USS Gold Star

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Designated a miscellaneous auxiliary, she already had 20 years of service with the U. S. Navy, 17 of them on the China Station, when World War II erupted in the Pacific. In the Philippine Islands taking on coal for Guam when the word came, she could neither run nor fight if trouble came.

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^/he was elderly, plain, slow, broad in the beam, straight-lined from stem to stern with not a trace of graceful sheer. During the period between World Wars, she became a familiar figure in ports of the Far East, spending 17 years making regular runs to Japan, China, and the Philippines, picking up supplies for the island of Guam. She brought coal for Guam’s power plant, rice for the natives, merchandise for the shopkeepers. In short, she brought all manner of goods and services deemed necessary to sustain the economy and raise the standard of living on our distant island possession in the Marianas.

During those years of humdrum housekeeping chores, the ship came to be regarded as a mother to the half-forgotten island which lay sleeping far off trans-Pacific shipping lanes.

A freighter with raised forecastle, bridge, and poop, she was built for the Shipping Board by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation of Wilmington, Delaware. Her length was 392 feet, beam 52 feet, loaded draft 24 feet, and standard displacement 4,500 tons. Steam at 200 pounds pressure from three oil-burning Scotch boilers fed a 2,000-h.p. reciprocating engine which rotated a 17-foot propeller to move her along at a snail-like cruising speed of about 9 knots.

Except for a pair of 4-inch guns mounted on forecastle and poop, she looked exactly like hundreds of other common cargo carriers plodding the Seven Seas as line and tramp freighters.

The Navy took her over on 8 November 1921, gave her the designation of "miscellaneous auxiliary” (AG-12), and christened her the USS Gold Star.

On 3 November 1924, the Gold Star was assigned as the Naval Station’s supply ship. Though listed as a "station” ship, she was almost constantly on the move. She went up to Japan so often to fetch coal for the ancient power plant that she was called Goldie Maru. She carried the mail and passengers between Manila and Guam. She hauled in polished rice, which as time went on, replaced the brown rice that the natives formerly raised. Everything for a new way of life—building materials, bulldozers, tractors, buses, taxis, shoes, stockings, dresses, canned goods, Coca-cola, radios, juke boxes, chickens, pigs, cows, and an occasional Brahma bull to perk up the Guam strain—came in the Goldie Maru.

The Cavite Navy Yard at Manila, where wood was always plentiful and steel in short supply, did its best to improve the bulk-cargo carrier for the countless tasks demanded by the Guam assignment. Extensive makeshift alterations, accomplished for the most part by skilled Filipino carpenters, brought about a transformation in the nondescript freighter. Tiny mahogany-paneled staterooms on port and starboard sides of

the midship section—each with an awkward ventilator sticking up six feet through the deck above like a row of fence posts—provided accommodations for first class passengers.

Forward on the port side of the upper deck were the captain’s quarters. The glassed-in parlor, bedroom, and bath had a Victorian elegance. Framed in the wooden bulkheads of the parlor were eleven double- hung windows, five facing forward and six along the side. A large overhead fan, about five feet in diameter, stirred the air in living room and bedroom. In his cabin, the captain walked on colorful Chinese rugs, reclined on rattan chairs with flowered cushions, stowed his gear in mahogany bureaus, and slept in a big brass bed, generally alone. Some skippers, according to reliable sources, carried their wives along during a tout of duty in the Gold Star.

An identical setup on the starboard side was reserved for the Governor-Commandant of Guam who occasionally took his family on a cruise to escape the heat and monotony.

Somehow, the Yard managed to squeeze a sick bay and a dozen second class cabins into the fantail. Perched on the poop deck was a little wooden shack complex with revolving chair, mirrors, and a wide assortment of warm weather toiletries—all the conveniences of an up-to-date barber shop for passengers in transit.

With those improvements the ship began making "Health Cruises”—combined recreation/cargo runs. Each year, loaded with naval station dependents, she set sail on a morale-building jaunt around the loop—Yokohama, Kobe, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Manila. She was a sight to behold as she barged into ports, her clotheslines flapping with panties and bras, rompers and diapers.

The Gold Star, originally designed along the line⁵ of an ocean tramp, moved up to a more genteel statu⁵ in the society of ships. With almost yacht-like paneled interiors and accommodations for 50 passengers she became a (\uas\-Queen Mary to the Islanders, their opulent, if only, link with the outside world.

On 16 July 1941, after a year at Pearl Harbor a⁵ navigator of the battleship Colorado, I reported to the "Goldie Maru" at Manila with orders to relieve her commanding officer. The ship lay alongside a dock at the Cavite Navy Yard undergoing routine overhaul an upkeep.

I served directly under Captain George G. McMilbu- Governor-Commandant of Guam. When the Gold St^ was at Guam, I became second in command of the island. The Governor made out the ship’s schedule⁵ and issued her sailing orders. But when she was cruisi°5 in the western Pacific or operating in the Philipp*¹¹^'

USS Gold Star—Flagship of the Guam Navy 69

the Gold Star came under the operational control of Admiral Thomas G. Hart, Commander-in-Chief Asiatic fleet and Asiatic Station. He approved the ship’s schedules and kept track of her movements.

As I took command, clouds of war were gathering ^and the Health Cruises were a thing of the past. There ^were no more trips to Japan. The Governor had revested the Navy Department to evacuate Guam’s dependents. Upon completion of her overhaul, the ship ^Was scheduled to shuttle between Manila and Guam Weighting in cement and construction material for a W being built at Apra Harbor.

The overage, 10-knot ship would have to steam ^al°ne, as Admiral Hart couldn’t spare an escort from fris thinly spread forces. Her four 4-inch guns had been Amoved years before. She now carried two .50-caliber Machine guns mounted on the flying bridge. She had ¹ few low-security ciphers for handling restricted and ^c°nfidential messages. Secret and Top Secret codes used the Fleet were not allowed—too much risk of being ^Captured on board an unarmed vessel operating independently.

An entry in my diary for 18 July (the day I took ^Command) reflects my concern:

"No guns for the Gold Star. I gather she isn’t considered worth defending. It would be silly to say that it doesn’t worry me. If war is declared and we encounter any Japanese ship with a gun, what do 1 do? Can’t surrender. It would be my job to resist with all available force—two .50 cal. machine guns—a nice spot that would be. . .

Yet, although this glamorized rice and coal barge distributed nothing to the combat capability of the ^Fleet, she was well manned. Every officer on board, deluding the paymaster, was a graduate of the U. S. •\aval Academy.

Many years before, some sort of a ruckus had taken Pfece at Guam. Several "mustang” officers from the Star were alleged to have caused the disturbance, hereafter, the Bureau established a policy of ordering '>nly N_avai Academy officers to the ship. Thus, in the ^SU|flmer of 1941, the Goldie Alaru steamed on cargo ^run-^s fully manned by regular officers while the battle- h'p Colorado (BB-45), having transferred a goodly num- ^tr of experienced officers to new ships under conjunction, operated out of Pearl Harbor with 40% of ^ler officers reservists.

fe was much the same with my crew—not a first ^cfeistment on board. About 15% were Chamorros serves >n the seaman, engineer, quartermaster, and steward inches—proud of their billets—making the Navy a ^cj^reer. The petty officers were old-timers, some of them ^aok owners on their third and fourth hitches.

On 21 August, upon completion of the overhaul, we sailed for Guam with 2,000 tons of coal from the Cavite Navy Yard’s dwindling stock-pile. Goldie also carried cement, rice, and the usual assortment of merchandise for the merchants of Agana. In San Bernardino Strait we took a newly constructed water barge in tow. A week later, having averaged about 7 knots, the flagship of the Guam Navy moored to a buoy in Apra Harbor.

Submerged coral heads that clogged most of Apra Harbor surrounded the small mooring area. There were no docks for deep-draft ships. Little steam launches (formerly officers’ liberty boats in the days of coalburning battleships) towed miniature lighters from the ship up through a Lilliputian channel to a wharf at the village of Piti where a cluster of tin-roofed sheds masqueraded as a Navy Yard. It took 12 days of round-the-clock work to unload the ship. As I made the entry, "Apra Harbor still sleeps tranquilly in its Spanish-American War state of development,” in my diary, I recalled some history.

On 20 June 1898, the cruiser USS Charleston (C-2), had steamed into Apra Harbor and had opened fire on Fort Santa Cruz. The Fort remained silent. When the Port Commander, who didn’t know that there was a war on, made his boarding call he said they thought the Charleston had fired a salute which couldn’t be returned because the Fort was out of ammunition. The next day the Governor of the island surrendered and the garrison of 120 Spanish Marines became prisoners of war.

After the war, Spain ceded Guam to the United States. The Navy Department, which had been assigned responsibility for the civil administration of the island, continued in that capacity for the next 40-odd years.

Following World War I at the Peace Conference in 1919, a chain of islands and islets (Marianas, Carolines, Marshalls, and Gilberts) stretching approximately 2,500 miles across the southwest portion of the north Pacific, were allocated to Japan under a League of Nations’ mandate. Guam, the largest land mass west of Hawaii with strategic value as a stepping-stone to the Philippines, lay close to the middle of the widespread network.

In the early 1930s, Japan, in violation of treaty agreements, began building air fields and military installations at strategic points in the Mandated Islands. By 1941, although Japan had created a defensive barrier cutting across our line of communications between Hawaii and the Philippines, the island of Guam, defenseless and beyond the reach of supporting forces, still stood its ground—caught like a fat fly in the center of a vast fortified insular spiderweb.

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In addition to the Gold Star, Navy ships assigned

to Guam were the Penguin (AM-33), a Bird-class minesweeper mounting a 3-inch, .50-caliber gun (the only weapon larger than a machine gun on the island,) and an underpowered fuel barge named R. L. Barnes. If an attack in force were launched against Guam, the Gold Star was supposed to be sunk at the entrance to Apra Harbor.

The Marine Detachment stationed on the island, primarily to maintain law and order, consisted of 146 men with small arms—26 more than the Spaniards had in 1898.

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The Pan American Ocean Air Base, which began operating in 1935, was the only 20th century installation at Apra Harbor. It had a landing channel for the Clippers, a landing ramp, and a white frame building to accommodate passengers overnight.

At Wake Island, the "Contractors, Air Bases Pacific” were dredging the lagoon and building an air strip. Elements of the Fleet Marine Force were putting in defenses. The "Orange Plan” for war with Japan contemplated that the Fleet based at Pearl Harbor would support Wake if the island came under sustained attack. However, there was no provision for rendering support to Guam which lay 1,200 miles to the southwest. Our War Plan conceded Guam to Japan.

Nevertheless, Apra Harbor hummed with activity. Bulldozers, dredges, construction material, and civilian workers had recently been sent out from the States. Assisted by natives, they were building a causeway leading out to a deep water dock site. Coral heads were being blasted and dredged to enlarge the anchorage area. New roads, quarters, and recreational facilities were being built. Construction of a breakwater was in

USS Gold Star—Flagship of the Guam Navy 71

the planning stage. There were no plans, however, for putting in defense.

On 10 September we sailed to fetch another load. A news broadcast reported that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had announced that it was now a "shooting war for the Navy.” The transport Henderson (AP-i), en route to Manila escorted by a cruiser assigned from the Fleet at Pearl Harbor, steamed several hundred miles ahead. The diary noted:

"Steaming darkened. Both AA machine guns manned during daylight. Fired 40 men over the rifle range, 36 qualified. While Henderson and Army transports including President liners steam through these waters with a cruiser escort, old Gold Star with no protection makes it alone.”

If a hostile man-of-war made contact with the Goldie Maru it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. She could neither run nor fight. A hit in one of the old Scotch boilers could cause the ship to jack-knife and sink like a rock. There would be no time for launching boats.

At Manila we doubled the number of life rafts being carried. Because fluids were more important than food for men adrift in tropical waters, we added canned fruit juices—enough to stock a supermarket—to abandon ship rations stowed in life rafts and boats. Lengths of line fitted with five-gallon tins, half full of fresh water—to act as floats—were coiled down on deck from bow to stern. If the ship sank suddenly, some would drift clear to serve as lifelines and provide a floating reserve of fresh water. We bought a skeet set and practiced shooting clay pigeons, to improve combat readiness.

On our six crossings while hauling cargo into Guam the only ships sighted were Japanese, usually on a north-south course between their homeland and the western Carolines. With airfields and bases in Japanese-held islands circling all but the southwest quadrant, the Japanese Fleet could control the Philippine Sea. We sailed in an ocean belonging to Japan.

On 29 September the Gold Star returned to Apra Harbor with the second load.

When the Gold Star steamed jnto Apra Harbor with the third load on the evening of 7 November a row of piles erected at the end of the causeway outlined the partially completed dock.

Saturday, 8 November, was a day of celebration at Guam. The Station band, made up of 18 Guamanians, provided music for the occasion while local dignitaries assembled on the newly constructed mole proudly Watched the Gold Star become the first seagoing ship over to go alongside a dock at Apra Harbor.

Fuel oil could now be pumped directly into a new

25,000-barrel tank ashore. Coal moved by truck from the ship’s side to the power plant. Cement drums— lifted from the holds by "cherry pickers”—could be dropped at a nearby shed. The little towboats and lighters were out of a job. The improved cargohandling facilities would give Japan an updated seaport in the center of her insular defensive barrier.

Monday, 17 November, had its historic and sentimental aspects. The long, strange marriage of a ship and an island came to an end, a parting of the ways that led to separate destinations. Thus, almost 17 years to the day after she first reported, the Gold Star sailed from Guam for the last time.

Manila Bay seemed deserted when we arrived on 23 November. The light cruiser Marblehead (CL-12), the tender Black Hawk (AD-9), and her destroyers (except several under upkeep) were in the southern part of the Sulu Sea—off the island of Tawi-Tawi somewhere— engaged in "maneuvers.”

Over at the Army-Navy Club, where attendance had fallen off sharply after the evacuation of dependents on 17 October, you could get pretty good odds that Japan’s "D-Day” would come on the weekend of 29 November when the Service Academies clashed in their annual football classic.

But we couldn’t spend our time standing around the club’s famous mahogany bar; Guam needed coal again. Cavite’s stockpile had almost vanished. However, at Dumanquillas Bay on the south coast of the island of Mindanao—near the Moro village of Malangas—a coal mine, abandoned 30 years before, had been put back into operation.

This would be the Christmas voyage. Our commercial cargo anticipated the coming Yuletide festivities. We took on board 1,500 cases of San Miguel beer and 300 or so of whiskey, colorful fabrics for dresses, lingerie, silk stockings, and the complete furnishings for a beauty parlor, toys, Japanese dolls, candy, and cases of bubble gum for the children of Guam.

On our previous trip we had transported a mentally deranged woman for hospitalization in Manila. Two Guamanian nurses attended her during the voyage. The nurses, returning to the Guam Naval Hospital, were on board as passengers.

We loaded 1,000 tons of rice and sailed for Malangas on 27 November. We stopped en route at Cebu to load 1,000 tons of cement.

On 2 December, we entered a tiny cove, dotted with shoals and scarcely half a mile wide, and moored to a T-shaped pier at the village of Malangas. Bow and stern lines were made fast to palm trees on the beach.

A mine, located several miles inland, produced an inferior grade of volatile bituminous coal. Rickety

trucks, salvaged from some scrap pile, hauled the coal from the mine to the pier where it was shoveled onto a conveyer belt leading out to the end of the dock and kicked up a cloud of dust as it tumbled down into the ship. We rigged thermometers in the holds.

Lieutenant W. B. (Bill) Epps, the first lieutenant, looked worried during our stay at Malangas. Rust bloomed all over the pitted decks. Large patches on the ship’s sides had to be chipped and painted in port. Each day, a layer of fine black dust settled on the decks and sifted into compartments below. We faced "Annual Inspection” at Guam, a scrutiny from truck to keel with cleanliness and smartness the criterion. Epps fought a losing battle.

By noon on 7 December, (6 December, Pearl Harbor date) the last of 1,800 tons was coming on board. As we prepared to get underway for Guam, we received a dispatch from Admiral Hart.

FROM: CINCAF

TO:     GOV NAVSTA GUAM

INFO: GOLD STAR

C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-T-I-A-L

DESPITE FACT GOLD STAR READY TO SAIL BECAUSE OF GENERAL SITUATION INADVISABLE TO START NOW X

We turned in wondering what new crisis had prompted the Admiral’s message. The night was stifling and black as the inside of your pocket. The village of Malangas lay silent under its palms. Most of the crew were asleep on deck. I was sleeping in my cabin under the large-bladed fan which revolved slowly overhead, when at 0340, Ensign Gallagher, communications officer, awakened me with an urgent plain language broadcast.

FROM: CINCAF

TO:     ASIATIC FLEET—ASIATIC STATION

U-R-G-E-N-T

JAPAN STARTED HOSTILITIES GOVERN YOURSELVES ACCORDINGLY

"All hands on deck!” Chief Boatswain’s Mato Cochran sang out, rousing the crew topside and below. "You get out of the inspection at Guam!” he kept repeating as he exhorted his gang to "Strip ship for action■' The crew turned to getting rid of fire and splinter hazards. Down came awnings and their strong backs. Overboard went the rows of room ventilators. Two spare .50-caliber machine guns, barricaded with sand bags, were mounted aft on top of the barber shop. The scene had serio-comic aspects. We were getting the amiable packet ready to fight an action, which if¹¹ came, she was bound to lose.

The first shipboard reaction was one of relief afie^f four months of strain and ever-increasing tension waiting for this thing to happen and knowing that the odds were definitely against us.

Where, we wondered, had the hostilities started? The Japanese probably had landed in Thailand or soW(’ where in Indochina. At any rate, tucked away in th'⁵ remote cove some 500 miles south of Manila, contact with the enemy seemed a long way off. I decided ^t0 anchor out in the bay and wait for orders.

A dispatch in one of our codes came as we wef^£ leaving the dock.

FROM: CINCAF

TO:     GOLD STAR

C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-T-I-A-L PROCEED IMMEDIATELY TO MANILA

We had just cleared the cove when a second, urg^ellt' uncoded broadcast brought the war alarmingly

USS Gold Star—Flagship of the Guam Navy 73

FROM: CINCAF

TO: ASIATIC STATION

U-R-G-E-N-T

AIR ATTACK HAS BEEN MADE ON DAVAO

Davao, 125 miles to the east, was only half an hour’s flying time from us. The broadcast jolted us out of any lingering sense of security. There were no enemy airfields close enough to reach Davao. The attacking planes had to be launched from a carrier, somewhere off the island of Mindanao.

The crew went to General Quarters. Men not required for our "main battery”—now four .50-caliber machine guns—manned the rail with 1903 Springfield nfles pointed outboard at a 45-degree angle.

Emergency full speed was rung up. She was riding deep in the water with a full load. Alex Hood tightened the safety valves, raising their lifting pressure from 225 to 250 pounds, which was 25 pounds above the designed pressure of the 20-year-old boilers. The throt- de was wide open. The ship shook with each rhythmic 'hump of the big propeller. But, the best we could eoax out of her was 10.5 knots.

The two nurses, neatly attired in white uniforms, "'ere assigned a battle station in sick bay and given 'flu job of making bandage rolls out of bed sheets.

Emerging from Dumanquillas Bay, we shaped a ^c°urse for Basilan Strait. The full significance of the ^avao attack began to sink in: amazing, that they ’'Quid launch a carrier strike way down here at the °^utset. This was all-out war, no step-by-step escalation.

Another thing dawned on us. In all probability, we "'ould have made a surprise rendezvous with that Japa- "ese carrier and her planes this morning if Admiral ^°mmy Hart hadn’t cancelled our sailing yesterday.

fleet radio traffic filled the air. We couldn’t break ¹⁽ down. We intercepted a fragment of one message in the clear ", . . planes over Manila.”

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we hugged the almost-black coast of Mindanao. ^av*gational lights were out.

^ ^here had the Japanese carrier gone after recovering ^er planes? This became the engrossing question of the ^Sflt. Accompanied by a couple of destroyers and a ^Cruiser, she might circle north around Mindanao, and ^ 'flu morning hit Cebu, the second largest city in ^e Philippines—a logical follow-up of the Davao ^s'rik_e •pj_{ie carr}j_{er anc}j h_{er co}horts could, indeed, be '^Vlthin our circle of visibility at daylight. h°ng before first light, shadowy figures in lifejackets, World War I helmets, took stations with their "'oded rifles along the rail of the Gold Star. We ^ll"ed to pierce the slowly receding darkness for a

At sunset we entered Basilan Strait leading into the Sea. Turning northward toward Manila as night

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glimpse of what lay around us on the morning of 9 December.

The tip of the island of Negros loomed off the port bow. Except for a few native bancas and fishing boats, we were alone. Our general plan on the run north was to stay close to the shoreline making use of the screening effect of islands and islets along the route. Caught by enemy forces in the wide open spaces, we would be a sitting duck. Hugging the coast offered a chance to beach her and scramble ashore.

Static prevented radio reception on the second day. Crackling interference—a commonplace in that part of the world—made commercial broadcasts unintelligible. Our obsolescent receiving apparatus didn’t help. Try as we would, we could strain out only a few scattered words ". . . air raid Pearl Harbor . . . planes . . . attack . . . Manila . . .” just enough to suggest that all hell must be breaking loose. All day on the 9th, we plodded northward, a slow-moving dot on the chart, cut off from the rest of the world by a strict communications blackout.

At dawn on 10 December, clinging close to the eastern shore of the island of Masbate, we peered anxiously into the Strait of San Bernardino, the eastern gateway into the Philippines. Though the enemy landed at nearby Legaspi the next day, the Strait was clear on the morning of 10 December.

As we worked our way northward through clusters of islands, broadcasts from Manila came in loud and clear. Repeated heavy air attacks, magazine explosions at Cavite, fires and widespread destruction were reported. Radio announcers, predicting more to come tomorrow, appealed to the people to have courage. Lots of Fleet traffic, all Secret.

Why in hell do they want this crate in Manila? Shouldn’t we question the orders? But, that dispatch directing our return is perfectly clear. My first command, my first war, the first orders of the war. Should I break radio silence and ask, "Do you mean it?”

At nightfall we were just south of the island of Marinduque, 100 miles from Corregidor, expecting to enter Manila Bay in the morning. Alex Hood, who had been down in the engine room most of the time since leaving Malangas, was on the bridge.

Bill Epps, who had the deck, observed: "With the rest of the outfit long gone south, here’s the Goldie Maru, the only ship in the Fleet still headed north, boring in at nine knots toward the Japanese Empire!”

A priority dispatch broke up the meeting.

FROM: CINCAF

TO:    GOLD STAR

P-R-I-O-R-I-T-Y C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-T-I-A-L PROCEED TO BALIKPAPAN

"Hard left—steady on 180! Give her all she can take, Alex.” Then into the lighted charthouse to dope out how to get to Balikpapan, Borneo.

A year and a half afterward, Admiral Hart told me that on the night of the 10th he asked where the Gold Star was, then sent the dispatch. His staff, after ordering our return to Manila, had forgotten all about us on the run north.

Having sweated it out for 600 miles on the run north, we now had to turn around and do it over again. And in the three days elapsing since the first blow the Japanese conceivably had been able to tighten their cordon around the archipelago.

We steamed south along the west coast of the island of Panay during the night. This time, with her "rivets a-poppin,” she really went all-out. The throb of the prop 88 times a minute threatened to shake the ship apart. Every now and then, an upstroke of the plunging pistons triggered a cylinder relief valve and set off an explosion that could be heard a mile away.

At 1000 on the 11th, we reached the southern end of the island of Panay. The direct course to Balikpapan led through Sibutu Passage, a bottleneck where submarines could intercept shipping. I chose a course that placed us about 15 miles to the eastward of the direct route and offered the screening effect of the Sulu Archipelago after traversing the Sulu Sea.

The sun had set. We were out of sight of land when a lookout reported four masts. She was a large ship headed north, obviously enemy. Our ships, by this time, would be heading south. She was probably a transport detached from their forces around the Malay Peninsula and bringing up reinforcements. She held her course. Luckily she didn’t see us as we turned eastward and shuffled into the gathering darkness. Had I selected the Sibutu Passage route we would have met her head- on with several hours of daylight remaining.

The morning of 12 December found us entering the island domain of the Sultan of Sulu. The chart bore notations "shoal patches reported in 1850—position doubtful—dangerous and unsurveyed ground.” Fronds of palm trees almost brushed our yardarms as we threaded our way through the labyrinth of islands. We passed thatched hut villages. Natives ran down to the water’s edge to get a closer look at the once-in-a-life- time spectacle of a seagoing ship sliding by their front doorsteps: men, women, and children waved and shouted.

In late afternoon, the Gold Star furtively poked her bow around the end of the southernmost island that shielded her from the Celebes Sea. This produced a slowly unfolding panoramic effect disclosing an ever- widening arc of open water. All was clear up to the

last obstructed sector, which, when uncovered, revealed two large cruisers boring in at high speed with all guns trained on the hapless Gold tor-now fully exposed beyond the tip of the island.

Before I could order what promised to be a futile turn away, we recognized our own cruisers the Houston (CL-81) and the Boise (CL-47). Great day! We hadn't laid eyes on a combatant associate for two weeks. They had seen our topmasts sticking up above the palm trees.

We two-blocked a flag hoist meaning: "Permission to proceed on service assigned.”

"What speed can you make?” the flagship Houston asked.

"Ten and a half knots,” we replied.

"Permission granted.”

And the Gold Star waddled southward into the Celebes Sea.

The Houston, the Boise and several destroyers escorting the submarine tender Holland (AS-31) and the former merchantman Otus (AS-20) passed us on the 13th and disappeared over the horizon ahead.

At 1400 on 14 December we lay to off Balikpapan. A Dutch naval officer boarded. He explained that all pilots were engaged and suggested that we anchor until one became available. We dropped the hook near the lightship and, for the first time in six days, I flopped down on the big brass bed.

The pilot came on board in late afternoon. We proceeded through the swept channel and at sunset arrived at Balikpapan. We were surprised to see practically the entire Asiatic Fleet (less submarines) concentrated in the harbor.

Present were the 8-inch cruiser Houston flagship; the aging 6-inch cruiser Marblehead (CL-12); the Boise, a new 6-inch cruiser—caught out here on escort duty when the war broke out; nine or ten obsolescent destroyers; the Holland; the historic Langley (AV-3), an ex-collier, pioneer of the landing deck—her flight deck now cut in half—serving as a patrol plane tender; the little converted yacht Isabel (PV-io);* the venerable tankers Pecos (AO-6)f and 9-knot Trinity (AO-13) rounded out the motley collection of outmoded ships.

We were elated, after seven lonely, precarious days, to finally join up and become one of the Outfit.

That night Rear Admiral W. M. Glassford ordered commanding officers to report on board the Houston for a conference. The ship was darkened. We assembled in the wardroom, dimly lighted by blue battle lamps. The Admiral brought us up-to-date. Several battleships had been sunk at Pearl Harbor, others severely damaged

'SeeJ. D. Alden, "The Yacht That Was a Destroyer," Proceedings December 1967, pp. 156-159.

fi>f E. P. Abemethy, "The Pern Died Hard,” Proceedings, December 1969, pp. 74-83.

(first I’d heard about that). HMS Repulse and Renown had been sunk. Manila Bay was untenable, the Japanese bombing it at will. Fighters were unable to protect ships in the harbor. Admiral Hart had ordered a withdrawal of everything except submarines to the south and east. A report of an enemy carrier in the Celebes Sea had just been received. The Houston, Holland, and most of the combatant ships were to sail for Surabaja, Java, before dawn, leaving the Pecos and the Trinity to fill up with fuel at Balikpapan. Glassford, after asking what my orders were, said:

"You may join us or do as you choose.”

"We’ll join you, sir,” I replied.

Back on the ship I got to thinking about events of the past two days. When we stumbled out of the Sulu Sea, the Houston let us go on ahead. The next day she and the convoy passed by, dropping us far astern. At tonight’s conference the Admiral said we could join him or go on our own. Unthinkable, but it finally sank in, Glassford didn’t want us!

The Marblehead, several destroyers, the Langley and the Gold Star remained at Balikpapan while the Pecos and the Trinity filled up with 90,000 barrels of diesel oil for our submarines. The Dutch planned to blow the tanks when the Japanese arrived.

The Pecos, Trinity, Langley, and Gold Star, escorted by the Marblehead and the destroyers, sailed from Balikpapan on the afternoon of 16 December and arrived at the Port of Makassar in the Celebes on 18 December. The Gold Star tied up to Wilhelmina Wharf. The other ships anchored in the harbor.

This was but one more example of Goldie's unpopularity. When she joined a convoy, its speed was reduced about 4 or 5 knots making every other ship in the formation a better target for submarines. An ugly proposal circulated. "Abandon the Outsider! Distribute her officers and men among the combatant ships present.” That way, it was argued, the unwanted ship would contribute something useful to the Task Force.

I called on the senior officer present in the Boise to inform him that we had frozen beef, mutton, and poultry, potatoes, fresh fruit, and vegetables—all told, several hundred tons of cold storage provisions ready to be issued immediately. He directed distribution of the foodstuffs.

Boats swarmed alongside. Those from destroyers, already reduced to canned rations, shoved off loaded to the gunwales. Thereafter, the refugee from Guam was allowed to tag along.

On Sunday morning, 28 December, the Houston and three destroyers escorting the Otus, Pecos, and Gold Star arrived at Darwin, Australia. The gallant Houston, constantly on the move during those tense times, sailed

with her destroyers a few hours afterward, leaving the Gold Star’s skipper as senior officer present afloat.

The Australian Naval Base at Darwin had one dock and two improvised lighters (50 and 200 tons capacity)’ Half a dozen ships were anchored in the harbor waiting to be unloaded.

The Gold Star had recently been assigned to the newly formed Asiatic Fleet Base Force. The Fleet, running low on provisions and stores, planned to use Darwin as a logistics base.

I called on the Darwin base commander to inquire about provisions for the Asiatic Fleet. They had, he explained, only enough for their own use. Provisions and supplies of all kinds came by water from Sydney' Owing to a shortage of shipping it would take months to have stores for the Fleet sent up to Darwin.

In order to get something started while waiting fo^f Commander, Base Force to set up headquarters Darwin we submitted a requisition to the Australian Navy Department. We asked for 30 days fresh provisions for 3,000 men (approximately the Gold Star’s cold storage capacity) and dry stores for 6,000 men for 9® days, stating that these supplies were urgently required by U. S. naval forces.

On 5 January, when Commander, Base Force embarked in the Holland arrived, I turned the requisition over to him. We were directed to unload at Darwin, where coal and cement were in short supply, and then go to Sydney to pick up the supplies requested.

By this time, less than a month after Pearl Harbor. Japanese land, sea, and air forces—advancing rapidly on a wide front, making full use of mobility and overwhelming power—threatened to engulf the Dutch East Indies. The insular chain, known as the Malay Barrier, began to crumble. An Estimate of the situation inscribed in the diary on 14 January concluded that:

"As part of her [Japan’s] securing of the Netherlands East Indies, she will be forced to bomb Darwin to render it untenable as a base.”

The dock at Darwin could handle only one ship ^Jt a time. Transports and ships with military cargo came first. The Gold Star swung around her hook out m the bay, far down on the priority list.

A small jetty with a crane handled equipment f°^r an antisubmarine net installed across the harbor entrance. We were allowed to use the crane at night to lift cement drums and general cargo from our boats In this fashion, Bill Epps with a nocturnal working party manhandled some 5,000 drums of cement ashore The Darwin Base also got rice which they didn’t mueh care for, Christmas toys, candy, and bubble gum.

Disposition of the beer and whiskey posed a p^r0^ lem. Stowed in number two hold under lock and key.

77

USS Gold Star—Flagship of the Guam Navy

it had to be off-lifted before we could get at cement drums underneath. We had no place to put it. The easiest, and by far the most popular solution would have been to allow ships present to come and get it. Commander, Base Force didn’t go along with the idea, ⁿor would he accept custody of the consignment.

Meantime, while waiting for the stalemate to be ^solved, we commandeered a sturdy scow, loaded the bottled goods into her, spiked down her hatches se- ^curely and tied her up on our starboard side under day ^Jnd night surveillance of the man on watch at the gangway.

When we sailed from Darwin several weeks later left behind the scow with her delectable cargo, ^Jnchored in our vacated berth. At the same time we ^t a dispatch reporting her position to ComBaseForce ^Jrd requested him to take charge.

Deep down in holds number one and four lay a Soldering menace. Daily thermometer readings were ^r,sing at an alarming rate. The Darwin Base Commander promised help forthwith. Several days went by. ^mperatures went up. I reported that soon, for the ^slliP’s safety, we would have to start dumping the coal Aboard.

The iron hull of an old sailing vessel was placed ^°ugside. More than half a century before, alive under ⁵ full spread of canvas, she had proudly competed in '^^e grain run from Australia to England. Stripped I ^wn, dismasted and immobile she was spending her ^Jst days as a lowly coal hulk at Darwin.

^ All hands turned to in the tropical heat working °^ur hours on and four off. On the morning of the uh day the hulk, her deck partly awash, with a black Pyramid rising high above each hatch, was carefully ^t"'^ved away. A month later, on 19 February, she ab- ^rbed some bombs that might have been used on a important target and went to the bottom when .^e largest task force on a single mission since the Pearl ^lrbor attack knocked out the base at Darwin.

^ About mid-January, the transport Chaumont (AP-5), ^^V|ng been diverted while en route to Manila with S. troops, disembarked them at Darwin. The Chau- ’ⁿ°^nt and the Gold Star were scheduled to join an ^^St'bound convoy when an escort became available. '^nc'rny submarines had fired near misses at several ^mhantmen entering Darwin.

ⁿy hours to the assigned task while on battle sta- \ had used up most of the bed sheets on board.

the nurses to the United States on the Chaumont. ^ dispatch from the Department directed all ships

j An inspection below decks one day disclosed ban- ,^a&e rolls stacked to the overhead in one of the vacant ^e-rooms. Our gentle nurses, patiently devoting

lioi

cast iron main injection valves to surround them

with concrete "to better withstand the shock of underwater explosions.” We wrapped ours with wire and encased it in Cebu cement.

We sailed from Darwin, escorted by two American destroyers, on 23 January. The convoy consisted of the Chaumont, flagship; the Gold Star; the Holbrook, an Australian troopship; the MarechalJoffre, an 11,800-ton French liner commandeered at Manila; and a 3,400-ton Australian coastal freighter named Mildura,

At sunset, while entering the Arafura Sea, a destroyer off to port trained a large searchlight on us, flashed "TORPEDO” and started dropping depth charges. We turned left to comb the wakes and fetched up dead in the water from the shock of depth charge explosions.

Steam from ruptured boiler fittings filled the combined engine-fireroom. A shattered 6-inch auxiliary condenser valve, gushing like a geyser, flooded the crank pit and gave the bilge pumps all they could handle. The main injection valve withstood the shock. Had it let go, it would have been the end of the line for the Goldie Maru.

The convoy straggled eastward during the night and formed up in the morning with the Mildura trailing astern, sending up a continuous plume of black smoke that could be seen by a submarine 20 miles away.

On the afternoon of 26 January, the convoy arrived at the Australian pilot station on Goode Island at the western entrance to Torres Strait. The Holbrook and the Chaumont evacuated personnel from Thursday Island. The Gold Star picked up a pilot and, accompanied by the Marechal Joffre, headed south inside the Great Barrier Reef into waters where submarines were not able to operate.

Seven days later, on 2 February, we lay to off the Port War Signal Station at Sydney. The harbor pilot came up over the sea ladder and trotted to the bridge. After this small, wiry, middle-aged Aussie had the ship squared away on a course for the harbor entrance, he hopped from the pilothouse and came over to where I stood on the wing of the bridge. Beneath his derby hat, his eyes squinted at me from a puckered-up, weather-beaten face.

"Cap’n,” he queried. "Wot line are yer?”

The abrupt question touched a nerve. The inability on the part of uninformed characters, including some of the brethren in the Service, to comprehend that the Gold Star belonged to the Navy, had plagued me and been a source of irritation ever since I had reported to her. Because supply ships in the Australian Navy were usually chartered merchantmen, I had the feeling that clearing up the pilot’s misunderstanding of our status would call for a careful, somewhat lengthy, explanation. I told him that we were not a commercial vessel, but were commissioned in the U. S. Navy.

Pointing to the commission pennant flying at the main truck, I explained that I and my officers were commissioned in the Navy, that the crew, from petty officers down to the last seaman, were regular Navy. The ship had served with our naval forces on the China Station longer than any other ship in the Asiatic Fleet. We were caught in the Philippines when the war broke out. 1 went on to relate, with some pride, that this slow, unarmed ship, steaming alone for five days through the Philippine archipelago, had successfully evaded the surrounding Japanese forces. Only by the greatest good fortune had she escaped being sunk or captured. We had come to Sydney to pick up food and supplies desperately needed by the U. S. Asiatic Fleet even now fighting the Japanese north of Australia.

The pilot heard me out with a puzzled look. His response was brief; the word "Aye” uttered with no discernible shade of expression or intonation. Then he toddled back to the pilothouse where I could see him obviously mulling over the baffling question of what manner of ship this might be. Presently, he came over to me again, asking:

"Cap’n? Win did the Nivey sign yer on?”

Exercising what patience and restraint I could muster, I plunged into an attempt at further clarification. Midway in the discourse, Ensign Gallagher produced a copy of Jane’s Fighting Ships, giving names and characteristics of ships of the world’s navies. The pilot peered for a moment at the page listing the USS Gold Star, then again he responded noncommittally with the irritating monosyllable "Aye.” Surely, I thought, the sight of authoritative documentary evidence would dispel all of the man’s doubts about my ship.

We entered Sydney Harbor setting a course for the anchorage. Bringing a man-of-war to anchor is an all hands evolution to be performed in strict conformance with long established naval traditions. Beginning as she makes her approach, details must be carried out in proper sequence, with split-second timing, until the ship finally rides securely to the desired scope of chain—exactly in her assigned berth. The Gold Star followed procedures and customs of the Service to the letter. Attired in neat, clean uniforms, the crew stood at attention at quarters. The anchor detail, with Chief Boatswain’s Mate Cochran in charge, stood by on the forecastle. Leadsmen, in the chains, sang out soundings at regular intervals. The ship’s position was plotted every 30 seconds. The instant the predetermined point was reached, the engine backed full and the Exec, raising his megaphone, shouted, "Let go!” As the hook splashed the water, up went the Union Jack at the bow, the anchor ball and the colors astern, while the underway colors at the gaff were hauled down slowly. At the same time, the booms swung out and the gangway

and boats were lowered into the water, a seamanlike shipshape performance that would have been a credit to any battleship in the Fleet. The smartly executed maneuver had scarcely been completed when the pilot came at me once more.

"Cap’n,” said he, "yer ’ave a well-drilled crew. One ’ud almost think she was a Nival ship.”

Supplies for the Asiatic Fleet were being assembled at the Garden Island Navy Yard in Sydney. The victualling officer said that when he received a requisition for stores for 6,000 men from a ship named USS Gold Star he visualized some gigantic new super carrier. Imagine his surprise when he took a look at what lay at anchor in Sydney harbor.

The Garden Island Navy Yard kindly offered to give us a gun and concrete splinter protection "to safeguard ship and crew while operating in dangerous waters.’ The diary records:

"The Royal Australian Navy hopped aboard old Gold Star and gave her a complete face lifting consisting of splinter protection formed of concrete slabs around the pilot house, chart house and radio shack, degaussing equipment, platforms in both #1 and #4 holds to facilitate the issue of stores and last, but not least, a fine round gun platform on the poop with a little British High Angle 12-pounder sitting on it. So now we are something hard to describe.

I imagine we are the only thing in the Navy mounting a British gun.”

Early in February, Vice Admiral H. F. Leary, U. S- Navy, commander of the newly formed Australia-New Zealand Forces (ComANZAC) set up headquarters in Australia and the Gold Star came under his operational control.

About mid-February, with Java expected to fall, the Asiatic Fleet Base force shifted from Darwin to Fremantle in west Australia. Admiral Glassford moved his headquarters from Surabaja, Java, to Perth.

On 22 February, ComANZAC ordered us to proceed to Fremantle with the Asiatic Fleet’s supplies. We loaded more stores at Melbourne and on the evening of 9 March arrived at Fremantle. Having received no report of the Gold Star’s departure and estimated time of arrival, the Port Director at Fremantle didn’t know we were coming.

The next morning I called at the Admiral’s headquarters in Perth. Once again the Gold Star, coming from out of nowhere, landed in Glassford’s lap and again he didn’t want her. Three ships from the cast coast of the United States, loaded with provisions and stores, had arrived a few days before. Their carg⁰ glutted every warehouse in Fremantle. There was n°

USS Gold Star—Flagship of the Guam Navy 79