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There are very few U. S. Navy men who have ever received orders to report to the commanding officer of a ship lying under six fathoms of water. Such was the situation on a June day in 1942 when three young Reserve Ensigns stood on 10-10 Dock, Pearl Harbor, and dubiously looked down at their newly assigned ship, the sunken minelayer USS Oglala (CM-4).
Don Shippam and I had been serving on board the USS West Virginia (BB-48), and Joe Doherty was on board the USS Oklahoma (BB-37) until 7 December 1941, when both ships were sunk by the Japanese attack.
On that fateful day, the Oglala was tied up outboard of the USS Helena (CA-75) which in turn was moored to 10-10 Dock. These two ships were in the space normally occupied by the USS Pennsylvania (BB-38), flagship of U. S. Pacific Fleet, then undergoing minor repairs in drydock. A Japanese torpedo struck the Helena after having passed underneath the Oglala. Then, a second plane dropped a bomb which exploded between the two ships, further rupturing both hulls. Having no watertight integrity, as newer ships would have had, the Oglala was sunk by these detonations. It was her sinking without having been actually struck which prompted the many stories and jokes that the "poor old Oglala had sunk from fright.”
Poor and old she was. No one at our low level could foresee the Oglala being of use again, except for scrap. Built in 1907 at Cramp’s Shipyard in Philadelphia, she was originally the SS Massachusetts of the Fall River Line, on the New York-to-Boston run. Acquired during World War I by the U. S. Navy and commissioned as the USS Shaumut on 7 December 1917, this date turned out to be of great significance in her history. She was converted to a minelayer and played an important part in laying the famous North Sea mine barrage in World War I. In 1927, the Ogallala Indians, in honoring President Calvin Coolidge, made him an honorary chief, and the President, probably with politi
cal reciprocity in mind, saw to it that the Shaumut was renamed Ogallala. The official reason given was that the USS Chaumont (AP-5) and Shaumut had names that sounded too much alike.
One of the many stories about the Oglala, apart from the one about birds having built a nest in her funnel, so infrequently did she sail, concerns the change in the spelling of her name from Ogallala to Oglala. When orders were received to change the name from Shaumut to Ogallala, it was during the middle of winter, and the ship was then at the Boston Navy Yard. It was alleged that the Chief Boatswain’s Mate in charge of the detail, after properly fortifying himself internally against the New England cold, discovered that if he dropped one "1” and one "a,” he could finish his miserable duty and return that much quicker to his cribbagc game and coffee in the warm Chief’s quarters.
After Pearl Harbor, Shippam, Doherty, and I had been on subsequent temporary duty at the Ford Island Naval Air Station in communications. Our disap-
pointment upon receiving orders to the Oglala was great, because we were anticipating orders to a new ship back in the States. I was on communications duty when our orders came through and I decoded the dispatch ordering all three of us to the Oglala "in whichever port she may be.” No effort was needed to find out in which theater of war our new ship was located. I could look across several hundred yards of oily water and see air hoses, pontoons, and bubbles marking the spot. The official dispatch ordering us to the Oglala was "padded” with a few extra words, which was an "unofficial” custom. These extra words were "Sorry, boys!”
Doherty, Shippam, and 1 reported to Chief Yeoman Brown who maintained the ship’s office in a wooden shack in the Navy Yard nearby, and our service on
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board the Oglala commenced. Since I was senior officer by a few numbers and in accordance with proper naval procedure, I assumed theoretical command of a U. S. naval vessel with a normal complement of nearly four hundred officers and men, the flagship of Admiral W. S. Furlong, Commander Mine Craft Battle Force, Pacific Fleet. The miracle of successfully converting untrained civilians to skippers of large naval ships was still many months in the future, but 1 was not worried about my inexperience—the Oglala wasn’t going anywhere for a while. My nine months of sea duty on board the West Virginia would serve as valuable experience, I thought, even though my shiphandling had consisted only of making several 90° turns in the darkness of the midwatch.
From June to September, Doherty, Shippam, and 1
86 U.8. Naval Institute Proceedings, Deoember 1972
spent our working days standing on the dock watching the bubbles on the surface of the water. It was a period of anxiety and waiting. First the ship was righted underwater from her capsized position. Then came the removal of all of her wooden superstructure. A cofferdam or patch was built, enclosing the large opening in her hull, allowing the water to be pumped out and the ship to be raised to the surface. When she was finally afloat after nine months, we felt like proud parents.
Even though it was known that there were no fatal casualties on board the Oglala, each compartment was opened with a little apprehension. The biggest surprise was the condition of the cold weather uniforms. The pea coats, woolen watch caps and sweaters, and the uniforms were all in mint condition even though they had been immersed in salt water for many months; only the cotton labels were rotted away. The men, of course, had a field day finding their own sizes without labels to guide them. The official log of the ship was found and could easily be read, but our orders were to destroy it and everything on board the ship not salvable.
It took about three months to make the Oglala temporarily seaworthy again for her trip to a Navy Yard in the States. It was astonishing to find that her old- fashioned reciprocating engines, which had been submerged under water for nearly nine months, were ready to go again, after only a few weeks’ work on them. The big job for us consisted of cleaning up the ship and making temporary quarters for officers and crew. At this time, a new commanding officer was ordered to the ship and I became executive officer. In addition, we had one hundred men report to the ship, all of whom were survivors of the USS Yorktown sunk at the Battle of Midway. We also had two new engineering officers, and a new deck officer. Three officers who had served on board the Oglala when she was sunk were also reordered to the ship.
By December 1942, she was ready to sail, with a temporary plywood cabin on the main deck, topped by a plywood navigation bridge. We arrived at Mare Island Navy Yard in January 1943 after a slow trip in a seven-knot convoy, suffering one temporary breakdown en route. Then began several months of waiting while the Oglala was converted to a new class of ship and designated ARG-i (Miscellaneous Repair). It was at this time, at the Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, where new ships were being built at wartime speeds and crews came and went with regularity, that fate was so kind to the crew of the Oglala.
No longer was the Oglala pointed out as "that old rust bucket.” She was spoken of with admiration and envy as the ship whose entire crew drew sea pay while her new neighboring uncommissioned ships were still in a non-seagoing Navy Yard status. Her crew had almost constant shore liberty and, by the end of her stay, most of her original post-Pearl Harbor crew were married and spoke of the Oglala with pride. Her ungainly hull was no longer described with derision; instead, she was admired as a war-scarred veteran.
The remaining years of the war saw her in the Southwest Pacific and the Philippine area, and she provided vital services in countless ways by serving as a tender to many landing and assault craft. Every now and then, a salty old-timer would come aboard and make it known that he had served on board the Oglala ten or 20 years previously. These visits were always the occasion for sea stories about the old days and apparently, so good had been the duty on board the Shau/mut or Oglala that the phrase frequently used to describe it was "the last of the gravy trains.”
The Oglala fought in two wars and was active as a U. S. naval vessel for 30 years. During her career she even sank a ship; it was not, however, an enemy ship. It was a fast U. S. Army Air Force picket boat. The sinking occurred off the coast of Finchhavcn, New Guinea, in October 1944, while she was towing a floating drydock. It was a very dark night and we were showing running and towing lights in accordance with the peacetime Rules of the Nautical Road. Even in that area, so completely were the seas cleared of the enemy that towing lights were ordered shown for the safety of our own ships. About 0100 that night the ship shuddered as if aground, then continued underway. We fished out of the water several U. S. Army Air Force men, unhurt, but very wet and bewildered. Our towing lights had confused them and they had crossed our bow at just the wrong moment.
As World War II was nearing its end and hundreds of new ships were joining the Fleet, the Oglala seemed almost to get younger and sturdier, in spite of her vintage 1907 silhouette; she even outlived most of her contemporaries.
A ship, like a person, acquires a personality and character all her own. The Oglala was like a droopy- eared mongrel pup always surrounded by sleek greyhounds. The reputation she left was not for her prowess in battle, or capture of enemy strongholds, or her great speed, maneuverability, or fire power. She was never "the Fighting Lady” or "Shangri-La,” yet somehow she had become a legend along with the best of them.