Tin Can Titans

by John Wukovits

  After receiving his medical degree, Ransom entered the Navy and served an internship at Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland, California. In mid-1943 he headed to sea aboard the La Vallette as the ship’s doctor, recording his impressions each day in a diary he surreptitiously maintained throughout the war. He received his battle initiation during the tiring days and nights running up the Slot, when his destroyer rarely seemed to enjoy much time off. “Sent out our liberty party and we were ready to go on the beach,” he wrote on October 3, 1943, after the ship had pulled into Purvis Bay, “when an emergency signal came through at 1530 [3:30 p.m.] to steam out and again go ‘up the Slot’ with some other cans.” He added, with that quiet sense of humor that quickly made him a favorite aboard the La Vallette, “Here we go again!”2

  Most of Doc Ransom’s duties centered on maintaining the crew’s general health. Like every Navy doctor, he treated minor cuts and illnesses and performed appendectomies and a few other emergency surgeries. In between, he delivered a series of lectures emphasizing the need for sanitation aboard ship and while on liberty, where the crew was certain to encounter women of questionable morals. Ransom disliked these lectures, which he found repetitious and the men found boring, but like anyone else aboard La Vallette, he had to carry out his duties, no matter how distasteful they may be.

  “Doc Ransom was a nice fellow, kind,” said Quartermaster 2/c Martin Johnson. “He had to be available, and had sick call in the morning for anyone who needed to see him for anything. Guys with infections from shore, etc. He was like an old country doctor, and men saw him when they needed. The guys liked him. We saw him more as a doctor than as an officer.”3

  Ransom’s days ran from the mundane to the dangerous. His diary is peppered with thoughts about drills and meals, interspersed with remarks about preparing to engage the Japanese. “One would never know the day of the week or date if it weren’t for writing this since every day is alike aboard,” he wrote on August 8, 1943. “Have been going through intensive fire, collision, man battle stations, etc. all day. I turn in about 8 p.m. because we are routed out every morning at 0500 [5:00 a.m.] for drills.”

  Later that month, however, he recorded that he “spent most of the day in Sick Bay wrapping instruments etc. for sterilization” because the skipper announced “that on Sunday we are leaving with a huge task force for operations against the Japs. Everyone is getting a little jittery already.” Two days later, he noted that the task force had left for “a destructive (we hope) raid on the Marcus Island which is 900 miles directly East of Tokyo,” and that “since we are going through heavily infested sub and mine waters… we have been told the chances of returning are against us.”4

  No matter where they were, whether in port or during frightening moments at sea, the crew could count on Doc Ransom to be there for them with his always-present smile and soothing them with his calm demeanor. He countered the war’s gravity with humorous limericks that he often broadcast over La Vallette’s loudspeaker.

  Ransom credited squadron unity for lending stability amid the tribulations of war. Unlike the social gaps that divided students in high school, officers and enlisted were in this endeavor together. They shared the same risks and reveled in the same joys of serving aboard a ship and in a destroyer squadron.

  “Arrived at Tulagi (Purvis Bay) at 1300 [1:00 p.m.],” he wrote on October 5. “All the officers of the other cans and ours went over to the ‘Des Slot Officer’s Club’—a clearing in the jungle along the beach, drank some beer and went swimming. The mosquitoes were terrific. Came back to ship for supper and a movie.”

  Five days later he wrote about seeing an old friend who was also posted to Desron 21. “Gene Groshart came aboard from the Nicholas #449 and we chatted a while. It was sure good seeing someone you knew down here. His ship and mine are in the same squadron so we should see one another often.” Later that day, after Groshart had returned to Nicholas, Ransom attended the movie shown on the ship’s fantail, where his joviality again amused the crew. “Went to another movie tonight. I typed and mimeographed the songs I had written and passed them out to the boys. They get a kick out of singing them on the forecastle before the movie starts.”5

  Six months after joining La Vallette, Ransom and the ship became part of the opening Central Pacific assault when the destroyer, along with Desron 21 mates Fletcher, Radford, Jenkins, Nicholas, and Taylor, lent support to the Marines landing in the Gilbert Islands. The armada of ships stretched wide across the ocean as it inched toward the objective. “A big fleet joined us this morning,” he wrote on November 2. “What a sight!” Carriers, battleships, cruisers, and destroyers sliced through the waters in impressive numbers. “Looks like trouble ahead for the Japs.”

  The next day Ransom watched the force deploy in a battle line, an image of power and splendor that almost brought tears to his eyes. “When you see eight of those 80 million dollar battleships in a line with their guns pointing, it makes you feel damn good to be an American and gives you a lump in your throat.”6

  “The Scourge of the Jap Fleet”

  When the squadron’s work off the Gilberts was completed, the six ships, including Ransom’s La Vallette, set a course for Pearl Harbor. Crews looked forward to enjoying a break from the war in one of the most luxurious ports in the world, but surprises awaited.

  The first came from the array of ships then in Hawaii. For many, their only previous glimpse of the harbor had been on their way to the South Pacific, when the remnants of the Pacific Fleet lay on the harbor’s bottom. Gleaming battleships, cruisers, and destroyers now occupied every inch of water. The desperate days of war, when Desron 21 crews and those of a few other destroyers stood alone in the Solomons, were over. Admiral Nimitz delivered the second surprise with a message welcoming the squadron to Pearl Harbor. “Special greetings to you veterans of the Slot,” the admiral gushed. “We are proud to have you with us.”7

  The last, and best, surprise came with the news that instead of remaining in Hawaii, the crews would leave the next day for the United States and a three-week respite. “Land at 1330 [1:30 p.m.] and we docked at 1512 [3:12 p.m.],” Doc Ransom recorded in his diary on December 9. “Just as soon as we pulled alongside the Fletcher we heard news we could not believe—that Squadron 21—six of us were leaving tomorrow for Mare Island [near San Francisco]! Shipmates were dancing around, patting each other on the back and yelling their lungs out.”8 The squadron—minus the damaged O’Bannon and the three sunken ships, De Haven, Strong, and Chevalier—passed beneath San Francisco’s famed Golden Gate Bridge on December 15 to begin their leave in the United States.

  The ships berthed not far from their squadron mate O’Bannon, which had arrived at Mare Island the month before to repair the damage sustained in the Solomons. Since O’Bannon was the first squadron ship home, she had garnered a larger proportion of the praise directed at Desron 21.

  For the first time in well over a year, the O’Bannon crew could let its guard down. As MacDonald said, “The strain was off, because we had been going up and down that Slot night after night, turned around many times after we were just about ready to go back and told to go back up again.” MacDonald explained that a sojourn home “was great relief because then they realized that there was going to be time out for something, whether it was rest and relaxation or something, because we had to be repaired before we could go back.”9

  News of the squadron, and particularly of O’Bannon, had preceded their arrival, paving the way for a flurry of adulatory newspaper articles, radio programs, letters, and honors. The Navy started with a December press release that appeared in the New York Times and hundreds of newspapers around the country.

  “The ‘Little Helena’ is back at a West Coast port” after “more than 14 months of continuous fighting in the South Pacific,” stated the release, which hit newsstands as Doc Ransom and the rest of the squadron pulled into San Francisco. During that time, according to the Navy, MacDonald and his crew participated in five major surface a
ctions, conducted numerous bombardments of Japanese land installations, battled air attacks, supported landing operations in the Solomons, and helped sink ten ships, all without suffering a single casualty. They rescued the crews of sunken ships, including “the famous one in which American destroyers stole into Jap-held Vella Lavella and took off survivors of the Helena,” and took on “so many convoy assignments up the ‘Slot’ to stop the Tokyo Express that her Commanding Officer had difficulty in counting them.”

  In the press release, MacDonald told home-front readers, “Seventeen months ago we set out to make our way in the war areas of the then Jap-controlled South Pacific with a crew which was, for the most part, green and untrained in Naval warfare.” His men, he added, had no idea of the “hectic—sometimes almost hopeless—year that lay before them; but they quickly learned to blaze the way through the Japs with gunfire and torpedoes.” The release included the sentiments of one O’Bannon enlisted man who, while he was thrilled to be back home, was eager to return to the South Pacific. “We want to get back there and dish out lots more ‘Little Helena’ hell to those Nips.”10 While the release may have exaggerated certain things, it and the many newspaper articles that flooded the nation conveyed the Navy’s esteem not just for O’Bannon but for the entire squadron, and showed the nation’s appreciation for what Desron 21 had accomplished since October 1942.

  “There is something strange and wonderful about the story of the United States destroyer O’Bannon and what she did in the Southwest Pacific,” wrote correspondent Robert Waithman. “She went out of a navy yard on the East Coast of America in the desperate summer of 1942, a new ship with a crew so green that three in every four of them were putting to sea for the first time. She made her way into waters where a few allied warships were somehow holding back the tide of Japanese conquest. For fifteen months she fought continuously by day and night.” Waithman explained that the months in the Solomons were “a hell of flame and noise” that taxed the young crew and their skipper, whose hair “was black not long ago but now is thickly flecked with grey.”11

  Other articles lauded the ship that had been nicknamed by others “Little Helena” and by the crew “Little Hellion” or “Lucky Mick,” a reference to her Irish name and the good fortune bestowed upon them. “In fact,” gushed one article, “the O’Bannon’s record reads like a timetable of the South Pacific war. Whenever and wherever something was doing, O’Bannon was there,” evading bombs and torpedoes with a skill that crafted among the crew “a fatalistic belief in the good luck of their little ship” and faith in their skipper. “By now her name is almost a legend. Through all her adventures she had an Irishman’s luck, as had the man, too, after whom she was named.”12

  Comic books and the nation’s top newspapers heralded their achievements. Heroic Comics featured the destroyer in four pages, concluding that “the hard-hitting O’Bannon, with its eight 5-inch guns and AA batteries, won enduring fame in its battle against terrific Jap odds.” Not to be outdone by its rival publication, Real Life Comics offered six pages calling the ship “O’Bannon, the scourge of the Jap fleet” and lauding MacDonald as “the most frequently decorated officer in the United States Navy. But more important than medals is an unsurpassed fighting record, the constant quest for battle which pitted the O’Bannon against entire Jap fleet units.”13

  The New York Times quoted MacDonald as saying, “I never went into any action that I was not frightened. That’s what I told my men when they came to me for encouragement.” MacDonald explained that “American boys are not exactly afraid to die, but our boys’ greatest desire is to live,” and that while much of his crew had come to the ship fresh from training camps, the men proved that Americans were “definitely the best fighters in the world.”14

  One of the nation’s most popular columnists, H. I. Phillips, often created poems to mark special occasions. Upon O’Bannon’s return, he composed one titled “O’Bannon and Mac,” part of which proclaims:

  O’Bannon, oh baby, oh boy, what a ship!

  In any engagement, oh man, she’s a pip!

  MacDonald’s her skipper; Oh my, what a pair!—

  A tough “daily double” for Japs anywhere.

  O’Bannon-MacDonald… their names ring afar;

  Wherever there’s fighting, well, that’s where they are;

  This prayer comes from Tokio o’er the seas:

  “Keep O’B and Mac far away from us, PLEASE!”15

  Nationally broadcast radio programs lauded O’Bannon in January, and in April the popular radio drama March of Time profiled MacDonald. Letters poured in for the officer from parents of crew, acquaintances, and the public. Vernice Johnson, the mother of Melvin E. Pitts, a seaman on O’Bannon, wrote MacDonald that her son “told me what a fine commander you were, how you prayed for them and how you would ask them to trust in God. I am proud my son served with you and I am proud he served on a destroyer like the O’Bannon.” She went on, “While you all were in the South Pacific I prayed day and night for God to go with the O’Bannon and each member of the crew,” and that “I prays [sic] that each one of our boys will give Uncle Sam true service to their country. Because we love this land of ours.”16

  The mother of Fireman 1/c Richard J. Hall of O’Bannon wrote, “Richard praised you to the skies when he was home at Christmas and I am gratefull [sic] that he was under your protection during those trying times in the Pacific.” She concluded, “I guess you hold a soft spot in every boy’s heart on the O’Bannon.”17

  Lieutenant George Philip, who had so ably served as gunnery officer under MacDonald and had left the destroyer a few months earlier, wrote MacDonald, “I am extremely proud I served in her and I am always glad to tell people I came from the O’Bannon.” Lillian Celmer, a member of the WAVES who had met MacDonald on a December flight, congratulated him after reading news accounts of his ship: “Getting this war over with is the prime purpose of everyone right now and when one small unit can do so much toward that end—it is understandable that the whole country should go a little mad over the thing.”18

  A woman named Betty Keating loved the article about MacDonald and his ship that appeared in American Magazine, and felt compelled to write the commander about what their story meant to her: “I am sure it will be a real inspiration to all the readers of the American Magazine, and there is no doubt but that all of us are greatly indebted to you fellows in the Navy for holding off the Japs as you did in the early days of the war, with so little help from home. The courage of the ‘boys in blue’ and the splendid guidance and supervision of men like yourself should make us ever grateful to the U.S. Navy.” She wished MacDonald luck, and hoped that “you always stick to your policy of talking to your men and being ‘regular’ with them.”19

  He even heard from a member of a religious order. “Ever since I read an article written by you for the July American about your adventures of war with the good ship O’Bannon,” said a letter signed by a Dominican nun using the title Sister Superior, “I have wanted to tell you how inspiring that article is and how I wish every American could have the opportunity of reading it.”20

  In being awarded ten decorations, MacDonald received the lion’s share of praise for his capable leadership, even though he felt awkward overshadowing what he considered a top-notch crew, a group of young men upon whose efforts the ship built its record and without whom he could never have achieved any success. “On the chest of black-browed MacDonald,” wrote Time magazine, “whose hair has turned an iron grey, the Navy has pinned the Navy Cross and Gold Star in lieu of a second, the Legion of Merit and a Gold Star, the Silver Star Medal and two Gold Stars.”21 He and his crew received the Presidential Unit Citation for its work, only the fourth such honor bestowed to a Pacific destroyer since Pearl Harbor, not simply for one action, as often happens, but for the body of work he and O’Bannon had amassed in the Solomons in sixteen months. In joining Nicholas and Radford as recipients of the esteemed honor, Desron 21 was the only destroyer squadron in the P
acific to have three ships so recognized.

  During his time home, the O’Bannon skipper traveled to New York to marry Cecilia. After that happy celebration the Navy, impressed with his work in the Slot, asked MacDonald to join a new destroyer commander school in Norfolk, Virginia, to instruct prospective commanders in how to manage a crew and how to best incorporate the combat lessons MacDonald had absorbed during his time in the Solomons. The Navy hoped that MacDonald could impart his experiences to other officers and make them better prepared to face the trials to come.

  “New Guinea and ‘Dugout’ MacArthur—Oh Joy!”

  Doc Ransom would have loved to enjoy more time with family and friends than the three weeks the ship remained in the United States, but the war needed Desron 21 back in the Pacific. After mixing in much fun with business—La Vallette practiced landing operations off the California coast around San Clemente Island—on January 6 he and his shipmates again said goodbye. “We shoved off for the Hawaiian Islands at 1830 [6:30 p.m.]—leaving good old USA for how long?” he wrote in his diary upon departure.22