Dad Goes to War
(C)Copyright 1999, Carroll Williams
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August 1939

        Distant thunder growled across the late afternoon sky as angry explosions of electricity illuminated roiling clouds like the interior of a blast furnace.  Mom stepped out the back door and insisted we come inside to escape the approaching storm.  I was five; my brother was eight; and we both knew we were indestructible so it made no sense to either of us to give up playing with our small cars and trucks in the back yard just because it was about to rain.  We knew instinctively as some small boys seem to know that we would live forever and nothing bad would ever happen to us.

        I ran upstairs to watch the developing storm from the second-floor bathroom window which faced west toward the Indian River and afforded a great view of the new causeway my Dad was building to replace the rickety old wooden bridge that Mr. Keowen Hoeven built in 1917 when he developed the village of Indialantic on the barrier island at Melbourne, Florida.  

The dredge Oriente chews up the bottom of the Indian River between Melbourne and Indialantic, Florida.  In this 1938 photo, the cutter head is submerged at left.  Mud and rock were pumped through a slurry pipe line seen at right to form the Melbourne Causeway.  The causeway road opened to traffic on August 1, 1939.

        Most of the rain fell on Melbourne and Eau Gallie that afternoon.  A deluge obscured the far-end of the bridge as well as the west shore of the mile-wide lagoon.  We got a few drops in our beach-side neighborhood, but only a few. That convinced me all over again that mothers are just big sissies afraid of too many things.  Boys and men are strong, tough, indestructible and afraid of nothing.  Mother was always watching out for our safety but to a five year old, it seemed totally unnecessary.

        Dad drove into the front yard in our black 1936 Chevrolet with its cream-colored spoke wheels. My brother and I often helped Dad wash the car.  I was a lot of help, even pointing the hose in the right direction sometimes, but more often spraying the dog or my brother when Dad wasn't looking.

        Dad insisted on keeping the car free of salt from the sea mist which blew on our southeast Trade winds and coated all objects left outdoors.  Since we had no garage, the car was always coated with a thin white layer of salt that could reduce metal to a pile of rusty chips in short order.   Dad talked about not being able to afford another car for a while, so we had to take care of the one we had. He also talked about other things we could not afford.   The nation was in the latter stages of the Great Depression and even though Dad was fully employed, he remembered painful times looking for work the year I was born.

        Dad moved quickly from the car to the front door, greeted his sons with a hug and went to the kitchen to see what Mom was making for supper.  After supper, my Dad turned on the big console radio in the living room.  The radio dial had city names from around the globe sprinkled among the numbers on the short-wave band. Names like Tokyo, London, Paris, Rome, and Berlin.   The lighted dial was a magic tunnel to all the places from which great men of authority spoke in solemn tones to people like my Mom and Dad.  Between bursts of static, words like "Russian-German non-aggression pact" tumbled out. I had no idea what that meant, but Dad insisted that we be very quiet so he and Mom could hear the news.

        My Dad was Henry Williams, but the men he worked with at the State Road Department gave him the nickname "Bill."  He was thirty-three years old and a navy veteran, having served in the Pacific fleet on the Battle Ship Nevada, and then on the Submarine R-7.

        One of Dad's favorite possessions was a book entitled Geography of The Hawaiian Islands which he purchased in Honolulu in 1923 while stationed at Pearl Harbor.  He showed us pictures of Hawaiian natives; outrigger canoes; Waikiki Beach; and Diamond Head.  Dad often spoke of Pearl Harbor; talked fondly of Honolulu; and sometimes tried to sing Hawaiian songs. Of course, to a five year old, Hawaii was worlds away from Indialantic, Florida.

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 1925.  Henry Williams with a friend,  Ann Day.

        Like Hawaii, we had coconut trees in abundance.  There were two tall palms just outside the upstairs bathroom window within easy reach for two little boys with a pocket knife attached to a fishing cane.  My brother and I often cut coconuts loose and watched them drop with a resounding thud into the yard beside the house.

        In the autumn of 1939 we found a derelict dug-out canoe on our beach.  We thought it looked Hawaiian. We were disappointed when we realized it probably drifted northward from Central America riding the Gulf Stream until it was tossed ashore by one of our blustery northeast storms.

        I owned a marvelous set of brightly-painted toy soldiers including the British in red tunics, gray-uniformed Germans; red-trimmed Soviet Russians in khaki uniforms, brown shirt Italians, and several other nationalities.  The set included a cork-shooting cannon for knocking down row upon row of massed infantry.  Dad showed me how to arrange certain nations on each side of my innocent living room battlefield.  We arranged the Russians and the Germans on opposite sides.  One day to my astonishment, Dad looked down and said, "Son, you have the Russians on the wrong side now. Place them over here with the Germans.  They have switched sides."

        I couldn't believe it. How could soldiers change sides?  Dad explained that they could and that they had indeed changed sides. This bothered my sense of fair play.

Sept. 1, 1939

        "This is WDBO Orlando, Florida, and now, the evening news. German troops invaded Poland this morning in a lightning fast attack the Germans are calling a Blitzkrieg.  Tanks and mechanized units are advancing rapidly toward Warsaw which suffered repeated aerial bombing attacks throughout the day.  As night fell over Poland the nation was in a state of chaos.   Refugees are crowding all roads leading eastward away from the invading German army.  Lights were dimmed tonight at the World's Fair on Long Island, New York symbolizing the darkness which hangs over the world this evening."

        Dad turned to Mom. "We will be in this war before you know it.  I am not going to fight in the mud and mire of trench warfare like France in 1918. I am a seafaring man.  I will serve in the fleet if I have to go. I would rather fight on the high seas, but not in the mud."

Spring 1941

        Dad applied for and received an Ensign's commission in the U. S. Navy Reserve.  I went to school and told all my first-grade friends at Melbourne Elementary that my Dad was an "innocent" in the Navy.  He laughed about my pronunciation of his new rank and taught me how to say Ensign.  We all admired Dad in his new uniforms.  He looked dashing.  He even had a ceremonial sword to wear on dress occasions.  I imagined my Dad swinging across to an enemy vessel, sword in hand, dagger in his teeth like Errol Flynn on the silver screen.  Little did I know about modern warfare.  For a while, he attended reserve meetings and served on recruiting duty in the Melbourne area.  In July 1941 Dad went on full-time active duty at Mayport Naval Station in Jacksonville.   He came home for week-ends with the family, but on week days he patrolled the Atlantic coastal waters from Savannah to Key West including Bahamian waters.  Sonar contacts were sometimes made with elusive submarines, but no hostile actions ensued.

Ensign Henry Pascal Williams, USN June 1941.

        In June 1941 I was confused once again about setting up my toy soldiers when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union.   Dad told me to place my German and Russian soldiers on opposite sides once again. "How could their friends turn against them?" I asked. Dad said,  "Son, it is unfortunate, but that is exactly what has happened.  Hitler has attacked Stalin's Russia."

        Friday night, November 7, 1941, the Melbourne Bull Dogs football team defeated Vero Beach High School 42 to nothing on the gridiron at old Melbourne High, but the adults in the grand stands were talking about a ship called the Reuben James.  The Germans had torpedoed one of our Destroyers just south of Iceland on the previous Friday night.  We were a neutral nation and we were not at war with Germany.  How could they have the nerve to sink one of our ships?

        Later we learned that President Roosevelt had assigned the U. S. Navy to escort British merchant ships loaded with American war materiel as far as Iceland on their homeward journey.  U-boat 562 skipper Kapitan Lieutenant Horst Hamm sighted an American Destroyer in his periscope.   His torpedoes slammed into DD-245, the Reuben James, sending one hundred fifteen American sailors to an icy death in the North Atlantic.  Sixteen months later British Destroyers Isis and Hursley sent U-562, together with Kapitan Hamm and forty-eight of his ship mates to the bottom of the Mediterranean off Benghazi, Libya.  There were no survivors.

USS Reuben James, DD-245 shown in a peacetime photo in the mid 1930's.  Reuben James was a four-stack WW I design.	German U-boat 562, commanded by Kapitan Lieutenant Horst Hamm leaves Germany on patrol in 1941.

Dad told people around him at the game, "It is only a matter of time until we will be in a war with Hitler's Germany."  Some people said it wouldn't happen, but when it did I remembered how right my Dad had been.  To me, he was not only a naval hero in his bright new uniforms, but he was smart too. My Dad knew these things.

December 7, 1941

        Sunday morning, as always, we went to the First Baptist Church on New Haven Avenue.  The Pastor was William Rittenhouse, but the congregation called him Bill and sometimes Brother Ritt.  He had been a Marine in France in 1918; fought at Belleau Wood; and proudly wore a Marine Corps ring on his right hand.  His sons Bill Junior and Jim were also destined to serve their country.  Bill Junior went to Stetson University out of Melbourne High in the fall of 1939, and later became a B-17 pilot for the U. S. Army Air Corps.  His younger brother Jim enlisted in the Marine Corps and became an aerial photographer.

        After church we went home for lunch. In mid-afternoon our landlady, Mrs. Van Lengen, raced up the stairway to our second floor apartment on New Haven Avenue.  She was breathless.  She shouted, "Turn on your radio, the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor."

        Dad said, "Oh my Lord, That's my old home port."  We gathered around the Zenith table-top radio in the living room. A torrent of news poured out.

        "Japanese airplanes bombed Pearl Harbor this morning at 7:58 A.M. Honolulu time.  Many ships are heavily damaged and there are reports of a large number of military and civilian casualties. The Battleship Arizona had exploded and sunk.  Battleship Nevada was aground.   Numerous fires are burning in the harbor and among damaged and destroyed airplanes on the airfields of Oahu.  Schofield Barracks and Wheeler Fields have also been bombed.   All military leaves and furloughs are canceled.  All military personnel are to report immediately to their bases.  President Roosevelt will address a joint session of Congress tomorrow morning on the state of affairs in the Pacific."

        Dad hugged Mom. "I have to pack."  My Dad threw his gear into his sea bag; donned a khaki uniform; strapped on his web pistol belt; shoved a loaded clip into his forty-five and holstered it on his side.  We all went with him to the car where he hugged us all around and told us, "Boys take care of your Mom, your little brother, and yourselves.  I don't know when I will see you again."  He backed our blue 1938 Oldsmobile into New Haven Avenue and headed east toward U.S. Highway 1.   We watched as he turned left at the drug store and headed north past Tidwell's Gulf station on his way to Jacksonville.  Dad was going to war.

War and Post War

        Dad was sent almost immediately from Jacksonville to Ft. Lauderdale to open the Naval Section Base at Port Everglades.  In early 1942 he was sent to train in chemical warfare at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland; then to Penn State University to train on Marine Diesel Engines, and to Solomon's Island Maryland for training in amphibious warfare.  In November 1943 we visited my Dad aboard his LCI at the Key West Naval Base during a brief stopover on his way to the Pacific to defeat the Empire of Japan.   He served as an engineering officer in Admiral Nimitz Third Flotilla.

        The LCI was originally designed to put troops onto enemy beaches, but proved ineffective for that mission.   While we visited aboard my Dad's ship, another flotilla of LCI's attempted to land Marines at Makin and Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands.  They ran aground too far from shore producing unacceptable losses among the landing troops.  The Navy converted the LCI into rocket firing bombardment vessels.  For the remainder of the war my Dad's fleet pounded the shores of Eniwetok, Kwajalein, Guam, Saipan, Tinian, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa so that other craft more suited to landing troops could get young American Marines onto enemy-held islands.

        February 19, 1945, The lives of three Melbourne, Florida men converged at Iwo Jima.   Jim Rittenhouse flew in the belly of a TBF Avenger above the fleet and landing beaches photographing the battle's progress just as he had done in the days leading up to the invasion.   Bert Maxwell catapulted from the fantail of CL 103, Cruiser Wilkes-Barre, piloting a Vought Sikorsky OS2U Kingfisher scout plane to direct naval gunfire onto Japanese positions ashore.    Jim and Bert each recalled seeing the impressive rocket salvos fired by my Dad's LCI Flotilla Three operating between the battleships and cruisers and the volcanic sands of Iwo Jima's shores.   Dad's flotilla put underwater demolition teams into the surf to clear obstacles prior to the invasion and then went in a second time to retrieve the frogmen.   All of the LCI's suffered heavy damage from shore batteries, with one of the vessels blown apart and sunk.

	Catapulted from Cruiser Wilkes-Barre, Bert Maxwell flew a Vought Sikorsky OS2U Kingfisher calling in naval gunfire at Iwo Jima.
Jim Rittenhouse, an aerial photographer with the USMC, took reconnaissance photos from the belly of a TBF Grumman Avenger at Iwo Jima.
	LCI 449 under heavy attack from Japanese shore batteries firing from Iwo Jima.  February 19, 1945.
My Dad witnessed from close range the sinking of LCI 474 at Iwo Jima.

          On the other side of the world, Bill Rittenhouse sharply reduced supplies of Nazi petroleum when he flamed a big refinery at Ploesti, Romania in one of the most daring low-level raids ever made by the Army Air Corps.   Unfortunately his B-17 aircraft was shot down.   He dropped out of the sky under a nylon parachute and was incarcerated in a Nazi Stalag until the end of hostilities.

        After the war, Bill and his brother Jim returned to university and seminary and became Baptist pastors.  Bill, together with astronaut James Irwin, founded High Flight, a Colorado Springs based ministry.    Jim became a Navy Chaplain; served with the Marines on the frozen battlefields of Korea; and retired years later with the rank of Commander.   Jim still has his father's Marine Corps ring at his home in Virginia.

        My Dad earned the Silver Star for gallantry in action in the Marshall Islands when he lead a volunteer party aboard a burning ship to unload much needed ammunition and other materiel for troops ashore.   He later earned the Bronze Star, and a Purple Heart.

        Following World War II, Dad served on ComAirLant Staff, the command staff of the Atlantic Fleet Air Arm at Norfolk, Virginia where he helped convert the navy's aircraft carriers to accommodate jet fighters.    

        Later at Guantanamo Bay Cuba, Dad supervised naval ship repair for the Caribbean area.   In his final assignment he supervised construction of a new breed of mine sweepers at the Petersen Ship Building Company in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.    Dad retired from the Navy in 1958 after twenty years of active duty. He completed his career with the rank of Captain, wearing four full stripes on his sleeve, one of a very few "mustangs," former enlisted men, to achieve the rank of Captain in the first half of the twentieth century.   My Dad died June 4, 1979 at the age of seventy-three following a long battle with cancer.

Henry Pascal Williams, Captain USN
March 12, 1906 - June 4, 1979

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