The Torpedoing of the Lake Osweya
Es
gibt keine Rosen auf dem Grab eines Seemans,
Keine
Lilien einer Ozeanwelle.
Der
einzige Tribut ist die Schwungvollen der Mowen,
Und
die Tranen die ein Schatz weint.
----------------------------German
seaman’s ballad
(Translation)
There
are no roses on a sailor’s grave,
No lilies on an ocean wave.
The
only tribute is the seagulls’ sweeps,
And the teardrops that a sweetheart weeps.
20
February 1942
By Robert M. Cusick
The
years roll by, and with them, the inexorable passage of time. But on every
February 20th, my thoughts always turn to an event which occurred in
the very early days of America’s involvement in World War II. On this date, in
1942, the American Motorship LAKE OSWEYA was torpedoed
and sunk with the loss of all hands, the Crew of 39 men, 30 Merchant
Mariners, and 9 of the USN Navy Armed Guard Gunners, in the North Atlantic off
Nova Scotia.
The
LAKE OSWEYA was one of the early sinkings of what was to become of nearly eight
hundred of ships of the American Merchant Marine, before the War ended, with the
loss of one in thirty-two of the crews of these ships, the Merchant Mariners and
USN Navy Armed Guard Gunners. In the period from Pearl Harbor Day until November
1942, the death rate was one in ten, along the US East Coast, Gulf Coast, and
the Caribbean Sea.
The
reason for this remembrance on my part is that I very nearly joined the ship on
her last voyage, it being a quirk of Fate (or was someone looking after me?)
that I did not do so.
When
I left school, at the age of 18, in 1941, I joined the American Merchant Marine.
In the Fall I was assigned to the Tanker AXTELL J. BYLES. This ship was one of
the largest Tankers afloat, and was owned by the Tidewater Associated Oil Co.,
the forerunner of Getty Petroleum. Their refinery was in Bayonne, NJ, and we
lifted 88,000 barrels of Crude Oil, from Texas Ports, making a round trip every
two weeks on an average. I couldn’t imagine a better job for a young fellow-I
was making $62.50 a month, most of
which I could save, the crew was very nice, I was visiting intriguing ports, and
meeting interesting people . I was studying for
the time , when
I had three years in , when I would qualify to take the examination for a Third
Mate’s License. I, as an Ordinary Seaman, was assigned to the 4 to 8 watch,
along with two Able Bodied Seamen. One of them was Herman J. Mathisen, who lived
in New Orleans. We became good friends, and he showed me a lot about Seamanship,
and Tankering . He had almost enough time in, and was ready to take the exam for a Third
Mate’s license, and I learned a lot from him, and we used to study together.
On 7 December 1941, things took a drastic change. As I was on the 4 to 8, I had the afternoon off, we were loading in Port Arthur TX, and I went to a matinee movie. Halfway through the movie, it stopped, the lights came on, and the manager came running out on the stage, saying that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, and all sailors were ordered back to their ships, and all soldiers to their bases. When I got back to the BYLES, the Boatswain had the crew mixing up all the paint aboard to make a Battleship Grey, and everyone started painting. We sailed for Bayonne, and by the time we got to Key West, all the superstructure was painted grey, instead of the peacetime color, Orange!
We of course knew of the War in Europe, and had talked to Seamen on English ships loading on docks with us. They had guns, 20 MM Oerlikons, 3 inch 50, and 5 inch 51 Naval rifles, and we expected that soon we would have them also. They also had vertical quick release Liferafts, the only chance to get away from a burning Tanker. When we got to Bayonne, we told the Officials that next trip back, we wanted vertical, quick release Liferafts to be installed. In early January, German U-Boats arrived off our East Coast. Grossadmiral Karl Doenitz , knowing that the U.S. Navy, had most of the Navy Ships in the Pacific, sent a U-Boat Force called “Paukenschlag” (“Drumbeat”) to our East Coast, where, at the time, they were able to sink almost 400 ships on the East and Gulf Coasts, and the Caribbean Sea, through November 1942, when the US Navy had built enough Destroyer Escorts, to form an interlocking Convoy System. That period was for German U-Boat Commanders, like shooting fish in a barrel, so much so that they termed it “Die Gluckliche Zeit” (The Happy Time).
We finally told the Tidewater Port Captain, that we would quit, next trip back to Bayonne if we didn’t get the Liferafts, as ships were being torpedoed along our route. On some Tankers everyone was burned to death, with no chance of getting away, if they hadn’t these Liferafts.
We
arrived back in early February, and a lot of men, as we had said, quit. I really
didn’t want to, but we had said that we would, and so I quit, along with
Herman Mathisen, and the other AB, on my watch. Herman told me that he had
already lined up another job, on a Ford Motor Co. ship, the LAKE OSWEYA, which
was in a shipyard in Brooklyn, being outfitted for Wartime duty, with Guns, and
Rafts, and USN Armed Guard Gunners, and on which his father, also Herman, was
the Boatswain. The U.S. Government had just taken over the ships of the Merchant
Marine, had the Steamship Co.s., Oil Co.s, and Public Utilities continue to
operate the ships, and man them. The crews were kept on civilian status, but
placed, as all Armed Forces, under the Universal Code of Military Justice,
subject to Courts Martial, and placed under the orders of the War Department.
This, after deliberation by Our Government, was adapted as the best program to
set in place. The US Government knew that an enormous amount of ships were
having to be built, and manned, both for the Regular Navy, and the Merchant
Marine. The Navy would have enough problems in this regard, and so Our
Government Formed a new division, called “The War Shipping Administration”.
The American Merchant Marine, on
Pearl Harbor Day, consisted of 55,000 men and women. Before the War was over,
that had increased to 250,000. The War Shipping Administration operated the
fleet, through the Companies, and it all worked out very well, and the fleet of
Merchant Ships increased to more than 5,000, including 2,700 of one class alone,
Liberty Ships, fast built in harbors and coves around this Country, a tribute to
the Ingenuity, Skill, and Patriotic Duty of the American People at large. No
other Country, or people, on the face of the Earth, could ever perform a feat
such as this, and no other one ever will, as long as the sun comes up in the
East, and sets in the West.
When
we left the BYLES, Herman went to his new ship the LAKE OSWEYA, at a shipyard in
Brooklyn, and I went home to Boston. A couple of days later, my friend Herman
called and said that his father, Herman
Mathisen, had asked the Chief Mate, about me taking an Ordinary Seaman’s
berth, as one was available, and that his son, the new AB, had said that I was a
good Seaman. The new U.S. War Shipping Administration was just in the process of
taking over the Merchant Marine, and the Ford Motor Company could still employ
Seamen for their vessels, and I was very pleased, as I had not been on a Freight
Vessel yet, only on Tankers. The Mate gave me the job, but I was told not to
report for duty for about two weeks, when the ship would be ready to sail. A few
days later, Herman called, and said that I could not have the berth, as the Mate
was giving it to a nephew. I left for New York the next day, and returned to
Tidewater Associated, and shipped out on the Tanker EDWARD L. SHEA. Herman
called my home in Boston, and said that the berth was open, and that I could
have the berth after all, but it was too late by then, I was already in New
York, and I didn’t call to home.
By
that time, a Second Pearl Harbor was taking place along our East Coast. There
were no U.S. Navy ships to Convoy us yet. The United States Coast Guard, God
Bless Them, with their little Cutters, did all that they could. They’d convoy
us NY to Delaware Bay, where we’d anchor overnight, then in the morning convoy
us to Chesapeake Bay, where we’d anchor for the night again. In the morning,
we’d heave the anchor, and proceed alone, individually, on our way, past Cape
Hatteras, down past Florida, and into the Gulf of Mexico. Off the Carolinas, on
a hazy day, some Tankers were blown up in a towering inferno, and we got by
because our Captain, who seemingly never slept, brought us along the beach, in
the Kelp, and I’ll never know how he did so, without our running aground! We
loaded, in Corpus Christi, a product called “Casing Head”, which was put
into gasoline to increase it’s octane. The crew said that if you threw a
bucket of it into the air, none of it would hit the deck. I didn’t believe
that, but it was very volatile! On the way North, an AB on my watch and I talked
the situation over, and we came to the conclusion, that we might have a better
chance to be alive when this War was over, if we left the Merchant Marine, and
joined the Army. Upon arriving in Bayonne, we both quit the SHEA, and went to
the Brooklyn Army Base, and signed up. As we were trained Seamen, we were
assigned to the United States Army Transport MERRIMACK, which they’d recently
acquired from a SS Co., Merchants & Miners Transportation Co. which used to
run from Norfolk to Boston. I had seen her many times, at the wharf where stands
today Anthony’s Pier 4 Restaurant. After about 2 weeks, in Newport News
Shipyard, as more extensive wartime renovations were to be
put in place, about half of the crew was transferred to other ships. I
was assigned to the USAT CLEM, an ex-Passenger ship.After a voyage in the
Caribbean Sea, we came to the New Orleans Port of Embarkation in the last of
June, 1942. One day, on liberty, I was walking up Canal Street, and bumped into
an Ordinary Seaman who had stayed on board the MERRIMACK. We went into a café,
and he told me a dreadful story. The MERRIMACK loaded a cargo for Army bases in
the Panama Canal Zone. She was sent out all alone, and when she was in the
Yucatan Channel, East of Cozumel Island, she was torpedoed. The engineers were
killed, the ship, in the little time available, kept steaming ahead, with the
bow going under the sea, and she developed a heavy starboard list, making it
hard to launch lifeboats. My
friend, and seven others were near the vertical Quick release liferaft on the
starboard quarter. They tripped it, and got away although the screw was still
turning, but they managed to get away from it. Out of a total crew of 55, (46
Army, and 9 U.S.Naval Armed Guard Gunners) only ten lived through it. The only
Armed Guard Gunner to live was pulled out of the water by the Seamen on the
Raft.
I
then took the street car to the address that I had of Herman Mathisen. I got to
the house, in a working class district, which was a “Shotgun” house, so
called as they were very narrow, and the doors, front to back, were arranged
such that they could be opened in hot weather, and a nice breeze would blow
through the house. I went up and knocked on the door, and a young girl, about
16, opened it, and I told her who I was. She grabbed me by the arm, and led me
to the kitchen, where her Mother was seated at the table, and
the girl told her who I was. Everybody started crying, including me, as I
knew that something was terribly wrong, and I had an idea of what it might be.
They had gotten a terse notation from the Navy that the LAKE OSWEYA had been
lost due to enemy action, and that Herman Mathisen, Boatswain, Husband and
Father, and Herman J. Mathisen, Able Bodied Seaman, Son and Brother, had lost
their lives.
I
continued with the Army, and after a year, I was discharged, and sent to the
Officer’s Candidate School in New London CT, at Fort Trumbull, the old Coast
Guard Academy. In December 1943, I graduated, and was assigned to a Liberty
Ship, The FISHER AMES, and I was on Liberty ships until the War ended. At Fort
Trumbull, many of my Division mates were former Merchant Seamen, who were
discharged from the Army and Navy, and sent to Fort Trumbull, the need for
Officers was so great, with so many new ships coming off the Ways.
After
the War, I continued at Sea until 1987. In 1983, a ship that I was on, the Bulk
Carrier MARINE ELECTRIC sank off the DelMarVa peninsula. An author, Robert
Frump, has written a book entitled “Until the Sea shall Free Them: Life,
Death, and Survival in the Merchant Marine”, which is scheduled to be
published on May 21st 2002 by Doubleday. He has a website, on Maritime Affairs www.webandwire.com.
He has posted some of the information which I have alluded to in this article,
including “Bob Cusick on WWII”, and “Bob Cusick after the War”, LAKE
OSWEYA, and “Cold Comfort”.
As
we know, the Internet spreads across the whole country, (and the world, for that
matter), and I recently have been contacted by two persons who had relatives
that perished on the LAKE OSWEYA. They had very little, bordering on “no”
information about what had happened. As I have an avocation for Naval, and
Maritime History, and I’m on line at rcusick@conknet.com.
these persons, through Bob Frump, were able to contact me, and I was able to
tell them something about the LAKE OSWEYA. One is a young US Navy Lieutenant at
the Navy War College, Peter Wagner, who’s Grandfather was the Third Assistant
Engineer on the Lake Osweya, and the second person is a man who just completed
26 years in Service to our Country, first in the Navy, and then in the Army. His
Grandfather Thomas O’Neal, was the Third Mate on the LAKE OSWEYA. Both of
these men, along with the whole 39 crew members ( 30 Merchant Service, and 9 USN
Armed Guard Gunners) where among those who
were lost.
As
I have an avocation of Naval and Maritime affairs and history in general, I was
able to provide some information as to the circumstances of these tragic events.
During WWII, secrecy prevailed in many spheres of the enemy activities, and it
continued for a long period of time in the post war era. In 1984, Captain Arthur
Moore, of Hallowell, Maine, recently retired from the sea. He was the Master of
an Exxon Tank Vessel, and the crew presented him with a copy of the 15 volume
set of Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison’s “History of United States Naval
Operations in World War II”. Captain Moore realized that no-one had ever
written a history, in like vein, of the United States Merchant Marine in World
War II, and he set out to do the research, and write one, which he did, and the
resulting effort produced a truly definitive history “ A Careless Word- A
Needless Sinking” It is an effort bringing Captain Moore the highest esteem,
and it is held in the highest regard by our government, our Armed Forces, and
all Veteran’s Organizations. Much of the information that I’ve ascertained
has come from Captain Moore’s effort.
I’ve had great benefit also, in this regard, from the two volume set by Clay
Blair “Hitler’s U-Boat War”, and by the compilation by the German
Historian Jurgen Rowher “Die U-Booterfolge der Achsenmachte 1939-1945” (
Axis Submarine Successes of World War Two), amongst others.
Up
unto 1984, 39 years after the end of WWII, I had no knowledge of what had
happened to the LAKE OSWEYA, other than what Mrs. Mathisen and her daughter had
told me, and of the USAT MERRIMACK, I knew only what the Ordinary Seaman that I
met in New Orleans had told me. Upon reading Captain Moore’s book, I was able
to find more, and disquieting details, and I was very disturbed, thinking about
my friend Herman Mathisen, and the shipmates that I had known, and who had
stayed on the MERRIMACK, and they come to my mind often, to this day.
We
come to the present days, and the wonders of our modern means of communication.
I got an e-mail from Lieutenant Wagner, and I was able to provide him with some
information on his Grandfather’s, ship, the LAKE OSWEYA, of which he was
the Third Assistant Engineer.
Recently
I received an e-mail, on my address , from
Daniel Hilbert, of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Dan has just retired, serving
his country for 26 years, at first in our Navy, and then in our Army. He
wrote,”I happened upon the Merchant Marine Veterans website, I read with
fascination as you described having almost shipped out on the LAKE OSWEYA, and
then finding out that it had been sunk, with some friends of yours on board. My
grandfather, William Thomas O’Neal, was the Third Mate on the LAKE OSWEYA when
she went down. I can still recall the sad little girl in my mother”s eyes,when
she would speak of missing her father, and never really knowing what happened to
him-and of always hoping (even as an adult) that he might come home again long
after being “lost”. Needless to say, it changed her life and the lives of my
grandmother, mother, and aunt.”
Daniel
Hilbert goes on to say that the family didn’t even know the name of the ship
until September 2001, when 3rd Mate O’Neal’s widow passed
away,Dan’s grandmother, and it was found in a box, along with some
genealogical stuff. Dan further says “ It sure would be a pleasure to find out
about my Grandfather, and the ship that he served on-and of course, of his final
hours on this earth. I have always held it near to my heart the feeling of
appreciation, and of being lucky, for the sacrifices that he, and so many others
of his era made. It made an easier, and/or more honorable go of my career, and
everyone else’s since then”.
On
20 February 1942, when the LAKE OSWEYA was torpedoed by the German U-Boat U-96,
and was lost with all hands, she was sailing alone, enroute from New York to
Halifax, Nova Scotia. That night
Mrs. O'Neal was at home with their two little girls, Patricia, aged three, and
Charlie, aged one . Other than the terse notification of her Husband’s death,
like so many others, she was not to have any other information. As a quirk of
fate, she was to pass away, in September 2001,without ever learning anything
further about her beloved Husband Tom. She eventually re-married, but as the
little girls grew up, to womanhood, and families of their own, she kept their
father’s memory alive in their minds, and told them about what a wonderful man
and father that he was, and of what a tremendous sense of humor that he had, and
of his love of the sea. Patricia, when grown, became
Mrs. Hilbert, and became the mother of Daniel Hilbert, who had a son, and
named him Thomas after his beloved Grandfather. And so Tom’s name, and memory,
lives on through the years, and beyond.
The
American Motorship LAKE OSWEYA set Sail from New York on or about 16 February
1942. She was built in Saganaw MI in 1918, of a class termed “Lakers”, for
the WWI war effort, and named for American Lakes.After WWII, at Massina NY, a
set of locks, the Eisenhower Locks, were built to enable large oceangoing
vessels to transit in and out of the Great Lakes. Up until that time, ships of
limited size only could transit from Lake Ontario to the Ocean, by using the
Lachine Rapids Route. This class of ships were constructed with a length of 251
feet, the maximum. Ford Motor Co. took her over, and somewhere along the line,
replaced the Steam Reciprocating engines with a Diesel Motor. She ran from
Detroit, River Rouge, to a Ford assembly plant in Norfolk VA. It must have been
a great run! After Pearl Harbor, the LAKE OSWEYA was taken over by the War
Shipping Administration, and became an Armed Merchant Vessel, fitted out in
Brooklyn as a War vessel, and had Gun emplacements, and a 9 man USN Armed Guard
Gun crew aboard. She sailed with a War Cargo, on or about 16 February 1942. She
was sent out all alone, as Destroyer Escorts were not available. Her orders were
to proceed to Halifax NS, and anchor in Bedford Basin, and from there to join a
Convoy bound for Iceland.
The
German Untersee-Boot U-96 had been on patrol off the Nova Scotia coast, without
much success, when he ran across An English ship of 7965 tonnes, the EMPIRE
SEAL, and sunk her in Lat 43-14N Lo 64-45W, and later ran across the LAKE OSWEYA,
2398 tonnes, and torpedoed her, in La 43-14N Lo 64-45W.
Three days later, in the same vicinity, the U-96 sank the little
Norwegian ship TORUNGEN, 1948 Tonnes, and
the British ship KARS, 8888 tonnes. The U-96 then headed for homeport on the
French Atlantic Coast, where Kapitanleutnant
Heinrich Lehmans-Willenbrock, her Commander, was assigned to a shore billet, as
a Flotilla Commander. He lived throughout the War, and afterwards became a
Captain in the Deutche Handelsmarine (German Merchant Marine) on the run from
Germany to South America. He passed away in 1984. It was reported that he did
not allow political discussion about Naziism on board his ship. On a previous
patrol he had as an Officer, Lothar-Gunther Buchheim, who after the War, in
1973, wrote a book called “Das Boot”, which was made into a TV series, and
later a movie, called “The Boat”. Buchheim modeled the U-96, and it’s
Commander, Lehmans-Willenbrock, as models for his book and Movie. The U-96 did
not sail very much thereafter this voyage, and just before the war ended in
Europe, on 30 March 1945, she was sunk by U.S. Army aircraft, in Willemshafen,
maybe at the dock, with an indeterminate number ( if any) casualties. The total
crew of the LAKE OSWEYA all lost, was 39 men, 30 in the Merchant Marine crew,
and 9 in the USN Armed Guard Gunners contingent. I imagine that they were mostly
young men many on their 1st trip to sea, and I think that she was the
first Merchant Marine ship on which a USNavy Armed Guard crew also lost their
lives. They didn’t have much of a chance, no Convoy, no escort vessels, and a
silent well- trained killer vessel beneath the sea . As the War progressed,
these men, the Armed Guard Gunners, and their merchant seamen brothers in arms,
took a tremendious toll on the Enemy Forces,
sinking Enemy Subs, Surface Raiders and shooting down Enemy Aircraft, both on
long passages, and in countless invasions in every theatre of War.
The
British crew on the MS EMPIRE SEAL had seen the LAKE OSWEYA shortly before she
herself was torpedoed. After being attacked, the EMPIRE SEAL’s crew members
heard an explosion in the distance. The LAKE OSWEYA and it’s crew were never
seen or heard from again.
I,
myself can identify with what the Crew of the LAKE OSWEYA, went through, as they
met their Maker, having had a similar experience in cold water, the difference
being that I was saved, near my final moments of Life,
by the Bravest of the Brave, the crew of the United States Coast Guard
Helicopter 1471, and the US Navy Rescue Swimmer James McCann, whose actions
resulted in The US Coast Guard promulgating their program of Rescue Swimmers,
which has, in the intervening time since this tragedy, caused untold numbers of
lives to be saved , which otherwise surely would have been lost. For those who
would like to comprehend what the final, or near final moments, are like for a person
drowning at sea, have only to study the description written by Robert Frump in
the insightful passages of his book, “Until The Sea Shall Free Them”.
The
United States Army Transport MERRIMACK, was in the same situation on the evening
of 9 June 1942 as any ship sailing under the aegis of the US War Shipping
Administration, as she was slipping along through the Yucatan Channel, off Isla
Cozumel. In fact she was worse off to withstand the ravages of being torpedoed
than newer and larger ships. She was a small vessel,
built in Duluth MN in 1920 as the LAKE FLORIS. After WWI, only 251 feet
long, a sister ship to the LAKE OSWEYA, A coastal Company, Merchant and Miners
Transportation Co., bought her, and ran her from Norfolk to Boston.
She was 21 years old, had been through the mill, after all those years
banging along in the coastal trade. Her crew of seamen and gunners were on
guard, on the starry summer’s night. If they had had any chance, they would
have, as following their orders, fought until the very end to save their ship
and it’s cargo. But without, in those early days, any form of aid, or escort
vessels, or air cover. This came to pass in the months ahead, when this German
“Turkey Shoot” came to a virtual end, and the US Navy had built a great
number of Destroyer Escort vessels. Lurking ahead of them was one of the most
efficient U-Boat Commanders Kapitanleutnant Harald Gelhaus, aboard the U-107. He
had an impressive record since Great Britain’s entry into war in 1939. He was
just finishing up his patrol in the Caribbean Sea in Operation “Neuland”
(New Territory). He shot a torpedo into the MERRIMACK, which hit into the
starboard side forward, in way of #2 hold. With engineers killed, and the engine
running, and with a 20 degree starboard list, the ship was going down by the
head, steaming herself under the waves. The crew got off the Port lifeboat ( the
Starboard boat had been destroyed in the explosion). When #2 lifeboat got away,
it was sucked in to the still-turning screw, and all aboard it were killed. My friend, who I met a couple of weeks after the MERRIMACK
was sunk , on Canal Street in New Orleans, who had stayed on the MERRIMACK, when
I transferred, told me about how they tripped the liferaft on the starboard
quarter, and got away, escaping the wash of the screw. On a ship underway, the
wash on the port side sucks objects into it, whereas it pushes objects away, on
the starboard side. They then picked up the only survivor of the USN Armed Guard
Gunners detachment. The vessels compliment was 53 (44 Army, and 9 USN).
43 total men were lost. Six days later , they were spotted by a PBY
patrol plane, who called the USS BORIE-DD 215, who rescued them.
The
U-107, under a new Commander, Karl-Heinz Fritz, on 18 August 1944, met an
untimely end, as the Allies were approaching the U-Boat base at La Rochelle,
France, when, escaping, she was caught by a British Sunderland bomber, who
spotted her periscope’s wake, dropped 6 depth charges on the unfortunate
U-boat, which were thought to break the U-boat in half, and she went down with
the loss of her entire crew.
Even
today, 60 years later, new information comes to light.
I just got an e-mail from a fellow, Robert Annal,
whose brother, George, was
one of the fortunate survivors from the MERRIMACK. He was on the liferaft with
my friend, who I ran into in New Orleans. He was transferred to an Engineers
division, in England. As time went on, he like so many Army and Navy men, who
had previous service in the Merchant Marine, and who had the qualifications for
Merchant Marine Officer Status, including myself, were discharged and sent to
Fort Trumbull, so great was the need for officers in the expanding Merchant
Marine. As far as George Annal goes, when I was two weeks on the MERRIMACK, he
was not yet on board, as he joined the ship in New Orleans Port of Embarkation,
where the ship loaded her cargo for the Panama Canal Zone. He came from
Auburndale MA, near Boston, where before the war, I used to go dancing to name
bands, at the Totem Pole. When he returned to the US from England, he moved to
Barstow CA, where he had an auto shop. He passed away in 1980, at age 64.
As
one thing seems to connect one thing to another, where ships are concerned,
persons who may find of interest these aspects of WWII, should read of what to
my mind is one of the greatest stories to come out of WWII.
The
USS BORIE, who saved the men on the liferaft of the USAT MERRIMACK, was a WWI
vintage destroyer, which had been mothballed in the period between the Wars, and
was broken out for service in the US Navy, after the Pearl Harbor attack, and
was on patrol in the Caribbean, out of Cristobal. Later in the war, the ship was
with an escort Carrier group, hunting down U-Boats in the North Central North
Atlantic. She came across a German Submarine, and in a fierce battle, ended up
ramming the U-boat, and ended up, in a heavy sea, straddling the deck of the
U-boat. The Sub sank with all hands lost, but unfortunatly, the USS BORIE sank
herself, with the death of a great many American Navy men.
Somewhere,
all across this Great Land of ours, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from
the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, relatives and loved ones of all the
Seamen, of these related Armed
Services, Whether it be the Army seamen, The Merchant Marine seamen, or the USN
Armed Guard Gunnery sailors, have a spark kindled from time to time, in thankful
Remembrance of what they stood for, in attendance to their Duty, to keep America
the Beacon of Freedom that we are to this day. The Sea washed over them, but
they are not gone forever, and they shall never, ever, be forgotten.
Robert M. Cusick
.