Captain Wiltse, DECEMBER 25, 1941

U.S.S. Detroit.

"THE ARMY AIR CORPS WOMEN AND CHILDREN ON BOARD THE COOLIDGE AND SCOTT WISH TO THANK YOU AND YOUR MEN FOR BRINGING THEM SAFELY INTO PORT. IT WAS A TREMENDOUS COMFORT TO SEE YOU OFF OUR BOW EVERY MORNING. MAY YOU ALL HAVE MANY MORE HAPPY NEW YEARS. ALOHA AND GOOD LUCK."

_________________________________________________________________

20 January 1942 EXECUTIVE NOTE:

The following lette

"To the commander of the Cruiser Detroit.

Dear Sir,

My husband and I were passengers on the "Coolidge", and as

we steamed under the Golden Gate Bridge with the Destroyer leading the way and the "Detroit" guarding the rear our hearts were full of gratitude to you both and to your crews. You were the means, by God's goodness, of our arriving in safety, and we shall never know probably how much we owed during the last week to your skill and unsleeping vigilance. We could not leave here tonight with out trying to express, however, inadequately, our deep appreciation of your efficient escort. May you ever be kept in safety as you go again upon the waters.

Sincerely yours

Janet P. Gibson

from

Moukden

Manchuria

_________________________________________________________________San Francisco Chronicle December 25, 1941

Ships With Hawaii's

Wounded Dock in S. F.

Convoyed transports brought them. And brought to San Francisco and the Nation, the horror and full impact of Japan's treacherous Pearl Harbor attack.

They jammed the ship hospitals, overflowed into staterooms.

There were men hideously burned by explosions. There were fracture cases. There were sightless men. There were the bruised and bewildered children who had never thought much of an enemy before.

Long before their ships' docked here, grim preparations were made for handling them. Ambulance after ambulance rolled onto the piers. Army trucks arrived laden with stretchers.

Health Director J. C. Geiger here dispatched four emergency ambulances to rush any critical cases that might necessitate immediate blood transfusions to the San Francisco Hospital blood bank.

Red Cross nurses and workers---true angels of mercy---arrived to help, and to take charge of the vast numbers of civilian evacuees the ships also brought in.

And then the grim task of unloading the casualties began. It was a slow, steady procession. Men swathed in bandages, flat on their backs on stretchers, were moved down the gangplanks.

Gently, they were lifted into waiting ambulances---the white Navy vehicles, the tan ones of the Army. No sooner was one filled, and dispatched to a hospital, than another pulled up to receive its quota.

And to newsmen outside the barricades which blocked the area, guarded by soldiers with fixed bayonets, came the realization that this was war.

Newsmen couldn't get close to the casualties. But here's what a tough San Francisco police inspector, permitted aboard, had to say. Visibly moves, he

declared:

Doctor Geiger saw them, too. He personally examined the ship hospital charts of the more critical cases.

Even though some had a lifetime of darkness ahead, and others long months in hospital beds, these gallant Yanks could still smile and wisecrack.

But there were some who cursed, too. Cursed because they were invalided and wouldn't have a chance to "give it back to those blankety blank Japs," right away.

This was Christmas Day, the day of peace on earth, good will toward men.

And still down the gangplanks the stretchers came.

Then came the children. Bewildered, some bruised, some injured. They were the youngsters of Army and Navy men, now at battle stations in Hawaii and the Philippines.

Some were with their mothers. But some were alone. This was Christmas Day, but not for them. What's Christmas without your Dad?

But these Army and Navy family evacuees found a warm welcome. Greeted by Red Cross workers, they were escorted to autos and whisked to various quarters where they found Christmas cheer and candy and gifts for children. Mrs. Philip A Coxon and her Red Cross workers saw to that.

In all, the vessels brought several hundred persons divided into three groups--the wounded of Pearl Harbor, evacuated women and children from Hawaiian military establishments and a number of persons who left far eastern ports before the war began.

The later group included Manila businessmen who learned at sea that their city, and perhaps their homes and businesses, were suffering bomb blows daily; several score young Chinese, believed enroute to join others of their countrymen at Army air training centers; and Russian and British diplomatic figures.

For the casualties and evacuees, San Francisco was sanctuary after a gruelling voyage of apprehension and fear, in which the ships' skippers constantly ran a gauntlet of possible enemy submarines.

The ships zig-zagged. They were painted a dull, gloomy gray, grayer than the sea itself. Portholes were darkened. Nightly at 5 p.m. the ships themselves regularly underwent blackouts. They became black hulks on a black sea.

Two days ago, as they approached the mainland, the ordeal came to a tense climax. Over the radio had come reports of submarines attacking vessels off the California coast.

Elaborate precautions were taken. The passengers were ordered to sleep with their clothes on, to carry their life belts with them at all times, even during meals.

And then yesterday, Christmas Day, they glided through the Golden Gate, saw the San Francisco skyline, and realized they were safe.

First, preference for passengers, it was learned, had been given the wounded. Then came tourists and civilians stranded by the war. Then the service men's families.

Aboard were the football teams of San Jose Sate and Willamette Colleges, caught in Hawaii at the war's sudden outbreak.

What began as a gay

junket, ended grimly for them, too. On the trip back they were enlisted to act as ship's first aid and rescue workers.

December 27, 1941 Departed San Francisco 1345 with 19 ship

slow convoy.

January 10, 1942 1000 Arrive in Pearl Harbor.

January 23, 1942 1400 Departed Pearl Harbor.

February 3, 1942 1000 Arrived San Francisco. Moved to Mare Island.

February 18, 1942 Departed Mare Island for San Francisco.

February 23, 1942 0945 Departed San Francisco with convoy

1925 CASE indicated submarine contact.

March 2, 1942 1900, Arrived Pearl Harbor.

March 3, 1942 USS TROUT transferred Philippine gold to DETROIT.

1600, Received approximately 9 tons of gold and 13 tons of silver aboard from USS TROUT for shipment to San Francisco.

As the Submarine USS Trout headed home to Pearl Harbor after a special mission in February 1942, her unlikely cargo rivaled that of a Spanish treasure galleon. Below her spartan deck was stowed part of the national treasury of the Philippines, some 20 tons of gold and silver worth more than $25 million.

The Trout had not made the trip to collect treasure; she had been dispatched to deliver 3,500 anti-aircraft shells to Corregidor for General Douglas MacArthur's beleaguered garrison. But with that task completed, someone suggested that she take back the Philippine treasure, which had just recently been transferred from Manila.

Loading all of the gold and silver took the whole night. Working furiously against time - at daylight the submarine would have to submerge to hide from enemy bombers the crewmen passed the gold bars and bags of coin into the boat. Some bags, rotted by years of storage in Manila bank vaults, burst open and sent coins clattering over the dock and plinking into the water.

At sunrise, with shells exploding over nearby Bataan, the Trout submerged; she waited until dusk, then slipped out to sea.

And, wholly undeterred by the enormous value of her cargo, she attacked and sank two Japanese ships before arriving safely at Pearl Harbor.

March 4, 1942 Air Raid by two Japanese Kawanishi, four engine bombers. the planes missed Pearl Harbor and dropped their bombs in the hills above Honolulu.

Approx. time: 0100.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The holes discovered by road

workers are in forested terrain a

thousand yards northeast of the

Roosevelt High School. The area

is not populated.

March 8, 1942 1432 Underway from Pearl Harbor to San Francisco as commander of Task Group 15.1 with convoy

March 13, 1942 Missed rendezvous with coastal escort (USS CROSBY) for USS PRESIDENT HAYES because heavy weather had retarded advance about 60 miles. Retained HAYES in company until off San Francisco entrance.

A shipmate suffered an attack of appendicitis. Despite the high seas, the ship's doctor needed to perform an appendectomy immediately. A conference was held with the captain and it was decided for safety during the operation, it was best to bring the ship to a course that would be forty-five degrees into the waves, reducing the bounce, pitch, and roll of the ship to a more acceptable level. The doctor had his arms lashed to the operating table to help steady his hands during the surgery. The entire procedure, took about two hours. The patient made a successful recovery.

March 30, 1942 1700 Departed San Francisco. Underway for Pearl Harbor. Escorts consisting of

USS TALBOT and HUMPHRIES, and convoy

consisting of S.S. LURLINE and

H. M. T. AQUATANIA.

April 4, 1942 0945 Moored Pearl Harbor, Berth F-13.

April 5, 1942 Captain E. H. Geiselman, USN, relieved Captain L. J. Wiltse, USN, as commanding officer.

April 6, 1942 1408 Underway from Pearl Harbor en route

San Francisco. Convoy consisting of

S.S. LURLINE.

April 11, 1942 0922 Moored starboard side to berth #54

San Francisco.

April 18, 1942 Doolittle's raid on Tokyo.

April 21, 1942 1015 Underway San Francisco to Pearl Harbor

April 28, 1942 1247 Arrived Pearl Harbor. Moored C-4 starboard side to USS VINCENNES.

May 5, 1942 0720 Underway from Pearl Harbor.

May 12, 1942 1024 Arrived in San Francisco, Moored port side to berth #54.

May 22, 1942 1400 Underway from San Francisco for Pearl Harbor. USS HAMMONDSPORT in convoy

May 29, 1942 1130 Entered Pearl Harbor. Moored in

berth C-3.

Ensign George Frazer, communications officer on Midway Island acquired a new kind of problem. Word came that a wonderful Navy torpedo-bomber plane was being added to Midway's defenses---the TBF. Six of them would be flying in that day, and since nobody would expect a plane that looked like these, he was to alert the antiaircraft batteries not to shot them down. "What's a TBF?" was the first question he got: There were no silhouettes, no recognition books, no trained observers. The best Frazer could do was to take his cue from a familiar F4F fighter. The new plane looked, he explained, "like a pregnant F4F." The word was passed, and when the six TBFs (Avengers)duly appeared, not a finger touched a trigger.

Their pilots had come a long way to be in this show. They belonged to the HORNET's Torpedo Squadron 8,(VT-8) and had been in Norfolk breaking in these new planes for the carrier. They were still at it May 8, when they got orders to come to Pearl Harbor. There were 19 planes in the detachment altogether. They flew to the West Coast where they were loaded aboard the HAMMONDSPORT for shipment to Hawaii. The light cruiser USS DETROIT escorted the HAMMONDSPORT with the TBFs aboard, from San Francisco to Pearl Harbor. On May 29, the convoy arrived in Hawaii, too late for the TBFs to be taken aboard the carrier HORNET, which had sailed hours earlier to intercept the Japanese. Instead, six of the TBFs were ordered to Midway Island from which they attacked the Japanese. Consequently, the light cruiser DETROIT received a commendation for her efforts in the Midway Battle.

On June 4, 1942, the detachment(VT-8)of six TBFs set out to attack the Japanese carrier force. They had no sooner spotted the enemy when they found themselves bedeviled by "Zeros" (about 27 were airborne at the time). The fighters nipping at them all the while, the TBFs dove in formation through the clouds, to within 150 feet of the Pacific. In Ensign Albert K. "Bert" Earnest's plane, the second pass by the "Zeros" killed gunner Jay D. Manning, Sea-1c, as cannon and machine gun shells smashed the turret. The frightened 18-year old Harry H. Ferrier RM3c matured in an instant. Ferrier, down in the tunnel position of the "Avenger,"looked up and forward when he heard Manning's machine gun quit abruptly, and saw the dead and bleeding gunner.

Though outnumbered, they pressed home their attack in the teeth of heavy antiaircraft and fighter opposition until only one of their numbers remained, Ensign Earnest's.

Shells demolished part of his TBFs hydraulic system; the tail wheel dropped down in the slipstream and blocked his radio/gunner -- Ferrier -- field of fire. Soon thereafter, a shell creased Ferrier's scalp and knocked him unconscious, and he slumped, dazed and bleeding against the side of the fuselage.

Earnest felt the sting of shrapnel in his right cheek, as a shell exploded outside of the cockpit. The Zereos shot away his elevator wires and Earnest felt the Avenger buck toward the ocean. Thinking he had lost control of the plane, he jettisoned his torpedo at what he took to be a light cruiser. He then regained control using the elevator trim tab and kept his battered bomber in the air. Free of the torpedo, the plane rose slightly; using a trim tab to get few needed feet of altitude, Earnest kept the Avenger airborne. For 10-minutes, attacking "Zeros" toyed with the lone TBF before they left it alone. His TBF had sustained some 70-odd bullet and cannon shell hits; he had lost control of his elevators(he had to fly by the trim tab alone); his bomb bay doors hung open; his compass was inoperative; one main gear could not be extended. His gunner was dead, both he and his radioman had been wounded. Inexplicably, he managed to fly it to a crash landing on Midway Island, the sole survivor of the six TBFs.

"By any standard, Walter Lord proclaims, they were hopelessly outclassed. They had no battleships, the enemy eleven. They had eight cruisers, the enemy twenty-three. They had three carriers(one of them cripples); the enemy eight. Their shore defenses included guns from the turn of the century. They knew little of war. ...Their enemy was brilliant, experienced, and all-conquering. ...

..."They has no right to win. Yet they did, and in doing so they changed the course of the war. More than that, they added a new name---Midway---to that small list that inspires men by shining examples, Like Marathon, the Armada, the Marne, a few others, Midway showed that...even against the greatest of odds, there is something in the human spirit---a magic blend of skill, faith, and valor---that can lift men from certain defeat to incredible victory."

8-T-16 (BuNo 00399) Lt. Langdon K. Fieberling

Ens. Jack Wilke,A-V(N)

Arthur R. Osborn,RM2c

8-T-19 (BuNo 00398) ENS Charles E. Brannon A-V(N)

William C. Law,AM3c

Charles E. Fair,AOM3c

8-T-1 (BuNo 00380) ENS Albert K. Earnest, A-V-(N-V(N)

Harry H. Ferrier,RM3c

Jay D. Manning,Sea1c

8-T-12 (BuNo 00391) ENS Victor A. Lewis, A-V(N)

Nelson L. Carr, AM3c USNR

John W. Mehltretter, EM3c

8-T-4 (BuNo 00383) ENS Oswald J. Gaynier,A-V(N)

ENS Joseph M. Hissem, A-V(N)

Howard W. Pitt, Sea1c

8-T-5 (BuNo 00384) Darrel "D" Woodside, AMM1c(NAP)(enlisted pilot)

Arnold T. Meuers, Ptr2c

Lyonal J.Orgeron, AOM3c

NOTE: It is unlikely that any other ships other than the YORKTOWN came under attack by Japanese aircraft during the Midway Battle. The YORKTOWN was actually sunk by the Japanese submarine, I-168.

June 5, 1942 1407 Underway from Pearl Harbor en route

San Francisco with convoy.

(On board the USS DETROIT, as a passenger, was the ailing Admiral "Bull" Halsey.)

Admiral Halsey was admitted to the Pearl Harbor hospital. However, the doctors could do nothing to alleviate the misery of his dermatitis (shingles). Halsey attributed his deterioration to coral dust blown in from an area half a mile away, where workmen were excavating and blasting for a new dry dock. Disgusted, Halsey asked to be transferred to a stateside hospital. On 5 June 1942 he was placed on board the light cruiser DETROIT, about to depart for San Francisco. When the DETROIT arrived in San Francisco, he was taken to NAS Alameda and placed aboard a Douglas transport, which had seats removed and a bed installed. He was flown to Richmond, Virginia where he was treated by allergist Dr. Warren T. Vaughan and eventually released.

(USS YORKTOWN damaged at Midway.)

June 7, 1942 Conduct aircraft search operations.

0900 #2 plane capsized and was destroyed during recovery operations. Pilot and observer were both saved and uninjured.

( YORKTOWN sunk.)

2056 Sighted large aircraft about 10 miles distance. Identified as the "Clipper."

June 12, 1942 1650 Entered San Francisco Harbor.

1850 Moored port side to berth #15.

June 16, 1942 Departed San Francisco with fast convoy.