Topeka (CL 67) - Naval Cruise Book

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'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

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How D0 You Feel Today With Salfves and Pills, and Wondrous Skills . . The Sick Bay . . . ---Q-w--.nqwnq-,--'nr ....:,. W., .,.,,Y ,,,,,',, ,..L. -- . -'...... .A-.fl - -I V.-,.:f,,: Ji Ah . . Cherry, Cakes Ice Cream . . . Never a Dry Moment.