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Years ago, a film entitled The Wackiest Ship in the Army provided a fair amount of entertainment to the movie-going Public. If the Navy ever wants to identify its own counterpart to that unfortunate craft, I would nominate the USS Stratford (AP-41), in which I served from the time of her prewar commissioning until a few months before the end of World War II. What other ship could claim to have collided with a freight train, lost herself from the center of a North Atlantic convoy, gone to sea without her recognition signals, and intentionally driven herself aground twice in four days? All this from a modest little vessel bearing no resemblance whatever to the typical naval transport, built in Wisconsin m 1918 and designed for service on the Great Lakes.
Before the Navy acquired her, the Stratford was the SS Catherine, a Passenger vessel in the West Indies. Fahey’s second edition of The Ships and Aircraft of the U. S. Fleet Wasted little space on her: tonnage 2,286 gross; length 250 feet, 6 inches; beam 43 feet, 8 inches. The Navy regulars who surveyed her at her commissioning pronounced her Probably unseaworthy. She was just too small and too worn out. As her crew of 140 found out later, her most important asset was her strong, riveted hull, but we figured that Fahey’s estimate of 12 knots maxi mum speed must have been measured on a downhill course with a strong tail wind.
The freight train caper occurred °n a sunny day in October 1941, as We were crossing a busy New York Harbor to pick up a Marine contingent commanded by a colonel. I happened to be on the bridge when the portside lookout told the officer of the deck (OOD) that we were on a collision course with a tug pulling a barge loaded with freight cars. Technically, the Stratford had the right-of-way, but the tug had obviously beaten us to the crossroads.
The OOD—apparently insisting upon his rights and overestimating •he tug’s capacity for evasive action—ordered the whistle
sounded.
Unintimidated by our little steamer, the tug proceeded steadily °n course until our bow struck the harge hard enough to send the nearest freight car rolling toward us. When it hit, the car punched a triangular hole just aft of the Stratford’s bow, about 15 feet above the waterline. As we bounced away the tug’s crew resorted to fist-shaking and other dramatic gestures of disapproval.
The convoy adventure began several weeks later. We had taken on board 300 Marines, several Army officers, and two employees of the National Broadcasting Company, and sailed up the east coast to Sydney, Nova Scotia. There we learned that we were to join a 43-ship,
five-knot British convoy composed of ships from several countries, headed for Iceland. Ours would be the only Navy ship. She was also the only ship carrying passengers, so we took the center spot in the convoy—presumably the safest place to be. Under convoy rules our radio equipment was silenced, and the commodore planned to issue maneuvering signals by ship’s whistle. On the second afternoon out I stood a signalman watch, assisting our executive officer in listening for the flag ship’s first whistle signals. As the exec explained, just before nightfall the commodore would sound a “Baker” (-...) or a “Victor” (...-) in Morse code, the former ordering all ships to perform a 20° turn to starboard, and the latter a 20° turn to port—a maneuver designed to confuse any submarines that might be stalking us. This scheme was foolproof, the exec said, because only an idiot could mistake one letter for the other, and furthermore, any ship failing to hear the whistle would do the right thing automatically, because every ship was trailing a line with a spar that would create a visible wake. This perpetually scowling man with the piercing gaze awed me. He and our skipper were the only Academy officers on the ship. Most of us in the enlisted ranks were reservists. The
regulars felt an understandable responsibility for the ship and some disdain (later neutralized) for the rest of us. At that moment, my personal responsibility seemed almost overwhelming.
When night fell, the sea was calm. There was no wind, and the only sound was the gentle slosh of the Stratford’s bow wave. Then the signal came: three slow “Brrrrrrr’s” followed by ten seconds of “Mwaaaaaaaaaah,” followed by a brief silence. Then the whole thing repeated, ending with a long dash for an execution signal.
The exec turned to me and I said, “Victor, Sir.”
He glared at me momentarily and then, in his clipped, impersonal tone said, “I thought you were a radioman, Lindsey. That was a Baker,” which told all within earshot that my five years of sorting out dots and dashes prior to making radioman third class had not prepared me to make that elementary distinction.
When the lieutenant saw my mouth open in amazement he said, “Say no more,” and proceeded to order a 20° change of course in the wrong direction. A few minutes later our lookouts reported ships crossing our bow and stem, and a half hour later all sights and sounds of the convoy were gone.
When daylight came we were alone on the North Atlantic except for two Greek ships that had elected, for some reason, to follow our spar out of the convoy. The following day they told us they had played enough hide-and-seek, wished us well, and headed back to Sydney.
It was now decision time. About an hour after the Greek ships left, the story reached the radio room that the Marine colonel and our captain had pow-wowed and decided that we would continue searching for the convoy, pressing on to Iceland, if necessary, without it.
The sea was still calm, but the crew was not. We faced another ten days or so of sailing without escort, with two 50-caliber machine guns for armament. We had too few lifeboats for the people on board, the ship was too slow to evade an attacker, and the way to Iceland led through the German submarines’ favorite hunting grounds. We had little reason for optimism. We began
sleeping in our clothes and life jackets, and stuffed our pockets with candy, cigarettes, and matches.
Extra provisions went into the lifeboats, and we checked out their launching hardware carefully.
A sullen anger seemed to underlie everything the crew said and did.
No one could understand why we could not return the relatively short, safe distance to Sydney and complete our assignment later, under more favorable conditions. There was no urgent reason for delivering the passengers of the ship to Iceland. As we learned later, the Marine colonel shared our sentiments.
On the following day it appeared for a moment that fate was finally working in our favor. Lookouts sighted a mast coming over the horizon, and immediately the main deck filled with onlookers hoping this might be a rescuer. The ship proved to be the USS Wilkes (DD- 441), whose behavior indicated that her crew had trouble believing that our squatty vessel could actually belong to the U. S. Navy. (This had happened to us once before when another destroyer hailed us on Chesapeake Bay with the supreme insult, “What navy?”)
I was standing another signal watch as the Wilkes approached—■ cutting large circles around us at high speed, all guns trained, flashing a visual challenge for identification. I explained to the captain what was needed, and referred him to our not-too-experienced comm officer, fresh from the communication school at Harvard. This unfortunate ensign then told the captain that the Norfolk Communication Office had informed him that the Stratford did not rate recognition signals. The captain, frustrated and angry, committed him to his quarters.
We finally resolved the dilemma by passing officer register numbers. Then we asked the Wilkes to tell us our position, since we had shot no star sightings since leaving Sydney- She could not escort us, but did agree to look for the convoy. When she had no success after a daylong sweep beyond the horizon, she wished us Godspeed and showed us her wake.
We had observed strict radio silence except for one futile message broadcast, and those of us with access to the message files knew that
the captain had not asked the Wilkes to report our situation to anyone who could provide assistance. So it seemed our distress was a well-kept secret. At this point, the Marine colonel, who evidently outranked our skipper, sought another strategy meeting. Members of the bridge watch heard him say that if our captain wanted to drown his sailors, that was all right with the colonel, hut that it wouldn’t happen to his troops. It was high time, he said, to do something rational—like transmit a message to Washington.
So we did. A short time later, we learned from the Fox broadcast that the USS Hammann (DD-412) was °n her way to help us.
Once she arrived, the world seemed almost right again. The r°ugh seas that had pounded us for days subsided, and though we were then in the most hazardous area so far, the zigzagging of the Hammann Was a gorgeous dance to behold. In three days we traversed 400 miles and dropped anchor in Reykjavik Harbor. Suddenly, the 12 days of terror faded like a week-old dream. But we never did learn the fate of the elusive convoy.
After several weeks of inactivity we moved to Hvalfjordur, a huge, landlocked body of water that was providing safe anchorage for what was left of the British Home Fleet, the U. S. naval force under Rear Admiral Robert C. Giffen on the USS Omaha (CL-4), and merchant vessels being prepared for the next Murmansk run. The narrow entrance to this vast fjord was closed off by a submarine net and a surface boom used as a gate. Surrounding the fjord were snow-topped mountains. Here we were to perform our beachings.
On 15 January 1942 a 70-knot gale slammed into the anchorage.
At about 1100 the captain saw fit to slip the port anchor. Apparently the gale was driving us nearer the rocks, and when we tried to weigh anchor, we pulled ourselves nearer still, so we backed clear and dropped our other hook.
About that time we in the radio room realized that we were not the only ones having difficulties. During the afternoon I copied 16 distress messages. All were tragic; some were hopeless: “Lifeboats gone. Holds filling. God help us.”
About noon an English destroyer zoomed out of the storm and found us directly in her path, broadside.
She was making about 15 knots.
She saw us, though, and drove her engines full astern and pulled to a churning stop about ten feet from our side, her screws throwing up a mountain of water as they fought her forward motion. Everyone on deck was certain the destroyer would ram us—all except the captain. He stood at the rail, squarely in front of the destroyer bow, and motioned her away with both hands, as though his effort might help to stop her.
Next, our bridge announced our anchor chain had parted. Now our troubles were really beginning. As the helmsman swung the ship’s nose into the wind it became evident that we were up against too tough an opponent. With rudder full over, the ship would not respond. The captain immediately radioed the admiral: “Lost both anchors. Unable to turn in the trough of the seas.”
Meanwhile, the gale increased. Shortly after 1415 we radioed the Omaha that our only remaining option was to run the ship aground.
Minutes later the Omaha ordered us to beach the Stratford at Hel- guvik. All the crew grabbed life jackets, and many ran below to retrieve their valuables. In case we had to swim for it, I donned a light zipper jacket, while most of the crew put on peacoats, oilskins, and other heavy attire.
When we finally came to the small bay of Helguvik the dreaded climax was over so quickly and painlessly that no one knew it had occurred. The captain gave the order to stop the engine, and the absence of vibration was strange. Minutes passed, and the ship lost forward motion. Suddenly the helmsman called, “Out of control,” and a few seconds later, “Falling off to starboard,” and it was over. We had run aground at high tide on a soft, sandy spot about 300 yards from shore, and we had done it so gently that no one knew when the broad, flat bottom made contact.
The following morning the storm was gone, and we had a clear view of the devastation of the day before. A freighter whose bow had been entirely out of water was now perched atop a tiny island, like an ornament on a cake, nicely balanced, high and dry. The Stratford sat comfortably on her sandy shelf, and soldiers from the nearby antiaircraft station had driven their jeep out to the ship to ask about our supply of candy.
But three days later, another gale hit. So the Stratford made another beaching, on a spot not far from the first.
Thus ends the wacky portion of the Stratford’s history. She went on to meaningful assignments in the South Pacific and performed well. Her sturdy hull again proved to be her greatest asset, for she survived a number of near misses by Japanese bombs. In doing so, the Stratford put to rest the hard rap that she lacked seaworthiness and durability. She survived the war, and afterwards the Navy returned her intact to her previous owners.
Mr. Lindsey spent several years in the Naval Reserve before serving on active duty during World War II. He left the Navy as a chief radioman in 1945 and went on to an engineering career with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He died last year in Houston, Texas.