The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-06-23
U. s. NAVY IS 1 CONVOY TOSHIPS
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heavy sea, buck like broncos,
 Our convoy of 17 ships had been forming for several days in (Blank) Harbor and about 5 a. m. we started moving. It is a serious process to get O convoy out of harbor and at T:50 a. m. were just three miles out and the ships were get ting into position, in column of twos, At about that time, one of the ships blew up with a tremen- dous blast. Debris went up about 100 feet and column of water about 75 feet. Within one minute she had settled forward and two minutes later capSized. She had a beam of 63 feet and was in water 6l feet deep. Hence she lay on her side.
 We picked up IA survivors from the sea and took IA from a mine sweeper which was sunk about an hour later. The survivors were chilled and shocked.
 During this, we damaged our pro- pellor and the radio ordered us back to shore but we were too busy to listen to the radio.
 All Agreed on Mine
 Everyone agreed that 1t had been a mine. Another vessel had picked up l2 mines during the night. A few were contact and a few were magnetic mines.
 The excitement had just died down when there was another exS ploSion and the ensign cried out: 'They got the x x x x" (another boat like ours). But she had merely dropped depth charge and came Into view again when the resultant column of water subsided.
 Our cook, 0 second class seaman vas good cook. When he yelled schow,s down" at about p. m.- two hours later-we found a beef roast, hot biscuits, boiled potatoes, lettuce and tomato salad, coffee, green beans, peas and carrots, and fresh fruit, plus cookies, jellies, marmalades, jams, honey, preserves, pickles and olives.
 We had one meal during rough weather. The plates slid from one side of the table to the other. The coffee sloshed out of the cups Food bounced of the table. Every man held on with one hand while eat- Ing with the other.
 The crew thought 1t funny. one bounced from a lower bunk to an upper one on the other side of the forecastie six feet. :.
 At 2:30 p. m. the ensign sighted sonnethinr and yelled torpedo wake off the starboard bow" and fired the signal. We circled at full speed and dropped four depth charges. But 1t wasn't a torpedo but a whale. Hundreds of dead hsh came to the surface.
 "We arrived off port at Dawn The little cutter was low on water, food and gasoline and needed four new depth charges. We sailed Tor four hours up and down the har- bora deathly still harbor--looking for a place to refuel. The army let us tie up at Its dock and gave up 1000 gallons of 70 octane gas-we burned 84 octane. But few had to get fresh water from a fishing dock and stores from an A & F in town The navy wouldn't supply us with a station wagon to get supplies and the ensign and l had to hitch hike into town on an army truck to borrow a Coast Guard truck. Own Mine Field
 Finally we tied up to another ghip at the Coast Guard base ana < learned then we had been sailing over e harbor mine field for four hours: that some army mines had broken loose and that submarines had laid three-foot contact mines. The harbor had been closed to all traflc.
 During all this time we were for gotten men. Finally we had to radio she naval operating base for orders. when the orders came they were In c0de-and the patrol boats had no code books for that particular code. The orders were repeated in another code the commanding officer couldn't declpher and we had to go out over the minefield again to trawler to see # they could decode 1t. The mes- eaRe was to virtually all coast guard boats and navy boats up and down fhe coast. It was in aviation code, the ensign discovered hours later. NO one else had cracked 1t and he wne virtually accused of espionage s6r having it decoded. Then t de- eeloped everyone carried thei ayia- zlnn cado but were not supposed to sa Y axnent when eiRnalinR planes.