Comdr. Alfred Lind (report): The first eighteen days at sea produced no unexpected casualties except the loss of the ST-719 which, except for the resultant loss of two lives, was not considered to be serious. Further, in that the immediate cause of its rolling over can not be attributed even to the bad weather but rather to its inherent instability, this incident can not be classed as unexpected. However, the storm of 25–26 September started 50 percent of the BCF steel car floats leaking and perhaps contributed largely to their ultimate loss through slowing down the entire convoy enough to lose at least two days in arrival at our ultimate destination. This proved to be about the margin between arriving safely and being completely broken up within 60 to 150 miles of FALMOUTH. The three obsolete and misfit Y-Oilers,* No. 126, 127 and 128, had also been a constant source of trouble, having occupied the services of two of the three service tugs about 70 percent of the time and also largely contributed to the slowing down of the convoy.
Garrison: In the New York-119 convoy, we lost quite a few men because the little tugboats we were towing over capsized. One of the destroyer escorts, in an attempt to rescue some men, crushed them. You just can’t survive in that cold water. I mean, you’re finished. Finished. A destroyer escort is about twelve feet wide at its widest. It’s very small. It doesn’t take much water. It sits up high on the water. It can make very steep turns, and it’s fast—as fast as a submarine. DEs are very light and just bounce around like a wild horse, up and down, up and down. When you are sitting in the radio shack, the chair legs are in pipes welded to the deck. So, as the ship comes up, the equipment comes up into your face. When we were in a storm for two or three days, I couldn’t change clothes, I couldn’t eat because they couldn’t keep food in the galley. That’s the way it goes.
Watkins: I had been seasick all the way through the first voyage. We came back through the North Sea and all of that jumping up and down. On the second voyage, I was the oil king, and they were giving me more work, but I was still really sick. Someone came down and said, “Oh, you should go up and see the big waves.” I was hesitant about going up there! But when I got up, I saw the big waves, and I was so excited that I just stopped being seasick.
Divers: Captain Blackford took all that in stride because he was no amateur. He was a skipper before he came to the Mason. He was in the Aleutians, and he had skippered ships there, see. And that’s some of the most terrible weather year-round. He was used to rough weather. To him it wasn’t anything new.
Farrell: He [Blackford] loved it when it got rough! Now, there’s nothing worse than a DE that’s in rough weather. It almost stands up on its end. But he used to come down to the wardroom, and say, “You know, the rougher it gets, the better I like it.”
It took us thirty-two days to go across. Of course, we didn’t have enough oil to go that long, so we had to refuel at sea. It’s rough, everyone’s nervous, and you have to get this big line across from the tanker and take the oil on. That oil king better be on his toes, because the vents from the tanks are in the crew’s sleeping quarters, and if he doesn’t get it switched to another tank fast enough, that oil all comes up into the crew’s sleeping quarters. Their lockers are on the deck, so everyone’s clothing and their girlfriend’s picture and everything else would be soaked in diesel oil. The oil king had an important job, but all the crew had to be good because it was tricky, very tricky, especially if the sea was rough or the weather bad.
War Diary (29 September 1944): Patrolling as before on starboard bow of convoy. At 0628 all escorts exercised anti-aircraft screening formation. AT 0700 MAUMEE left convoy to fuel escorts. MASON fuel to capacity at 1303. MAUMEE returned to convoy at 2200. . . . MASON assumed forward picket station after returning with MAUMEE.
Garrison: I’ve often thought, what would have happened had they sunk the Maumee?
Graham: We would have been up the creek.
DuFau: The whole convoy would have been messed up.
Garrison: One ship capable of refueling us. One! And if the Germans had sunk that one ship . . . Suppose they had sunk it around the Azores, because the Azores are about halfway across. Now, you have just as much distance to come back home as you do to go across.
Graham: We wouldn’t have been able to move! We would have been stuck.
DuFau: We would have been sitting ducks.
Graham: And even if we had had enough fuel, you couldn’t leave the convoy. You couldn’t desert the others. You had to stay on station, stay with the convoy.
War Diary (30 September 1944): Patrolling as before. At 0630 commenced sweep to flank and took station on port bow of convoy. At 1105 took station astern of convoy with MAUMEE while she fueled small craft. At 1300 all ships back in normal position. All escorts streamed FXR* gear at 2300 upon receiving sonar contact report from forward picket. Contact false.
DuFau: Every time we got a contact there were all these changes to go through, decisions to make. The officer on the conn had to use his judgment to give commands to the quartermaster on the wheel—whoever was on the wheel—what way to steer. He had to try to take advantage of the ocean to stay as upright as possible. Several times we were thrown over pretty bad.
The officers would change, but we all knew that Captain Blackford was in charge. His skill would direct us on how to steer the ship and the speed, which helped us stay afloat without being zapped by the waves. We had confidence in our skipper, but we knew that ultimately we were at the mercy of The Man above.
The officer would give orders, but they depended on men doing their job. Everyone had his station to cover.
Farrell: Every man was important. The crew ran the engine room. If you broke something, you’d be out of commission. So you had to fix it while you were running, no matter what the weather or condition. You had to maintain your station in the convoy and make repairs and get it going again.
There was a lot of real complex equipment in that engine room that very few of us knew anything about a year previous to that. The crew had some training. The motor machinist’s mates had gone to diesel school, the electrician’s mates had gone to electrician’s school, etc. Some members of the crew had gone to gyro school. As the engineering officer, I had some training, and I was by profession an electrical engineer, so I had some basis of knowledge of how a thing worked. The crew would have to knock it down and repair it and get it back together, and believe me, in that convoy NY-119 we needed every bit of skill that we had.
At the beginning, more of the first-class mates in the engine room were white, though we did have some black first class. But we concentrated on going up the line. As soon as we could, we would qualify blacks who were second class and so forth as first class, and we’d qualify the first class as chiefs. As we did that, we would transfer the whites off the ship. When we took the ship out of commission, I don’t think there were any white chiefs or first-class rates on the ship.
Peters: Convoy 119 was an interesting voyage, and it was a scary one. But we were kids; it was an adventure for me. Here we were in bad seas, in hurricane weather for thirty-one days. We were looking at seas that were forty to fifty feet high. We had to constantly run in circles, which is what you did when you were on convoy duty, shepherding the other ships.
I never really thought of the danger that was there. I guess as a kid I thought I was invincible, that I wasn’t vulnerable to death.
The weather moderated as they reached the Azores, and there was some hope that the worst was over. Instead, it was yet to come.
Lind (report): When the weather again turned to storm proportions on 10 October the demand for service tugs increased in alarming rapidity, and when BCF 3203 again filled with water and turned over, it was quickly decided to sink her and destroy the wooden barge.
War Diary (12 October 1944): Screening as before in company with other escorts of CortDiv 80. At 0740 went astern of convoy to assist the other two escorts in that area, rounding up stragglers. At this time, POWERS and ABNAKI feel far enough astern with their stragglers t
o constitute a new section of the convoy. Resumed screening station at 0830. . . . Convoy having great difficulty in maintaining proper formation. Convoy averaging 15 degrees leeway. It will be impossible to pass through routed positions at this rate.
War Diary (13 October 1944): Screening as before. At 0406 left station to aid HMS ASTRAVEL with steering casualty. At 0927, rejoined screen as stern picket. At 1353 LT-63 reported one of her barges had capsized. MASON and O’TOOLE proceeded to sink same by gunfire. Wooden barge on top remained as a menace to navigation despite repeated effort to demolish it by gunfire and depth charges. Sea too high to risk putting a man on board with demolition charge.—20 MM incendiary ammunition started small fires that were immediately extinguished by seas and rain. . . . All other stragglers able to proceed without additional assistance. . . . Making 10 degrees leeway. Wind 15–28 knots westerly. Will be unable to follow scheduled route. Will pass 120 miles south of point “K.”
Graham: Everybody was at his battle station. I was supervising the radio shack. I heard the guns and opened the hatch. I saw the shots skip off! Sooner or later, they gave it up. That was the Mason and the O’Toole. We were hitting the barge, but it was made out of wood, and we didn’t make enough holes in it to allow water in to sink it. We had machine guns and everything on it. The gunnery was good, but the barge just wouldn’t sink.
The convoy commander sent a message by semaphore to the Mason. The signalmen recorded it, and the information became scuttlebutt.
DUE TO THE STRESS AND STRAIN OF EVENT YESTERDAY I MAY HAVE FORGOTTEN TO GIVE YOU AND YOUR EXCELLENT GUNNERS A WELL DESERVED “WELL DONE” FOR THEIR EFFECTIVE SHOOTING AAA THE MASON HAS PERFORMED EACH TASK ASSIGNED IN A MOST COMMENDABLE MANNER AAA PLEASE CONVEY MY APPRECIATION TO YOUR EXCELLENT CREW
War Diary (16 October 1944): Screening starboard bow as before. Wind and sea rising. Many breakdowns reported by small craft and increasing difficulty with tow wires. Some alarm noted in TBS transmission. Consoling words and helpful suggestions by Task Group Commander on T.B.S. did much to quiet them. Wind velocity about 40 knots. 0700–Convoy slowed to steerageway with many tows completely stopped. MAUMEE and the oilers back to pull ahead of the convoy to maintain steerageway. At 1718, Task Group Commander ordered MASON to form a new section of the convoy to keep the faster vessels (5 knots) from becoming scattered. This section had HMS PRETEXT appointed as commodore. All oilers, independent tugs plus HMS ASTRAVEL and PRETEXT pulled out to the left and proceeded ahead of convoy—drawing away slowly. . . . No sights obtainable after 0700. PRETEXT doing an excellent job in organizing ships into a passable sort of formation—aided greatly by her Radar and free use of T.B.S. radio. Considerable leeway indicates more bad weather coming. Section proceeding at 4 knots. Wind decreased to about 18 knots. Barometer still low.
Peters: Each day was a new day, each day was a new adventure. Personally, it was the great event, I guess you would call it. Thirty-one days out there in the middle of the ocean. But in some respects, it was tragic. Ships were lost. Lives of people were lost. We would discuss these things at chow; each night we’d talk about what ships went down and how many people had been lost. We were wondering if the next day was going to bring the same kind of thing.
But at that age you think you’re going to live forever and you can survive anything that comes along. And that’s pretty much the way I think most of the people aboard that ship felt. I never saw anybody really fearful that the ship was going to sink or that some bad thing was going to happen to us—although it was happening all around us. We had great confidence in ourselves and in Captain Blackford. We saw how he handled that ship.
Farrell: Those tugs should never have gone to sea. We had to show some of the people in the engine rooms of those tugs how to start their engines. First, they lost all their fresh water, and then they lost most of their food. We’d have to come alongside and supply them with water and food. Some of those guys were so sick that they just stayed in their bed. They rode those things down just to get it over with. They were not navy ships; they were army ships. It was so bad that we just stopped—and you never stop a convoy—but we just stopped, to try to regroup. We knew there were people in the water, so we turned on the flashlights even though we were right off the French coast, which was occupied by the Germans. And we turned the lights on, which you never do.
War Diary (17 October 1944): Escorting advanced section of NY-119, with order from C.T.G. to take all vessels to Falmouth and originate all necessary traffic to shore authorities regarding this section. Out of T.B.S. range of C.T.G. 27.5 by 1600 and using 2410 kilocycles voice whenever necessary. Wind 18–35 knots. Sky overcast clearing for an hour giving the only information in two days on which to make landfall. Changed course. . . . Section now making good 5 knots with a following sea. All hands making better weather of it with the increase in speed. Estimated landfall on Bishop Rock at 0300 October 18.
Buchanan: It was so overcast we couldn’t take a navigation reading. We had dead reckoning. That’s what we were traveling on, dead reckoning. I was up on the bridge with the executive officer, Lieutenant Ross, and I saw a star. It was just a little gap in the sky, but I called his attention to it. We had just enough time for both of us to shoot it before the clouds covered it again. We both went down to the charts, and we both marked it up. It turned out our lines were next to each other. The captain came up on the bridge, and he radioed over to the commodore of the convoy what our position was. In another few days, when we came out of the storm, the commodore congratulated us because we were right on. I remember it so well. We got the sextant, and I took the time for Lieutenant Ross, and he took the time for me as we read it. And then we went to the charts, and we made the lines, and we were parallel to each other on the lines, so we figured we had it right. I felt kind of nice about that, that I could handle a sextant, because I knew the officers could do it, and I could do it too.
Lind (report): When the full violence of the storm on 18 October 1944 had sunk ST-511 and ST-720, and broken up all but one of the remaining tows, the numerous small, unattached craft were in imminent danger of also overturning and being lost. CTG 27.5 was now faced with the grave decision of attempting to keep the convoy intact and fighting out the storm together or detaching the small craft without adequate escort or service tug protection and sending them to the shelter of nearby land at their best speed. After carefully weighing all the facts and with predictions of still continued increasing high seas and wind it was decided to send the 20 unattached small craft, now in charge of the USS MASON. . . . Great credit for their safe arrival is due to the outstanding seamanship of Lieut. Comdr. W. M. Blackford, Commanding Officer, USS MASON . . . in keeping his flock of 20 small craft together and shepherding them in to safety.
DuFau: We had the most vicious experience with that ocean. You’d be surprised how damaging that water can be when it gets to acting up. We had more damage done to the convoy from that storm than from any contact with submarines. The actual experience of having a storm hit a convoy made us see just how small man was on that ocean, how small the ships were on that ocean. Our ship, our destroyer escort, would be caught in the trough at the bottom of a wave, taken up to the top, and we stood at the top of that wave for a second, then came down like a kid on a sliding board. That was the most frightening experience, to realize that we were out in an ocean acting up that way, and we had so little control over that ship. We were almost at its mercy, trying to steer that ship into the sea to keep a headway so that we could keep some type of control.
War Diary (18 October 1944): Escorting advance section of NY-119. MASON the only escort present. All other occupied attempting to bring in the tugs and barges of the convoy. Commanding Officer HMS PRETEXT acting as section Commodore. At 0010, ran out ahead to make landfall. At 0032, Bishop Rock sighted bearing 052 degrees, distance 22 miles. Landfall reported to Task Group Commander by voice radio. . . . Barometer falling rapidly with wind and sea increasing. . . .At about 1230, first ship entered Falmouth
swift channel. During the morning the wind increased to 35 or 40 knots. Section began scattering badly with the danger that some vessels might be swept on past the harbor entrance; consequently [Mason sent urgent message] requesting immediate assistance from local escorts. Intercepted message from POWERS to Plymouth reporting the loss of barges and ST-720. Wind and weather became rapidly worse. HMS PRETEXT had no charts of Falmouth, so it was necessary to lead the section from buoy to buoy and between buoys to run back to the end of the column about seven miles astern to guide in any possible stragglers. Wind now blowing 50–60 in the gusts—visibility zero. It was necessary to run at seventeen knots to accomplish this; consequently several welded seams in the deck carried away and two longitudinal strength members in compartment B-4 came adrift. This ship handled well at all times and showed little tendency to broach running before the seas which were by then quite high. Wind reached a maximum of 70–80 knots in the gusts at about 1400. All vessels of the advanced were successfully turned over to the local escort inside the bay at Falmouth by 1645. It was impossible to report this to C.T.G. 27.5 at the time as the regular antennae had blown away and it was necessary to rig a new one.
Divers: They claimed that those ships weren’t built to take a seventy-degree roll. It was like the pendulum on a clock, with a graduated scale. There were so many degrees from dead center all the way up to ninety, which was flat over. And we made a seventy-degree roll! When we were on picket duty, we always had to change course. We never ran a straight course; we were always on a zigzag. Out of that pattern we would eventually come broadside to the waves. In the big, serious storm of convoy 119 there was this super wave. That wave hit us. I was in the chart room, in the wheelhouse, and the whole ship went over. I said, “Uh-oh, we’re not going to make it this time!” She held there, held there. Finally, she lurched and came back up. I looked at the inclinometer; it said seventy degrees. A lot of guys, DE sailors, have told me, “You will never make a seventy-degree roll and come out from under it.” I’ve seen guys brag at making forty-or forty-five-degree rolls. But we made a seventy-degree roll, and I saw it with my own eyes. It made a double impression upon me. That’s why I can recall it to this day.
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