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a lull-
In the summer of 1942, Lieutenant Commander Walker was winding up a tour of duty as operations officer on the staff of Commander Submarines Pacific. He was too senior to command a submarine, so he became a destroyer skipper instead. That is why he was in a ship in the screen when the USS Massachusetts (BB-59), below, went into action at Casablanca that fall. The following is an edited excerpt from an oral history interview conducted on 12 September 1984.
The USS Mayrant (DD-402) was on maneuvers and training in the Chesapeake when I arrived to take command in September 1942. I went on board one day to talk with the commanding officer and relieved him the next morning. When 1 stepped on board the Mayrant that day, it was my first duty in a destroyer. I had no problems whatsoever with shiphandling. The only problem was with tactical maneuvering; I had to keep reading the book. It didn’t take long to catch on, though, because we were for the most part convoy escorts.
I don’t know whether the crew realized I didn’t have any destroyer experience. Of course, the officers did, but I doubt that the crew did. Fortunately, the officers and men rallied around me, but I don’t think for that reason. They were a little bit unhappy with the previous skipper, who was a bit persnickety, and they seemed to be happy that I was there. I remember one of the officers telling me later on that they were put out with him, so they used to make a habit of body checking him the way hockey players do. Whenever they got an opportunity on the bridge, they would go near him and “accidentally” body check him.
The first operation I went on was the invasion of North Africa. We went from Norfolk, Virginia to Portland, Maine, to join up with a task group. I was in Destroyer Squadron 14, and the squadron commander was Commodore D. P. Moon, “Dipper” Moon. He was a very meticulous sort of guy. After leaving Portland, we were assigned to screen the main body, the battleship Massachusetts (BB-59) and the heavy cruisers Wichita (CA-45) and Tuscaloosa (CA-37).
We used visual communications throughout the transit, no radios. There were no submarine scares. I’ll never forget, just as soon as daylight would come every morning, Commodore Moon’s signal light on the bridge would start to go, and he’d ask me a bunch of questions about what was I doing about this and what I was doing about that. I never had time to read the operation orders; I spent most of my time answering foolish questions.
There’s an anecdote I remember about Moon. Before the war, he had a destroyer division. They were out maneuvering and practicing, and they would simulate this and simulate that and simulate the other thing. In one maneuver one of the ships gave a very poor performance, so Moon sent a dispatch immediately that read, “Who’s the officer of the deck?”
And the destroyer sent back, “We are simulating Ensign so-and-so, who is now in torpedo school.
When our task force arrived in Casablanca, we didn’t know what the French were going to do. The operation order said if they resisted, then we would get the signal, “Play Ball.
About 0700 we got the signal “Play Ball,” and were hit with some air attacks from the French. During the day- we made about three runs past the f° at Casablanca. In making these runs, was the leading destroyer on the inboard side. There were five of us screening, one dead ahead, one on e. bow, one on each beam. I was having a little bit of a problem with my bl°'v. ers that morning, and I’d smoke a lit once in a while—especially when I was trying to get up ahead of the sachusetts—because we were steaming anywhere from 33 to 35 knots. The French fort, El Hank, thought they ^ hit me, so they all concentrated on n1 Everywhere I looked there was a co ored splash coming up, so we’d wait for a salvo to land and then chase me salvo. They’d make a correction and we wouldn’t be there. .
We were shooting at the forts all time while we were in Casablanca. Massachusetts, the two heavy cruiserS’ and all the destroyers on the side toward the beach were firing. We also did some antiaircraft shooting. We ^ didn’t get any specific assignment, just shot at the flashes coming fr°m ashore.
My messenger that day was a y°u " Irish lad from South Boston named Scanlon. Every time there was a lu* after we finished a run and were tur^ ing to come back for another run, 1 , look but couldn’t find him. At the en of the day, I said, “Scanlon, what ^ pened to you? Every time there was lull in the proceedings and we vvere ^ making a turn and coming back to - all over, you were gone.”
“Well,” he said, “captain, it was like this. Every time there was
By Rear Admiral Edward K. Walker, U. S. Navy (Retired)
and f6 a crew °f about 330 men Th Cn °r ^ officers in the Mayrant. mae executive officer was Edes Tala .n’ my gunnery officer was Lieuten- Wat ran^'n R°osevelt" Jr-; Bob Sav hu- WaS torPedo officer; and Larry adkin was my engineer officer. navranklin Roosevelt was a crackerjack res a °^'ccr' Be was one of the few sleerve officers I had with me. I could if h*3 Peacefully at night knowing that get6 "°l 'nt0 tr°uble, he either could th°ut °f it or know enough to know M , e couldn’t and give me a call.
°ffic *®®est trouble was that the junior TheCrS d'dn t want to wake me.
^ d Set the ship into trouble which they’ j*^'cuR to get out of because prad Wait too long to call me. But 0r ^ cither could handle the situation a „ e kuew enough to call. And he was nery°d gUnnery officer. He was gun- f-^abl C6r c*ur‘n§ t*le rri-vasion of Wh
go . en the ship wasn’t in action, I’d ters r°Und and inspect the living quar- fQn:hanrd engtneering spaces and so a^.' didn’t get too involved in the Pers'niSIrat'on s'de’ except to sign pa- thp ’ which was fine with me. A lot of
Waerin8 reports and the log and al- ^ some administrative chore to do. 0nee had a pretty convivial wardroom. the cac*Vantage that a small ship has, '’’Shu'13'11 Can cat with his officers. At gles .. Used to have to wear red gog- tight °r ^*nner> so I’d be all set for due • Vls'on in case there was a subma- havcattacf against the convoy. We did shiD3 CouPle> and we lost a couple of °n one of the convoys. blanWent °n a convoy run to Casa- st0ra ln December. We ran into a bad Convc°rning out of New York and the °y Was scattered. It took a while to finally get them all back together. It was so rough that the submarines were just staying submerged, so we didn’t lose any ships.
While we were in Casablanca, the aide to the admiral ashore came out to the ship, and he said, “I want to take Lieutenant Roosevelt ashore with me. The admiral will assure you that he will get Roosevelt back to you at least 12 hours before you depart for the States.” So I said okay.
Before he left, Frank came up on the bridge. I said, “For God’s sake, Frank, what’s going on?”
“Oh,” he said, “the old man’s here.” Sure enough, they did get him back to me about a day before we left to return home.
While we were in Casablanca, we were ordered to go south to the port of Safi, which is about 150-200 miles south of Casablanca, to act as antiaircraft protection for the port. When I got in, I went ashore and called on the Navy captain of the port. I asked, “Is there anybody else around here I should call on while I’m here?”
“Well,” he said, “there’s a French naval captain here and there’s a local pasha. But don’t bother. You don t need to.”
I thought, “Maybe I don’t need to, but I think I will.” I went over to call on the naval captain. The next day I got a note saying he would be very happy if I could come for dinner that night, and if Lieutenant Roosevelt wasn’t going to be busy, he hoped I would bring him with me. So I said, “Frank, you want to go out to this naval captain’s for dinner?”
He said, “Sure,” so we went over and had a delightful dinner.
The next morning I got an urgent call from the captain of the port. He says, “You’ve got to help me out.
We’re in trouble.” I asked what was the matter. “Well,” he said, “it seems like Mrs. Captain called up Mrs. Governor [the French governor] and said, ‘I had the son of the President of the United States for dinner last night, Honey. How are you doing?”’ He said, “Will you please take Roosevelt with you and go call on the French governor and also while you’re about it, call on the local pasha?”
Frank and I went and called on the governor who was pleased to see us and asked us for dinner two or three days later. Then we went over and called on the native pasha who was the son of the Grand Vizier of Morocco, which is the same as a prime minister. He was very pleasant and said that he wanted us to have dinner, but it took at least two days to prepare so we would have to wait. Unfortunately, we got orders to leave the next morning, so I missed the pasha’s dinner. It’s always been the regret of my life that I missed that dinner. You can see the kinds of problems that Roosevelt would cause at times.
Sometime after the first of the year, we went into the New York Navy Yard for routine overhaul and they put on some of the latest equipment.
I think we got some new sound gear at that time.
rather
hint'
some admiral as a young officer, than actually doing any operations self, but he turned out to be an exce lent squadron commander.
ck
Commander Walker while on board the May rant fought the French at Casablanca, the Italians and Germans in Sicily, and a wayward motorboat in the New York Harbor, and had a pleasant challenge as well in the person of his famous XO, Lieutenant Franklin Roosevelt, Jr.
I had a funny experience when I came out of the yard. They let me take the ship down out of the New York Harbor. We didn’t go all the way out, just far enough to see that the engineering part was working okay. It was night and we were coming back up the channel. The channel lights were shrouded so it was a little difficult to see. There was a motorboat tied up to a channel buoy but I didn’t know it was there. The motorboat saw me coming and started to move back. I saw this light moving and I couldn’t figure out what it was. 1 was keeping to the right so other people could come out. When 1 saw the light moving, I swung a hard left and hard right, trying to kick my stern clear, but I swerved into the buoy and banged up my screw. I had to go back to the yard and they changed my screw overnight so I was ready to leave the next morning. That’s the only time I ever hit anything as a commanding officer.
While we were in the yard we had a materiel inspection and Captain Moon came over to inspect us. Of course, while they were working on the ship there were hoses and everything else you might expect laying around. After the inspection was over, Captain Moon said to me, “Walker, you’re a nice fellow and a good officer, but you don’t worry enough.” I felt like saying,
“Sir, you worry too much.”
The morning we were supposed to leave at 0800, Roosevelt, who by then had become executive officer, was not on board and it got to be 0730 or 0745. I asked the officer of the deck where he was and he said, “Roosevelt came aboard about 2300 last night. He got up early this morning, at 0600 and left the ship, and I haven’t seen him since.” I was on the spot. I notified the commandant of the yard that Lieutenant Roosevelt was missing, and also sent a dispatch to the Navy Department in Washington. By now it was about 0755. The Marines were sent to search for him, and they found Frank in a telephone booth sound asleep. He’d gotten up and gone to the telephone booth to call his mother to tell her he was leaving, and had fallen asleep. We finally got him on board just before we sailed.
We took a large convoy over to Oran, Algeria, and operated out of Mers-el-Kebir, which is the French naval port there. For two or three months we were running convoys along the North African coast from Oran to points east.
I remember one incident. The Army was there then, and they had sent over a bunch of Army nurses. Some of our officers met them and we had several over for dinner one night. The next morning, I was tied up alongside the squadron flagship and the bridges were almost side by side. Charlie Wellborn, who was squadron commander at the time, said, “I understand you had women aboard for dinner last night. Don’t you know that the commander in chief, Admiral [Andrew B.] Cunningham, said there will be no women aboard ship?”
I said, “Yes, I understand that, but Commodore, we didn’t have women aboard; we had Army officers.” So
that was the end of that episode.
I enjoyed working under Captain Wellborn. He expected the people to their jobs and would be very happy t0 give any assistance he could, but he wasn’t the type to harass you contin" ously. He had a reputation as he was going up through the ranks of being * member of the society of aides. It seemed like he was always an aide to
We were one of the last groups t° leave Oran, escorting a group of L5 ; [tank landing ships], and we got to cily just about as the battle started >° lowing the invasion. We were there mostly as antiaircraft protection for invasion fleet, off the port of Licata southern Sicily. After two or three days, we were ordered to the north coast of Sicily because the Army ha cut across the island and was in the area of Palermo. They thought the I j ians or Germans would come down bother them, so we were there as sca protection. The second morning, °ur squadron was attacked by two or th groups of German JU-88 bombers- shot down one or two before we"1
hit, but then another group came n and we didn't catch them quite qul' enough. «
One plane dropped a stick of bo'1 , over us and a bomb slid down my P side right at the junction between t after fire room and the forward eng ^ room. It blew a big hole in the side the ship and a hole in the bulkhea between the forward and after eng1' room and the forward and after f'^e room. The whole central part of th a| ship flooded, and we settled down we had about a foot of freeboard °n
180
Proceedings / October
th 6 Slde anc* 'ess than half a foot on l,eot"er- We threw over as much 0navy stuff as we could. We almost got did J0rpedo *auncher over the side, but to th * C*U*te ma^e '*• The crew started the f0W 3Way t^le records. but I made sj, ,m st0P that, I figured we might pos- swe^ neeC* dlose- ^ couple of miners,6e^ers came out and one gave me Jer- We had lost all power, of UpI?e> and our auxiliary diesel started Su ’. ut ^or some reason it lost water sto 10n and en8*ne froze and side ^ *^ne minesweeper was along- tow T otber was ahead, and they
ftink US 'nt° ^a*errno' ^e *ost> I
the r’ *°Ur men 'n the engine room and vy lre room; we didn’t lose too many. prWere lucky.
ex ,ran^ Roosevelt was wounded in the dest°S1°n' ^leMayrant was an older ^/oyer and bad big windows on the heav"6 rat*ler than the small ports with the ^ ®*ass- When the bomb hit, all wen® ass 'n the windows shattered and fore 'VmS across the bridge. Also, the Use °h the explosion knocked all of in„ n lhc bridge off our feet. The fly- fair® ass bit Roosevelt and gave him a ca]| y °ig cut on his hand. It automati- Th ^3Ve b'm a Purple heart. lerme IT|inesweepers towed us into Pa- The f and put us alongside a big pier. (jhantlrst. day we were there, a mer- ittun't' ? came 'n and unloaded am- right 'l',11 for the Army on a pier to our over "at night the bombers came
Hen 't s the strangest feeling
y<
Id.
"Over the pier, where all this am-
like
'— " » me strangest ieenng they drop those flares. You feel y°u re standing naked before the One of the bombers dropped a
Hrld
stick _i(_
""tnition*
atvay T11 ,was’ which they hadn’t taken ing' Y^d,t0’ and it all began explod-
SUppo;ndthe afternoon when they were
e had no power, so we couldn’t Dii„i at lbe Planes except with our 40- It 6ters and 20-millimeters.
\Ve |1'Vas n'ght and we couldn’t see. did s,a no i*re control of any kind; we pletei°me shooting but it was comely ‘nchfective. Then we had to then, 6 PeoP'e from the gun and get rain rer cover. It was almost like of the
tti(ion\\r‘ ■■“■■■ i"'" aimiiLj
the “ ■ Were °n the bridge when tt,en o3111 brst started, and one of the the Qln lbc bridge—I believe it was pfennaster—got fairly badly Put "
sboot
of t]^e c shrapnel going against the side fition *rorn the exploding ammu-
a°H
InH a uaui)
him ^00sevelt picked him up.
°n his back and carried him
av°ide? s'cb hay- How he ever Hom 8et*ing hit, I don’t know. I and u Untied him for a Silver Star, ne got it.
It was dark in the ship, because we didn’t have any emergency lights. They had some sort of gas or electric flashlights in sick bay. I forget the type of lighting, but there was some light inside. We may have been getting some power from the dock at that time for lighting purposes down below, but we didn’t have enough power to operate the five-inch battery.
After the attack at the pier, the repair people came and stuffed the hole in the side of the ship with mattresses and covered it all with concrete. Then we were able to pump out the ship and get the bodies out. Two or three days after that, General George S. Patton came down to say hello to Franklin Roosevelt. There he was in all his glory with his two pearlhandled pistols. He was really quite a guy. I had never met him before, but I got the impression he was sort of a flamboyant type of man.
In about two or three weeks, we were in good enough condition to be towed to Malta for repair. When I got off Malta, I sent, as the British would say, a signal to the admiral ashore requesting dry docking as soon as possible, because I was floating on concrete and mattresses. Shortly after we got there, we got an invitation from General Lord Gort, who had been the commanding general of the British forces during the “sitzkrieg.” He was commanding at Malta then. He invited Roosevelt to lunch, and of course, he had to invite me. We went to his quarters and had a delicious lunch. It was quite an unusual meeting. We all had a pink gin before lunch, and everything was very happy and pleasant.
There wasn’t much to do at Malta. They had an English officers’ mess hall not too far from where we were, and I used to go there to get my meals.
Things were pretty crude on the Mayrant at that time; we lacked sufficient air, water, and electricity. The British aren’t as good about the amenities in a navy yard as we are. The crews still had to live on board and make out the best they could.
We had several air raids while I was in Malta but we never got hit. I had orders to the Bureau of Ordnance, and my relief came in about three or four weeks.
They flew me from Malta to Port Lyautey, North Africa. I sat around Port Lyautey for two or three days, and then got on board a Pan American Clipper to fly to New York. From Port Lyautey we flew to Dakar and went in for refueling. We stayed overnight and
the admiral in command put us all up for the night. The next morning we flew to Bahia, in eastern Brazil, where we fueled and spent the night. We went from there to Trinidad and from Trinidad to New York. One of the passengers from Port Lyautey to New York was Ernie Pyle, the famous war correspondent. He was a very interesting gentleman. He spent most of his time sleeping in the back of the plane.
I was sort of amused because they closed all the curtains on the windows coming into New York so we couldn’t see anything. And I thought, “What the hell do they think’s going on? Who do they think we are, anyway, to have to close all the curtains so we can’t see what’s going on?” This was 2100 or 2200, and there didn’t seem to be any point to closing the curtains.
The Mayrant story had a postscript added after I got back to the States. When I left the ship at Malta, Frank Roosevelt gave me a letter to deliver to his father, so when I got to Washington I called up the president’s Secretary, Grace Tully. I told her who I was and that I had this letter Frank had asked me to deliver to his father. My wife Miriam and I were invited for cocktails later in the afternoon and drove up to the White House in a cab with practically no formalities at all.
We got in, and we were met by the majordomo there and escorted to the Oval Office. Several other people were there. The president asked me if I liked martinis, and I said, “Sure.” So they brought him in the pitcher, ice, and the ingredients. He poured them in, and he was a standard old-fashioned man— two parts gin to one part vermouth. Since Roosevelt had the shakes, he didn’t have to bother to stir the martinis at all. He just took the pitcher in hand, and it got mixed up anyway.
So we had cocktails, and he was asking me about Frank and some of our experiences in the Mediterranean. We were there maybe three-quarters of an hour or an hour. It was very pleasant-much more pleasant than some of the experiences I d had in the Mayrant with bombs and shells falling all around.
The transcript covering Admiral Walker's entire career comprises 299 pages. To obtain a summary of its contents, please send a self-addressed envelope bearing 39<t in postage to Director of Oral History, U. S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland 21402. A catalog covering the more than 150 bound volumes in the collection may be obtained by sending $2.00 to the same address.
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*din® 1 October 1985
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