John A. Morrill, Jr. US Navy Reserve USS Castor |
I was not accepted by the Navy due to an overbite. In 1939 a buddy took me to a Reserve Center and I was accepted in the Naval Reserve. Training cruises were on a Destroyer and a Cruiser 1939 1940. In 1941 the unit was activated and sent to Brooklyn Navy Yard to commission and serve as crew on the first US Navy ship acquired from the Merchant Marines to serve as a general stores source. The USS Castor AK51 (A=Auxiliary K=Cargo (C was taken by Cruisers) 1=the first Navy ship so designated. The mission primarily was to provide health, spare parts, upkeep guns, clothing, cooking and eating items. As I categorize a "jack of all trades" ship. We sailed from Brooklyn through the Panama Canal arriving in May 1941 at San Diego, California where we spent a weekend then on up to Vallejo, California (vicinity of San Francisco). This is the start of our duties. The ship is loaded and we sail to Pearl Harbor and unload. A warehousing is being established and the ship is bringing the stock. On return to California the ship is ordered to Oakland Supply Center where we will load. Again to Pearl Harbor and after unloading the ship is boarded by Marines and is directed to Johnson and Wake Islands where the Marines debark. During the trip, a Marine Sergeant working in the galley with ship's cooks (I'm one) comments that they are being positioned as clay pigeons. Again the ship is directed to load all the equipment and some ammunitions and with two destroyer escorts (also for Wake and Johnson) the USS Jariso and USS Blue in company with a troop transport with the Marines, we sail to Efate island in Ulithis and off equipment and the Marines de-bark from transport. Unloading is 24 hour days using moonlight only at night. Each night as I remember a plane flies over dropping bomb. These assignments completed the ship sails for Oakland where another off-beat assignment is directed. The ship is sent to Port Chicago, an ammunition depot in San Francisco area. All holds are boarded with projectiles, powder, other ammunition and high explosives and slipping through the water enter Pearl Harbor on December 5, 1941. The 6th, a barge on the water side and a box car on the pier unloading had hardly started at the end of work day. December 7th. I was off duty and at reveille I went to the galley and shot the breeze for a short while. I thought it would be a good day to address Christmas cards and had just sat down on my bunk edge when a Petty Officer raced through the compartment shouting "the Japs are here, man your battle stations". I immediately jumped up from my bunk dropping cards, etc. on the bunk and headed topside and forward on open deck to the hatch leading to the ammunition locker. Kick on the headset I reported ammunition room manned and ready. Receiving the type of ammunition needed the three stewards with me placed the shells on the elevators and up to the gun mounts. As time passed my thoughts of "WOW! Look at all the shells" to "the fight better end soon as we will have expended our supply." The Jap planes flew across the Castor to position for dropping torpedoes into the battleships. Castor was credited with downing one plane. At about 11:00 a.m. or in the time period word was passed for all cooks to secure from battle stations and prepare a meal. In the period of preparation of serving a dinner, the ship was repositioned from Merry's Pointe to an undeveloped area of the base directly across from the Arizona spuming huge clouds of black smoke. So the interest of my story is really the preparations being accomplished. After unloading of the munitions, the ship was directed to the Honolulu docks where all holds were filled with pineapple and we reached Garfield Oakland about 7 p.m. Christmas Eve. A buddy and I sought a church and attended Midnight Mass. Christmas day ashore, an elderly lady grasped me in a hug and said "Bless you young man". I truly have been with a wife of 56 years, a daughter, two grandsons and two great grandchildren. Information provided by John A. Morrill, Jr. |
