Читать книгу Vignettes - Life's Tales Book Three - William M.D. Baker - Страница 6

The time setting is from October 20 to November 26, 1945 The Japanese have surrendered and World War II is over. The 69th Transport Command consisting of six APA’s, commanded by the Randall, has been ordered to make two runs transporting Chinese National Troops from Hong Kong (Kowloon) to the Northern China cities of Chinwangtao and Tsingtao to free those cities from their Japanese occupier.

I’m not sure what the US Navy was expecting us to find when we got to Kowloon, but whatever it was, we found something less. The Chinese National Troops were illiterate, under trained and sick. It is hard to portray just how bad they were. Perhaps, it will suffice to say that a total of eleven soldiers died of Dysentery on the two voyages from Kowloon to Northern China. Think about this, there were about 2,500 troops on board and 400 of us sailors. Every effort was made to restrict them to parts of the ship, but it was a useless effort and their meals of rice and dry fish were cooked in our mess. Our crew was very angry about being exposed to the dangers of whatever diseases they could be carrying. Above is a picture of a basket of cooked rice and dried fish that we called a “squad bucket”. At the two meals of the day the leaders of the squads of about ten young men would go to the mess with a basket, get it filled and return to his squad. With the men squatted in a circle the squad leader would fill a man’s rice bowl, scrape it level with the back of his sword and give the rice bowl to the soldier. Everyone got the same ration except the squad leader who ate out of the “squad bucket”, usually with his fingers. On one occasion a young soldier lost his balance as the ship rolled and fell over spilling his rice. The Squad Leader angrily shouted at him, drew his sword and slapped the soldier on the side of the head with the flat of the sword splitting the scalp open. The soldier spent the voyage in Sick Bay.

When the first of the eleven soldiers died of Dysentery the Chaplain went to the Skipper and asked that the convoy be slowed for a Burial at Sea Ceremony. The Skipper agreed and the convoy of six ships was slowed. The ceremony was conducted and the convoy returned to cruising speed. Shortly thereafter a call came in on the Ship-to-ship radio asking for a reduced speed to conduct a Burial-at-Sea Ceremony. Approval was given. Then again, after shortly getting back to cruising speed, another request came in. It was then that the Convoy Commander had enough and informed the Chaplain there would be no more slow downs for burial at sea or we’d never get to Northern China. From then on we always knew when a Chinese soldier died by the PA announcement of, “Now hear this, duty Cox’n lay up to Sick Bay with Palm and Needle”. A “Palm” is a seaman’s hand tool used for sewing canvas. It fits on the hand like a glove and sewn in the palm of the hand is a lead button used to push the needle through the canvas. When we heard the “Palm and Needle” message we knew another burial at sea was about to take place. As we closed the distance from Kowloon to the Northern China cities of Chinwangtao and Tsingtao, we came into the dangerous area of the Yellow Sea which had been heavily mined with surface mines by the Japanese. A call went out for “Sharpshooters” and since I had competed on the ROTC Rifle Team I was one of the five selected who were issued Carbines and stationed on the bow of the ship with instructions to blow up any mines that came into view. We saw one or two but they were well out of range and no shots were ever fired. I still smile at the whole affair. And, after all, weren’t those mines there at night, too!

After we had delivered the sick and dying Chinese troops we headed for Okinawa. There, we steam cleaned the ship as best as we could and then loaded it with Air Force pilots and crews and headed for Seattle.

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