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.