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PAGE 5
Mr. Nichols:
Mr. Kenney:
Mr. Nichols:
Mr. Kenney:
Mr. Nichols:
Mr. Kenney:
Mr. Nichols:
Mr. Kenney:
Mr. Nichols:
Mr. Kenney:
Mr. Nichols:
Mr. Kenney:
Did you have ice cream?
Just a short time out of port. After that, we didn't have it anymore.
I think some of your big ships, aircraft carriers and what have you, had ice cream machines on
them.
No, we didn't have that back then. But, we did have it sometimes, like, two, or there days out
of port where they had the room to store it. Of course, for the Merchant Marines, were getting
paid; they would sign on for a ship and the galley made, they had a coffee break around nine-
thirty and another one again in the afternoon. They had fresh pastry products, cinnamon rolls
and cookies and pies and things like that. What ever they made for them, they gave the Navy a
portion of it. Really, it was very good. Let me just say that the duty was so good, that I went
up for first class and a fellow came down and he said, "Are you going up for first?" And I said,
"Yeah." And he said, "They're sending all firsts to the fleet." I went back to my ship. I didn't
go up for first. That little bit of pay was not worth changing my living conditions.
After you got through the canal with your tanker, were you accompanied by any Navy vessels?
We traveled by ourselves. The only time we had other things was if we went in a convoy, which
was not too often. Once in a while they would put you in a convoy if we were going into a
pretty dangerous area. Then we had little destroyer escorts and things like that. But, other than
that, we always traveled by ourselves.
Did they have submarine lookouts on the ship?
Twenty-four hours a day. That's what the Navy did. We stood watches and manned the guns
and did all the signal work. Yeah.
Did you actually get attacked by any Japanese submarines?
We had a submarine surface on us in the Caribbean but, of course, they were on top charging
the batteries and we saw them and went to general alarm and they went down right away. We
started zig-zaging and running the ship at full speed for awhile. When we got into a port where
we were going to load oil, the Navy intelligence came aboard and asked us about it. It was my
understanding that they knew the submarine was there. It was out of tubes and everything,
torpedoes, they knew it was there and just waiting for it.
A German submarine, probably?
I imagine. So they would finally have to wait and give up, or just die down there, you know?
That's the only submarine we had. We had some calls out in the Pacific but, sometimes they
were false. A porpoise, swimming real fast at your ship at nighttime, looks like a torpedo.
They will just go to general alarm and you see the phosphorus coming up and as soon as they
get to the ship, you know, they'll turn and so, we had some alarms but, we didn't get in any
battles. We didn't get into any battles until we got to Okinawa.