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Joining the War at Sea 1939-1945

Annunciator Speaks!

World War II Sinking

British Rescue Ship Sunk

Self Inflicted Wounds

No Abandon Ship for Ingraham

Rohna Tragedy Tops Transport, Destroyer Toll

Four Chaplains

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Annunciator Speaks!

The Throttleman's Responds

Author invites your comments

(Robert "Bud" Cloyd founded the USS Edison newsletter in 1970. His shipmates enjoyed his professional publication for 10 years. Floyd then turned the duty over to Jean Whetstine, the widow of a shipmate; she has never missed an issue. Here is Cloyd's letter dated January 15, 1999. He is the throttleman of this piece. When the bridge calls for an abrupt change in the ship's speed, the signal to the engineering room is sent by a clanging device on the bridge and is received in like fashion by the "throttleman" down below in the engineroom. The book Bud's comments about in his first paragraph below is now in its 3rd Edition-see upper left on the screen.)

I planned to write in response to your absolutely marvelous book. I found that laying it down--even to eat--was a challenge. I laughed, I cried, I called my neighbors, I talked to Harry Russell (a wartime shipmate) for two hours on the phone, I wrote cards--I WENT NUTS! Damn--it was just great. My neighbor across the street served on an APA. His service included trips to Oran and Mers-el-Kebir among others with 1630-ton destroyers like the Edison and my neighbor across the street "flew the hump" with the Air Force--so we three could appreciate every page to the utmost.

Your almost casual approach in describing entry into service and the many experiences therefrom certainly parallel all those of myself and most all of the World War II vets that I have known. We never felt heroic, sacrificial or any of the assortment of other feelings as a result of our going to war. You expressed your feelings beautifully.

Over a span of many years, I corresponded with the Edison's skippers, and regularly with Captains Al Murdaugh and Hap Pearce. I received quite a nice letter from someplace in Europe from Captain Caspari. I served only briefly with him, thank heavens, as we were approaching the Kyushu invasion with more than dread. All of us old-timers felt we would never make it from that operation. I left the ship at Saipan for transportation to the States on a beautiful, nearly new APA that had a soda fountain and NO water hours. What a treat that was. In one short letter, Captain Murdaugh apologized for not being able to attend one of the ship's reunions because of an impending hip operation. 'It might be that I'm seeking a miracle.' he stated, I have always believed in miracles since the occasion the German sub fired a torpedo at us --point blank-- and missed.' That is one of those offhand remarks direct from our little ship that will make the hair rise on your back after you have given it appropriate thought.

Your book adds a new dimension to all my memories of the Edison in that they come from the viewpoint and experiences of the officer corps and many of your reports are somewhat different from those of the crew. You are well versed in much of the action that we were just not privy to-- especially we who were below decks in the engineering spaces. All that we were aware of was that we answered the bells and hoped for the best. Let me tell you that answering (Captain) Hap Pearce's bells could be a hair-raising experience. It was not at all uncommon to be steaming flank ahead at 294 turns and get a full astern port, which was our screw in the after engine room. How well I know as a former Edison throttleman. Hap could not only provide us with a great thrill occasionally; he could also occasionally scare the living hell out of a guy. Hap's abilities as a seaman almost became legend. In thinking back, after all these years, and reading your book that describes things from a wardroom standpoint, I have reached a shaky conclusion that maybe, just maybe, the Edison was not quite as lucky as the crew gave her credit for. Our good captain(s) and some officers quite possibly created some of the narrow escapes we were blessed with.

It was my great good fortune to develop a treasured friendship on board with Joe Ouellette. While we rarely got a chance to visit aboard ship, several years later my wife and I spent a few days at Joe's home in Albany, NY, where we consumed great quantities of Jim Beam and held discourse far into the night on shipboard experiences. If we had a "Mr. Roberts" on the ship, Joe, of course, was it. He was a wonderful guy, who as far as I know, never put anyone on report and God knows he covered for a multitude of overleave drunks when he was doing his hitch as OD. Joe never saw a crap game or a poker game that he couldn't ignore and members of the crew owed Joe enough favors to last through three lifetimes. He was one of only many fine officers we were blessed with, however.

The crew of the Edison enjoyed considerably more freedom than some of the destroyers did. I remember one, for instance, concerning either the Trippe or the Wainwright (we operated with both, of course). Their captain decreed the evening chow required uniform of the day and Friday field days--something unheard of on the Edison. You should also remember the Skipper never believed in Saturday (weekly, as provided by the "book") inspections but rather let us know that if we did our jobs as he expected us to, inspections weren't necessary. Let it be made a matter of record that NOBODY was allowed to let Hap (Captain Hepburn A. "Hap" Pearce) down. Our morale was extremely high and our performance exemplary.

While Stan Craw (Pearce's Executive Officer) was somewhat "standoffish" from the crew (he had to be to enforce law and order) at the same time he was a darn nice guy in my book. He has written to me numerous times and I receive a Christmas card from him every year. I sent him a note calling attention to the fact that I must be the last remaining enlisted man from the World War II Navy to receive a Christmas card from his XO. How about that for morale?

One little sidelight from our visit with Joe Ouellette concerned my wife who said later, "I thought all those sea stories I've been hearing for years about you guys and the Edison were a bunch of lies and big stories. Now, according to your favorite lieutenant, who told all the same stories, they're actually the truth!" Also, at my begging, Joe gave me a framed 11x19" photograph which I spotted in the basement while my wife was doing the laundry. It was the old cruiser U.S.S. Seattle, remembered by thousands of sailors as being tied up at Pier 92 in New York City.

Getting back to some of those officers we shipped out with--some of them were really great guys in spite of some of the crap they had to put up with from a few bad apples in the crew. Hall, Dwyer and Hostvedt were fine engineering officers. Pearson was another great guy to work with. Everybody loved A. J. Waechter, master of the provender and scavenger extraordinaire who could smell a supply ship out like a 'coon hound. Always seeming to keep a low profile was Ed Meier, who after the war became a close friend and delightful correspondent. One day he came by my office here in Lafayette (Indiana) and we visited for two hours. Johnny Ward also showed up one day and I still have some of the pictures he left me.

Speaking of Ed Meier reminds me when Captain Pearce (stoned to the gills and mad because someone did not honor his request for beer for the crew) decided to demonstrate to everyone in the MEK (Mers-el-Kebir, Algeria) basin how a true Ship of the Line could get underway with a flourish. In the after engine room, I was on pump watch, Renslow had the top watch, Tony Colpo was on the throttles and some newcomer fireman second was the unfortunate victim of an indoctrination experience as messenger of the watch that he would never forget. In fact, I don't think he was able to even recover his voice and composure for a week.

We had been idling at the pier, singled up (the lines had been reduced from double to single) and spinning engines awaiting Hap's return from wherever captains disappeared to when ashore. The Edison was a picture of total serenity when someone yelled down the hatch, "Here comes the skipper and he's mad as hell?"

Simultaneously with "Cast off" we got our first bell and engine order for one Third Ahead Port and immediately the stern of the ship left the pier. All of us in the engineers were so familiar with Hap's docking bells that once we received that first bell everything else fell into place automatically. None of us, however, had the vaguest notion of what was to happen when we floated away from the dock some 200 feet. The next bell was Flank Ahead Starboard and Full Astern Port and all hell broke loose. It is to be remembered in naval engineering this procedure is for extreme emergency, not routine getting underway. The Edison reared up on her fan tail, burner "batters' in the fire rooms became hysterical, safety valves chattered against their restraints, throttle men did a valiant though losing effort to keep from hurling boiler water directly into the turbines and it was surprising the main blowers didn't hurl unburned fuel through the stacks. What a mess?

Within what seemed to be moments, though it had to be longer than that, we were headed for the sub nets (drawn across all harbor entrances) at flank speed. Two sub net tender crewmen dove over the side in a fruitless effort to get away from a destroyer run amok. Meier said he was nearly petrified as the ship headed out and appeared to be heading directly toward the shoals that lay at the foot of the well remembered cliff off to the starboard. Nobody questions the captain's orders, of course, so Ed said he surreptitiously managed to get the helmsman to gradually ease the ship a bit to port. The Edison's wake nearly swamped the net tender. Meanwhile back in the after engine room, we were trying to restore order which involved sliding the upended floor plates back into their regular position, checking for exploded gauges and retrieving the Joe pot, which had upended and rolled nearly to the bilges.

It was often said that the reason the Edison turned out to be such a fine performing little ship was due to the commissioning cadre of outstanding Chief Petty Officers who really knew their seamanship. These men were also credited as great instructors for the largely boot camp crew that took the ship to sea on her early runs. I never was privileged to know the man but from the stories I heard about Chief Bos'n Carajohn, the old boats did everything but walk on water. The standards established by the first chief machinists for cleanliness and maintenance, not to mention the all-around physical effort on the part of the rates and strikers, resulted in the fact that the 439 could outrun every ship of her class. We all took great pride in that.

Captain Pearce most definitely wished to keep a good crew together. The result was, getting promoted in rate was a tough proposition. Our transfers to new construction were scarce indeed and this led to some unrest among a few senior crewmembers but it eventually worked itself out. The reluctance to rate and transfer led to some strange situations at times. As far as I am able to determine, I may have been the only third class machinist in the Navy to stand throttle watch and my buddy Dick Braziel may have been the only second class metalsmith to do likewise. Where we got a second class metalsmith was always a mystery.

One humorous exception to rare promotion involved one "Salt Spray Ray." He was a seaman first with over ten year's service. Perhaps you will recall him because he was one of the ship's "characters." In all his long service, no one had been inspired to rate Ray who was becoming a little long in the tooth for a plain seaman. He never was a striker for anything, coxswain, ship fitter, radioman or gunner's mate. To find a place for the guy, our bos'n first at the time, Galensky (famous for his clean snow-white cap daily) assigned Ray to the paint locker with the admonition to run it to the best of his ability. Strangely, "Salt Spray" loved the place and became an acceptable mixologist for whatever paint the Navy had available at the moment. Everyone considered Ray's case now satisfactorily closed--all except Hap Pearce and Stan Craw. They decided that Salt Spray's assignment was akin to durance vile and that he should be accorded recognition. Thus it came about that Salt Spray Ray was "promoted" to Painter's Mate Third Class, a rate created on the spot especially for Ray. Salt Spray was directed to wear a shipfitter's badge from thence forward.

As a member of the No. 3 gun crew and handler of those five-inch projectiles with hours of experience (those dudes could be darn tricky) I was one of the culprits who smashed those white pine crates on the deck of that little non-descript coastal freighter you referred to. When us guys picked up the first half dozen boxes and slammed them on that steel deck, those foreign crewmen took off running like their butts were scalded. I don't know where they thought they were going but we guys got a big laugh out of the incident. Those men couldn't communicate with us and we had no way of telling them the projectiles were harmless until fuzed. Notwithstanding, when those same projectiles were thrown in rough weather from the ready room racks and rolled and tumbled for hours on end, it was unnerving. If it wasn't the projectiles loose, it was the depth charges rolling and bouncing loose on the fantail. Also, while trying to get a couple hours of sleep, it was most disconcerting when the midships slip joint decided to tune up and squawk away for hours. That slip joint was a vital deck accessory to prevent the ship from splitting in two in heavy seas.

My wife and I are in the photo of the Ship's Party taken in the Crystal Room of the Hotel Ritz-Carlton in New York City. I have a couple of originals here in my stuff. Hell's fire, Frank, I've kept everything. In our family room, hangs and 11x14" of the Edison in color (the one passing under the Brooklyn Bridge). It is framed in white oak and on the frame is the "U.S.S. Edison" nameplate from the telephone system in the electrician's shack. Ted Rykowski got it for me in the Philly navy yard when the ship was there for scrapping.

I certainly have enjoyed your notes, thoughts and loved the book. All the best in the world to you and if you ever pass through or near Lafayette, Indiana, we're easy to find in the phone book. Sincerely and very best wishes An old shipmate, Bud Cloyd. Order Book