|
Top Row, Left: Me,
as Purser. July 194l, S.S.Amapala; age 16. Center photo:Ens. Steve Carson,
USN, officer in charge of U.S.N. Gun Crew. Right photo:This is a picture
of GI's crowding decks of a troop ship, the S.S. Hood Victory, carrying
1,800 soldiers and just entering the waters leading to New York harbor.
They wanted to see the Statue to Liberty, and they crowded every vantage
point on the deck in order to catch their first sight of her as we headed
for our berth on the Hudson River. She symbolized everything they had
fought for, and meant "home-coming" to them. (**see more below)
S.S. U.S.O.
- U.S.N. Gun Crew
Large photo. Gun Crew, S.S. U.S.O. Ens. Steve Carson, top row, left,
commanding. Great group of guys. 1944 in the Mediterranean Sea, the second
man to his right I remember as "Tex" a Navy signalman. Bottom right,
Ted DeLuca, from upstate New YIork, USN.
Third row of pictures:
"Hairless Joe" Knaggs, Navy seaman, AG. Next, I think this is 'Tex' on a
20 mm gun. 3rd picture: Frank Belsky on the 20 mm. 4th picture: our 4"50"
cannon aft. |
1) Attack on convoy and disintegration of
the S.S. Paul Hamilton 2) The
significance of
the Atomic Bomb
3)Japanese Atrocities in the Pacific Theatre, and
Asia during WWII.
4)Were Armed Merchant Vessels Auxiliary Naval
Ships?
5) Letters and photos from Families regarding Convoy.
Revised: Mar. 15.16.17, 2003 Dec. 30,
2006
Liberty ships were usually crewed by
approximately 70 men, so the potential for a disaster of the magnitude of
the Paul Hamilton was relatively limited, if she had
carried only the standard crew for
a Liberty ship. The complement would have been 42 merchant seamen and 29 sailors
from the Naval Armed Guard. However, unknown to the
crews of the other ships in the convoy, this
ship had been refitted to also carry troops, and she
carried 504 U.S. Air
Force personnel aboard, sitting on top of holds filled with deadly
explosives, a disastrous decision that someone ashore made which proved to
be a fatal combination. Common sense alone should preclude taking such
risks, but the need to get supplies to the fronts where the action was
going on dictated such risky decisions at times. Another Liberty
ship, loaded in a similar fashion, with troops and ammunition, had peeled off
and had docked at Oran just the day before, otherwise we might have
suffered a much greater disaster.
It was the regular job and the
assigned risk for Merchant Seamen to transport those dangerous cargoes, so
it was not unusual for our ships to carry munitions and high
octane fuel, as our ship had also
on that voyage. It was highly unusual, though,
for there to be a combination of troops and this type of highly dangerous
and volatile cargo to be mixed together. That was not
an acceptabal risk.
Few members of the Navy gun crews on watch
saw the enemy until it was almost too late, the German planes suddenly
coming in at the convoy from the other side of the mountains along the
shore and flying very low over the water in order to avoid the radar
detection systems manned by destroyer personnel. It gave them the clear
advantage in a surprise attack, and diving through the 20 mm anti-aircraft
fire from one ship, the Liberty ship, S.S. Paul Hamilton, as well as a
U.S. Navy destroyer, they hit hard and fast and were gone almost before
most of the convoy knew we were under attack. One of them, perhaps
following the Hamilton's tracers in, we surmised, launched its' torpedoes
directly at her. If so, it's possible that the alertness of that one
gunner may have helped bring about the disaster that destroyed her.
Perhaps the plane and pilot were engulfed by the flames from the blast
too, but that we never knew.
The S.S. Paul Hamilton was only one of the
2815 merchant ships sunk by the Germans during WW II, but when she was
lost, she had the singular distinction of taking with her the greatest
number of lives lost aboard a Liberty ship during the war. In the space of
a few minutes, three ships were sunk, including the destroyer, U.S.S.
Lansdale, and two more ships were damaged.
Seamen everywhere share a common bond,
sort of us against the sea or those of us who love the sea, but
they were the enemy and the sledge hammer-like pounding on the hulls of
the ships from the explosions of the ash cans being dropped often
made us wonder how those guys below were taking it. It seemed frightening
to be so completely enclosed, and to have water pouring into a sub from
the pressure of broken hull plates and no chance to escape, but that was
the deadly game we played on both sides. It was no less horrible to
be on the deck of a burning tanker, or a ship loaded with ammo. We all
took our chances. In our ships, most made it. Some didn't. In the German
submarine service, some made it. Most didn't. (Two out of three German
submariners never returned home.) Bravery wears a common uniform. Courage?
No nation has a lock on it. It is to be expected from both sides.
 Before we arrived at the Straits, we had
lost one ship to a torpedo from a submarine. It seemed as if they must
have fired it at an escorting destroyer, because it suddenly took evasive
action. The torpedo then hit a ship further off in the convoy. Liberty
ships were slow and ungainly, far less maneuverable than the destroyers
and D.E.'s and therefore not able to avoid a torpedo as easily. In large
convoys it is difficult to see what is going on in all sectors, especially
in heavy seas or fog, so losses were not always known to the men on the
other ships accompanying them. Our convoy split up before Gibraltar, with
some heading towards England and other points, while we went on through
the Straits of Gibraltar. We had a long way to go after entering the
Mediterranean through the Straits, because we were on our way to Port
Said, the entry-way to the Suez Canal, then to Aden and from there to
the Persian Gulf. Passing through the narrow Straits of Gibraltar put
convoys at a disadvantage because there was little room to maneuver, but
it was also dangerous for the subs, because they didn't have open ocean in
which to flee or use evasive action if they were detected. Perhaps now
that we had left the North Atlantic and the threat of submarines mostly
behind us, we felt safer. The waters were calm; the offshore winds from
Africa warm and balmy.
We brought cots out on deck almost every
day and took sunbaths, the big baby-faced Chief Engineer, Jewel
Strickland, often in his birthday suit. The Germans, who had lost Africa
and were in retreat on all fronts, were no longer very active in the
Mediterranean. We were watchful, but not fearful of seeing much action in
the area. That's the time, of course, when everything happens, when it is
not expected. And that's when it did happen, early that April evening in
1944.
We had lost the three ships in the space
of just a few minutes, of the two damaged, one, we were later told, had
been beached on the coast of Algiers. (It was, unfortunately, the ship
carrying the supply of beer for the U.S. troops stationed in the
scorching heat of the Persian Gulf.) As darkness enclosed us, we
moved on, keeping a wary watch for another attack. Like the huge loss of
life on the troopship, Leopoldville, months later that was sunk in
the English Channel off the coast of France (Christmas eve, 1944),
there was no news given out of the loss of the SS Paul Hamilton and the
troops aboard her, nor has there really been any mention of it since,
except for this and a few other mentions of it. Today there aren't many
witnesses to it still alive. Time, like the convoy that she was a part of,
simply moves on, leaving the stricken ships in its wake, and the 580
lives (627 that night when you include the men lost on the destroyer) are
now merely a long forgotten statistic.
Their families received a notice that
they were MIA (Missing in Action) and later, KIA (Killed in Action), but
no details as to how they were lost. That they had bunked in
converted upper holds just above munitions stored in the lower
holds was not something that those who were responsible for such
a gross mistake obviously wished to acknowledge, I guess, but that
was a fact. Mistakes are made in wartime, often disastrous ones, but
that's the way wars go. Even supposed careful planning for an
operation can go opposite to what is hoped for, sometimes due to the enemy
making a correct guess, other times due to one small mistake that
multiplies until it becomes a major catastrophe, but they will
happen.
Here was one that seems to have remained
concealed from public scrutiny for a long time. Is it wrong to
conceal it? Yes. Is it wrong to conceal it? No.
Why two answers? Because a careful examination of the error might
end up with the wrong man taking the blame, or that constant public
carping and endless reciting of details that cannot be changed. No
one could for-see the tragedy, or perhaps the necessity of getting those
men to a base in Italy in a limited timeframe was more important than the
risk. It was no different than a cavalry charge in the Civil War,
where the enemy might just happen to have determined that this would be
the opposing General's plan and set up an ambush, and a virtual slaughter
takes place instead of a victory. It is always a battle of wits, a
gigantic Chess game where human lives are at stake. The Germans by
that time had been driven out of Africa and had no airfields there.
Who would suppose that they would fly to Africa, then turn around and
attack from the African coastline instead of coming towards us from
Italy? A brilliant and successful tactic that cost us a troopship and
other losses, the enemy outguessing the Allies.
I have received correspondence from another
member of that group who similarly, was with his unit on a ship that
carried munitions as well, but they peeled off at Oran and disembarked,
safely, there, as mentioned above. They found out about the tragedy
some time later, when they eventually arrived in Italy. Wartime
secrecy kept them from making it public, which was right and proper at the
time in my opinion. |
