Eye Surgery

Usually I write about five posts per month.  This month I've been occupied with just seeing the keyboard.  Cataract surgery dampens my production, but I hope it goes well because I love to read and write.  I have to admit surgery is unnerving and scary.  Take needles for instance.  I don't like them.  I've never liked them.  Having good vision is one of God's best blessings.   Baby Boomers know what I'm talking about because we're getting older and millions of us have retired or are beginning to retire or worse.  Ailments are part of being a senior citizen and I admire those little old ladies in pre-op who take it better than me. 

As a kid I remember reading The Oregon Trail by Francis Parkman.  It was right up there with Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo and Drums Along the Mohawk.  Parkman's vision failed him too and eventually he had to rig a jig using wires that kept his pen on the lines of the paper he was using.  At least in my case my ebook made it to Barnes and Noble and Amazon in time.   My hope was to have ebooks stimulate printed sales for better distribution.  I took a chance and it's only $2.99 for millions of tech savy youngsters on a budget.  Journal of the Silent Majority is just my observation on what's happened to America since WWII.  Surely there will be others.  I'd like to be able to read them too.

Hopefully, sometime in late February my eyes will have gotten better so that I may reassume my politically incorrect effort to tell people about a history they're not supposed to know.

Scrambled Eggs, Smoke, and Geronimo

Before we boarded the ship, part of the orientation to the Little Creek Amphibious Base was a visit to the Navy’s huge indoor Amphibious Warfare Demonstrator.  It was a modeler’s delight complete with all kinds of ships, vehicles, and planes showing how an assault is made.  Each step in the process is lit up for the hundreds of Marines in the bleachers who were lucky enough in their careers to see such a sight.  I remember the beach area where Navy Underwater Demolitions Teams were sent in to scout the landing beaches.  Bridges blow up in softening up bombardments.  A Phantom jet is hit and the parachute pops out. Unfortunately these types of models and demonstrations appear to be a thing of the past.

Soon after we staged our field packs and rifles on the deck of LPD-20, the Navy wasted no time in giving us tips on making our visit a pleasant one.  I remember one well.  It was their concern that we should not go hungry; obviously, they were all well fed.  Their advice for us was to eat a large and hearty breakfast (especially scrambled eggs) the morning of the landing.  My warning to the others went unheeded.     

In the darkness the well deck was jammed with Marines fiddling with their field gear and rifles waiting to load into the rear hatches of the Amtraks.  The lucky ones were the officers who got to ride on top with the Navy drivers and the radio men.  Captain Harris was on top.  I was one of the 25 unlucky ones who were crammed below.  There was loud chatter as we sat on our starboard and port benches.  One guy from Admin was joking and couldn’t shut up.  I had my own thoughts: deafening noise, smelly with diesel smoke, hot, and too crowded.  I was surprised that the deck was made of wood and not asphalt.  This was exciting and I hadn’t done this type of landing before.  At least I didn’t have to carry a safe. The light at the end of the tunnel before us was the Atlantic Ocean coming in fast as the ship’s stern sank.  We were among the last to go and as the Amtrak clanked down the well deck most of us thought of yesterday’s briefing.   Theory was when the Amtrak drops off, it sinks and we bob back up. The last word I heard from the Admin guy (or anyone else) was a loud “Geronimo!”

When the Amtrak bobbed back up, the driver opened the top hatch.  I remember vividly the diesel smoke pouring in and the field radio chatter being drowned out by the loud engines.  I also remember when the first guy got sea sick and started throwing up causing a chain reaction among us who were packed in like sardines.  I purposely had been the last to board the Amtrak so I could be next to the rear hatch to be the first one off when we hit the beach 20 minutes later.  We did not know that the Navy had dumped us nine miles from shore and we drifted south, way off from our landing area.  As the craft lurched upward with each swell, the scrambled eggs and sea water from 24 other Marines cascaded back towards me and splashed on the hatch where I rested my head.  It was like being sick in a tumbler washing machine.  An hour later we finally hit the beach, not exactly like in the movies.  It was more like the scene in War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise when the Tripod crashes to the ground and its canopy opens up with a gentle “swoosh” and all the goop (and smoke) washes out, only the goop was us.  I bet the Navy got a chuckle out of this one.

Little Creek, Va.

Norfolk Naval Base is the biggest in the world.  Hq, Co. 24th Marines, my old reserve unit, spent two weeks at its Little Creek Amphibious Base in August, 1977.  Its mission this time was to make a landing from the Atlantic.  The first week had the usual training: gas chamber, S-2 briefings, and climbing between the tops of telephone poles on the obstacle course with cargo nets when it was 97 degrees.  We saw our first Harrier jet when it landed in front of our bleachers.  It makes a tremendous noise.  Recon units seem to spend a lot of time dangling on ropes from helicopters making runs across the waterfront.  I took a picture of the aircraft carrier USS Kennedy docked there as we boarded an amphibious ship.  People back on the block have no idea how enormous carriers are.

Water survival was off Little Creek Park in a rubber raft, in uniform of course.  Being from the Midwest, I naturally worried about sharks, but it fades when the instructor dumps everyone overboard and overturns the raft.  The immediate concern is getting the most agile fellow on top, grabbing the ropes and leaning back until he flips it upright.  It amazing how hot it can get in a rubber life raft.  On board our LPD, SSgt. Grimes is modeling a Kapok, the Navy’s old version of a life jacket.  Notice he still wears the old green utilities just now in 1977 being replaced by camouflage.  It was interesting how little interaction there was between us Marines and the “Squids”.   They looked like teenagers.  I guess it’s because we were reservists and Hq. Co. was packed with returning Vietnam veterans. 

Behind SSgt. Grimes is LPD-23, the USS Anchorage, one of many that are the meat and potatoes ships of every Marine Corps landing.  It’s a special type of troopship with a helicopter or Harrier flight deck and a well deck below that floods to discharge landing craft we called Amtracks.  LPDs apparently don’t have any life boats.  I didn’t see any. What happens if one is torpedoed?  Our LPD-20, the USS Green Bay, which was anchored next to the USS Kennedy, is preparing for the landing which was to take place during our second week at Little Creek. (note: Greenbay and Anchorage and their numbers were passed on to their replacements.  I believe the identifications are correct, but I could be wrong). 

I took the last photo from a Mike Boat as we floated around Norfolk Harbor.  Notice the antiaircraft guns on the ship’s port side and the old fashioned ramp.  I never saw an old Mike Boat again.  Hover Craft replaced them.  As for Norfolk Harbor and before I forget, it’s where the Cherry family came to America as indentured servants from England in 1635, but I did not know it at the time.

Date of Arrival: September 19, 1945

Date of Arrival on WWII discharges can be used to determine by deduction the ship our Baby Boom fathers came back on, but it’s hard.  U.S. WWII maritime records seem to have disappeared.  My feedback from researching WWII troop movements is mostly negative: “There was a fire.”  “The Record Group is no longer here.”  “Records of the troopships were destroyed a long time ago.”  My e-mails bounce back like raindrops off my truck’s hood.  Somewhere in that world of bureaucratic dusty warehouses there should be loads of WWII primary source records.  Some supply records are just now being declassified.  Besides, it doesn’t make sense.  Something ain’t right here.  Archivists prefer to keep their jobs and just don’t throw away good stuff.  That’s the reason from coast to coast this nation is bursting at the seams with millions of warehouses that are crammed with storekeeping nightmares.  Clerks don’t just don’t throw things away.  It’s the same with government.  Don’t snoop and don’t rock the boat.  Don’t inquire.  “We’ve had cutbacks here.”  “Unless you’re a Pulitzer Prize winner, don’t bother us.”  My point - I believe the good stuff is there.

In the meantime there’s the old fashioned way of researching - reading the newspapers.  Dad’s Date of Arrival was September 19, 1945 the day Shirley Temple got married (to an enlisted man!)  Many years ago I found the New York Sun on microfilm tape at the Mid-Continent library in Independence, Missouri.  Today it’s possible to find digital troopship docking records on the Internet. 

New York Sun Wednesday, September 19, 1945, “7 Troopships Arriving Here”:

New York: Rockhill Victory, Aiken Victory, Algonquin, Charles Goodyear, Depauw Victory, John Spencer, Zacapa; Boston: Frederick Lykes, Huntington, Kemp Battle; New Port News: Fayetteville Victory, Santa Barbara, SS Cape Nun C1-A, Sea Fiddler Victory, Carter, Coaldale Victory, Cooper Union Victory, USS Farragut, Howard Victory, Lee

Binghamton Press Thursday, September 20, 1945: “More Than 7,500 Veterans Are Due on East Coast Today”

New York: Mormacmoon, Surprise (from Antwerp), Zachary Taylor (from Antwerp). Queen Elizabeth, still offloading from last night with 14,979 troops; Boston: Kingston Victory, William and Mary Victory, Nathan Towson, Francis Harrington, Lake Charles Victory.  New Port News: Pleiades, Walter Reid, Admiral Capps, Leopold Damroach 

From the list compiled of the ships arriving on that discharge date, you can start deducting until you may actually find the one your father came back on.  Of course there are bibliographies like the one in the Gray Ghost (RMS Queen Mary) by Steve Harding.  Troopships of WWII website based on diaries and passenger accounts is a noble attempt but fails because it isn’t updated with other primary sources, especially those that have been declassified.  (See: CARL digital WWII operational documents).  Otherwise, you can roll up your sleeves and dig.  Newspapers ain’t that bad.