Luck of the Draw
At the conclusion of our service school for
refrigeration at the Carrier
Corporation in Syracuse, New York, we had a
drawing from the Chief's hat for our new ship assignments. I
drew the troop transport "American Legend" in San
Francisco. Another classmate came up to me and asked
me
to trade assignments because he had a close friend on that ship. The
Chief said it was okay because our orders would not be
prepared to the next day. I didn't know if I had
made a mistake giving up my draw but the shipyard in
Tampa's warm sunshine really swayed my decision. I hoped
that the USS Yosemite would carry me through WWII.
The following morning, all 30 of us machinists mates
said our good-bye's and got our orders. Within
twenty-four hours I left Syracuse in the middle of a
blinding snowstorm. The next big stop was when the
train pulled into New York's City's Grand Central
Station. I was really lost. When I finally found my
train, it was about to leave, eight tracks away in a
mass of sailors, soldiers and relatives. I got aboard
and was advised that no seats were available. The
conductor said to about six of us in the same
situation, "You sailors stay put, and I'll see what I
can do". After about ten minutes he returned and said
that there was a vacancy in a club car. Wow, a club
car! This was traveling first class; private quarters. I had a great trip,
arriving in Tampa the following morning. I took a cab to the shipyard
office and the Navy gave me a bunk in the barracks
with some of the USS Serria AD-18 crew. The next morning,
I reported to Yosemite Headquarters and they wanted to
know what I was going to do. The ship was not ready
for a crew. Finally I was given a twenty-four hour gate pass
from and to the Navy Yard and assigned as an office
orderly, another name for a Beetle Bailey. My job was
to open
the mail, clean toilets, sort records, sweep
floors and run errands. On most days I started at 8:00 AM
and was done by 11:00 AM. One day they told me to go over and
see how the Yosemite was coming along.
First View Of The Yosemite
After being relieved of my morning duty at the office,
I walked through the gates with my pass in hand and into the
shipyard where the Yosemite was under construction. I
couldn't believe how BIG she looked and wondered how
in the world could they have her ready to go "down the
ways" by May. Only the hull and the ship's big cranes
looked anything like being ready. Smoke, noise and an
endless trail of people and parts were going up and down the
gangways.
The Serria was nearby and looked almost ready. I
hadn't gone aboard the Yosemite but I was sure it would be a mess.
Most of the steel plates I could see were rusted, hoses from the
dock spurted steam and everything look in disarray. Wow! |
