Sam's+WWII+Narrative+Essay

= = = __My Journey as a Sailor __ = = =  It is June 15, 1944 my First Lieutenant Kilgore wakes me up at my usual time to cook for the crew of the U.S.S. Grapple. It is a Thursday, so I am making cornbread, baked beans, and powdered milk for the 70 crewmen that are part of my ship. About a half an hour after the food was prepared, the crew came down to eat. George Dragovich, a fellow sailor, said to me, “It’s Thursday, it must be baked beans, cornbread and that stuff you call milk.” I just ignore him and sit down to eat my breakfast. At about 7:00 a.m., the other cook and I headed to the kitchen to clean up the dishes. Once we were finished, I head up to the deck to get some fresh, sea air. =

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 After an hour of conversing with the other sailors on deck, I am looking east and I notice a vessel in the distance. I can’t tell if it’s one of ours, or one of the Japs. As it gets closer I feel a great sigh of relief. It turns out to be a mail ship coming from Pearl Harbor that had been trying to catch up to us for more than a day. The men on the ship just throw the canvas sack of mail onto the deck. All of the sailors, including myself, surround the now busted open sack of mail. I got a package from my Uncle Otto, but all that was left was a tag saying, “From: Uncle Otto, To: Donald W. Larsen 2nd Class ship cook”, that’s me. I’m furious at those guys, because we look forward to our mail call. It is our only connection to home. Too late to jump on their case, they’ve already sailed away. = =

After mail call it was close to noon. I’m heading down to cook lunch for the crew. Today I am preparing tomato soup with toasted crackers, green beans and canned peaches for dessert. I left the cleaning up to Lee F. Ulch the other cook, and ran up the steps to see what is happening up top. Since our ship, the U.S.S. Grapple, is a rescue and salvage ship, we received an order to go and fix a destroyer that had been hit by a mine. Our job is to make it floatable and tow it to the nearest port. The navigator set our course to a few miles off the coast of Peleliu, Palau Islands. After hours of staring into the blue shining sea with no land in sight, I realized it is time to prepare dinner for the crew. The other cook and I prepare a special dinner of roast young turkey, garden peas and powdered milk. All of the crew come down to eat at around 5:45 p.m. = =

About half way through dinner everyone was talking and joking around. Suddenly all that stopped. It's 6:04 p.m. the alert horns are sounding off. “ALL HANDS ON DECK!” Everyone left their food and scurried up to the deck. It is a sunny evening when the crew and I look into the sky and I see four dive bombers in the horizon. I ran to my battle station, the 101 mm 4 barreled anti-aircraft gun. I start handing the heavy metal shells to Chester C. Czerwinski, my Polish friend from Minnesota. After 5 minutes, the first dive bomber starts his dive at us. I’m not scared because I know that Chester and my other crew members are the best shots. Chester’s first shot misses by inches. He shoots again hitting the engine, making the plane catch fire and sends him to a fiery death into the deep sea about 10 yards away. No time to waste, another two are on their way. Frank Fink hit one bomber with the 50 caliber. His shots clipped a wing, but the bomber takes off with black smoke pumping out of the plane. The third dive bomber dove at us, but he pulled up and high-tailed it out of our sight. The fourth dive bomber is out of our 101’s range. He’s probably heading back to his headquarters to report that their mission failed. As we watch the last plane fly out of sight, the crew is yelling “We got ‘em!!” Everybody is glad the attack is over. = =

I walk over to the middle of the deck and ask the guys to go down and finish dinner. Being that this was our first attack, our captain let everyone take time to have a smoke after dinner. By the time dinner was over and everyone had their smoke, it was nearly 8:00 p.m. It is time for bed. The sleeping quarters are 3 beds high and all 70 of us sleep in the same room. Everyone is tired from the exciting day, so most of us fall right asleep, except me. I keep awake wondering how my dad is. But I soon fall asleep.

It’s morning again, I make breakfast. After breakfast, I walk to the deck to see what the rest of the crew is doing. One crewman, named John D. Lundstrom, thought instead of trying to catch fish, decided to catch an albatross, a bird. He put a piece of bread on a hook and threw it overboard. After a little while, the albatross swooped down, bit the bread and became instantly hooked. The crewmen pulled it aboard and we examined it for a while. I think it is hilarious that the bird got sea sick while aboard our ship. Since we are almost to Peleliu, Palau Islands, we let the bird go. We figure once the Grapple gets in sight of the destroyer, everyone on deck will have to be alert, due to the reported mine field surrounding the ravaged destroyer. = =

About two hours later, we finally see the destroyer, but there is a serious mechanical problem. The steering gear on the Grapple is out. That is a major problem when you are about to approach and enter a mine field. Under the circumstances, the captain orders two sharp shooters with M1 Garands to the bow of the ship, on each side, shooting mines. Everyone is nervous, because if one of the shooters misses a mine and we go over it, we would be goners. But fortunately, we made it through ok and we got to the destroyer. The mine that damaged the destroyer put a 20 x 20 ft hole in it. We dropped our anchor and some men went to fix the destroyer, while others had to stay back and fix our steering gear. After both ships are fixed, we attach the destroyer to our ship and we will tow it to the nearest port. There is one problem, the destroyer’s anchor would not reel up, due to no power aboard. We sent Dotson, the deep sea diver, underwater to torch the links attached to the anchor. As Dotson is underwater, we have our radio tuned to Tokyo Rose, an American traitor who tries to intimidate American ships and to ruin their morale. Her rotten traitor voice said “There is a small ship a bit bigger than a destroyer with a tugboat tied alongside it and we’re coming after you tonight.” She was talking about us! Finally, Dotson cut the links and we’re on our way. Tonight, we keep a very close watch to the somewhat cloudy sky to make sure there are no attacks. At one point during the night, I notice one Japanese plane fly over, just out of our gun range. To our relief, nothing came of the threat made by Tokyo Rose.



Once finished towing the destroyer to the port, we get orders to head to our main base in Hawaii. We set our sights for Hawaii and hopefully for some rest and relaxation. It was long days of just sailing with no land in sight before we reached our base. As we are approaching Hawaii, the Grapple is about one-fourth of a mile away when we get orders to recover a plane that had gone down just after takeoff. The captain sent Dotson down to hook up the plane so we could pull it up. He hooked up the plane, but he came back up to the surface too quickly, so he had to go into the decompression chamber. If he had not gone into the decompression chamber, he could have gotten very sick. While Dotson was in the chamber, we pulled up the plane. As I look at the plane, I am confused. I wonder if it’s a SNB-1 Navigation Trainer or a JRB-2 Light Transport. We brought it aboard, and headed to base. Now, the base would determine why the plane went down without being under enemy fire. = = = = = = = = == == = = = = = =  The base we brought the plane to is named Pearl Harbor. As we are approaching Pearl Harbor, we see the U.S.S. Arizona, intact, above water, and leaning starboard. The smell of diesel is in the air. The water has a top, thin, layer of diesel, still leaking from the Arizona. Once we gave the plane to the military base, our captain said that we could have some off duty time. After three days of rest, we headed out for many more missions of rescue and salvage. = =

With the anticipation of discharge on my mind and my family back home, our ship gets news that it will be docking for the last time at the beginning of April. Treasure Island, San Francisco is where we docked for the last time. Not out yet. I must travel to Minneapolis to be discharged. On April 16, 1946, I am leaving my Navy lifestyle behind, because I am now officially discharged. I enjoyed my entire time as a sailor. I was young and it was exciting and I was getting to see the world…. a watery world at that!!

=__Bibliography__= Larsen, Donald W. "My Journey as a Sailor." Personal interview. 11 Mar. 2012.