Voyage Five
MV Cape Falcon, a C-1A - Main Page
On September 16, 1944 I took the bus to Beaumont, Texas to board the Motor Vessel Cape Falcon, a C-1A cargo ship. Also shipping with me was Terry Garland and Curtis Hurst. We were three of the four messmen in the crew. There was a Galveston boy in the engine room - Jimmy Hubble, a really quiet nice kid. I really liked Jimmy Hubble and we stayed friends after the war. It was the first time that I had not signed on a Liberty Ship. The C-1 was a three hatch freighter whereas the EC-2 Liberty was a larger capacity five hatch cargo ship. They began producing C-1s a few years before the war began. The C-1 was designed for fast coast-wise voyages and voyages to the Caribbean and South America, though many did make ocean crossings during the war.
The M/V Cape Falcon sailed from Beaumont on September 17, 1944 for New Orleans. The ship arrived at New Orleans, September 19, and took on cargo that was eventually delivered to San Juan and Puerto Padre, Puerto Rico. While we were docked in New Orleans something happened that made me jump ship.
We had just finished serving lunch and I had four large platters of pork chops left over. The steward told me to take them out on deck and heave them overboard. When I went out on deck there was a mixed crew of white and colored longshoremen that were loading the ship taking their lunch break. These longshoremen, as I recall, were sitting on deck with their lunch pails many eating crackers and cheese or some kind of spam and here I had choice pork chops that I was fixing to throw over the side. I asked them if they wanted pork chops and of course they all said,"sure, you bet". I was passing around the meat when the steward came out on deck and began cussing me out. He berated me for not obeying his orders to throw away the uneaten food. I was a pretty brash kid with quite a temper and I never took kindly to being cursed at. So I told him off , that I wasn't going to throw away good food while hardworking men went hungry. I continued to distribute the pork chops. He went off really pissed. A moment later Captain Mortensen lean out from the bridge began to holler down at me.
I told him that I thought it was a crime to throw away good food when it was rationed and these longshoremen didn't have much to eat. Mortensen began cursing me. I could obey orders or else. He said the food belonged to the shipping company and if the longshoremen wanted to buy it, they should talk to the purser or steward or else it was to be thrown away. He wouldn't tolerate some jerk kid of a messboy deciding how things were done on his ship. If I didn't want trouble I should damn well follow instructions. Now in the process of telling me this the Captain threw in lots of foul language. To be honest, we exchanged quite a few swear words. I could see these men were going to lay for me and I was pretty angry. I went directly to my quarters and packed my belongings. Curtis Hurst must have overheard and come and talked to me about what I was doing. I told him that I wasn't going anywhere with those bastards and that I was getting off. Curtis pack his gear, too. We were pretty good friends. We left the ship that afternoon and began hitch-hiking back to Galveston.
I knew that jumping ship was serious and that there would be some consequences. When I got back to Galveston my wife and folks were surprised to see me. I told them what had happened. My father thought that I was going to be in big trouble with the Coast Guard authorities. I was angry and told him that I didn't care. After a few days I began looking for another ship. I figured if there was trouble and they came looking for me, it would be better if I was already gone. It was more than fifty years later when my son wrote off for copies of the official log-books of the ships that I had served on that I saw that Capt. Mortensen had entered in the log that me and Curtis were deserters. That really made me laugh.