Q: What kind of training did you have to go through?

Bill: Well, basically something that didn’t do us any good. All that marching I done, carrying packs on my back and so forth, that was totally useless. We’d put 100 pound packs on our backs and walk 20 miles and stuff like that. It was totally useless and had nothing to do with operating a ship. Of course we had classes, so I decided to go into the engine department. I studied up on the engines, maintaining them and so forth.

* Bill shows me the back of his identification card that lists the jobs he was qualified to do..

            I had deck engineer and junior engineer. Those were my qualifications I done in New Orleans, Louisiana on March 11^th, 1946. The deck engineer took care of the winches on the ship and the junior engineer worked in the engine room and he kind of assisted the engineer. Mainly what they done was nothing (laughs..).

Q: During your training you had to learn to swim through burning oil and water, can you tell me more about that?           

They made everyone learn to swim. Some of the guys absolutely couldn’t swim; they went ahead and passed them anyways. Part of the training was if a ship was torpedoed, with the tremendous amount of oil onboard for fuel since they burnt oil. So they taught us how to swim through burning oil. What you do is take you hand likes this and throw it away from you and paddle yourself by kicking your feet cause you gotta use your arms to keep the oil away from you.

* Bill demonstrates what he learned in training to swim through burning oil.

            If you swim through it, it will close in behind you so you want to move along as fast as you can. They made us dive off of a real high dive cause it was about 50 feet from the bridge down to the water level on a ship. If you fall flat its likely bust your gut. You had to hit with your head or your feet, either one.           

Q: Did your ships ever come under attack?

            No, I never got a scratch on me the whole war.

While going through the Straight of Gibraltar, going from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea, we were in a convoy. Some German planes attacked. They didn’t hit the ship I was on, but they hit the ship next to us.

The most action I saw was in North Africa. I think the straight there was about 16-17 miles wide. The German planes would come out of Southern France. An American fighter got behind the German plane. There were about 80 – 90 ships in the convoy and we were spaced out about a 1000 feet apart. This German was trying to get away from that fighter, so he dropped down as low as he could to the water and went down in between the row of ships. When that Navy plane came through he was on his tail, but he was up a little higher. When they got to the end of all those ships the German had nowhere to go. He went straight out across the water, and when he hit the water that American was really working on him. He hit him and the German caught fire and hit the water.

-Encountering Mines

The only time we were close (in reference to a mine in the water) was when we got to Naples harbor on the SS George M Bibb. We had to go right up the Italian coast to Northern Italy. They had two mine sweepers pulling a net in front of us. About four ships went and we got in a straight line directly behind that net. They caught a mine in that net so we stopped. They pulled that mine out into deeper water and there was a Navy Destroyer. After they left the mine and backed away, they shot the mine and made it explode.

Q: Bill talks about the different ships he served on and places he went.

Bill: The first ship I was on was called the Freeman, it was owned by the Pocahontas Coal Company in New Bedford Massachusetts and it was a coal burner. I was what they call a coal passer, in other words I shoveled coal all night. We went from New Bedford down to Norfolk Virginia and got a load of coal and took it back to New Bedford. I’d had all the coal passing I wanted for the rest of my life.

 When they paid us off you could get off the ship, so I got off after one trip. Then I went back to New York and got on a ship owned by the City Service Oil Company and the name of the ship was the S.S. Koolmotor and I got a job as a fireman on that. It hauled oil and it was allot easier to pump oil than to shovel coal. I made two trips on that ship, one to Venezuela and we picked up a load of oil and brought it back to New York. I made another trip where we went to an island in the Caribbean Sea called Aruba, and that was owned by the Dutch and Shell Oil Company had a big refinery on the island. There was no oil on the island, but there were all those (oil fields) in Venezuela, none of those islands down there had oil. I think we brought that back to Boston.

I was qualified for 30 days leave by then so I got off the S.S. Koolmotor and came back to Louisville for 30 days. Then I went back to New York and to the City Service Oil Company and I got on a tanker called the Oklahoma. I thought we’d go somewhere on that, but the same thing. Go down to the Caribbean and get a load of oil to take that back to somewhere on the east coast. I stayed on that about three trips when I decided I wanted to see the world. So I got on a Liberty ship that was owned by the Isthmian Steam Ship Company and we went to North Africa and Sicily. It took around three months to make a round trip

When I came back I was qualified for more leave, so I took another 30 days. I went back on got on a Liberty ship called the SS George M Bibb and we went to Italy on that. On the day we arrived in Naples Harbor the war was over in Europe. We went up to Leghorn, Italy and unloaded, that took about two to three weeks. We had all kinds of trucks and jeeps, stuff for the Army on there. Then we come back to Naples and went into a shipyard. They converted all the top hull or cargo hold; they built bunks, three to four high. We brought back seven to eight hundred troops to Norfolk, Virginia.

The I got on the Stephen Girard. We went down to Norfolk Virginia and loaded her up with all sorts of Army Supplies; truck, jeeps, food, and everything. We went to the Philippine Islands. We got to somewhere between the Panama Canal and the Philippine Islands when they dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, the war was over there. We got to Samar in the Philippine Islands and we stayed there around 60 days before they decided what to do with us. Finally they took us ashore and unloaded us and sent us up to the island of Leyte to the Port Tacloben , there they converted us to hold bunks just like they did in Italy.

We unloaded troops back in San Francisco. Then we cam from San Francisco and went through the Panama Canal back to New Orleans and they put that ship in mothballs.

The SS Stephen Girard

I got off her when they paid us off and I came home for 30 days. Then I went back to New York and I got on a ship called the Marine Star. They loaded up with a load of pipe and we went to Saudi Arabia. They were developing the oil fields over there. It took them a long time to get that pipe unloaded, and we came back to New York and they put the Marine Star in mothballs.

            Then I got on a ship called the Steel Worker, and I stayed on it about two years. The Steel Worker was owned by the Isthmian Steam lines. In that two year period I don’t know how many times we went around the world, I think around four or five. We would leave New York and go down the east coast, would usually stop at Philadelphia, sometimes Savannah Georgian and go around to New Orleans, sometimes Houston Texas. Then we’d go down to the Panama Canal and we’d go up the California Coast, and we’d usually go to Long Beach which was a port in Las Angeles. Went to San Francisco, a couple times went to Portland, Oregon.  Then we’d head west and stop at the Hawaiian Islands and drop freight off. Then we went to the Philippine Islands, then Hong Kong, then Saigon, then Singapore. We’d usually be empty by the time we got to Singapore.

            We’d start the process over. We’d go down to Indonesia. The government was buying all the native live rubber they could get. The rubber was put in bundles, about a couple hundred pounds. We’d load up with rubber, we never did get a full load out of Indonesia. Then we’d come back on the Malay Peninsula and finish loading out with rubber. The we would go up the Benain (?) and they had tin ore there. We would get a load of tin ore. We’d then come back to Solan (India) and we’d pick up allot of tea there. We would come back through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean Sea. From there we’d go to Halifax, Nova Scotia, then to Boston and New York, and that would be the end of the voyage around the world.

I went on the Steel Worker as a junior engineer, and when I got off I was a second engineer. That was the best ship I was ever on, and the one I enjoyed the most.  I was what they called a crew member until I got off the Stephen Girard. You had to have 18 months service as a crew member, then you could take examinations to be an engineer. When I turned 21 I took an examination pretty quick. I passed the examination and I was a third engineer. Life was allot better after I got to be an engineer. I had my own living quarters and everything. It paid a whole lot more. In fact it more than doubled my salary.

Q: Bill speaks of his last voyage on the Steel Worker and decision not to go back.

 

            In 1949 I got off the Steel Worker and I fully intended to go back but I had allot of leave built up. I had about 60 days leave. I came back to Louisville to visit my family and all and mother and dad talked me into not going back. Instead of going back I bought a truck and traveled all over the United States, about like I traveled all over the world on the Steel Worker.

 

            I got tired of that so I wanted to have a day job, so I got a job with a trucking company. I worked from eight in the morning to about four or five in the afternoon. I think that was in 1952. By 1959 I had saved enough money to buy a farm. Met my wife and married her, and have been in New Salisbury ever since.

 

Q: What were some of your experiences you had while working on a ship?

    -Encountering rough weather.

            I remember one incident it got so rough that in a 24 hour period we made 30 miles. The rougher the water the slower you had to go, cause when you run fast and the bow dips down you pick up allot of water. That water would come down the deck sometimes four foot deep. If you went real slow, instead of the bow dipping under water it would lift up.

 It would get so rough that the cooks couldn’t cook at all. They had kettles with real tall sides, and you could only fill them half full. When it got real rough we had to eat soup until the water calmed down. That was the only thing they could do is make soup.

The main thing was you just had to hold on to something when you walked. After a bad storm like that you’d look down the passageways and there would be footprints on the side of the wall. The ship would lean so bad you had to put one foot up on the wall. There was a water tight door to go outside; if it was that rough you didn’t dare go outside.

I was on a ship that took a 45 degree roll one time. That’s halfway to being upside, but she rolled 45 degrees. A 40 degree roll was pretty common place. When you got past that then it got scary.

- The missionary

That girl was a missionary.

*Bill points to a girl in a photo.