Brooklyn (CL 40) - Naval Cruise Book

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' 90 DA Y W0 DERS PREFACE Somehow this salvo of shells had a different .sound from the others dropping in the water around our ship. We knew it was going to hit. It had been fired by the French cruiser Primauguet as she tried to come out of Casablanca Harbor with nine other French cruisers and destroyers. One shell smashed into the five-inch gunmount just below where I stood on the brid e, throwing the Marines around in a.red sickening mess. Tlre shell hit the deck at an angle, up into the side of the heavily armored coding room, kept gfllllg up past me so I, could almost touch it, and fell out into the water. It didn't explode. The date was November 8, 1942. I found this amongst notes, misplaced for many years, that I had written during my World War II Navy days. As I read through the notes that spanned over five and a half years, I relived the good feeling of patriotism, pr1de.of country and fighting a war for a cause we believed in with a whole country behind us. How different this is than the dilemma of my sons and all the teenage youth, plus their fagmilies, as they live through the era of an unpopular war to ay. No one can ever be glad there was a war in their life, but at this moment I am most thankful whoever arranges the whole scheme of who is to be born into whichtfaeriod of time, chose to put me where I was. It was goo to grow up with love of country and no doubt that you lived in the greatest in the world. That you were willing to fight for your country didn't make you odd because most of all those about you shared your feelings. I read through all the notes. Five and one half years is a lot of people, a lot of places and it was a time of world changing events. Everybody in the service bitches and going home is the constant uppermost thought. But now that I quietly go over these violent events, the many ocean trips, the far away places, the people and the victory, I more than ever realize I was priviledged to have had this experience with the right attitude and at the right age to be most effective. I didn't do a very ood job of helping my sons and their teenage friends in deciding how they should react to each one's approaching personal decision date on Vietnam. I thought I was really getting to them with, If your Country is worth living in, it is worth fighting for. These could be the most interesting and rewarding years of your lives, etc. I must be pretty thick. It took me months to realize what generation gap meant. They didn't know what I was talking about because they were in a different era with different situations. I was a real square to them and didn't understand their problems. It wasn't until I found and read these notes that I had a return of that feeling of pride in where I had been and what we had done. I used the term U90 Day Wonders on the teenagers and they only figured I certainly must be a wonder of some kind. , There are a lot of names and people included in the notes. I've lost track of them all. We shared this experience together and I feel like writing a letter to them all saying, Hi, you still there? Remember when we did this? I've never seen much written about the Amphibious Force as we knew it. The force that must have done a good job because we ended up on the winning side. I was in it from the beginning and am proud to have been a part of it. I feel like writing it down in hopes of sharing it with many of my generation that were there. I'm not really doing this to get around my inability to talk a convincing story to troubled teenagers. But as I read my notes and look at them, I feel that but for the chance of birth dates, they could have been me and I could have been them. Pm glad I drew the hand I did and maybe some of them would like to read this just to see what life was like with father. A , Pm going to start writing. It's a true story of evllglnltliyplaces, dates and people. All true. Chapter I APPRENTICE SEAMAN TO MIDSHIPMAN TO ENSIGN 90 DAYS PLUS It all started as I graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1940. Here again, I was really proud of my school, its academic standing and the football teams. Now it is still a fine school, but mostly publicized as demonstration center of anti-anti. Mainly Anti Vietnam War. I had worked my way through college as a playground director for the neighboring city of Oakland and counselor in Oakland's summer camp at Feather River. Three of my fellow playground directors and I had planned a trip on bicycles down through Mexico, the Panama Canal and on into South America.. We had all the equipment and even went to a doctor and got shots. After graduation, one after another, all three of them backed out of the trip. I was left with my shots and nowhere to go. President Roosevelt made a request that was put out on the radio for college men to take a trip to Cuba with the Navy. The next day I got another playground director, Leroy McCormick, to take a ride at lunch time to San Francisco Navy Recruiting Office. They admitted they didn't know much about it, but said they would get all information for us. In the meantime, the chief said, As long as you are here, why don't you take a physical and see if you can pass. After spending more time than I had intended, including signing some things for the chief, we were on our way back to Oakland and I told Leroy I had had a funny feeling we had joined the Navy. We weren't to be civilians again for five and one half years. I never did ask Leroy if he was mad at me. Within days we had orders to come with the clothes we would wear, plus a pair of black shoes, to the Railroad Station in Oakland. We said goodbye to some bewildered parents and the train roamed all over the country picking up other college men and we knew the train's final destination was New York. I don't think anyone on the train had ever been to New York. before and we were ea erly looking forward to seeing the sights. The tunnel into grand Central Station, transfer to a subway and up to 135 Street, and the Hudson River, and onto the floating houseboat USS Illinois was exciting but not exactly New York sightseeing as we had planned- The Battleship USS Wyoming was anchored outside the Illinois waiting for us. Over 600 strong, we went aboard with the lowest rate, apprentice seaman, of anyone on board. We Were given white sailor suits, bellbottom pants and Illlfldy t0PS, and we were given hammocks. One of the other things We were given that afternoon were shots. I stood up tothe sailor in the sickbay after waiting in line to ask my question, I just had these shots for a trip to South America, does tllatfnake any dlfference? The sailor handlin the needle didn t even have time to get out the words, I cIon't know, before he had the shot in my arm. glue day we were on the train in civilian clothes. The next ay we were in sailor suits, out the New York Harbor and 4...1nd

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Engagement Party given by Grace Dalzell in New York December 1942 for Lieutenant Ray WASARHALEY and bride to be Regina, center front row. They were introduced in the Wardroom in BROOKLYN by Father O'Leary and were married by him 1 January 1943. Others in the front row, Lt. D. Liane, and Lt. C. Wickham, second row, Lt. F.K. Coss, USMC, Lt. F. Cuccias, Ens. H. Green. back row, 5th from left is Lt. F.T. O'Leary. We are sorry not to be able to identify the others. 1 January 1943, St. Patricks Cathedral in New York. Ray WASARHALEY, new wife Regina, Father O'Leary. ii ill i i f,M 9

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on our way to Cuba. The hijinx that night trying to sling the hammocks and get into them was a lot of laughs but not much sleep. Most of us quit trying and just put the gear in a corner and slept on it. Next morning was something. Didn't seem possible they brought this big battleship and us all that way just to have some ex-civilians clean up the deck. But that morning, and every other morning, the routine was the same. Up at the crack of dawn, eat some strange mixtures for breakfast, holystoning that deck. We were the lowest rank on board and everyone got into the act of giving us orders. Holystone means taking a stone shaped like a brick with an indentation in the top. You place a stick like a small broom handle inthe indentation and learn how to move it back and forth on the deck. Some holystoned, some used brooms and suds and some used salt water hoses to wash down. But all we did was clean the huge deck. After a while we took pride in how clean it looked. There wasn't much to make it dirty and still we had to clean the whole thing the next morning and every morning. It got to be fun as we went further South and the weather was hot and humid. Didn't mind gettin cooled off with the salt water hoses as we played arouncl washing down the cool thick teakwood planking of the deck. The trip went fast and we were getting ready to anchor in the harbor at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The regular crew had duty one day and one day off for liberty, but we were pretty free to go ashore every day. Our activities were confined to the Naval Base, baseball, football and swimming, plus beer in the ship service store and soon it was time to leave. The trip to Cuba was really just an incentive to attract us to where we were. I don't really know at what point I understood exactly what I was to do after the cruise to Cuba and I'd like to think all the others were as unclear as I was. On the way back to New York there were serious meetings where the whole thing was explained to us. The USS Illinois was being fitted out as a school. On a volunteer basis they wanted us to go to that school and in 3 months Q90 daysl they would cram the best part of the last 2 years of Annapolis into us. I don't remember any discussion of what was to happen after the three months. Of the 600, a little over 300 of us volunteered. The others were free to go home. We sailed into New York and up to the Illinois. Before the day was over we said goodbye to those going home, were Eromoted to midshipman, fitted for new uniforms, issued ooks and assigned a bunk. I was in an upper bunk and I remember sitting up there watching the boys set up the table for dinner. I could fall out of my bunk onto the table. Work got started in a hurry. Day started with an early reveille over the loud speaker, also right next to my bunk. After one day I saw it was to take some planning to get into the head and washroom, shave, etc. and get to breakfast in time to eat and on time for formation before the first class. Rules said you couldn't get up before reveille. At the first sound out of the loudspeaker, I took my shaving kit in my teeth, reached out with both hands on the pipe over my bunk, swung out and down with my legs moving toward the washroom before I reached the deck. There was a line already at each sink, so I went in a shower and shaved under the shower. After the first day of this there were lines of iuys with kits in hand outside each shower, but I seemed to e able to get in one first. A near tragedy happened a few months later when it started to get cold in New York. They sent steam through that pipe one night and I badly burned both hands before I could let go. Almost had to quit the school, but managed to write enough to get by. The 90 days were mainly concentrated school work. We learned the Navy system of grading - 2.5 was passing, 4.0 was perfect. We lived to stay above 2.5. In the end, 264 of us made it. There was a little time off. The World's Fair was in New York and we made several visits. Sally Rand had a farm of some kind there. One of the most wicked descriptions of goings on about New York in our spare time had to do with Woodstock, New York. It was an artist colony. I'm not sure any of us knew exactly what that meant, but we sure blew it up in our imagination. We were to have one overnight liberty and the plans were carefully laid. 0ne middy managed to get a car and we took off about 8:00 P.M. It was the cold part of the year now and when we got to Woodstock, a real bunch of eager beavers, we went into the first' bar we found to get directions to the - whatever it was we thought we would find. The bartender was rather kind in the way he handled six fellows in uniform who he thought were nuts to leave New York City to come to Woodstock at this time of the year for action. He even explained thatwhat most artists did was paint. And so we drove back to New York City. The 90 days were going fast. We learned there was to be a big graduation with the Secretary of Navy, radio and newsreel coverage. We also found out there was to be a graduation ball at the Astor Hotel and this meant dates. We really hadn't had too much time to spend on girls and not many liberties left to do something about it. Many of the fellows hadn't gotten much farther than the places around 135 Street and those who got to New York City hadn't concentrated on the better places. All ended up with dates for the Ball and some of them were really something to see. I was lucky. I was friends with a midshipman from New York City and he had a get-together at the Van Sand's fhis mother'sl apartment. I met a very lovely girl there just staring a career in New York and she agreed to be my date. Louise and I became good friends and I later visited her and her family in Pennsylvania. I remember the time about a year after that when I got a letter telling of her wedding. The graduation was very impressive. We had gone through all the bargaining of various uniform makers calling at the ship to convince us theirs was the best deal and we should spend our uniform allowance money with them. We graduated in Midshipman uniforms, threw our hats in the air and then it was true - we could put on the uniform of an ensign in the U.S. Navy and truly became the first 90 Day Wonders. There were many to follow, but New York hadn't seen many Ensigns around in uniform in November of 1940. I was looking forward to my date and it didn't bother me much when I stood in front of the Barbazon Hotel for Women in my spanking new bridge coat with the epaulettes on the shoulders and four separate people mistook me for the doorman. It was great after the Ball when still flushed with the pride of having the loveliest girl there, I took her to the Stork Club and had Sherman Billingsly personally bring over a bucket with a bottle of champagne in it. In the final days on the USS Illinois, when it became clear who would graduate, we were let in on what might be in store for us next. The offer was very fair with no pressure. We could go home with the commission or we could volunteer to spend a year with a ship of the U.S. Fleet. Of the 300 that started school on the USS Illinois, 264 graduated, 60 wanted to go home and 204 of us asked to go to the fleet for one year. They drew for the ship assignments and must have done it alphabetically because 5 of us W's, Wasarhaley, Wickham, Wilson, Washburn and Wakefield, were assigned to the cruiser USS Brooklyn then operating out of Long Beach, California. We called United Air Lines and a young fellow came out to talk to us. There were 9 of us that wanted to fly to California and we wanted to know if United would give us any deal. He made it a really good deal. There were three stops on a flight to California in those days and at each. stop were reporters, cameramen, the works. A story and