Watkins: Oh, yeah.
Divers: They jumped ship, and we sent a crew over to bring them back. I remember Big Woods was with them.
Watkins: Woods, that’s who I was trying to think of.
Divers: Cook.
Watkins: Yeah, and Cook.
Divers: All those guys went over and went into the town and found the merchant marines. And the merchant marines said, “We’re not sailing no more.” Of course, I don’t blame them. Those guys were dyin’ like hell. All their ships were leaking; they didn’t have fresh water or anything. But our guys had orders to bring them back and put ’em on the ship.
So the convoy started up again, with the Mason escorting merchant ships whose crews had to be forced back on board. At the Azores, almost as much ocean lay ahead as behind. They were entering areas favored by the U-boats; the communications division would be crucial to their safety.
Graham: On our maiden voyage to Ireland we had drills every step of the way. We were tracking submarines; there always seemed to be some kind of a GQ practice, or we’d be dropping depth charges.
I was a radio operator. As a matter of fact, I was in charge of the radio shack because I was the senior officer there. We would copy messages: most of them were from our own ships or from Washington, but sometimes we picked up German exchanges. We’d try to break them down.
Peters: I was fortunate to learn to read and interpret the German code. Because of this, I became a real key factor in the radio communication part of the ship. The wolf packs, German submarines that ran in packs, would surface at night to do their communication. I was able to intercept their messages and, in some respects, was able to break those messages to find out exactly where they were and what they were doing.
They didn’t use the international Morse code; they had their own code. I hadn’t learned this in the service school. I taught myself to copy the German code by listening to it. Just by listening to it and sorting it out. Once you become a radioman . . . It’s a little hard to describe how you do this, but it becomes almost second nature to you. After you learned the international code, there were other codes that you could study, which is what I did. I began to pick those sounds up and was able to interpret what they were, what the letters were. Each letter was sent individually. We had encryptographic facilities that we could then go to and try to break whatever that code was to determine what the messages were.
I would turn the German messages over to the communications officer, who would take them to the captain. In most cases the reports were really position reports. We didn’t get a lot of information aside from where they were located.
This was valuable information to our skipper and to the convoy in general. I can recall one time when I copied some German messages, and because they were so close to us, we put in to the Azore Islands, and we sat there for about a week, I believe. The German submarines came in while we were there. We watched them come in; they were on the surface when they came in. And they just waited us out. But then we slipped out and slipped away from them.
The skipper congratulated me, and there were some press reports on this.
Farrell: “Red-dog” was a name that started with Ed Ross. We’d be in convoys going across, and we’d get these messages. There would be two convoys ahead of us. A submarine would get in the convoy and sink some of the convoy, and maybe sink a DE. For some reason or other we’d call the submarine red-dog. The next night, or two nights later, we’d get another message: The sub had gotten into the convoy right ahead of us. Ed Ross used to say “Boy, red-dog is really on the loose.” We’d be waiting for red-dog to catch us. It was tough on the crew. I noticed there would be an awful lot of people sleeping up on deck. See, the crew’s quarters were below the waterline. People would move up and sleep on the deck. I guess it felt safer.
DuFau: I’ll bet you can count on my fingers the number of nights I slept below deck when we were on convoy duty. I used to sleep up on the signal bay. I just didn’t want to be below deck. Two-thirds of the crew were in after quarters. There were two sections down there, but you had only one hatch to come out of. From my compartment I had to go into another compartment to get to the ladder to come up topside. With that number of men coming single file out of that hole, that was too long for me. I was scared. So I just spent most of my time up on the bridge sleeping on the stack. I’d sleep in my clothes in a parka, and it was very warm. A lot of the clothing now was invented then. We had that thin lining inside and the layers that would stop the cold. We had a hood, like an aviator’s cap, that you’d put over your head to keep your ears warm.
War Diary (15 July 1944): Patrolling as before on starboard bow of convoy CK-3 bound from Azores to United Kingdom ports. . . . At 1625 all hands at battle stations for false sound contact; no charges dropped. At 2312 green flare reported bearing 135°-no further indication of presence of other units.
Garrison: On our first trip we got a report from a bomber that there were three submarines surfaced about twenty miles from the convoy. The minute the word came down from the bridge that they were close to us, we expected to get a call to go to general quarters, to battle stations. We were anxious to go and get them. We were young and didn’t know how dangerous it could be. I was twenty, and I guess I wanted to go get those guys. But we never got the order to go get them because the main idea of a DE in a convoy was not so much to attack the submarine but to get the ships we were taking over there intact. To get them over with the supplies that were needed. So we didn’t attack the U-boats. That was disappointing.
We wanted to go. We were excited. We thought, “This is it!”
There were simpler dangers closer at hand. Just moving on the ship could cause injury.
Farrell: The Mason was a BDE—that means a British destroyer escort. She was intended to be supplied to the British, and then the U.S. Navy decided to keep her. On the BDE you couldn’t go from forward to aft on the ship without going out on the main deck. You had to get out on the main deck in the wind and rain, with water breaking over the ship, to go down to where you wanted to be. It was dangerous because the ship used to roll pretty bad. You would have to run down across that wet deck. You’d think you could put your hand right in the water, and the next thing you knew you were up in the air. You had to hold onto a lifeline. It was a miserable thing.
DuFau: From the crew’s quarters in the second and third section you had to travel topside to get up to the mess hall area and up to the bridge, up forward. But you had to go up on the boat deck that was higher than the main deck, and they had stanchions lined . . . you would hold on to both to travel back and forth. They would encourage you to travel at least in twos because of the danger of being washed overboard.
Graham: Going back and forth in all kinds of weather was second nature for a sailor. We didn’t pay any special attention; we knew subconsciously just what to do. I remember one night when the lifeline on the starboard side was washed out, and I was coming from the radio shack. Generally, you would go forward on the starboard side and rear on the port side. But out on the sea you would use any side. I always used the starboard side. And I came by that night reaching for the line that wasn’t there. All I had to do was stumble, and I’d have been in the water.
Just before they arrived it looked as if their training would pay off. What seemed to be a German plane appeared. If it was on reconnaissance, it might be radioing their position to the U-boats. This could be it.
War Diary (18 July 1944): Patrolling as before on starboard bow of convoy CK-3 bound from the Azores to United Kingdom ports. At 0350 unidentified plane showing navigation lights passed overhead on course about 320°. At 1350 assumed SA radar guard. At 1905 all hands at battle stations. Unidentified aircraft bearing 170°, range 35 miles. Aircraft maneuvered around; then proceeded on course 110 until radar contact was lost. Plane last heading for St. Nazaire, France, apparently a “snooper.” All fuses on 3″/50 cal ready ammunition set to barrage settings. Ready 20 mm machine guns increased to four.
At 2248 all hands at battle stations. SA radar contact bearing 230°, contact lost almost immediately-no friendly indications received.
After the Normandy invasion on D-Day, June 6, the Allied troops had been fighting their way to isolate the peninsula. The U-boats, equipped with snorkels that allowed them to stay below for extended periods, radioed weather reports to the German commanders.
Graham: I think we were off of France sometime during the invasion. We had a GQ because of the German airplane that came in. It wouldn’t come but so close, and we were all ready to go. But it turned around and went away. It was probably a reconnaissance plane. We were close enough to France to actually hear the guns. It would give you time to think about it. You wouldn’t hear just one gun, you’d hear “Boom! Boom!” reports from many guns. That was the only time I was nervous.
Farrell: I hated going to general quarters. It was a miserable situation. It was either a half hour or an hour before sunrise and a half hour or an hour before sunset. So you’re laying in your bunk and you’re sound asleep, and you hear this general alarm going off. First of all, you don’t know what time it is and whether it really is a contact with a submarine. You have to hop out of a nice warm bed and get on a tin hat and a life jacket. Then you’d sit at your station for an hour or an hour and a half, whatever it be, until sunrise—and you’d have the same thing at night.
We had many contacts when we were under way. In the middle of the night, you’d just get the general alarm. And to this day, when I hear it on TV, I get a twinge in my stomach every time I hear the doggone thing.
Divers: When we went to general quarters, Captain Blackford took the conn. When he was on the bridge of the ship, during all of the trips we made on convoy, he was in complete charge. I was quartermaster, and I worked with the navigator, Lieutenant Ross. I used to have to take 12:00 o’clock position reports. Mr. Ross would make them up, and I would take them to the captain for his signature. I got to know him pretty well. When we went to general quarters, Captain Blackford knew exactly what to do. He was very much in charge, and everybody had a lot of confidence in him. It makes a hell of a lot of difference if you’ve got confidence in the people in charge. You don’t worry. You can do your job. You can perform your duties better because you don’t have that thought behind you that maybe the ship is going to sink. We had very deep confidence in Captain Blackford’s leadership.
Graham: We’d try to decipher the German codes to see what was going on. But we knew there were German subs and that they were in the area with the convoy. We would have to go to general quarters if there was a contact. I loved going to battle stations! When that gong went off and went “Dong-Dong-Dong,” I loved to hear that song. I still like to sing that—“Dong-Dong-Dong.” You see, just for a split second, you’d say, “Oh, Lord, it’s a sub.” It was just thrilling to me, just thrilling. And I wanted it to be a sub! We wanted to put the insignia on the stack. You would paint a submarine with a torpedo in it going down if you made a kill. But some guys were deathly afraid. A guy in the radio shack threw up on the typewriter.
Garrison: The alarm for general quarters triggered an instantaneous response. You didn’t think, “This is it,” you just reacted. My life jacket was attached to the bunk over me. One hand went up to get it, your foot hit the deck, and in seconds you were on your way. I don’t remember if, when the GQ alarm sounded, I had to put on shoes or something like that. I mean, it seemed to me that you were almost ready instantaneously.
Thomas Young witnessed GQ as a drama and tried to make his audience feel as if they were there.
Thomas W. Young: ABOARD THE USS MASON AT SEA—(Delayed)—The first General Quarters alarm was sounded our very first day at sea aboard this destroyer escort on its maiden combat voyage. This was the call to arms, the sobering warning that these Negro rated men and specialists were at last really in the war as part of Uncle Sam’s fighting Navy.
Early that morning the Mason had put to sea from an Atlantic Coast port as one of the escorting vessels for a convoy of merchant ships bearing vital war goods to the fighting fronts. For weeks the crew had been conditioned and trained for this important job. Here, suddenly and dramatically, was the moment that would tell how well these men had prepared themselves for the test.
Any reasonably well-established contact with enemy aircraft, surface ships or submarines was sufficient to send every man aboard to his battle station.
The only threat that concerned the Mason crew this close to home shores was that of the U-boat. But our phenomenal detection devices were kept ever tuned to report the approach of any unseen enemy craft. And every warning—every reasonably certain warning—must be heeded. Naturally, you get some false alarms that way.
At “GQ”—that’s short for general quarters—every man has a definite station, a particular job to do. When the alarm sounds he must get to his post as rapidly as possible.
Since there are virtually three complete crews aboard a warship like this—one for each four-hour watch during a twelve-hour period—some men must necessarily take GQ assignments different from the jobs they are trained for and which they perform regularly.
For instance, only three radio operators may be required at any one time, but working in shifts of four hours on duty and eight off, it requires nine operators to maintain uninterrupted radio service throughout the day.
So three are given permanent radio assignments for general quarters, but the other six are placed throughout the ship where their services may be most needed.
It all works out very well because for ordinary war cruising it is unnecessary to man all the guns. Yet when a fight is on, a full team is needed at every weapon.
That is how a lot of seamen and steward’s mates and firemen became heroes. On a warship, when the call to arms is sounded every man aboard becomes a fighting man.
Others take posts as lookouts, or join damage control parties, or man the depth charges, or take stations along the ship’s amazingly intricate telephone system so that orders can be speedily and effectively passed along to the crew and information from every quarter of the vessel can be funneled into one center for effective conning of the ship.
A GQ is a tense, exciting experience, no matter how many you’ve been through before. You may be sleeping, or eating, or playing cards or exchanging funny stories on the fantail. When the gong begins to ring and a voice on the public address system sternly orders, ‘All hands, man your battle stations!’—well, you tingle just a little bit inside because you don’t know then how far away the enemy is or in what strength he will strike.
The speed with which the entire crew gets to its various battle stations is little short of amazing. Everywhere men are snatching up steel helmets and life jackets—required to be worn by all hands during GQ—and dashing briskly to their posts.
Every possible detail is thought about and provided for. One detail must close and secure all portholes before taking stations as ammunition handlers or damage control men. Others must lock all hatches.
On the Mason I think I was the only person without a fixed station at GQ. As the only war correspondent aboard for this history-making voyage, I was determined to miss no single bit of action that might make a good story. Having the run of the ship, so to speak, I tried out a variety of places before settling on the one that gave me the best vantage point for witnessing whatever happened.
The war diary describes the spectacular phenomenon that marked the safe completion of the Mason’s maiden voyage.
War Diary (21 July 1944): Patrolling as before. 0205 entire mast and rigging enveloped in “Saint Elmo’s fire.” All radios faded out completely. 1250 landfall by SL radar on Rodgers Tr., Lands End England. 2000, convoy lying to 10 miles west of Trevose Head waiting clearance of outbound convoy. At 2321 convoy fair in swept channel. . . . Convoy in two columns, escorts running parallel course up and down the sides.
Buchanan: I was reading the log a couple of weeks ago, and I read this part about Saint Elmo’s fire. That’s
something a lot of people haven’t heard anything about. But in the record it says on July 21, 1944, at 0205, the entire mast and rigging was lit up with Saint Elmo’s fire.
I was on the bridge that night, out on the flying bridge. It was, you know, two in the morning. And Lieutenant Philips was on watch at the same time I was. And all of a sudden, I saw all this light. There are guide wires that go up to the mast and go down the other side of the mast; they stabilize the mast and anchor it in. Where I was standing, the wires came right over my head. The whole wire looked like neon blue light. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. And when I saw it and realized how much light was all around me, the first thing I thought was, “I’m in a convoy and there are submarines out there. What a message to them!” I couldn’t believe this! It was so bright, but it was just so beautiful. I looked over to see if any other ships had it, but they were at least a half a mile or a mile away.
Lieutenant Phillips saw it. We were talking about it. Not many sailors have ever actually seen that. It’s an electrical phenomenon at sea in storms. There was a storm, and it was blowing like crazy. Then it got very warm. The light came and at the same time the radio faded out completely. I’m not sure what causes it, but it’s an amazing sight.
I was so happy to get my verification from the log because even aboard ship, the guys didn’t see it, not everybody, only the fellows on the bridge.
Deck Log (24 July 1944): 04–08 Steaming as before. Commenced steering various courses conforming to channel. Navigator plotting on bridge. Captain has conn. 0606–All engines stopped. 0710–All engines ahead one-third. 0750–Moored in Bangor Harbor, Ireland. Ready to get underway on half hour’s notice. War Cruising watch still on. . . . All divisions make preparations to get underway. 1530–All divisions ready to get underway. 1545–Set special sea details. 1549–Anchor aweigh and underway. Captain on conn, navigator on bridge standing up Lough Foyle for Belfast Harbor on orders from C.T.G. 27.5. 1621–Pilot R. W. CRAIG aboard. 1623–Changed speed to 12 knots. 1630–Pile light abeam to starboard. 1634–Entered channel to Belfast Harbor. Red cage buoy No. 2 abeam to Starboard.
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