Voyage Two
SS Edwin W. Moore - Page 3
Every now and again you would unexpectedly run into somebody you knew. We were loading bombs one time, in Baytown, Texas. It was night and this Coast Guardsman, says, "Is that you, Dago?" I didn't recognize him in his uniform. It was George "Chugger" Garland, Terry's older brother. I said, "What the hell you doing here, Chugger?" And he laughed, "I'm guarding you. " Yeah, we laughed that he'd joined the Coast Guard and here he was just 60 miles from home guarding the docks. They had this Coast Guard Cutter tied up there and they checked everybody coming and going because it was a big ordinance depot.
On the way from England to Sicily, I think when we were in the Mediterranean, a submarine sailed into our convoy. I had gone out on deck and it was kind of foggy and out of the fog comes this big black submarine. It was sailing right for us and turned and pulled abeam of us - pretty close. It scared the hell out of me. I can't remember if the mate or Bos'n told us that it was an Italian submarine that had surrendered. Italy had just dropped out of the War and it probably took a while for subs out on patrol to get in to surrender to the Allies. I presume it had surfaced and signaled our escorts that it was giving up before it joined the convoy. They had to have notified our captain and the armed guard that she was coming in so that nobody would fire on her. But I didn't know what was happening and never expected to see a sub that close. A submarine was something no merchant seaman ever wanted to see. It was a big black wicked looking thing. I believe that she stayed with us on into Sicily.
We unloaded the scotch whiskey in Augusta, what we hadn't drunk. It was a month's ration for the British officers in Sicily somebody told me. Then we sailed through the straights of Messina and up the coast to the Bay of Naples. ( The Edwin W. Moore sailed from Augusta on 11/25/43 to Naples in British Admiralty Convoy VN-10 made up of 18 ships. She got to Naples on the 27th of November and stayed there until the 30th of November. )
When we came up to Naples the Germans were bombing the harbor. The first couple of days there were a bunch of air raids. We went to our gun stations several times but I don't remember us firing. There was lots of shooting at the German planes from ashore. People got nervous just waiting around because a plane might come our way and drop a bomb any time. We didn't know and so we just had to watch and stay alert.
Afterwards they moved us around the bay and we'd be anchored in this little inlet or bay or another for a few days and then we would move again. For a while we were in Castellamare and then we went back to Naples. I'd never seen anything like the mess at Naples. We couldn't get into the harbor. There were wrecks everywhere. Ships sunk with their bows or sterns sticking up in the air, or settled with their bridges and stacks above water. There were masts sticking out of the water all over the place. They looked like a forest. We hit something sailing in there that really gave the ship a jolt but didn't do any serious damage. The Army was operating these ducks (amphibious vehicles officially designated DUKW) and small landing boats to unload the ships, as you couldn't get to the docks. They came out and took off cargo a little bit at a time.
Often I could hear artillery or bombing in the distance. The American and German armies were fighting in the hills just North of Naples. Planes would fly over, ours going somewhere to bomb the Germans,sometimes very high up, or theirs. You could see the white streaks like the contrails that jets make. We had some alerts and I had to go to my battle station. Guys said German planes were reported, but we weren't attacked. I didn't pay much attention after a while. They might have been Germans for all I knew.
Mine Sited - Air Raid and Heavy Action -- November 27, 1943 Upon entering the Bay of Naples LCI 35 sighted a mine but continued on to the docks where she tied up to LCI 196 and unloaded all troops. Although 3 air raids ensued and heavy action occurred in the vicinity of the harbor, LCI 35 did not fire any of her guns and anchored in Naples Harbor for the night tied to LCI 8.
November 28 - 29, 1943 On Sunday November 28th LCI 35 went to the docks and tied to a Navy Salvage ship where mail destined for Bizerte and supplies for LCI 9 were brought aboard. At 1630 Gartman and Urzeni (sailors) came aboard for transportation back to Bizerte. At the same time another air raid occurred but no action was reported.
Excerpted from Stanley Galik World War II Experiences www.galik.com/stanleygalik1922/lci/lci08.htm
(Regular German reconnaissance flights were conducted over the Bay of Naples until December 11, 1943. They resumed the day after Christmas and there were attacks on shipping in the Bay of Naples the last week of December just after the Moore had left. While the Moore was in the Bay of Naples, on Dec. 2, 1943 more than 100 German bombers made a surprise evening attack on the harbor at Bari, Italy. Seventeen Allied merchant ships were sunk and several damaged. More than 1000 soldiers, sailors and merchant seamen were killed or injured with a larger number of Italian civilians killed or wounded. Bari was one of the greatest Allied naval tragedies of the War with more military and civilian casualties suffered than in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Four of the ships at Bari had arrived at Sicily 9/24/43 with the Edwin W. Moore as part of convoy KMS-32.
The SS John Harvey had
a top secret cargo of mustard gas bombs that blew up, sinking other ships and
contaminating the Bari harbor. The SS John L. Motley and SS Samuel J. Tilden
also sank while the SS John L. Schofield was damaged but managed to sailed out
of the harbor during the attack. Three British destroyers, a U.S. P.T. boat
and two U.S. Navy tankers were also damaged. )
I wanted to get ashore. I was talking with this soldier who drove one of the ducks. I asked him if he would take me and a friend ashore. He had heard we had whiskey on board and said that he would for a couple of bottles. I was with Pedraza, we said sure, take us in and we'll get you the whiskey when we get back. ( We had already unloaded the whiskey so he never got any. ) The soldier said that he'd take us at the end of the day on his last trip in and to be on the stern and come down the rope. We were waiting for him and he took us ashore. He left us on the wharf in Naples. We walked all over Naples. It was in sorry shape and around the harbor you could see where they had bombed the hell out of it.