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| Trust your government! |
| Dr. Paul M. Elliott, Jr. 4-20-2003 |
(The following is an account of something that happened during World War Two. That would have been something that went on for a few years in the 1930's and 1940's---lerel)
For about the first six months that I was on board the USS Callaghan, we operated in the screen of a fast carrier task group (Task Group 38.3 or Task Group 58.3 depending upon which admiral was in command of the Task Force). Normal procedure for launching a carrier based air attack against a Japanese held island was for the Task Group to be about 350 to 400 miles from the target island an hour or so before sunset. The Task Group then went to a speed of 30 knots and headed straight for the launching point a hundred or so miles from the island, to arrive there an hour or so before dawn.
One evening just after we had started our run-in, we received a radio message that a floating mine had been sighted ahead; we were in the rear of the screen. In a minute or so we sighted the mine. All such mines were to be eliminated, usually by shooting them with 20 mm canon. Usually the mine sank when shot, but a couple of times out of ten it would explode, and since they contained a large amount of explosive, the resultant explosion was very powerful.
The captain stopped the Callaghan about a 100 yards from the mine: a big, ugly thing with horns sticking out all over it. I was the officer in charge of the so called gun condition watch; we kept two of the 5-inch guns, the gun director (which was on top of the ship's bridge), and fire control computer manned and ready in case of a surprise attack. Also a 40 mm and 20 mm mount on each side of the ship were manned and ready at all times.
The captain (this was our new captain who had no experience with floating mines) ordered me to have the 20 mm mount open fire on the mine. Without thinking, I reflexively said, "Captain, we are too close!?" His response was, "You have your orders. Open fire." I told the gunner on the port side 20 mm to get everybody around that mount to the other side of the ship, get down on their bellies behind something. I then told the gunner to open fire on the mine. His response: "Mr. Elliott, we're too close." I told him I had already told the captain that and he had said to open fire. I also told him to keep all of his body behind the gun shield. I then pulled my head down through the hatch I had been looking through so my whole body was encased behind the shield around the main battery director. He fired one burst, and the mine exploded, shrapnel hitting all over the ship. When the commotion was over, I stuck my head out and looked down at the bridge; the captain was flat on his belly on the deck. Pretty soon he rolled over and saw me looking at him. After a few moments he said, "We were a little close." I said, "Yes sir, we were."
Story not quite over. The smokestacks are encased with a thin sheet metal covering, with a space between the sheet metal and the stack itself. Air is drawn down this space to the boilers; air gets heated by the hot smokestack and helps the fuel economy. This thing is called the "economizer". Seems that the economizers (one for each of the two smokestacks) had several hundred holes in them; all holes had to be patched, airtight, for the economizers to work properly. The boiler room gang had to do the patching. Working high up on a smokestack, on a rolling ship, in the tropics, next to a very hot smoke stack was not the most pleasant duty. Took almost a week to complete the repairs.
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