Voyage Two
SS Edwin W. Moore - Page 6
I took quite a liking to that old Italian. He invited me to come and meet his family but I told him that I couldn't leave the ship especially after already getting in trouble for leaving without permission. I gave him a sack of groceries to take home. I knew these people didn't have anything much to eat. I put a small canned ham and some other canned goods and some flour and sugar in it for him. The next day when they came back to continue unloading he brought me a present. He had a big tin can filled with sea water that had a little octopus in it. He told me it was a delicacy - very good to eat. I thanked him and later I took it into the galley to Walker. "What the hell do you expect me to do with that thing?" he asked. "Cook it for me", I said. The cook ran me out of the galley. I threw the octopus back into the sea.
One night somewhere in the Bay of Naples - we were not in Naples or Castellamare, in some little bay where there were a few ships anchored there were explosions. I was already in the fo'c'sle in my bunk when I heard an explosion and then another. I put on my pants and ran up on deck. Somebody said the ship anchored nearest to us, about half a mile away, had been hit. They told me that another ship about a mile away had also. It was pitch black and we stayed on deck for a while but couldn't see anything. Everybody was nervous but eventually we went back to our bunks. In the morning the other ships were gone. The rumor was that E-boats had come in and torpedoed two ships - there was some debris in the water.
I don't know exactly what happened or where those ships went; whether they sank or were damaged and sailed or were towed away in the night. They never told us anything, so you never knew for sure what was happening. ( One of the armed guards, Mr. William Joyce, in a phone conversation on Christmas Day 1999 didn't remember any torpedo boats but did recall "some ships hitting mines". )
While we were in the Bay of Naples, the Captain asked if I would mix drinks and wait table for a dinner party he was having for some military brass. I said sure, that I didn't mind waiting on them. He even found me a white coat like a real waiter. Quinn was proud of his first cook, I have said that Walker was a real chef. Some officers came, both Army and Navy. I stayed the whole evening and got them whatever they wanted. I served them in the captain's quarters. As the party was breaking up the officers gave me tips. One gave me $20 and the others $5 or $10. Captain Quinn was the only one who didn't tip me. That was a lot of money back in 1943.
The Bay of Naples and the
countryside around it is beautiful. I brought back some post cards from there
- pictures taken of Sorrento and Castllemare before the war. Even with all of the destruction, the military and ships there,
the place was still very pretty. We went back to Naples for a day where a convoy
was making ( British Admiralty convoy NV-12 ) and then sailed south back through the Straits of Messina to Augusta,
Sicily. It was night and I went out on deck for some reason and shouted "Jesus
Christ, what the hell is that?" There was a fire in the sky! It was exploding
and cascading down pure fire. I don't know if it was the mate or who, but someone
told me it was Mt. Etna erupting. It was so dark that I couldn't see the mountain,
just the burning lava. It had scared the hell out of me. You couldn't see any
fire in the day time, just lots of smoke. Etna and Vesuvius had smoke and clouds around the peaks during the day and I suppose that obscured the view, but that night the lava was quite visible. Harold Light, who was a seaman first class in the Naval Armed Guard also remembered ". . .watching Mt. Etna at night
( beautiful )".