Halseys Typhoon - chapter one
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British (England - Cockney, Estuary, East End) German Irish (Eastern- Leinster, Dublin) North American (General)Transcript
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Halsey's typhoon. The true story of a fighting Admiral, An epic storm and an untold rescue, written by bob drury and tom Clavin narrated by Harry all Gayer December 18, 1944. The Philippines C 500 miles east of Luzon. Chief Quartermaster, Archie Director, was more astonished than frightened. He craned his neck to stare at the massive waves churning. Gots of water some reaching 90 ft in height. The seas were not only mammoth, but confused by a backing wind that slammed into the sheer flint gray walls of ocean and seemed to suspend them in midair like blooming petrified hills. The U. S. S. Hull rolled at an unprecedented angles, slip, sliding nearly stern first into the trough, as another huge Komar marbled the hulls deck with whitewater. The chief was reminded of a set of tumblers clicking into place Locking the 2100 ton destroyer in irons for the better part of the morning. Director had listened with mounting disbelief from his station on the bridge as the hulls tbs talk between ships, ship to ship. Wireless flash, scratchy distress calls from across the whole upheaval of the Philippine sea vessels unaccounted for men swept overboard, fighter planes blown into the sea off the decks of carriers cruiser's dead in the water. 170 odd ships comprising Admiral Halsey Junior's 3rd Pacific fleet. The United States Navy's big blue fleet had been ambushed by a tropical cyclone and the most powerful Armada in the world was scattered and running for its life. This was far worse to Rucker thought than anything. The Japanese had thrown at them over the past three days as the long swells rocked the hull, Director kept a wary eye on the ship's incline. Ah meter. The device used to measure the angle of the vessels horizontal sway. The wind and waves were beginning to push the instruments needle to its top limit of 73° after each roll, the destroyer would rebound painfully as if wounded and begin the slow vertical climb to right herself below decks, pumpers and bucket brigades were encountering nightmares with each seismic heal. The sailors grabbed into haunted fittings and projections in the overhead, their feet hanging free of the deck. On some roles, they had lost both their footing and their grips and pitched shoulder deep into the water that slashed up against the bulkheads. Director remembered the halls variants she had been certified to recover from a maximum role of 72° soon enough, he feared there would come a **** from which the ship would not recoup. She was top heavy The destroyer, one of the old Farragut class gold players have been designed in the mid 1930s as a 1500 tonner Compared to the Cumbersome four stackers of the Great War. Her lines and living quarters were considered luxurious. But over the course of this conflict, the addition of radar mounts on the tip of the mast and extra armament on her deck had pushed her well past her projected sailing wait in the pilot house beneath the starboard portal. Director watched as joe jam bir as joe Jambalaya was knocked to his knees as the hull was rocked by another mountainous surge. Jammer was the ship's chief electrician, pale, willowy sailor who looked as if daylight would kill him. The chief read the expression on jamborees face as he scrambled to his feet. It was as if he were mentally composing a suicide note. He told the Rucker that water was pouring in through blown hatches from stem to stern. Yet the ship's pumps were not operating to full capacity because her new skipper, lieutenant Commander, James alexander Marks refused to divert electricity from the engine room. The builders were already overflowing. Jammer said, and he couldn't pump them out. He's going to full power because he's getting reports from all over the fleet, that ships are in trouble. His face turned away from the captain. He thinks he can save them. Jamboree wiped his brow with a dirty hit neckerchief. Maybe he'd better think about saving us first. Then Jam bar was gone, scrambling down the outside skipper's letter bent double against the wind, lashing the sea washed deck in seconds, his silhouette disappeared behind the veil of gray rain and scud and the Rucker turned back toward Marks at six ft three, with wide, strong shoulders, tapering down to a wasp waist. The Rucker towered over the halls. Commander, Four days shy of his 25th birthday, the chief cut a figure with his jutting chin, long equal line nose and broad forehead, shading hooded blue eyes that seemed to flicker with some hidden delight among the crew. He was known for his self deprecating humor and see chests full of stories, including the time he inadvertently helped load the hulls anti aircraft gun with star shell flares instead of the frag. During the japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. They're trying to kill the bastards not illuminate them. And angry gunner's mate had finally shouted his scant formal education balladry Rutgers intelligence and he had booked up from the seaman second class to chief quartermaster in his four years on the hall Chiefs were the backbone of the U. S. Navy and Director fit the template. He was an adroit helmsman, skilled at navigation and celestial sailing. One of his collateral duties was to synchronize each of the ship's clocks as such. He was also considered a walking newspaper on his daily rounds below decks, spreading scuttlebutt, making small talk, a fair posture from which to take the temperature of the destroyers complement of 263 sailors. He told friends that he'd inherited his affinity for the C from his paternal forebears, one of whom a spanish sailor had gone down with the Armada in 15 88 and washed up on the lowland shore's of the Netherlands. There he'd anglicized his name and started a line of directors that extended to Archie's father who had emigrated to the United States, settled in laurel Montana outside of buildings and married a Norwegian girl whose parents still lived in the tiny arctic circle village of sundials. Director liked to joke that it was from his mother's side of the family that had acquired his viking blood. But in truth though, a strong swimmer in lakes and rivers. As a boy, he had never glimpsed the ocean until he enlisted in October of 1940 with the notion of becoming a fighter pilot. He had spent part of his youth as a section hand, a Gandy dancer on the northern pacific railroad. And when railroad work was scarce, he picked up cherries and thin apple trees in orchards throughout Washington state and he had a mechanical touch which led to a stint as a grease monkey lubrication technician director preferred at a Montana service station. But before he joined the Navy had rarely seen so much as a church steeple as tall as the breakers that now fashion the liquid walls of the canyon, engulfing the U. S. S hole. The captain's paralysis bewildered director. The chief was aware that Bull Halsey was so anxious for a fight with the japanese that he had directed every vessel in the fleet to remain on station. Despite the high seas, the smart move, the seaman's move would have been to allow them to run for their lives. And though it would later be known that individual commanders throughout the fleet's task groups had disobeyed Halsey and taken the initiative to dog down for a typhoon. No official typhoon warning had yet emanated from either the cinc pac weather station at Pearl Harbor or from Halsey's flag bridge on the battleship USs New Jersey. The halls job was to screen for enemy submarines as Halsey's fighting task forces rendezvous food and refueled mid ocean from the bunkers of the lumbering oil groups. Captain Mark's stubborn insistence on maintaining station may have had admirable motives, but given the circumstances, the skipper's failte to duty in his first combat command did not instill in Chief Quartermaster, Archie Director, any great sense of confidence. Just before 10 a.m. the largest wave yet streaked with blue shadows slammed into the hull starboard quarter. The ship lurched awkwardly, and he'll deport there. She remained as helpless as a cork in a river, Eddie, refusing to respond to any combination of rudder and engines. Director planted his feet on the bulkhead, the deck now at eye level, he was standing several paces behind Marks, who was staring straight ahead, wedged into the rear ports corner of the pilothouse. The captain uttered not a word, and refused to return to Rutgers measured look as though unable to acknowledge that he was losing control of his ship. Director wondered over the fate of the other vessels in Admiral Halsey's flotilla