Voyage One
SS David G. Burnett - Page 2
I had never been anywhere except around Galveston and Houston. I was just a kid. When we got to New York I asked the mate "Are we through, do we go home now?" He laughed and said that now we had to go overseas. I didn't know what that really meant. I went ashore in New York for the first time at the end of May 1943. I had never seen anything like that, all of those big buildings and so many people. Everything looked just like what I'd seen in movies. I went ashore with Bobby Prothro and Ygnacio Pedraza who was from Texas City. I called him Johnny. I really liked Johnny Pedraza.
Now just before we left New York two incidents happened that I'll never forget. I had won some money playing cards on the trip up and I lent this guy a couple of hundred dollars that he said he'd pay me back when we got to New York. He gave me a corner to meet him at. I went there and waited for him. He never showed up; he jumped ship and I never saw him or my money again. The other involved the son of the Post Master of Dallas, Texas. He got scared. They were loading tanks on deck and bombs on the ship next to us and he said that he wasn't going. He put his hand into a bucket of lye and then put it under an open steam line. They had to carry him off the ship.
The duties of a messman were to serve food to whatever mess you were assigned. There was the officers' mess and the crew's and a separate mess for the Navy Armed Guards. You'd set the table and cut the bread or meat and get men whatever they wanted while they were eating. Afterwards you had to clear away everything and clean and mop the mess. I mopped and clean the officers' quarters and made the beds and changed their linen. The steward decided how we served, and on the Burnett we served cafe style. We served individually. I took orders like a waiter in a restaurant. On all the other ships where I shipped messman, we served cafeteria style.
The cook on the Burnett, William Walker, looked like an old man to me. I guess he must have been in his forties. I just called him Walker but he was a real chef. Man, could he cook - like in a fine restaurant. Walker liked to cook. Now he stayed half drunk all of the time but it never interfered with his work. He took a liking to me. He was real patient as he knew it was my first trip and time away from home. I really liked Walker. Part of why he liked me was that I drank with him - all the rot-gut liquor he made. I shipped with Walker my next trip, too. There was an Emory Taylor who shipped utility on the Burnett and on my next voyage he went as third cook. Him and Walker were good friends and they always shipped together.
There was a guy from Galveston in the crew named Billy Baker. He was nuts - had scars all over his face - thought he was pretty tough. Hell, he was crazy. I can't remember why we got into a fight, but it was right on deck when we were in New York. I didn't know he was left handed. I was watching for his right hand and he hit me with his left. He lifted me clean off my feet. I got up laughing. I said to him "Is that all you got, is that as hard as you can hit?" Now that I knew he was a lefty I could look for it and dance around his left. The captain sent the mate down and he broke the fight up.
I made friends with one of the Navy gunners. This guy was from Chicago and he was built like a Greek god. He had a terrible scar on his forehead where he'd been in a fight and somebody had put an ice pick in him. You could put your thumb in that hole in his head. He told me that some gangsters were after him in Chicago and that's why he had joined the Navy - to get away where they couldn't find him. He liked me and we'd go ashore together. This Navy sailor had trouble with Billy Baker, too. Baker and him were in the mess when they got into it. Billy didn't have a shirt on and this sailor grabbed a pot of hot coffee and threw it all over him.