in early 1944 and we were on our battle stations. For this attack I was assigned to the handling room a half deck lower than the gun mount and entered from the gun tub through a door about 2'x3'
40MM ammunition came to us in heavy galvanized cans each containing sixteen rounds in four clips. In addition to the ammunition in the handling room, cans were placed all around the outer edge of gun tub deck. Ammunition from these cans was used first. My job was to keep ready ammunition available to the loaders
Most men in a gun crew could only look at an incoming attack if for one reason or another, their gun wasn’t firing. Also, after the firing began a change in time perception turned seconds into minutes. It has been said events happened in slow motion.
All of the action described in this event from the time our gun stopped firing until the Jap plane crashed into the sea actually took place in less than a minute.
So it was for this particular attack. Mt 5 had stopped firing and the only reason I can offer is the plane was too low for our director operator to bring the gun to bear on him. Mt 7 just aft and lower than us was still firing as were all the other 20's and 40's on the starboard side with the exception of Mt. 3 (although I am not sure) which was on the forward end of the island structure and higher than we were.
I had the opportunity to watch the one remaining plane of a torpedo attack flying through a hail of flak. I have seen footage of this plane many times in films and documentaries. A single engine plane with the torpedo carried externally, flying through a stream of tracers.
I had remembered being told, perhaps in boot camp, if you
knew a torpedo was about to hit your ship to flex your knees to absorb the shock. I don’t know how important that was but I was still new enough at the game not to question.
I estimated it was too late to stop him now and a torpedo hit was inevitable. I moved to the port side of the gun mount, flexed my knees waiting for the hit.
The next thing I saw was this plane, still carrying the torpedo, flying over the flight deck just forward of the island structure almost eye level with me. He had a small fire behind the canopy. The pilot was slumped over and the man in the back was looking us over, the last sight he would ever see before he died seconds later. If I had known him I could have recognized him.
There was much speculation on why the torpedo wasn’t released, the pilot had to be alive to pull the plane up over our flight deck.
Another example of Yorktown luck? It had to be, he had us cold.
Did our God trump his god? After all he went through was it just a mechanical malfunction that denied him a seat of honor among all the dead samurai? I have often thought had he been a kamikaze; our ship may have survived a torpedo exploding at hangar deck level, but many, perhaps hundreds of our crew would have died.

Lillian

The year was 1938, I was a twelve year old student at St. Stephen’s school for boys. Across the street was the girls school both run by nuns who were as tough as any drill sergeant and didn’t know the meaning of "spare the rod" if its use was warranted.
The only talk of war was about fathers who served in WW1. None of us seventh graders could imagine in five short years many of us would be in uniform with some already in combat.
Among the girls attending school were orphans from St. Elizabeth’s Orphan Asylum which was run by the same order of nuns. Back in those days there was no political correctness and institutions were called what they were.
During a time when boy and girl students were rehearsing together for a pageant, I came to know one of these orphan girls.
After school I would walk by the building she lived in and often she was there waiting by a window to wave at me. After graduation I moved away from that neighborhood and never saw her again but the sight of that girl in the window waving has stayed with me all of my life.
She was on my mind one day in May 1944 when I was scraping rust from spots on the starboard side of our ship which was scheduled for a camouflage paint job to be done later by shipyard workers.
We were working between the hangar and flight deck levels chipping and scraping rust before applying chromate to the spots. When the chromate splotches began to take the shape of a letter I realized I had a chance to do something for Lillian. With my buddy helping, we began putting chromate on spots whether it was needed or not to form the letters "LC" perhaps fifteen feet high on the side of Yorktown.
It was only visible for a couple of days before our ship was spray painted but for those two days Lillian’s initials were center stage for all to see on the side of a warship of the line. In that time and in that war, no ship was more important than Yorktown in the whole US Navy.
I suppose most people who saw the initials thought is was just coincidental because no one ever said anything. I only wished Lillian could have known she was in my thoughts that day and she was happy wherever she was.

Picture: A retouched picture of the USS Yorktown with Willie's chromate art work

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It was sometime in early March 1944 when defective fuses began detonating 5" projectiles as soon as they cleared the gun barrel. This premature explosion would usually kill the entire gun crew. After several men were killed on other ships a check of our inventory of projectiles revealed most of ours were in that particular lot.
Sabotage was suspected and it was one of two cases I remember being discussed during the time I was aboard Yorktown. The other was when striking material was found inside match boxes next to match heads.
I don’t know if this is the only reason we were going to Espirito Santo in New Hebrides but that is where we changed out all the fuses in our 5" projectiles.
On the way down we would cross the equator and since conditions permitted, we had Shellback initiations. Some of us were concerned about the mayhem and punishment in store for us until we realized this was the first time the ship would cross the equator and we had very few shellbacks aboard. There wasn’t a hell of a lot they could do to all of us polliwogs.
They elected their king Neptune, Royal Baby, Royal Scribe, Davey Jones etc. and then had their meeting to decide and plan what all they would do to us. By the time it was my turn to crawl through the target sleeve and get whacked the shellbacks were arm weary. I know they had to be thinking, "I’ll be glad when this shit is over with."
It was mostly fun and games for the "in group" or movers and shakers of the crew which included the third deck clique members. More on this group in another story. It was the only initiation we ever had and I never initiated any one.
Several of us were on a working party ashore to help set up the assembly line and stalls where the fuse replacement took place and to move the projectiles in and out of the area. We were all glad for the opportunity to go ashore and as I recall the job took two or more days to complete.
There was a garrison of ANZAC troops stationed on the island and it was in their area we did the work.
Some of the New Zealand soldiers invited us to eat with them if we didn’t mind, "greens and bully beef that’s all we get up here." We found out at the meal that bully beef was corned beef.
We reciprocated by bringing some of them aboard for a meal and if they were impressed with our food they didn’t say so. They were impressed by our 40 MM guns especially after we started the motors and demonstrated the ability to control them remotely with the mark 51 director.
The highlight of our stay was a USO show put on by Ray Milland and several starlets from Hollywood. These starlets didn’t need any talent and if they had any nobody paid attention to it. They were just good to look at.
The show was held in an open air theater of sorts with a stage and benches to seat several hundred men.
In attendance was one of our crewmen who was "goosey". If anyone poked a finger anywhere on his body he reacted almost convulsively and shouted "what the f..."
During a skit performed by Milland and a couple of the women someone goosed the man and he hollered, "What the f...". The show stopped dead. It took a while for Ray and the women to regain their composure and continue. Later some of the women came aboard and were wined and dined in the officers ward room.
Probably only three stripes and above were invited to that event.

Man Overboard in War means lost at sea

I don’t remember ever having any drills but do remember a couple of men overboard.
The first one I only heard about the next morning. He was sleeping on the flight deck one night when GQ sounded; he just picked up his blanket and ran over the side. Of course we didn’t stop and no ships would turn on a light to look for him. I can’t say if one of the destroyers slowed down to maybe hear him hollering. In any event he was never heard from again.
The other man was a division mate and although not a close friend I did know him.
He fell from a ladder on the starboard side and struggled a short while but soon disappeared below the surface. Someone threw down a life jacket because we never wore them except on the gun mounts where we kept them along with our helmets. A destroyer fell in behind and searched for him but soon sent daw dit (negative) on the blinker, he was gone.
The only time we ever stopped for anything was sometime later and to this day I have no idea why we anchored off Saipan. The island had just been secured and there was still fighting on Tinian nearby. Ships were shelling that island and I remember one of the warrant gunners wondering if we couldn’t join in with our five inch guns. We could have brought all eight on the starboard side to bear with the island easily in range. We didn’t however.
I happened to be near the port side gangway when I saw a boat with three Marines coming out from Saipan. They were in their battle fatigues so I hung around waiting to see what they wanted as they came aboard. One of them told the OD he had a brother on the ship and would like to see him. When the officer asked for his brothers name it was the man who had drowned a few days before. I remember walking away quickly so as not to hear what the officer would have to tell him.
I only saw him maybe for a minute but if he walked in the room right now I would recognize him.