“… A Graveyard of Sunken Ships”
There were ships all along the American coast.
Some were burning, others had run aground, been torpedoed,
and there were others we could see just the front of
the ship, the width of it. I had photographs that I took of
that, but when we were torpedoed I lost everything. It was
terrible, terrible. A graveyard of sunken ships. Because that’s
when war was declared with Japan, and there was no protection
from the United States. We were all alone, all alone with the
submarines, there were at least 20 submarines there, in that
section. They were all hiding. Terrible. What can you do—you’re
alone with them. And we didn’t have the big guns, we had
four-inch guns, not sixteen-inch guns like a battleship. We had
a few machine guns, that’s it. When we met up with a submarine,
there wasn’t any shooting, there wasn’t anything. And when we
got to the Caribbean one Saturday afternoon, about half past
two, on May 9, a submarine surfaced with the sun at its back so
we couldn’t see it, because we didn’t have an escort, and then
it fired off two torpedoes. One hit midship and the other hit
the boiler room. The hole where the torpedo hit was about two
feet wide, then there was an explosion inside and the plates
were bulging out a bit, but on the other side, it must have torn
a hole 40 square feet. The ship listed to one side,
but all the tanks were separate so it stayed afloat.
When the torpedo hit the boat…
I was taking a shower when the first torpedo hit. I was
just able to grab some underwear and what a I used for a hat, a
handkerchief knotted at the corners so the sun wouldn’t burn my
head. The dinner I’d eaten didn’t stay in my stomach too long.
I went up the stairs but I was in water up to here, so I couldn’t
go get my clothes; we always had a sea bag containing everything
we’d need. So there we were, torpedoed by a submarine on a
beautiful Saturday afternoon with the sea as calm as glass, not
expecting it at all. We had two lifeboats left. The biggest was
aft and could accommodate 45 people, and the other was forward.
I was in the forward lifeboat, and the guys who got in the aft
boat, the engineers and all of them, off they went. Then the
rest of us lowered the forward boat, but there were only nine of
us. Underneath the boat, if it flips over, there are pipes you
can grab on to protect yourself and stay afloat. Anyway, it got
stuck because the steel plates had buckled. The pipe underneath
was caught in it. I had to climb back up to look for a fireman’s
axe, and the submarine was still there, circling, we could only
see its periscope. We finally cut it loose, but it took ten
minutes. I waited. Then the [inaudible] boat dropped and away we
went. Once we were away from the ship, they launched another
torpedo at the rear, where the engines were, and the ship stood
straight up because of all of the watertight compartments, it
came right up out of the water, and then they finished the job
with the guns and it sank. The submarine circled around to see
if everything was gone. We thought they were going to take
someone from the lifeboat to get information but they must have
been at the end of their mission so they disappeared under the
water and was gone. They waved goodbye and wished us luck.
We were in the boats for four and a half days, and then landed at
the Isle of Pines, south of Cuba.
The enemy let us leave, safe and sound.
Well I thank God that that submarine had a captain like that,
who let us go. We couldn’t believe what had happened.
But that’s the way it is with everything. There are the good
ones, who know what’s right, who don’t want to kill
their . . . their counterparts, and they ask the same of us.
Even though we were at war with Germany, there were guys
who weren’t in favour of the war, there were good guys.
So I thanked God, and I thanked the submarine captain for
letting us go because on one of the ships on of my friends was
on, they were down near Buenos Aires, and there was a radar
ship that took the crew members and sent them to concentration
camps in Germany. He was in a concentration camp for five
years. It was really tough on him. Not funny at all.
When he got back — it took a while for him to get back, he went
back to the merchant navy after the war, and became a pilot.
Confiscated Photographs of the Submarine
When we got hit by the torpedo, one of the engineers was on
the bridge with his Kodak and he brought it along and took
pictures. That’s why there are photos. The submarine was in the
photo but once the censors got through with it, it was gone!
They wanted the photos for the newspapers, to give to the
papers. The papers were looking for photos like
that back then. They only gave us these ones.
He’s the one I got them from.