Sunday in Hell, page 93
Meanwhile, on board the Smith at 1415 hours, the destroyer’s crew received an order from its skipper, Commander Francis X. McInerney, to conduct an “abandon ship” drill.
St. Louis recovered the last scout plane at 1655 hours, maneuvered back on station, and again, as darkness set in along with the period of highest threat, the crew came to general quarters and the formation zigzagged for 15 minutes, until 1741 hours, when the convoy and screens began their night time dash. While the escorts continued their hard-driving daytime submarine defense, life on board the ships in the convoy was equally fast-paced.14
On Lurline the morning of the 27th, Joey Border arose at 7:30, ate breakfast, walked about the ship and volunteered to help in the sterilizer room, where babies’ bottles were washed. She then tended seasick people, and at 10:42, while the entire convoy formation was zigzagging, mustered at her lifeboat station in the “abandon ship drill.” Afterward she paused a bit to play some bridge. All day the 27th, she and Barbara Morrison were becoming acquainted with more “gals,” including more Tennessee wives - eleven others to be exact, some Joey already knew: Anne Shertz, Peg Batchelder, who was pregnant and having a prolonged struggle with seasickness, Nida Renfro, and Nancy Meyer.
The Noble Purser
Among the ship’s officers she saw some familiar faces. She particularly recognized one officer. She had danced with him in September, the last night of the voyage to Oahu when she sat at Commodore Berndtson’s table for the traditional “Captain’s Party.” Mr. J.C. “Jack” Fischbeck, the ship’s purser.
A pleasant man with a good sense of humor, he was the officer responsible for accounting and bookkeeping on Lurline, and much more. He was easy to talk to, thoroughly enjoyed and was proud of his work, was duty-conscious, experienced in making people comfortable and able to enjoy their often “once-in-a-lifetime” voyages - and truly liked people. Whatever occurred on the ship, whatever was planned as an expenditure of time, energy and dollars - particularly activities such as entertainment, which contributed to the welfare and happiness of the passengers and crew, he was the officer to get help to the wounded, the few returning tourists, and help the “thousands of women and children” help themselves - this large, most unusual group of passengers.
Mr. Fischbeck and his pursers had had their hands full, absolutely no doubt, and more than their share of changes in the past nineteen days. First, they had left Oahu on 5 December with their relatively normal load of passengers intent on helping passengers enjoy a vacation at sea on a grand luxury cruise liner sailing to San Francisco - homeward bound. Then came the emergency signal from the Cynthia Olson, attacked by a submarine, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the abrupt change from peace to war en route, followed in San Francisco with the immediate handover of the Lurline and the entire inventory of Matson ships to the United States Maritime Commission, chartered to the U.S. Navy and the conversions of the last two of the three great white ships to troop ships - an abrupt, heavy dose of austerity. The days of commercial adventures and international ports of call were over for the foreseeable future. The Matson Line was to continue managing and operating their ships, but their voyages would be determined by the nation’s wartime needs, and during the war they would seldom sail without a naval escort. All their movements on the seas were to be highly classified. And there would be no frills.
Six days later came their first wartime voyage from San Francisco to Oahu. Gaiety and luxury were left behind when they loaded their new passengers and sailed outbound beneath the Golden Gate. The soldiers were adaptable, easily entertained themselves, and were easy to entertain. Enforced sobriety, no bars or lounges where alcohol would be served, and the absence of professional entertainment didn’t seem to bother them, while galley and waiter staffs were confronted with more than twice the number of meals to serve - and all the traditional gripes about food normally heard from soldiers far from home.
On the way to Oahu the ship’s officers and crew heard on radios and read words in messages about submarines on the attack. As men in the military, the soldiers and their officers had been trained for emergencies, paid attention to the lifeboat drills, and could respond if called upon in an emergency. Nevertheless, the abrupt change from peace to war had had its effects. The Lurline had arrived in Oahu on the 21st, and Commodore Berndtson, through Crown and Cooke, had informed the Navy their crew was short 100 people, and morale was low. The Navy sent sailors and junior officers to augment. Now this.
Another dramatic change - with submarine warnings increasing - a temporary hospital occupied what was once a beautifully appointed ballroom, with wounded on cots lining the ballroom floor, so close together there was barely room to pass between them. Some were grievously wounded, especially the burn victims, men with multiple shrapnel and fracture wounds and compound fractures immobilized in casts. One doctor and two nurses, plus the ship’s doctor and medical staff. If Lurline is torpedoed, how will we get the totally helpless wounded up to the boat deck and into the lifeboats? That will take some thought, planning, preparation, assignment of responsibilities and drills.
But the great majority of passengers were worried, if not frightened, women and children abruptly ordered to leave their husbands, fathers, sons and brothers behind. Many had received two hours notice or less to evacuate, and came with little in hand to face an uncertain future at unknown destinations. Little time to plan, prepare and pack. Worse, it had all happened at Christmastime. Not a good time to say goodbye. Children with absent fathers, many with no time or wherewithal to celebrate Christmas, one small Christmas tree on board ship, no parties or gifts, Santa Claus nowhere in sight. The attack had seemed to devastate Christmas along with everything else, but fortunately, not the spirit of Christmas. The spirit was still alive in the midst of a tumultuous time.
Then there were the worried tourists, trapped in their vacation paradise. They had wondered for days if or how they would ever get home. Equally worried were old time islanders not wanting to leave Hawaii - ever - now faced with the prospect of sailing through waters patrolled by Japanese submarines to an unknown interim destination, and then travel to some final destination they had never seen.
Mr. Fichbeck and Commodore Berndtson needed help. Joey, the Tennessee wives - indeed, all the wounded, wives, mothers and children - needed help and some smiles. And that meant get organized, cooperate, and work together to deliver help, encouragement and cheer where needed.
The Lurline, like the Tennessee and all the Navy combatants, had a speaker system. If Commodore Berndtson granted permission for Joey to use the speaker system, which was accessible on the Lurline’s bridge, it offered a way to communicate and organize. A woman’s voice on the speaker system, heard by a shipload mostly of women and children, might lift spirits. While there was no longer an orchestra or dance band, dance troupe, a bar selling drinks, gambling tables or slot machines on board, there was a piano, at least one actor and an actress. Joey contacted seven Tennessee wives, explained the circumstance, asked for volunteers to take charge of committees and started regularly using the speaker system to ask passengers to participate in the committees’ activities.
The wounded, widows, and children should receive priority attention. Joey went to Mr. Fischbeck. He was genuinely interested in bringing order out of an unhappy, chaotic situation, and because of his years of experience in pleasing people, offered advice to her. “How can we best help the widows?” she asked. “Keep them busy,” he replied. “Put them to work on the census committee. By feeling needed and accomplishing something, they will keep their minds off themselves and their sadness. We need to know precisely how many passengers are on board, and we don’t have a count.” From that time on, the speaker system regularly transmitted the voice of Joey Border calling for volunteers to get things done - always with Commodore Berndtson’s permission.
“Mighty Mouse” and Committees
The Tennessee wives enlisted all the widows they could and obtained a passenger count on the 27th. There were 1807, plus 57 wounded, the doctor and two nurses, more than twice the Lurline’s designed, peacetime passenger load. They organized a letter writing committee to work with the wounded, offering to those who couldn’t write - not pushing them - to write letters. The ladies would ask the men if they wanted letters written to anyone, what they wanted said in the letters, write, then read them to the men, make corrections or rewrite them if need be, and drop them in the ship’s mail for offload at the destination. They read to the wounded, magazines or books, if the men wanted - or simply talked with them. The wounded confined in the makeshift hospital mostly wanted to know about the war. “What’s happening? What have you heard or read about the war?” In spite of their wounds, they were defiant and frustrated at their circumstance, wanting to get back at the Japs and into the fight.
There were several seriously wounded men who were quiet and withdrawn, but the great majority were an inspiration to passengers because they maintained positive, light-hearted demeanors in spite of their pain, prolonged recovery prognoses, and anxiousness to again battle the enemy. They didn’t complain and were unerringly courteous and thankful for everything done for them. But one wounded sailor was particularly sad. He frequently cried.
Joey held his hand and soon cried with him, as did many others who sought to comfort him. The first time she sat down beside him to talk, and asked him about home, he responded, “You know what I’m going home to?”
“What?” Joey asked. “I’m engaged,” he replied. “How am I going to tell her I got my balls shot off?” he blurted out tearfully. They both wanted children, but there would be none. Not ever. He would have to tell her he could never father children. He didn’t know how he was going to tell her, and under the circumstances felt he must break their engagement. There seemed no way to console him.
One of the saddest, yet most inspirational cases among the wounded was an 8-year-old boy in a full body cast. He was wounded in the town of Wahiawa during a strafing attack. The boy never complained, was sweet and gentlemanly.
On the 27th, the children’s entertainment committee planned a Christmas party for all the children on board, for Sunday, the 28th, and Joey announced it in advance. The hectic preparations for the rushed 25 December boarding of Lurline, the processing of baggage and wait on the docks that morning before the boarding began at 1:00 p.m., and all that had occurred in the days leading to the evacuation, virtually eliminated the normal family Christmas celebration for everyone. The Christmas party committee collected from willing passengers all they could find which might reasonably be given as gifts, and passengers bought more gifts from the ship’s store.
There would be a community Christmas carol sing, and Joey, with the singing voice Bob Border loved to hear, volunteered to lead. In fact, during the last days of the voyage, there would be several ad hoc sing-a-longs, in which Joey and the Tennessee wives would round up passengers and the wounded and encourage them to join in. The “Star Spangled Banner” and “California, Here I Come,” sung as “California, Here We Come,” was sung many times throughout the remainder of the voyage.
The Tennessee Twelve and Joey - who was gaining the nickname “Mighty Mouse” because of her diminutive stature and ability to obtain results - formed a warm clothes committee and a diaper washing committee, and she announced them on the ship loud speaker. The sterilizer committee was needed to daily assist in washing the large number of diapers and children’s clothes. Numerous wives, including some widows who had never been to the mainland and were sailing into colder winter weather, were going to travel into much colder climates when they left the port to travel into the American heartland. Joey and her committee asked passengers who could spare warm clothes to donate them for use by women and children ill-prepared for the cold winter.
Joey’s day was full and busy. She was tired when she went to bed at 10:00 p.m., but took the time to remark in her diary, “Really interesting experience - 1807 people aboard - know the pursers quite well - met swell group of gals.” As the day drew to a close and the clock moved toward midnight, Convoy 4032 and its escorts, on a course of 058 degrees at 19 knots entered colder weather, with higher winds and a sea state which kept St. Louis’s scout planes on their catapults all day the 28th.15
Anti-submarine screening was hobbled somewhat in the absence of planes that could search hundreds of square miles along the formation’s projected course, but two fast destroyers and a powerful cruiser; the entire formation unpredictably, periodically zigzagging, with underwater listening devices, armed with depth charges, heavy guns, torpedoes and many pairs of binoculars and eyes scanning the rough ocean’s surface, presented any submarine commander a formidable, dangerous screen to penetrate. To make matters worse for the enemy, long range patrol bombers were beginning to join picket ships in anti-submarine patrol along and across routes leading into West Coast harbors, the bombers weaving overhead and around convoys and adding to the surface escorts’ already substantial power. In spite of all that had happened over the last three weeks, and today’s deepening cold, the rough, wind-swept swells, and the nagging fear of submarine attacks, a modest but important Christmas came to the children on board the Lurline that morning.
A Late Christmas at Sea
The morning of the 28th, St. Louis rang general quarters and simultaneously called flight quarters at 0600, but in the face of the continuing unsatisfactory sea state, secured from flight quarters at 0645. At 0656, after St. Louis signaled the formation, the six ships commenced zigzagging according to Plan No. 21, continued zigzagging throughout the entire day, and ceased at 1750 hours, as darkness was closing in. Neither the cold nor the constant zigzagging dampened the spirits of Lurline’s passengers.
Joey was up at 7:00, ate breakfast, and then, joining with the children’s Christmas party committee, completed the dining room set-up. A small Christmas tree with presents underneath and around its base, a volunteer St. Nick and Christmas carols brought a modicum of joy to many mothers and children on Lurline that day. The gathering warmed with the singing of traditional Christmas carols such as “Oh Holy Night,” “Good King Wenceslas,” “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” “Oh Come All Ye Faithful,” and “Silent Night.” The ambulatory wounded who came joined in, and afterward, Joey and others went to Lurline’s temporary hospital and sang carols for the wounded who couldn’t come to the “mess hall” for the children’s party.
Joey, mindful of being a mother someday, was particularly taken by the children, and after the party made her way to the sterilizer room to help wash baby diapers and clothes. Later in the day she played bridge, did some typing for Mr. Fischbeck and the pursers, and led more community singing. To celebrate the day, the Tennessee wives gathered afterward, and one of the wives, who had slipped a bottle of Scotch on board, passed the bottle around. To Joey, it seemed one thimble full knocked her for a loop. She fell into bed at 11:00, telling her diary, “so tired - . ”16
Far to the south of Hawaii on the 28th, Christmas finally came to a much smaller boat, ending a far different drama at sea. Captain George Sidan, the master of the torpedoed Matson freighter Manini, and the exhausted fourteen other survivors in his No. 2 lifeboat, were overwhelmed with joy to see the destroyer Patterson (DD-392) come steaming over the horizon directly toward them. For 64 hours following the Manini’s 17 December sinking, they had been constantly at the oars, an hour rowing, two hours resting, battling heavy seas to keep the bow into the wind. On 20 December they were finally able to raise the mast and set sail. Two days later an American bomber passed 800 feet overhead. Certain they had been seen and were about to be rescued, they celebrated with a feast of three cans of tomatoes. But no rescuers appeared.
On Christmas Eve, after vainly attempting to attract the attention of several other patrol planes seen in the distance, the survivors decided to use their last pistol flare. Convinced again their lifeboat had been spotted, they decided to “celebrate our good luck and Christmas Eve,” according to the log. Each man received one cup of water. “We are hopeful of being rescued tomorrow,” the log stated. It was not to be. Christmas Day brought only more crushed hopes and the disheartening fear that their “SOS” had not been understood. No plane appeared.
On 26 December, Messman Jules H. Simmons died of thirst, hunger and exposure, and was buried at sea. The 27th, the survivors joined in prayer while Captain Sidon read the traditional ceremony and conducted a service. Their prayers must have been heartfelt. An hour later, three Navy planes sighted them and circled overhead, exchanging signals with the boat. A half hour later, a large plane joined the watch over the boat, signaled, “Help is coming,” and the next day, over the horizon came the Patterson, which was returning to Pearl Harbor from patrol duty.17
On the 28th, Christmas came late for another lifeboat of thirteen survivors who arrived in Honolulu, these from the freighter Prusa, torpedoed 120 miles south of Hawaii on 18 December. When the Prusa was torpedoed, 9 of the 34 crew members were killed by the explosion, including the sole female crew member, Fireman/Water tender Dolores Martinez. The first survivors were picked up on the 27th, and brought to Honolulu, and the second lifeboat sailed 2,700 miles in 31 days until picked up by a Fiji government ship. One of its crew died of exposure.18
Another Surprise Attack
Off the mainland’s West Coast at 0300 hours the morning of the 28th, the battleship Pennsylvania with two destroyers, Tucker and Sands on submarine screening duty, ceased zigzagging and continued steady on a course bound for San Francisco. Pennsylvania’s radar was on and operating. One hour later the formation turned port to 114 degrees. All was quiet. No submarine contacts since the 22nd.
