End of Chapter 1

The Navy had invited parents and friends of the Esperance’s sailors to attend the ship’s commissioning.  Many of my friends waved to people they recognized and looked forward to talking with after the ceremony.

“See anybody you know, Jim?” I asked my buddy.

“Naw,” he answered.  “My folks are already plowing, getting ready to plant corn.”

I didn’t bother searching for familiar faces,  but took advantage of the offered refreshments.  Not only was I ignorant of the commissioning ceremony taking place, even had I known in advance, I also knew that Dad struggled twelve hours a day with his business and couldn’t take time off, while Mom babysat and did nursing.  She had been dead-set against Dad signing the documents that permitted me to drop out of high school and join the Navy at seventeen years of age, so it’s not like she would’ve wanted to attend the ceremony either.

Standing at “parade rest”, we sailors suffered through a dreary reading of the list of our ship’s officers.  Our captain, Robert W. Backius, and Commander McDonald delivered lackluster speeches on the subject “Esperance action.”  The time for refreshments and mingling with guests provided a welcome respite.

“Hey, Schlener, there’s ol’ Stanley lugging a big black case,” Jim said, pointing out our friend.  “They probably stuck him in the Third Division.”

“Well, if it ain’t Mr. Colorado himself,” I exclaimed, thumping Stanley on the back.  “Man, I thought you were AWOL and skeedadled back to Pike’s Peak when you heard we were shipping out.”

“Not this swab jockey!” Stanley retorted.  “I’m in for the whole hog or nuthin.”

“What ya got in that suitcase?  Looks out of place among all these sea bags,” Jim said.

Stanley explained, “It’s my squeeze box; my wrinkle machine.  They said I could bring it on board.”

“That’s fantastic,” I yelped.  “We can hold jam sessions if you’ll let me beat on the case with my drum sti—“

I never finished my sentence.  Standing not ten feet away from me was my mom, listening and smiling.  I swept her into a hug before introducing her to my buddies.

“How on earth did you get here, Mom?  I had no idea!  I didn’t even know invitations were sent out.”  I peppered Mom with comments and questions, careful with my language.  I’d had my mouth swabbed out with soap as a kid, and badly needed another treatment now, if Mom only knew!

She said, “I just finished taking care of an invalid lady and was able to buy a round-trip bus ticket for the commissioning.  I just had to see my sailor boy once more before he went to sea!”

Mom was away from home a lot when she babysat or nursed ailing folk.  I thought of Dad’s extended work schedule, sometimes twelve hours straight, and often without a cook when Mom was trying to make ends meet during the Depression.  Dad wasn’t grief-stricken when Mom was away for a while.  Although he missed her caresses, cooking, washing, and ironing, he took great pleasure in gutting the refrigerator, throwing away leftovers that had sprouted hairy mold.

Our time together on the ship passed too quickly.  When Mom and I said our goodbyes, she held on tightly, as if afraid to let go.  She thrust a small package into my hands.  In a quavering voice, she said, “Dad and I want you to take this Bible with you to sea.  We’ll be praying for you, Little Brother,” she called me by my nickname.  “Be careful, won’t you?”

Both of us were too choked with emotion to speak, and then she was gone.  Memories of childhood and adolescence flooded my mind as I watched Mom disappear from view, down the gangplank. 

Sea Billows chapter 1 continued...

Once fire training was complete, we prospective sailors were loaded once more into cattle cars for one last ride.  The cars ground to a halt at a platform where military buses, painted a flat grey color, waited for us.  The Navy driver at the wheel sported a funny grin.  He knew what we had been through and what still lay ahead.  A smooth bus ride through town helped us forget the monotonous clickety-clack of the cattle cars.  Our mouths watered as we passed grocery stores, restaurants, and an ice cream parlor.

The driver stopped, pulled a lever that opened the door, and admitted a wide-eyed Chief Petty Officer.  Stiff as a hickory stick, the C.P.O. clutched a clipboard, announcing, “You have arrived in Astoria, Oregon, where the Columbia River empties into the Pacific Ocean.  Follow me to board the USS Cape Esperance, CVE 88, to which you are assigned for duty.”

Like chickens released from a crowded coop, we newbies poured out of the buses hard on the heels of the petty officer.  Tied up at the pier was an enormous gray box with a super-sized 88 painted on its tower.  The USS Cape Esperance was an odd looking ship: drab gray with a snub nose, its rear end sawed off square.  The huge wooden top, flat as a dining room table, held a forward tower on the starboard side with nothing else to dress it up.  The tower stuck out past the edge of the hull, making it appear lopsided.  How could an airplane land on what must look to be the size of a postage stamp from a few thousand feet up?  Anti-aircraft guns mounted along a narrow catwalk stood ready just below the flight deck.  Ah, yes!  The firearms I recognized, now well aware as to their intended purpose.

A shrill whistle over the public address system repeated a tune twice, followed by a bass voice that carried clear across the Great Divide.  “Now hear this!  Now hear this!  All hands on deck for muster.”

There was no welcoming committee or brass band to strike up the Navy hymn to meet  us.  Instead, officers shouted orders that separated the mass of sailors into divisions.  Several of my buddies from boot camp were assigned with me to the Second Division.

Another triple-shrill from the P.A. system introduced the same bass voice from the boatswain.  “All hands below decks!  Secure all personal gear in assigned lockers, and report to hangar deck in thirty minutes!”

Once we completed those orders and returned to the hangar deck as instructed, the PA bellowed again with less-thrilling news.  “All hands turn to!  Embark all supplies from dock to storage areas!” 

Some of the not-so-robust sailors responded by hunting out hiding places to rest.  Their mistake was rewarded with, “Get off your rear ends, you goldbrick landlubbers, and stiffen up to the best attention your lazy bones can muster.”  They leaped to their feet, stomped out their cigarettes, and froze at attention.

Quietly, humbly, the boatswain started to lecture. “I’m the boatswain in charge of  loading this ship with supplies before we shove off for a shakedown cruise.  I’m in trouble if it doesn’t get done on time.”  Then with face crimson in anger, he bellowed, “The brig is still nice and new just waiting to make shirkers of duty like you birds comfortable for a few days on bread and water.  I simply ain’t gonna let you jerks get me in trouble.  If you do I’ll arrange some unlovely extra duty that will make you wish you were back in Sunday School Class. Now, get the heck to work!”

The next morning after chow, the PA again summoned us sailors to the hangar deck where scanty decorations heralded some sort of celebration.  The official commissioning ceremony for the U.S.S. Cape Esperance was already in progress when we arrived on the scene.  Either I hadn’t listened carefully or hadn’t read the notices, because I was surprised to see about a hundred civilians milling around our hangar deck.  The Navy had invited parents and friends of the Esperance’s sailors to attend the ship’s commissioning.  Many of my friends waved to people they recognized and looked forward to talking with after the ceremony.

Chapter 1 (continued)

*  *  *

But our destination on this train ride was additional instruction before being assigned to a Third Fleet ship:  gunnery training and fire fighting.  The naval instructors had no trouble maintaining discipline, for boot camp had built raw recruits up to optimal health, while simultaneously melting us down to opinion-less nubbins of “Yes, sir”, “No, sir” and “Aye, aye, sir”.

The instructor at firearms training announced, “Hey, guys, you’re looking tough after getting ground down on ‘the grinder’.”  His statement elicited a wave of laughter.  Sinewy, suntanned, and sporting a perpetual furrow between his brows, he reminded me of a Montana rancher:  a good shot. 

He told us, “We can have a heck of a good time here with these lethal weapons if you do exactly as I tell you and show you.  If you do not obey instructions, there’s a whale of a chance that you will be sent home to your mom and dad in an oblong box.”

Rifle and pistol practice left all of us recruits with sore hands and shoulders, not to mention ringing ears, but none of us got out of line during gunnery training.  It was a good thing boot camp preceded these particular training classes, because otherwise serious accidents would undoubtedly have occurred, thanks to young know-it-alls.  I am convinced that Navy philosophy in boot camp is:  “You do not know anything.  Therefore, in order to survive your stint in the Navy, you will learn to do everything the Navy way.”

It was actually fun shooting 20mm anti-aircraft guns with tracer bullets at target sleeves made from light cloth and towed by airplanes.  The tow-plane pilots were either very young and fearless, or nervous wrecks, knowing that a trigger-happy recruit might set off his dozen rounds at the plane instead of the sleeve.

My group lucked out with our fire fighting instructor.  His simple sentences carried impetus from the first moment he addressed us.  “Men [none of us had ever been called that before, and our chests puffed out in pride], I’m supposed to teach you how to put out fires like those that ignite after a torpedo or bomb hits your ship.  A fanatic kamikaze pilot is just waiting for the order to plow into your ship a heck of a long way from shore and you guys are the fire extinguishers.

He had our full attention.  Few of us ever imagined having to put out a fire on an all-steel ship, or worried about being bombed.  Our instructor’s stocky face sported scanty eyebrows. 

“Looks like he’s been singed from showing how to do it too often,” I wise-cracked out of the corner of my mouth to the guy standing next to me.

“It isn’t easy to put out a fire when burning petroleum is the culprit,” our instructor continued.  “I won’t threaten you, but I strongly suggest you do exactly as I tell you and show you.  If you do, you have a better chance to avoid becoming broiled sausages, just like I haven’t, so far. . . .”

Each of us sailors had to take turns being first in line to face the roaring inferno of scorching flames, fiercely gripping the heavy brass nozzle of a water hose.  The nozzle man was motivated to do everything right in double-quick time before he lost his eyebrows.  The rest of us cowered behind him, clinging to the thick water hose, trembling with fear at the incredible heat and knowing our turn at the nozzle would come far too soon.  This experience made me wonder about hell.  I had heard it described as a whole lake of fire, but always figured hell was just another swear word from the lengthy lists accumulated by the saltiest sailors.

Chapter 1

“The Lord reigns, He is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed in majesty and is armed with strength.  The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.  Your throne was established long ago; You are from all eternity.” (Psalm 93:vs 1-2) [NIV)

A grueling cattle car ride on the Great Northern Railroad was the first of many to naval training stations along the route from north Idaho to Astoria, Oregon.  It gave opportunity for young sailors, some of whom had never left home before, to feast their eyes on snow-capped Rocky Mountains and peer into the depths of yawning canyons.  Many of us had never seen the Pacific Ocean before.  “Join the Navy and see the world” we were told.  Jim and I were on our way.

“Jim, can you believe how they herded us into these ancient rattletrap trains?  It’s kinda like we’re white-faced Herefords.  I’d heard talk of ‘cattle cars’ before; now I know how they got that name!” 

I was talking to a fellow Seaman Second Class, Jim Sweeney. We’d just completed boot camp at Farragut Naval Training Station in North Idaho, and were lowly apprentice seamen in the United States Navy with nary a glimpse of saltwater to show for our training thus far. Our infinitesimal promotion  permitted us another white stripe on our cuffs and a bigger one around our right shoulders.  It was nowhere near the distinction of gold braid, but it didn’t take much for us “swab jockeys” (the Navy’s own nickname for its sea-based personnel) to feel cocky.

Jim responded to my comment, “Yeah.  The way the chief petty officer yelled at us, I wondered why he didn’t save his breath and just use an electric prod like the cowpokes do at auction sales back in Iowa.”

Jim didn’t have anything to brag about.  Although he didn’t have a mean hair on his blond head, the well-proportioned rugged farm boy was used to foul-mouthed talk and toughened to hard work.  But his walk and speech were equally slow.  Platoon leaders screamed at him to “get the lead out” of his feet.

It bothered me when Jim made the mistake of going on a one-day liberty with the wrong group of boys who took great satisfaction in getting him stupidly drunk.  Jim lost control of most of his faculties, leaping off a moving bus and in the process breaking his arm and scraping his face.  Scars still stood out fresh on his face from that ill-judged escapade.

We stood among a crowd of boot camp survivors like us, waiting to be transferred to who-knew-where, although most of us didn’t care.  The guys dawdled around, smoking endless packs of cigarettes while waiting for a yeoman to tack the next list of assignments to the bulletin board.  We had lived through fevers with aching muscles, thanks to immunizations; numbed toes from marches in the bitter cold on the frozen ground of an arena the size of a football field known as “the grinder” without benefit of long johns.  Athletic hot bloods reluctantly learned to accept saliva-laden insults hurled by mean-spirited superiors  in nose-to-nose confrontations— without reciprocating.

Crowded in front of the bulletin board, nearly crushing the humble yeoman with his papers and thumbtacks, we jostled one another as we searched for our names.  Jim and I, along with a trainload of others, found our names listed under the heading “CVE Pool”.  A tall, lanky kid who might have been a swimmer, piped, “What the heck kind of pool is that?”

On tiptoe next to me, Stanley Odenbaugh from one of the other Farragut boot camps was barely tall enough to qualify for military service.  His body made up in muscle tone what it lacked in height.  You wanted to be on Stanley’s side in the event of a showdown on land or sea.

Stanley’s broad smile revealed a shiny gold crown as he spoke up, “I got word from a friend who is already in the Pool.  He says CVE stands for Carrier Vessel Escort.  Looks like we’re doomed to become galley slaves on a ‘baby flattop.’  They also call them ‘Kaiser’s coffins’.  He says they sink like empty tomato cans when they fill up with water.  But there are so dang many of ‘em, the Navy doesn’t care because they’re still making ‘em by the dozen.”

Jim shrugged his shoulders, drawling, “I dunno.  Maybe your friend is right.  Whatever it means, we can’t turn back now.  Gotta take what we got.  We asked for it.  Nobody forced us to join up.”

In this case, CVE pool meant a group of sailors available for the single purpose of filling Admiral Halsey’s tiny aircraft carriers with sailors for Task Force 38.  Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey was commander of the U.S. Third Fleet, consisting of 132 ships, in the Pacific Ocean.  According to biographers, the admiral’s nickname and facial expressions were equally descriptive of the man’s character.

When General Douglas MacArthur vacated the Philippine Islands ahead of invading Japanese forces, it fell to the Third Fleet to man a vast concentration of aircraft carriers that filled the skies with planes raining non-stop strikes on enemy vessels and island strongholds.  We sailors of the CVE Pool would eventually learn of the existence of a natural enemy more fierce and powerful than the Japanese imperial armed forces.

Forward

Typhoon Cobra 1944

While penning these paragraphs about my experience on board the great ship USS CAPE ESPERANCE, I thought of my ship mates and other sailors who served on board the good ship since the Cobra and Viper typhoons.
Threatened by onslaughts of wild wind and pounding water, none of us on board realized what a seaworthy chunk of steel was holding us up. Hearing eerie sounds from steel bending, twisting, snapping, and to watch airplanes being swept across the flight deck and into the sea plagued us with fear. Sudden thrusts of the entire ship by megatons of water made us wonder why this top-heavy rig didn't capsize. Through the most powerful storm on record she showed her stuff, giving ship's company reason to thank God, and the shipyard workers who glued her together.

http://www.google.com/search?q=cobra+typhoon&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&client=firefox-a&rlz=

When Sea Billows Roll.

RELIVE THE MOST TERRIFYING TYPHOON IN NAVAL... HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE THE DRAMA OF A LIFE THAT WAS CHANGED FOREVER.

The wind howled and roared as Paul Schlener found himself plunged into the ravages of the powerful typhoon Cobra, Stationed on an open bridge, 62 feet from water level, the sailor boy clutched to a vertical one-inch pipe while being pelted by 100 mph stinging rain and salt water spume.
Fear gripping his heart, Schlener watched the small aircraft carrier’s planes being tossed, tumbled, and swept into the sea like toys. Would this be the last day of his life? Far from home at the age of eighteen, Schlener wondered if he’d ever live to see his parents and his pretty girlfriend, Jessie, again...
An amazing book that tells about how a young sailor came to faith in Christ, and how his life was changed forever! Great witnessing tool! A "Gospel-tract" in book format!