Young: With the war against the deadly submarine menace in the Atlantic swiftly coming to a close, it becomes increasingly difficult for the hunters of these underseas raiders to locate and destroy their prey. On the trip across no U-boat attacked our convoy or challenged the might of the escort warships bristling with anti-submarine weapons and armament. After the relatively slow and sometimes tedious trip eastward at the end of which we delivered our cargo ships without loss, most of the men were genuinely disappointed because they had not had a chance to strike a real blow at the enemy, or to match their courage and skill against that of the Nazi raiders. Then came one of the greatest thrills of the entire trip when we learned that our task force, consisting entirely of destroyer escorts, was to return to the United States, without a convoy, as a ‘killer group.’ This time we were to go off the defensive and take the offensive. We were going out looking for the enemy, to find him and destroy him.
This was something new. The tactics of an escort group with a convoy to deliver is to get the ships to the other side, avoiding submarines if possible and fighting them only when they bring the fight to you. But now we were the hunters and the U-boats were the hunted. How well would we be able to fight them when we tracked them down? As this fleet of DEs headed westward across the North Atlantic, executing maneuvers and formations throughout the day and night, we all experienced that feeling of tense expectancy which usually precedes a great dramatic moment. How did the Mason crew face this uncertain destiny during the hours and days of suspense as they waited for lightning to strike? What kind of fighting sailors do these Negro bluejackets make? How well do they master the intricate technical devices and scientific machinery used in antisubmarine warfare?
Farrell: There were a lot of anti-black stereotypes going around. That they wouldn’t be able to run the ship maybe! There were even people saying, “Oh, gee, they’ll get out there, and the first time a gun gets shot off, they’re going to be so scared they will be jumping overboard! All the officers will have to bring it (the ship) back.” That kind of weird stuff. I can tell you this, when the guns were going off, there was no difference between black and white.
Deck Log (28 July 1944): 12–16 Steaming as before. 1243–Daily inspection of magazine temperature and smokeless powder samples made. Conditions normal. Sprinkling system tested satisfactory. . . . 1321–Changed speed to standard. Sounded general alarm for all hands to man battle stations as USS STERN was flying submarine attack flag. 1325–Condition “Able” reported set throughout the ship. Ordered to join other ships on course 000 degrees True, and zig zag. . . . 1355–Secured from General Quarters. 1425–Manned battle stations. Went into box search around area with USS POWERS acting as head of our section of three ships. Captain has conn.
Although there were close calls, depth charges were dropped, and K-guns were shot, no submarines were captured or sunk. But the crew had proven their ability both as shepherds and hunters. And on a private level, an event that would affect the Mason’s history had already taken place.
Graham: One morning I was coming off duty, and Skinny Buchanan had his sister Barb’s picture on his bunk, writing a letter. I saw it and said, “Who is that?”
“That’s my sister.”
“It is?”
“Yes.”
“Do you mind if I write her a letter?”
He said, “No.” So I wrote her a letter.
Buchanan: One day my future brother-in-law saw my sister’s picture as I was writing her a letter, and he fell in love with the picture. He asked me if he could write to my sister, and I said, “Yes!” You know, it was no big deal. We were all sailors together, no problem. But that kind of started and kept up without my knowing it. Eventually, Graham came to my home and met my sister.
War Diary (2 September 1944): 0909–Moored berth Number Two (2), Navy Yard, New York for eight days availability in accordance with instructions from FAO, New York.
Graham: As soon as we reached port in New York—it must have been about nine o’clock—Skinny and I got off the ship lickety-split. We went to Jamaica (Long Island), where his family was living. I was more anxious to get to his house than he was, and his sister Barbara was not at home! His mother put me in the guest room to sleep, and I woke up to find Barb tucking in the blankets at the foot of the bed. I looked at her, and the first thing I said was, “I’m going to marry you some day.” And I did.
The Mason’s first voyage was over—a success in every way. Thomas Young reported “not a single unpleasant moment” during the entire seven weeks.
Young (letter to the director of public relations, Navy Department): I am happy to say that the entire experience with the USS Mason was a most enlightening and pleasant one. The cheerful cooperation extended to me by everyone aboard, from the Commanding Officer down to the lowest rated seaman, was gratifying. During the entire seven weeks that I was living among these men there was not a single unpleasant moment that I know of.
The crew of the Mason wants to make good, and, from my observations it is entirely capable of doing so. One fortunate circumstance, it seems to me, is the further fact that they have a thoroughly competent Commanding Officer who has won both the confidence and admiration of the men.
For the privilege of going out with the Mason on its first combat assignment I am deeply grateful to the officials of the Office of Public Relations who approved my request.
* AS = band surface radar, with a thirteen-mile range, having been developed in the early 1940s.
** The “bed-spring” type radar screen on the foremast, used for air searches. Built by RCA, it was a DE’s primary air-search radar.
6
Convoy NY-119
The task group commander called it “The Battle of the Barges,” or “Men and Barges against the Sea” in his formal report to Atlantic command of the U.S. Navy. In describing convoy NY-119, in which four DEs escorted a convoy of army tugs and barges from New York to Portsmouth, England, Comdr. Alfred L. Lind’s emotions push dry official language aside, and something of the drama of this ill-fated convoy is conveyed.
First, he states the facts. The men in his command had fought the sea for “thirty days and three hours.” They had traveled “3,539 miles at an average speed of 4.74 miles per hour.” During the first twenty days they faced ten-foot seas and twenty-mile-per-hour winds—difficult but normal for the North Atlantic in October. If that weather had held, the convoy would have crossed with few losses, and Commander Lind’s report would have been brief and matter-of-fact. “However, from October 10 to 23rd, inclusive, the wind persisted without abating from twenty to forty-two miles per hour with gusts reported to ninety miles per hour, and the seas built up to forty to fifty feet, with an average of twenty-three feet for the fourteen-day period.” This, he said, was “The Battle of the Barges.”
The barges were formidable indeed. Adm. Eugene Moran of the Moran Tugboat Company suggested that the barges used to ferry railroad cars across New York harbor would make excellent temporary piers in France. These heavily timbered floats were 250 to 360 feet long and 45 feet wide. Each one could carry ten to twelve railcars in two columns. They were designed to be tugged, alongside, across New York harbor, for about half an hour. Even then, as present-day tugboat captain George Matteson reports, they were extremely difficult to tow. “If you have to tow them behind on a hawser, they sometimes flip around, and the stern can be ahead of you. They are wild as hell. And heavy! They are full of iron—30 percent iron—and almost unsinkable because they are built with twelve compartments. To think of towing those monsters across the ocean, it’s amazing anybody got out of that convoy alive.”
In the crucible of wind, waves, and wooden monsters, men lost their lives and vessels faltered. The storm sank three tugs, eight steel car floats, and five wooden cargo barges. Nineteen men were lost. Lind said in his report that many more craft and lives would have been lost if he had not detached the small craft from the barges and sent them ahead. The ship chosen to shepherd this detac
hment into port was the Mason. In a sense this would be the crew’s finest hour. Not only did the Mason guard the ships in her charge as they pushed against the wind and sea, but with land in sight and no charts available, the crew led them from buoy to buoy through a treacherous channel to safety. Then, taking only two hours to weld fast her cracked deck, the Mason went back to sea to assist the stranded convoy.
Commander Lind recommended that each man in the crew of the Mason receive a letter of commendation. They never did. Yet the story of NY-119 could not be told without mentioning the Mason. When Charles Dana Gibson wrote “The Ordeal of Convoy 119” in 1973, he interviewed crew members of the Mason. But even Gibson, who quotes from Lind’s report, does not mention that the commander recommended individual commendations.
NY-119 began forming in New York harbor in late August 1944. The invasion of France was well under way. Supplying the troops and rebuilding bombed-out ports, roads, and bridges became an urgent priority. The Allies pushed toward Germany. The U-boats were equipped now with snorkels and radar-intercept gear that allowed them to evade air patrols and concentrate on selected targets as they prepared for the final push of late winter 1944. During the time the ships of convoy NY-119 were gathering in New York harbor, U-482 sank a British corvette, the U.S. tanker Jacksonville, and three other merchant ships just fifty miles from Derry, Northern Ireland. Closer to home, the hurricane was in full swing and the convoy waited in port for more moderate weather. Men would die and ships would sink because of that delay. But as the men of the Mason waited to set out, they had no sense of disaster ahead. The wait meant more liberty, more nights at Small’s Paradise or the Club De Lys.
War Diary (11–18 September 1944, inclusive): Moored 33rd Street Pier, South Brooklyn, New York, receiving provisions, training, etc., and making special preparation for escorting a transatlantic convoy of Army Tugs and barges, accompanied by other small craft. Received the following despatches relating to organization of convoy NY-119 and escort: (a) Cinclant’s Secret Despatch 221503 of August forming Task Group 27.5 with ComCortDiv. 80 as C.T.G. Group consisting of USS MAUMEE (AO-2), USS ABNAKI (AT-96), USS O’TOOLE (DE-527)-(Flag), POWERS (DE-528), BERMINGHAM (DE-530), CHASE (DE-16); (b) C.T.G. 27.5’s Secret 181447 of September, indicating sailing date.
War Diary (11 September 1944): Verbal instructions received from ComCortDiv 80 to inspect and aid in training personnel of convoy prior to sailing. Inspections showed majority of personnel involved to be extremely inexperienced. Original sailing date delayed because of tropical hurricane.
Graham: We weren’t informed officially of the reasons for the delay, but in the radio shack we got the messages and we passed them on. They wouldn’t tell us anything as a crew, but we would get the information. Say, if a weather report came in that was significant to us in the radio shack, we would just type it out and let it follow the usual routine of going to the captain and the different officers after it was decoded. But, really, what we were doing and who we were going with was immaterial to us. All we wanted to know was whether or not we were going to England. We had never been there before. We would have a lot of fun. As far as whether, say, twenty ships, tugs, or this and that were going, it wasn’t important to us, I don’t think. Not to me, it wasn’t, because I really didn’t care one way or the other. We didn’t know the significance of the convoy.
DuFau: Scuttlebutt got around. We found out that the convoy was made up of tugboats and small coastal vessels. Some of the tugboats had to pull barges. Those tugboats and barges were to be used to rebuild Normandy harbor and make temporary piers after the invasion.
Divers: We had escorted all kinds of convoys. Some had troop ships, others had merchant marine ships and tankers. Our job was to deliver them, get them over there, which we did. We never lost a single ship except in convoy NY-119. We lost some ships and some men in the largest storm in the North Atlantic in the century.
Garrison: These tugboats were harbor tugs, and in my view they should never have been sent on a convoy like that. They were just frail and not seaworthy, and the crews weren’t really prepared.
DuFau: As far as the crews of the tugs and the merchant ships, whether they were experienced or not, we never had any knowledge of that at all. We weren’t in a position to even judge who had experience and who didn’t have experience because we were green sailors ourselves.
Graham: We were going so slow, we could see the mainland for about five days. We were doing about five knots. And we didn’t know anything about the weather or where we were going. We didn’t even know that it was NY-119. Actually, the crew wouldn’t know where we were going until maybe we were out in the ocean someplace, and a radioman would tell somebody. DuFau and Buchanan, as signalmen, might communicate with another ship and ask them questions. Then the guys would come around to the signalman or the radioman and ask them where we were going. They were anxious to know where we were going, but they didn’t worry much about how many ships were in the convoy or anything like that. I know I didn’t want to know anything like that.
DuFau: Those of us who had access to the chart that was laid out could go in and out of that chart room, and you could see the layout of the course. And we could do a lot of guesswork. It became scuttlebutt among the crew. You’d pick up little hints here and there. The officers would be talking, and you’d overhear bits and pieces. Then, when we were down below decks, we could put these things together. That’s the way we could get a good idea of what way we were heading.
Garrison: We always felt that every convoy we were escorting was important and that we had to get it there safely. We knew that if a submarine fired a torpedo at, say, a carrier or an oiler or a ship in the convoy that was carrying cargo that just really had to get there, the escort commander could tell a destroyer escort to get between that ship and the torpedo. He could tell us to take the hit ourselves. We had fewer men, we were a smaller ship, and it was important that the larger ships survive. That’s part of the game.
DuFau: You could hardly imagine that a convoy would travel as slow as we did on NY-119. You could only make the speed that the slowest ship could make.
Graham: There was a foreign captain of one of those tugs, and he just refused to lag behind or stay with the convoy. He wanted to go ahead, go ahead. The commodore, I think, was Admiral Lynn [Lind], and I think he gave Blackford orders to go up and see what was wrong with him. Blackford went back to see what was wrong, and he gave him a lot of baloney about this was wrong and that was wrong, and something like that. At that time there was an American sailor on board as a signalman, and he sent a message that said, “It’s a goddamn lie,” or something like that, so the commodore said, “Fire a volley over the bow of the ship.” I think he told him in no uncertain terms that if he didn’t keep up, “We’ll blow you out of the water; you can’t do this.” They had no more trouble out of him.
War Diary (24 September 1944): Underway as before with convoy NY-119 bound for United Kingdom ports. At 0800 changed to screen on starboard bow of convoy. Wind and sea building up from N.E. Ceased patrolling sector at 2345. Some vessels of convoy doing poorly under existing conditions. LT-492 continually pulling ahead of station and straining her tow unnecessarily.
War Diary (25 September 1944): Changed position to forward picket at 0608. All preparations made for heavy weather. . . . Making considerable leeway.
Garrison: In the North Atlantic, when water hits the deck, the steel deck, it turns to ice immediately. That’s how cold it is. And the ropes; we called them lines. If a line was two inches thick, by the time the ice hit it, it got four times as big and, of course, was difficult to handle. The decks are very slippery too. You can’t walk upright. You have to time it. The ship is rolling and pitching and going up and down, and you have to time it. If you fall overboard, you’re finished. You couldn’t survive. The handrails were only waist high. If the deck was slanting and you lost your balance, you were gone. That’s why the captain ordered that when you came topside, you had to have your
life jacket on. Mandatory. You must. No question. It’s rough, it’s dark. Total darkness. It’s slippery. The ship is bucking up and down, right and left. And you really have to time your movements. You cannot walk erect. Sometimes you’d have to actually stop and think about what you were going to do next because if you didn’t, you were over the side.
Don’t forget, aside from the Maumee, the DEs were about the largest vessels in the convoy, and when the storm started tossing us around, we could just imagine what it was doing to those tugs. Another indication of how rough it was, was the stragglers. A straggler is one who can’t keep up with the convoy for some reason or another—maybe engine trouble or mechanical trouble or something. And the convoy commander would assign an escort to stay with the straggler if he could fix what was wrong. I know many times we’d hear them say, “Well, old boy, I’ll see you. Sorry,”—and that’s the last we saw of him. We didn’t know what happened to him.
War Diary (26 September 1944): Patrolling as before. At 0217 distress call received from “ST-719”* who had capsized, while in tow of “LT-492”.** POWERS, BERMINGHAM, and ABNAKI proceeded to pick up survivors, saving all but a few men. MASON returned to convoy to screen port bow. Convoy speed reduced to steerage way only. Wind force 5 at time ST-719 capsized. 1038–Convoy sufficiently reformed to increase speed to 4 knots. . . . Gyro still erratic. Convoy averaging 10 degrees leeway.
DuFau: In the radio shack we had TBS communication—ship to ship or ship to shore—but it was short-range. They had one up in the flying bridge with the captain, and you could hear him talking on the bridge, you could hear talking over to the other immediate ships. They were discussing the ship that capsized. We weren’t allowed to turn on the searchlights or anything like that. Over the TBS I heard the voices say that they heard the screaming, the yelling in the background. I think that the O’Toole was assigned to pick up a lot of guys, because she was the flagship. We couldn’t stop in the storm; we couldn’t turn on any lights. We had to maintain our speed. One ship was actually close to rescuing one of the fellows who was overboard, but a wave drew him away and slammed him into the side of the ship at the time they were trying to rescue him and cracked his head open.
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