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In an ora/ history interview with John T. Mason, Jr., Rear Admiral Ralph K. “Jimmy” James, U. S. Navy, who retired in 1963 as Chief of the Bureau of Ships, recalls his days in the Pacific in late 1944, as the repair officer of Service Squadron 10. As the war moved westward, the Navy established a forward repair facility at Seeadler Harbor, Manus Island, in the Admiralties:
Manus was right on the Equator—close to Ulithi, the big operating base, but remote enough [900 miles south] to be relatively protected. It was a fabulous harbor: 26 miles of deep water completely surrounded by a coral reef, right at the crossroads of traffic from Pearl Harbor to Australia and New Guinea, and from the Solomons to the Philippines. I’ve seen more than 600 ships moored or anchored there, with no congestion problems at all.
The Japanese had occupied Manus before us, and many were still there, harassing us from the jungle, all the time we were there. I moved in with some of our ships from Espiritu
In late 1944 three badly damaged cruisers—the Canberra (CA-70), the Reno (CL-96), and the Houston (CL-81)—limped into Ulithi for initial repairs. I arrived there on board the repa<r ship Hector to assess the damage. The Houston was hardest hit. We were fearful of losing her at any moment. We got her inside the torpedo nets and I lam the Hector (AR-7) alongside to begin repairs to the flooding areas. We got warning of a severe typhoon approaching, and I didn’t think the Houston would make it through. I said, “Let’s
Santo, loaded to the maximum with ship repair supplies. In the meantime, a large floating dry dock, ABSD-3, had been moved there, along with smaller floating docks. The work in Manus was very much the same as in Espiritu, repairing major battle damage.
take her where there’s shallow water, and if she sinks, she’ll g° down only a matter of a few feet. Salvage will be simplified.” As we towed the Houston to the lower anchorage, I put my people to work trying to patch holes below the water lme to reduce flooding. From the
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Proceedings
shoi
on
^ oil rig operators, etc.
^ne possible alternative is to restore mobility to the ship
Slte- During World War II, a surprising number of >y damaged ships regained propulsion and steering hooding and fire problems were stabilized. Our latest
bad]-
Subm;
Pollers
onnes and frigates have steerable “take-home” pro
ton
abie
s,oam
positioned some distance from the primary propul-
and steering gear. If power can be restored or a suit- Unit placed on board, a damaged ship may be able to (o a repair haven without towing assistance. Stable out-board propulsion units recently have 1^°Vecl into designs of substantial size and flexibility. ,e adaptation of this technology to air-transportable units able to propel damaged ships without power and/or ering to a repair haven could partially compensate for
shortfalls in the number of tugs and salvage ships and expedite movement to a logistics base.
Restoring Lightly Damaged Ships and Craft to Action: The first priority of an advance repair base after stabilizing damage and removing vessels from the hazard of further combat damage is to quickly restore scarce naval assets to the order of battle with as much capability as possible. The commander of a tender or an advance repair base must be numbered among the area commander’s logisticians, and thus must constantly appraise the area comander of how much operational capability can be restored, and when.
The determination of what constitutes “light damage” that can be repaired in the forward area will depend upon the judgment of repair officers and the senior members of
hu.
some severely. One of my repair ships, the Mindanao (ARG-3), was hardest hit of all. My own repair office—a quonset hut on a barge—had been knocked flat. There was lots of speculation about the cause of the blast. Some thought that a Japanese submarine had lain outside the harbor, and when the torpedo nets were opened for ships to transit, she just pinged a torpedo down the channel, catching the Mount Hood in the line of fire. Something similar occurred about the same time in Ulithi, but an oiler was hit and the
we used dozens of t0r ?*n§ machines, burning $te | s» and pumps, a lot of ty e Plate, and all the shoring thrC°U'A 8^t. We labored f%°ru§h the night. By three or ip 1 ln the morning, the Hous- |aterSt°Pped settling. Two hours tj0 ’. We were getting a reduc- j>leln draft. After a hard strug’ ,VVe had a reprieve, bad to return to Manus in a it< The ammunition ship Up Unt Hood (AE-11) had blown 5re.'n harbor, devastating an flp'1 °f 1,500 yards radius. y ships were damaged,
damage was less severe.
We repaired all the ships, including the Mindanao—putting some back on the line in a few days, and the worst-hit back in two or three weeks. Later, the three damaged cruisers and a number of destroyers pulled into Manus, and we started repairs on them. By and large, we were able to put the destroyers back into full service. This did not always sit well. One skipper spoke in jest, but 1 think he was serious: “Gol durn you naval constructors—we thought we were going home for a Navy yard repair and a rest. Now you bastards have put us back on the line and we don’t love you for it.” Well, my function was to do just that.
Other skippers were eager to get back into the war. I had given the Canberra the low repair priority of a badly damaged ship. Her captain kept bugging me, sending for me, sending messages to my boss, and finally sending messages to Admiral Halsey—saying that he was getting lousy treatment from the repair officer at Manus.
Couldn’t they do something for the Canberra in a hurry, to get her back into the war? I’m sure everybody applauded his enthusiasm, but I can’t believe that anybody believed seriously that he was going to make a major contribution to the war for one hell of a long time.
""Ss/ June 1988
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