Volume 9, No. 6
November-December 1999
Dick Rohde, editor
Obituary
Shipmate Edward W.
Driskill, Jr. died on Tuesday, October 12, 1999 at home
in Forest, Virginia. He suffered a heart attack.
Edward W. Driskill,
Jr. [ask Dick Rohde for address]
A NOTE FROM
CYBERSPACE
In my e-mail last week, I received the following
letter from Dr. Rob S. Rice of The American
Military University.
Dear Mr. Rohde, I read the story of that magnificent ship in
"Little Ship, Big War," and was and
remain deeply, deeply moved by the story of the Roberts and the other vessels in action off Samar that day. I had no
idea you had an organization until I stumbled
across your page. I cannot easily put into my
words the awe and reverence I have for the - Roberts
- and her crew, but, quite some time ago, I did try to put them down. I hope that the appended poem at the least
demonstrates that your gallant ship and
comrades are not, not yet, forgotten, and in some place of the nation's heart, never will be.
DE 413 Samuel B.
Roberts Lost off Samar, 25 October, 1944
by Rob S. Rice
The fish alone now see her
lie
With empty guns that still
defy
The enemy who laid her low
And died himself, so long
ago...
Smallest of the ships that
fought
One, of many, lost.
Sent down by all the shells
she caught,
Slaughtered at a cost.
The enemy surged forth in
might
And she stood in the way,
The 'Little Wolves' ran
toward the fight,
Their charges slipped away.
And one by one, the escorts
died,
Hulls torn apart, like men,
And deep, uncaring waters
hide
The places they had been.
They faced a foe four times
their size
The foemen thought them mad,
Wounds, pain and death the
bloody prize
They bought with all they
had.
In the darkness, in the hold,
Death held off by thin steel,
Ocean water, pressing, cold
Doom at hand, and real.
No way out, but burns and
pain
Rewards for standing to.
And so they died, but not in
vain.
What else could heroes do?
The memories fade, one by
one,
Her hull rusts, day by day,
The - Roberts - crew knew
what they'd done
But they, too, pass away.
Alone, forgotten in her
grave,
And lost to sight and sun,
She knows she gave all that
she gave
Please, let her know she
won...
With my sincere
respects, and completely unworthy thanks.
WWW.DE413.ORG
The above is, of course, the address, or URL for
our website. Since it started, we have had
over 4400 "hits" or times that people have visited. That is an impressive number. The letter above,
came from someone visiting our site. We have
at least one new member who is on line. Say hello to Bob
and Billie LeClercq. Their e-mail address is dbl@ev1.net
If there are others of you out there with e-mail
addresses that you would like to share,
please let me know. James M. Reid
In the last issue of the NEWSLETTER , I mentioned
that I had been in touch with shipmate James
Reid's daughter, Brenda Reed, and his granddaughter,
Melanie Bartow. Melanie writes that she was in an automobile accident in September and suffered a herniated disc in her neck which
gives her much pain and very limited use of
her left arm and hand. We hope and pray that the treatments
will work and that things get back to normal. Melanie and her husband are planning to be with us next October for our
Washington reunion. Brenda Reed (yes, when
she married her name changed from Reid to Reed) wrote
to say that so often during the years she had thought how wonderful it would be to get in touch with survivors of the
Samuel B. Roberts. She said, "Thank God
for computers and my daughter. I cannot express the feelings I felt when she showed me your first response. I
have all of them, and the Newsletter came on
Saturday." (Sept. 25) "The sad part that breaks my heart is that Daddy never got to be in touch with any of
the survivors. He would have been so thrilled
and happy to have been able to have gone to a reunion.
Someone called my mother's home only a few weeks after he died, July 13, 1975, about a Survivors' Reunion. He talked so
many times about the time when his ship
sank." Brenda adds that a young sailor
wanted to trade places with him and it was
o.k.'d. That was where the ship was hit and so she knew that God had a purpose for her daddy's life. He found a calling
as a Sunday School teacher and continued with
that until he died. James was in his late 20's when on
the ship and was married with two children and a third on the way when the ship was sunk. She has all of the letters that her
father wrote to her and will share them with
us. If any of you remember James Reid, please
write to her - Brenda Reid Reed. She would
love to hear from you as would her daughter,
Melanie Bartow. [ask Dick Rohde for address]
Joe Fortier Writes
Dear Dick,
Received the
excellent newsworthy Sammy B's Newsletter today. Many
thanks, a real shame we couldn't have been at the reunion. Probably won't make one unless it's close because of Marie's
leaky heart valve. Certainly won't be able to
fly. I've had her home for two months and
monitoring 11 medications daily.
She's better but not
completely well from depression. She's so much better
it is a joy, hope she will continue her improvement. All of the prayers are working. She's been going to group therapy on
Mondays thru Fridays which has been a great
help. It has allowed me to do my Red Cross volunteering at
Madigan Army Medical Center which has helped my disposition as well. I try to be patient and understanding which I'm sure
helps Marie as well. Of course I take a
handful of pills in the AM and PM to keep up with all
of my responsibilities.
I have had you in my
thoughts and hope you haven't had losses in the storms
we read and see about in Florida. Haven't taken the time to look at the map to be more knowledgeable of the area. Marie will have a cataract removed this month
which takes much bravery on her part to go
through with. Next on the program will be having two teeth
removed, so you can see there's no let-up for her and me as her care person. That's what 56 years of marriage is all about.
In February I had my
right carotid artery operated on which was successful.
Thank goodness Marie was well enough to stay with me at the
hospital during the pre-op and able to transport me. Thank you for your concerns and prayers for my
Marie. With the many others as I said, they
certainly have and are working.
My respects to you
and your wife, regards,
Joe
Letter from Marty
Davis
Dear Dick,
Please find enclosed
my check in the amount of $10.00 to cover my associate
membership in Sammy B. As I have said before, your newsletter is one of the very best DE publications, and with it,
you are making a further contribution to
naval history. In discussing reunion
locations, I suggest that consideration be given to going
to Albany, home of USS Slater DE 766. Remarkable restoration progress is being made on the ship each day, 39 DE reunions
have been held in Albany with a greater
number scheduled for next year and I know that a Sammy B
reunion at this location would be an item of major focus.
For your records,
please list me as Director of DESA and DEHF, and change
my E-Mail >>perspectives@prodigy.com<<
Please give my best
regards to the members,
Marty Davis
OFFICERS OF THE USS
SAMUEL B. ROBERTS SURVIVORS' ASS'N. 1999 - 2000
Co-Chairman #1 Glenn
Huffman*
Co-Chairman #2 Don
Young
Co-Chairman #3
Dudley Moylan
Co-Chairman #4 Jack
Yusen
Directors
Co-Treasurer Vince
Goodrich
Co-Treasurer Mel
Harden
Newsletter Editor
Dick Rohde
*Glenn Huffman is
Coordinator of Co-Chairmen.
More from the Mail
Box
Vince Goodrich sent
the following. As he says, "Kind of the opposite of
'Skin'. ''
A Little Boy's Essay
on Anatomy
Your head is round and hard, and your brains are in
it and hair on it. Your face is the front of
your head where you eat and make faces. Your neck is
what keeps your head out of your collar. It's hard to keep clean. Your shoulders are sort of shelfs where you hook your
suspenders on them. Your stummick is
something that if you do not eat often enough it hurts,
and spinach don't help none. Your spine is a long bone in your back that keeps you from folding up. Your back is always
behind you no matter how quick you turn
around. Your arms you got to have to pitch with and so you
can reach the butter. Your legs is what if you have not got two of, you cannot get to first base. Your feet are what you
run on, your toes are what always get
stomped. And your fingers stick out of your hand so you can throw a curve and add up rithmatick. and that's all
there is of you, except what's inside, and I
never saw it at all.
Patti Anne Johnson
...Granddaughter of Jack Conway sent the following letter.
Dear Mr. Rohde,
I enjoyed the latest
issue of the Newsletter. I was very disappointed that
we were unable to make the reunion this year as we had planned. It sounded like a good time was had by all. My 2 year
old, as I think I've told you, has cancer and
we decided quite suddenly to do her Make a Wish trip to
Disney World in early Sept. Our hopes were to still go to San Diego but she needed surgery and we had to postpone the Disney
trip until late Sept. We had a wonderful time
and were glad we went.
Two days after we
got home we found out she relapsed. Although
she is undergoing intensive chemotherapy she
is doing quite well and is in good spirits. I
am eagerly awaiting Reunion 2000. I've always wanted to go to Washington D.C. I still have not heard from anyone
knowing my grandfather other than Dudley
Moylan. I'm still hoping to - perhaps you can spread the
word for me in the Newsletter. Enclosed
are dues for the coming year.
Happy Thanksgiving
to you and all.
Sincerely,
Patti Anne Johnson granddaughter of Jack Conway [ask Dick Rohde for
address]
More Mail
LORRAINE MARTEL
wrote a very nice letter after receiving her copy of the
NEWSLETTER. She said that she enjoys reading Red Harrington's poems and enjoyed the "Just a Piece of Cloth" and
forwards them along with other news to 15
members of her family who all have "packets" that Lorraine has made up for them. Nice idea. She has seen and read much about the World War II
Memorial and wishes that it could have been
built when there were more of those who fought in that
war around to see it. Lorraine wishes each
and everyone of the SBR Survivors' Association the Very
Best of Holidays and Good Health in the coming year 2000.
PEGGY DODD sent me a
note along with a clipping from the Checotah OK paper,
THE MCINTOSH COUNTY DEMOCRAT. The first page article acknowledges the 55th Anniversary of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. It gives
a full account of what went on that day,
highlighting the heroic actions of Paul Henry Carr along
with an accounting of all of the honors he has received including having a street named after him and a large granite
monument which has a portrait of Paul , in
his Navy whites, etched in the stone. As most of you know, Paul received the Silver Star posthumously and the FFG
52 , USS CARR was named in his honor In the article, Peggy says, "All these years
it's been like a brother went away and never
came back. I remember Mama would receive letters from
Paul who would write two lines of a song with some words that would tell her where he was in the war at the time." Peggy
got a letter from her brother written the day
he died, along with cookies she had sent him. "The telegram that he had been killed came to the depot and a
lady delivered it to us." she said.
"I was a senior that year." If you would like to visit the home page of USS
CARR, FG 52, following is the address. http://www.spear.navy.mil/ships/ffg52
AND STILL MORE MAIL
HENRY DOSCHER sent
the following note.
I just received the
latest "Newsletter" and noted you all had a fine
reunion in San Diego. Sorry I had to miss it due to my cataract surgery. I now see much better; in fact 20/20, uncorrected,
with my "refurbished" right eye. I note that annual dues are now due. I enclose my
check for $10.00, and did not know to whom
else I should send it.
My regards to Helen,
Sincerely,
Henry.
Note: It is o.k. to
send the dues to me, payable to SBR Survivors' Ass'n.
I'll see that they get to the right place. Ed.
RED HARRINGTON
forwarded a clipping which he received from J. D. Luther,
nephew of shipmate Shirley Macon. It is from the front page of the state wide paper of Delaware, The News Journal, on
October 27, 1999. They feature a "Look
Back" feature and this one had a news item from October 27, 1944 that is headlined "6 U.S. Warships Lost in
Philippines" followed by "Airplane Carrier,
2 Destroyers and 3 Escort Ships Sunk". Names of Vessels Other Than Princeton Unannounced: Enemy Battle Loss Promises
to Exceed Toll of 35 Ships Taken Off
Guadalcanal in 1942. Additional information states that names of the vessels, except for the Princeton were not
disclosed in the Navy's brief communique
today, pending notification of next of kin of casualties aboard the ships.
LEON MCCOY of the DD
823 Shipmates Association sent me news of our namesake
ship and a report on their 3rd reunion which was held in August in the Annapolis/Washington D.C. area. They had a great
time, an excellent reunion and some of the
guests included CAPT Lee Geanuleas, CAPT Chris Wode and our
own Mel Harden and Leona. We wish Leon and Florence well. They plan to be doing a lot of traveling. Best wishes also to the
new President John Turner. Their next
reunion is scheduled for 2001 in the Boston/Newport area.
USS JOHNSTON/HOEL
ASSOCIATION will be holding its Year 2000 Reunion in
Colorado Springs, Colorado from October 8 through October 11. Congratulations and best wishes to their new
Officers headed by President Larry Morris.
BILL WILSON wrote to
let me know that he and Esther were on their way to Sun
City, Arizona for the winter. He enjoyed each and every day of the reunion and appreciated the time and effort that had been
put into the planning. Bill says that the
free time, visiting with old friends was wonderful.
Taps
In this month's
issue of the Purple Heart Magazine I found the complete
words to TAPS and thought I would share them with you.
Day is done, gone the sun,
>From the hills, from the
lake,
>From the skies.
All is well, safely rest,
God is nigh.
Go to sleep, peaceful sleep,
May the soldier or sailor,
God keep.
On the land or the deep,
Safe in sleep.
Love, good night, must thou
go,
When the day, and the night
Need thee so?
All is well. Speedeth all
To their rest.
Fades the light; and afar
Goeth day, and the stars
Shineth bright.
Fare thee well: day has gone
Night is on.
Thanks and praise, for our
days,
'Neath the sun, 'neath the
stars,
'Neath the sky.
As we go, this we know,
God is nigh.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish each
and every one of you all the joys of the
holiday season and to hope that you will have a Healthy
and Happy New Year. Helen and I will be spending Christmas with our son Cliff, his wife Allison and their son Noah in
Washington D.C. We will be there from Dec. 22
to Dec. 28. After that, you can reach us at home in Ocala,
Florida. God bless you all. The Spirit of the
Sammy "B"
As many of you may know, Captain Copeland's book,
"The Spirit of the Sammy "B"
was published in a limited number at the time that the USS
COPELAND, FFG 25 was commissioned. The books were made available to the known survivors and to those involved with the new
ship. In the ensuing years, the available
copies were all distributed and some mimeographed copies
were all that was available. Bud Comet had a copy of the original manuscript which he made available to me and with the help of
my son Cliff, we will have copies available
in early January for those who are interested.
Thanks to a generous donation from Leah Felt, and
she will probably be upset with me for
telling you this, the only costs involved will be for the
mailings. They will be 8" by 11" and have a proper cover, but are
not bound volumes. If you have an interest,
please let me know and I will see that you get
a copy. We are only printing 100 copies, but that should be sufficient for quite a while. Thank you, Leah, on behalf of
the SBR Survivors' Association family.
History of the Destroyer Escort
The following was sent to me by Dudley Moylan and
was made available to him by a friend who is
part of the Minnesota WW II History Roundtable edited
by Jim and Jon Gerber. We are grateful to them for their permission to print the following.
While Americans fought around the world in WW II,
those at home contributed greatly to the war
effort in many ways. It may have been putting up
with shortages, growing victory gardens, buying bonds or working hard in the factories to produce what was necessary for
the war effort.
Many ingenious ways were developed to improve and speed
up production. One of these ways was written
about in Invention and Technology magazine in an article
about "The Little Ships That Could". The Battle of the Atlantic, the longest battle of WW II began in 1939. Early in
the war the German U-boats sent allied ships,
and therefore Allied supplies and troops to the bottom in
great numbers. The standard convoys proved an easy target for the fast and maneuverable U-boats. The Allies realized that
they needed a new weapon if they were to
survive. In 1940, Churchill appealed to Franklin Roosevelt for "escort vessels"specially designed to
destroy U-boats.
The Navy's Bureau of Ships developed a plan for what would be called
the destroyer escort (DE). The sole purpose
of the DE would be to seek and destroy U-boats. The Navy was not ready until May, 1941, and as soon as the
first order was placed ADM Harold Stark
changed his mind and the 50-ship deal was canceled. Churchill once again turned to Roosevelt and in August he
approved an order to build 50 ships for the
British. The first keel was laid in February of 1942 and the first DE for the Royal Navy was launched in
November.
The US Navy's first
DE was not commissioned until January of
1943. Had the Navy delayed much longer, the
ships might have missed the war. The DE was
armed with a battery of underwater weapons: two depth charge racks, eight depth charge projectors (called
K-guns) and the Hedgehog, a cluster of 24
mortars that would fire forward at an underwater target. In
addition, each DE had sonar and radar as well as three torpedo tubes and
long and short range antiaircraft guns.
The DE was made up
of spare parts and its basic design was simple enough
to allow for mass production. The naval ship yard at Mare Island in California accepted the contract for building the
DEs. It was already overburdened building
other larger ships and so contracted the DE's to a factory
in Denver, Col. Denver was a mile high and 800 miles from the sea but had two advantages: no existing war industry and a
ready supply of labor and housing. Mare
Island supplied the blueprints, schedules and the leadership and Denver would supply the steel and the sweat.
An army of untrained
workers struggled to cope with the enormous
demand for vessels of a new, untested design
and with a new technique for putting them together - arc welding. Welding had a structural advantage and was faster
and easier. It was the only way to mass
produce ships. Builders could now use prefabricated parts
assembled hundreds of miles away and weld those parts into a whole ship,
thus greatly simplifying and speeding up the
building process. Building an all-welded ship
was like putting together a three dimensional puzzle except
that some of the parts might weigh a ton or more. Sometimes multiple cranes, each able to lift 10 tons, were used in tandem to
lift fabricated deck superstructures,
equipment, and weapons onto and into the cavernous openings
in the hull, to be welded together there.
As the workers
learned their jobs, building times decreased;
the first DE took six months, but before long they were
being constructed in a matter of weeks. Competition between yards and cash awards fueled the increases in efficiency.
Defoe Shipbuilding of Bay City, Michigan
decided to try building ships upside down, from the deck up to the keel. It was felt to be easier to weld
downwards and this sped up the work. The
process virtually eliminated 90% of overhead welding. Once the deck was laid down, frames and bulkheads attached to
it appeared bottom-side up.
The keel, floors and
plating were dropped into position on top of the frames and bulkheads. On completion of
the hull section, two semicircular steel
wheels were clamped around the hull and cables were thrown around the vessel in opposite directions. This allowed two
cranes, pulling on one cable and holding back
on the other to roll the hull to an upright position. The
whole process took no more than two and one half minutes. Once the hull was upright, cranes would then drop additional
machinery in place and install the prefabricated
deckhouse.
East coast shipyards
also added their might to the DE program. Bethlehem Steel's
Hingham Yard in Hingham, Mass. was able to deliver a DE in just 25 days by the end of the war. In contrast, the
construction time for a fleet destroyer
before the war had been 8 to 10 months. Hingham's claims to fame include launching one DE in 4 and one half days -
a world record for building a major war
vessel - delivering 10 DEs in one month and laying 16 keels on one day. The overall safety and efficiency of
these ships guaranteed the future of welding,
and the large numbers of identical vessels permitted
economies of scale in the provision of assembly jigs, the adoption of repeatable procedures and material-supply
planning.
The DEs finally
plunged into the Battle of the Atlantic in the fall of
1943, each about 300 feet long and 35 feet across, capable of a top speed of 20 to 24 knots. They carried 216 officers and men
in cramped, no-nonsense quarters. As the
Battle of the Atlantic wound down, the DEs made further
history in the Pacific as transports, anti-submarine warfare platforms,
radar picket ships and screens for Kamikaze
attacks.
One DE, the USS
England, destroyed six subs in 12 days during
May of 1944. Of the 565 DEs built, 563 saw
service before the war's end. The DE was built in less than half the time of a fleet destroyer and at a third of the cost.
It was part of a massive war effort in which
the number of ship ways rose from 130 to 567 at nearly 80
shipyards. The battles of WW II were won as much on the assembly line as on the firing line.
Some email
While we were in San
Diego, the following E-mail was received from Steve Wade
of Salem, Va. "Congratulations on a
very moving and excellent site dedicated to the memory
of the "Sammy B". My father served aboard DE 342 USS RICHARD W. SUESENS which was the flagship of your division
during the Manus "Equator crossing
ritual". There is an excellent description of this at
http://www.escortcarriers.org/bosamar/sammyb4.html. My site honoring the DE 342 and crew may interest
you: http://members.tripod.com/DE342/. Feel
free to sign the guest book, as dad eagerly checks it on a daily basis. You might consider adding a free guest book
to your site.
Some One Liners for
You to Consider
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