Topeka (CL 67) - Naval Cruise Book

Page 75 text:

, . , , v - ., The Cobbler Plies His Ancient Trade . . . W W ,,.:af' 1S41Z fl V311 Q' M . X Payday . . and Never a Miss, W01'king for Uncle Sam . .

Page 74 text:

II An Admiral entertained at one of the wardroom parti6S remarked that a good ship is always a hard working and hard playing ship. And he went on to say that he knew that the Topeka was just that. We can take that for an out- line for the rest of our story and show the men of the Topeka hard at work and hard at play. Work, of course, was our chief occupation. It all started months before and continued at Newport and Quincy where the men were given additional training. Most of them were called on to learn new techniques and to develop utterly new skills. They attended schools morning, noon and night at Newport, while the men at Quincy swarmed the ship learn- ing her mechanical innerds while she was being built. The first days were hectic and chaotic, though the Navy with its usual efficiency had injected a semblance of order that was gradually to be fully realized in a comparativel'y short time. Urgency marked every single effort. The times were urgent with the incompatibles, speed and thoroughness, re- quired of everything and everyone. The stor.y of the crew really began as early as the spring of 1944- when the first ofiicers and men reported for duty at the Quincy yard. At that time some of the men who were to become members of the crew were far in the Pacific desperately fighting a very determined, strong, and far from beaten foe. Others were at death grips with the European enemy on the Atlan- tic and inthe Mediterranean. They were brightening days but still dark enough to be disquieting to any but the in- different. Most of the men, and we mean by that about eighty per cent of them, were still in school or engaged in their civilian occupations. By the time the ship was launched in August they were in the throes of boot training being hard- ened, trained, and shuffled for their naval careers. The ship was commissioned in December, and the crew that was not in lVla'y, that was so many unrelated and in- experienced boots in August, and was in parts scattered all over the world even as late as September and October, was integrated and ready at least to sail the ship when it went aboard to take over for the Navy on the day of commission- ing at the Boston Navy Yard. It was an amazing feat of training and organization that warrants oceans of praise for the men of the Navy who had persevered against most dis- heartening odds and downright ignominy and disapproba- tion during the hectic decades of the twenties and thirties. The cry for ships and men came from the Pacific in an ever increasing crescendo. By the first of the year, 19415, the Naval leaders smelling victory and as eager for it as a hound dog after rabbits were planning the daring Naval strategy that was to pound the Japanese to submission not more than seven and a half months later. But in the ofiing were Iwo Jima and Okinawa which called for everything the Navy had and could muster. The officers and men of the Topeka knew that they were racing against time and victory. There was the urge to get there, an urge that be- came intense as time went on. There was a great new American Navy in the Pacific, greater than the world had ever seen before. It was a real- - ..,. ffm, , the dreams of littler people, and it was still ity beyond I . th increasing acceleration. What a disheartening growing wi sight to a treacherous foe who thought they had left our Navy an irrecoverable wreck in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor! But the American Navy never was her ships, hulks of steel that can be shattered, burned, and sunk, but her men and their indomitable spirits, and their soaring dreams. After the commissioning the men of the Topeka worked with zeal and a will to make her good enough for a place in the great Pacific fleet that by its prowess, daring, and courage had already indelibly insc.ribed its name in glory on the pages of Naval warfare. But the goal so consumately to be desired was not easy to win. There would be test after test and trial upon trial that would call for perfection of performance of all departments which the oflicers and men knew they were not then capable of giving. The race began as soon as the men went aboard on a cold bleak New England winter's day that by the calendar was December 23, 1944. Only men of experience and vision could see this ship and crew ready to take its place with veterans in battle action within six months. But that is the record that was made, and let it be said that the Topeka was not the only American fighting ship to make such a record. But that she was among those that did will bea matter of great pride to every man who helped her do it, and those who will serve in her so long as she remains an active ship of the United States Navy. The work involved in this enormous task was prodigious. The engineering department with its divisions and sub- divisions was best prepared at the start to take over its duties. At least they were able to steam the ship within several days after the commissioning. That was due to the fact that many of the leading men of the department had been at Quincy while the ship was under construction and had had the opportunity of living with the equipment daily as it was installed. Even so there was little experience in operating such a gigantic and intricate plant-engines that would develop more than 110,000 horsepower under steam pressures and temperatures that most of the men had never heard of let alone handled. There were innumerable valves, switches, and throttles that had to be knowingly and carefully ma- nipulated. There were giant generators, producing up to 4110 volts of electricity that ran hundreds of motors fed by an intricate pattern of wires that were strung along bulk- heads and decks, an automatic telephone system and various other ship's communication systems, to be operated and maintained in efficient operating condition. Then there were the gyro-compasses and steering mechanisms, the lighting system, and many other things like the Ventilating system, fans, and water plant, too numerous to mention. All of this equipment, absolutely necessary to the life of the men and the efficient operation of the ship, depended for value on the ability of certain men to run and maintain it, men who five and six months before were in school, on farms, in offices and factories, doing anything and everything but running ships. And they did itl Again and again in these pages we will sing that refrain. They did it! 70

Page 76 text:

'V W ,,, 5:3 W.. an W f 5' J Sv Y 7 sw -ZCEGQ llzmmmse .s S They did it in the engineering department and in every other department, the supply department, the gunnery de- partment, the C. and R. department, the navigation, the communications, and the medical departments. Men in the supply department worked day and night ac- cumulating, transporting, taking aboard, and stowing, cata- loging and inventorying, the things the men and the ship would require for months to come. There were materials, tools and parts for the shipfitters, carpenters, electricians, evaporator men, construction and repair men of the hull department, the aviation unit with its three planes, the radio, radar, and telephone specialists, supplies for the laundry, the stores, the soda fountain, the barber shop, cobbler's shop, tailor's shop, the bakery, and the six galleys. Then there were the office supplies and print shop requirements, paper, ink, staples, cutters, typewriters, pens, pencils, clips, erasers, sponges, etc, etc ad infinitim. The supply department is operational as well as acquisi- tive. It is the accounting, pay, and banking department with its depository, trusts, allotments, claims, and foreign exchange divisions. It operated the six galleys in which a mountain of food was cooked three times a day to feed a city of ravenously hungry officers and men. It baked the bread, pies, cakes, rolls, and cookies that the men con- sumed by the tons daily. It mended their shoes in the cob- bler shop, pressed their clothes in the tailor shop, cut their hair in the barber shop, made their ice cream and served them sodas and cokes at the ugedunk standv, washed and ironed their clothes in the laundry, sold them cigarettes, cigars, candy, writing paper, fountain pens, soap, razors and razor blades, jewelery, tooth brushes and paste, in the ships store, and shoes, socks, underwear, caps, suits, hand- kerchiefs, in the small stores. If the Army travels on its stomach, the Navy floats on its. The food supply for thirty days on the Topeka amounted to 90 tons. When Turkey crowned the menu for one meal the cooks prepared half a ton of the holiday birds. With that would be consumed half a ton of potatoes, and '70 gal- lons of ice cream. The food bill for the men of the Topeka was more than a quarter of a million dollars a year. So far as the stores were concerned it was entirely a buy- ers market. In an average month the crew bought 32,000 packs of cigarettes, 19,000 cigars, 25,000 candy bars, and nearly 82,000 worth of ice cream and cokes. The men of the navigation department handled the actual operation of the ship underway, necessitating a high order of proficiency and alertness. The careful use of instruments and new skills had to be mastered by 'continual study and practice. K Men of the deck divisions doubled in gunnery and sea- manship. The ship existed and operated to shoot its guns with deadly accuracy. Not only the life of our ship depend- ed on the accuracy of our gunners, but in this modern air war where we operated primarily as protectors of our great air craft carriers, their safety as well. Long periods of op- erating at sea called for many frequent refueling and re- supplying details at sea which required seamanship of the' highest order. While everything was running quite normally for war time operations men of the C and R department, under the direction of the First Lieutenant, had to be ready for any emergency such as fire, hits by shells, torpedoes, and kama- kazis, or magazine explosions, and a thousand and one things that can happen to a ship in action that would jeopardize its safety, the lives of the men, and its efficient functioning. The medical department operated day and night guard- ing the health of the men, healing their hurts, performing minor and major feats of surgery, and tending the hospital- ized sick. lt had to be ever ready for any emergency, always on the alert to stay the progress of epidemic, and handle and treat the wounded in case of battle casualities. Corpsmen were trained in routine hospital technics such as nursing, surgical assistants, laboratory technicians, dental assistants, etc. . In wartime ships operate in formations. The formations are changed with the conditions the group or fleet encoun- ters. Sometimes they change regularly on a time schedule. Then again conditions arise that were unforseeable and the changes must be made on a split second command from the group commander. All of this calls for accuracy in com- munications involving every device for relaying messages and information ever invented and used by man from hand signals and mirrors reflecting the light of the sun to the most modern and intricate equipment such as radio of every kind and various kinds of radar. There was equipment aboard the Topeka that had only recently come from the scientist's laboratories. But with its installation came officers and men who had already been trained in its use and main- tenance. Many more young men learned under the tutelage of these specialists. , On a cruiser airplanes are an arm of the gunnery depart- ment. Their maintenance and operation called for a large staff of aviators and technicians. You read in one of the chapters of part 1 about Ensign Poindexter's heroic rescue of two British flyers. But he was not alone. With him were three other pilots, brave men everyone, and a host of avia- tion technicians who kept the planes in perfect condition. And speaking of gunnery: it is not just shoving shells into guns and pulling the triggers. That is about how quick- ly the firing is performed, but that is only because there are hundreds of officers and men who do complicated and dan- gerous maneuvers, feats of brain and brawn, with the ut- most care, agility, speed, and precision, as to make it all seem effortless, just like loading a gun and firing it. Many items of information are factors in the problem that must be solved before the gun can be aimed, loaded with fuses properly set, and fired with any assurance of hitting the target. And you must keep in mind that the target is more than likely traveling at a speed of three hundred and more miles an hour. It must be evident to everyone by this time that training and practice are two of the most important functions of a staff aboard a fighting ship. The schools ashore do excel- lent preliminary jobs, but that is only a bare beginning. It took six months of constant teaching and ractice aboard , an P Shlp to make the Topeka capable of going into battle with 72 2