Benjamin F. Marshall US Navy USS Tern |
I was transferred to the USS Tern (AM-31) on or about December 4, 1941. The Tern, a mine sweeper, was doing duty as an ocean tug and later was redesignated at ATO-142. It was tied up across the end of 1010 Pier in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, just completing overhaul of the boiler room and with half of the crew in the States on leave. On the morning of December 7, I was on the boat deck reading a book while waiting for the liberty boats to run from the ships. I was going to visit a friend, Al Hickman, in the sick bay on the Arizona. I heard an explosion and saw a plane pulling out of a dive. The rising sun on its wings was my first hint that we were in trouble. The plane had bombed the control tower at the seaplane landing on Ford Island and was probably the first bomb dropped in that area. It is not clear now just what I did in the next few minutes, as I was probably in shock along with the rest of the island. The other radio operator and myself set up a radio watch on the harbor circuit and I stayed on it most of the day. I was new on the ship and he could do much more than I in getting it ready to move. Our radio receivers were battery operated but the rest of the ship was without power. We had been cut away from the pier but a YO (yard oiler) tied to us kept us in place until we had stem up. From the radio room, I could see all the ships tied up or docked on that side of Ford Island. I saw two torpedoes dropped, one hit the West Virginia and I never saw where the other went. Saw the Oklahoma turn over as men were climbing out its portholes. Saw the California sink down on the bottom upright but with her main deck under water. I got busy on the radio circuit and did not observe events for a while. This circuit was received only and controlled by CincPac. Many rumors were being sent to ships in the area, labeled as rumors but had to be checked out. I did not see the Arizona blow up, but saw it a few moments later with debris falling over a large area. Sometime during the morning I saw a high level bomber drop a load of bombs, which all fell in the water, and I also saw the B-17s that had arrived from the States during the attack. They were staying out of the way since they had no guns, no bombs and were probably low on fuel. We had gotten steam up in near-record time, half crew or not, and pumped water on the burning ships. I want to report an incident that I thought remarkable at the time and still do. Sometime in the early afternoon, the Exec was making the rounds seeing who had eaten and getting a relief for those who hadn't. As he passed the wheelhouse, he asked the helmsman how long he had been at the helm The helmsman answered, "since we left the dock." The Exec was shaking his head as he walked off. I walked over to see what was so unusual. The helmsman was a black boy in his teens, a mess attendant, doing the duty that would normally be done by a senior petty officer when entering or leaving port or when operating in the harbor. I learned in my 2 ½ years aboard the Tern that a tug boat sailor can, and does, do many jobs not in his own rating. This was encouraged by the officers when safe to do so and it sure helped break the monotony on a long trip. The crew of the Term (65 enlisted and five officers) was the best bunch of men I served within my 22 years of active duty. As of Christmas 2000, there was six of that crew known to be alive. I don't recall events of the next few weeks but by January 9, 1942, we had enough of the crew back on board to take a tow and provisions to Johnson Island. The tow, a yard oiler with a crew of three or four had its own power but could not steer a true course at sea so we had manila line on it just to maintain course. One night about 11:00, the Tern ran through one of our Task Forces. This Task Force included a carrier that had been torpedoed the evening before. The Force commander had been notified that we were en route to Johnson Island but had not been told we had a tow. This was before the time when all ships had radar so these sightings were visual and at night, and we could have been taken for a submarine on the surface. The Tern knew we were among ships but could do nothing but wait for a challenge. We got the challenge and answered it correctly thereby avoiding a tragic incident. I missed all this as I was off duty asleep but the next morning the radio gang had to break (decode) addresses of all the messages that had come in during the previous 24 hours. The captain was filing a complaint to ComBasFor for not letting us know of the presence of the Task Force and he wanted to be sure we hadn't missed something. We got the message the next day about noon. It had a deferred precedence. The rest of the trip to Johnson Island and return to Pearl Harbor was uneventful and I believe the rest of the crew was waiting in Pearl to come aboard. A few weeks around Pearl on various jobs, then one evening after toping off our fuel tanks and taking on full provisions, we left port under sealed orders. By morning the Captain had opened his orders and we all knew we were en route to Bora Bora in the Society Islands, a onetime French penal colony. The Army engineers and Navy Seabees were building fuel oil storage tanks on the side of the mountain. The island was to become a fueling station for convoys from the East Coast. We were under local command of an Army general and our duties were many, hauling, towing, meeting convoys, and at one time we acted as a platform for men laying an underwater cable from one island to another. The duty that affected me most was crypto work. Most crypto devices and material could not be put ashore on the island and every command at every port we hit had work for us decoding their incoming messages. The radiomen were cleared for this work and we had plenty of it. This ship had a higher than normal crypto classification for this purpose. |
Information provided by Benjamin F. Marshall. |
