A POCKETFUL OF WRY

It took me all of three weeks to spend the money that I earned on the Monahan, so I was SOON ready for a new ship.

On to the union hall to see what was available.  In those days the  hall was located upstairs on Pier Seven,  just four piers west of the Ferry Building.  It was a short walk from the Key System terminal, which was the end of the line for the old ” A ” train.  I always enjoyed that walk as I passed a tobacco shop where there was an old man in the window crafting  hand-rolled cigars.  I always spent at least fifteen minutes standing there. That was about how long it took him to roll one cigar.

Stepping back a moment I want to comment on the trip into San Francisco.   As the train pulled in, there was a strong aroma of fresh roasted coffee.  It came from the old Folgers Coffee Company that at time was located close by.  It smelled so good that I would often stop in the coffee shop located in the terminal and have a cup of coffee and a hot buttered snail.

Well, on to the union hall.  It was a story of its own.  Very smoke filled and bustling with activities of several kinds.  It was kind of a hang-out for older seamen who were not really looking for a ship as much as looking for companionship of like-minded souls. They would sit and smoke and talk and play cards.  Mostly pinochle.

There was a very large chalk board mounted on the wall with the names of ships and the open positions that were available. You would go up to the counter,  present your shipping card and state the position { berth} you were interested in. They would, in turn give you a form on which was written  the ship’s name and location and your position you were taking. Then they would erase that job from the board. Voila!  It was yours.   I should add here that there were many more jobs on the board than there were people looking for openings.  It was dangerous out there at that time. This was getting toward the middle of 1944 and anywhere west of the International date line was still a happy hunting ground for Japanese submarines.

Anyway, my new ship: another deep sea tug. The MV Gay Head.  Just like my first ship, the Sombrero Key.  Looking back, I think I chose it because it was familiar to me and that I was comfortable with something that I knew.  So I signed on, went home, packed my sea bag and reported for duty. We never knew where we were headed until after we cleared San Francisco. This kept seamen from selecting what they might consider safer trips and made it possible to fill out crews for all ships indiscriminately.

So next time:  back to Guam.

Steaming

A little about WW2 ships.

In the forties there were basically two types of ship propulsion:  steam, which was the favored method for most large vessels and diesel which drove tug boats and submarines.

Steam ships usually had two oil fired boilers providing steam to either reciprocating engines or steam turbines.  Reciprocating engines required much less steam pressure to operate but were also restricted to much slower speeds.  Operating steam pressure was typically around 200 pounds per square inch. The energy in this relatively low pressure was exhausted quickly; whereas steam turbines could operate at much higher pressures and get a much higher energy per fuel ratio.

I have sailed with some old timers who refused to sail on ships that operated at steam pressures over two hundred pounds; they  claimed that they were just two darned dangerous.  I must add here, that I have never heard of a ship boiler explosion, unless it was torpedoed.

I, myself always preferred steam ships; mostly because I found the smell of diesel fuel offensive over a long period of time.

Jumping way ahead in time:

A couple of years ago my wife and I had occasion to sail on the cruise ship Sky Princess, formerly the Fair Sky under the old Sitmar Flag, from San Francisco to Australia. It was to my knowledge, the last steam driven cruise ship. They are now mostly diesel with a few sporting the new pod propulsion system.

Most will find this posting rather boring but I felt that it needed saying. I hope that you might find my next offering more interesting.

A Lad In Guam

Arrival at Guam was, for me a real eye-opener. I had seen the devastation at Pearl Harbor but it had two years clean up before I got a look at it. By coincidence My arrival at Guam was just one day after the Island was declared ” secured”. It was a mess. Every where one looked was total havoc. Most of the coconut palms were at least damaged. and a lot of them had lost their tops. The buildings were mostly destroyed with the exception of the ones the Sea Bees were putting up. Quonset huts mostly. It was truly amazing how fast those men could put those things together.

When we were entering the harbor there was a T2 Tanker, Mission class, lying completely out of the water with a large torpedo hole, amidships and just below the water line. It must have been empty when hit or it would have been blown sky high. Tankers have their engine room aft. If that had been a Liberty ship or any other cargo ship the torpedo would have been right in the engine room.

You can bet that that gave us all room for thought.

I set out for a little Island exploration but was soon stopped by two MP’s.  It seems that though the Island was declared secure, that was not necessarily so.  There were still Japanese hold outs lurking in the jungle brush. It seems that no one had told them that the Island was secure.

So for the two or three days that we were unloading aircraft and during my time off I wandered around watching the rebuilding and collecting cowry shells along the beach. Most of the troops,  Marines and Army that had taken the Island were already removed and headed for a little well deserved R&R before the next Island assault.

I thought it odd that I didn’t see any natives.  It seems that the Japanese had convinced these people that we were barbarians and would kill them and in some cases eat them.  There exists film documentation of hundreds of native people jumping off high cliffs into the rocky surf with Japanese troops jumping after them.  I believe this to be true as I saw dead bodies washing up on the beach. I still do not understand how getting these people to kill themselves helped the Japanese cause in any way.

Ship unloaded, no reason for us to delay. We headed out to sea, homeward bound to San Francisco, a relatively short trip of just over two months. It was however, a unique and very educational experience for this young lad.  It also provided me with the most money that I had ever possessed in my entire life. And this was after I had sent half of my pay home in the form of an allotment. I was already looking forward to my next adventure and wondering where away and on what kind of ship.