Issue 42.13
At this retirement place where I now call home, sometimes I sit at the same dinner table as my friend, Ben Rishton, who was a Merchant Marine sailor during World War Two. When he was aged sixteen he begged his mother to sign for him to go into the very dangerous Merchant Marine. At that time, the Navy and the Marine Corps would take young men aged seventeen and the Merchant Marine would take sailors aged sixteen. They first sent Ben to Catalina Island where he learned how to handle Caliber .50 machine guns and cannons. He also learned life boat drill and how to steer a ship. All too soon he was assigned to a cargo ship and was gone to the Pacific war zone. Different ships that he was a crewman on carried different cargos. His ships carried more aircraft dropped bombs than anything. One of the more dangerous places that he shipped through was from New Guinea to Australia. At that time, this island was occupied by the enemy Japs and very few Allied ships got thru without being bombed.
On one trip, a flight of five P-38’s came down to identify his ship as friend or foe. Satisfied, one at a time they tipped their wings to almost vertical and flew thru the ship’s two masts Once his ship was feet away from a floating mine. Floating mines are usually anchored but this one was free floating. Ben’s ship could not move because it was so close so they lowered a lifeboat and with a rope they towed it far enough away from the ship that they could get on their way. Ben’s ship took him to many of the Pacific Islands on their numerous trips.
One thing that his ship carried and the crew members hated was bombs carried by bombers. When they had such a cargo and were in a convoy, aircraft carriers were always in the center of the convoy of ships. The transports carrying bombs were put on the outside of the convoy because if one of these ships was torpedoed, the huge explosion could take more ships down with it. Ben found himself on a huge convoy bound for the Philippine Islands. How huge? Ben was not allowed that information, but he said it was spread out fifty miles north and south and sixty miles east and west. His main cargo was 10,000 pound bombs. These measured three feet in diameter and about eight feet in length. The bombs were secured in the lower hold. On their way, they were attacked by Jap suicide bombing planes. The enemy’s targets were the aircraft carriers in the convoy. All of the escorting ships put up such a withering fire that very few of the attacking planes got to their objectives. When the convoy was nearing their destination, they were caught in a typhoon of such terrible magnitude that the typhoon sunk more ship than did the enemy. The ocean waves were so high that the huge bombs in the hold broke loose and were rolling back and forth. If nothing was done to stop the rolling, the bombs would soon crash the ship’s sides to break thru. The crew members, at the peril of their lives, stuffed mattresses and cushions between the runaway bombs. Their ship was rolling so far over that the crew cut the tall mast with the crow’s nest off and tossed it into the ocean.
Even though the Merchant Marine was as dangerous as the armed services, they were not counted as veterans and Ben was later drafted to go into the army and was sent to Korea.
Sam Wyrouck can be located at 801-707-2666.