July-August - Air Defense Artillery

lETTER FROM A SAllOR*
D.S.S. JAMESTOWN eCL. 100)
CARE OF FLEET POST OFFICE
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
DEAR MAMA:
At sea, 15 Feb. 19-
Well it is like somebody died aboard
this ship. You will see a guy chiping
paint or polishing brightwork on deck
and he will look up at the meat-ball flying
from our radar mast, you know that
is the pennant that shows we are the
champ of our class, the light cruiser class,
well the guy will look up at the meatball
and you would think somebody died
if you could see his face. Then he will
say a word I will not write in no letter to
you Mama, but it is a word you wash my
mouth out with soap for one time when
I am six, maybe seven years of age. I
guess six because it was that year Papa
died and we moved from East Brooklyn
to Harlem, the year I start in school and
can still remember how the soap taste.
Well you will want to know what I am
talking about somebody died aboard the
Jamestown, nobody died least of all me.
I am O.K. and still gunner's mate 3/c
in this ship. Like I wrote you from Villefranche,
am in charge of maintainance,
oiling, repairs etc., on the No. 1 5-in.
gun mount, the best gun in the fleet in
our class, the CL. class, as the ship got
Influenced more by his experience as
editor of The Cornell Widow than by the
law degree he had earned, Mr. Burnet
turned to writing as his professional career.
After an apprenticeship as a working
newspaperman, he became a regular
cantributor of short stories to The Saturday
Evening Post. A number of his stories
have become popular movies, one of them
being Hollywoodized three different times.
He is nearly as well known for his writing
for Broadway. Mr. Burnet has contributed
a moving sketch to this issue of the Proceedings.
Although the Proceedings does
not normally publish such sketches, an exception
in this case seemed well iustified.
*Reprinted with permission, from the U. S.
Naval Institute Proceedings-February 1951 issue--and
courtesy of the author.
JULY-AUGUST, 1951
By Dana Burnet
high score in the games we had in the
Med. and our gun crew got high score on
the ship. That is among the 5-in. gun
crews. Oh before I forget, when we are
lying at Gib., that is short for Gibraltar
Mama, some British brass come aboard
and the Old Man is showing them the
ship and they come to where I am working
in my gun mount. Well it is pretty
dark in there and nobody see me as I am
sort of scrunched down behind the gun
and I hear the Old Man say, "This is our
best 5-in. gun mount. A colored boy
named Williams is in charge of maintance
here."
So then one of the visitors says that is
very interesting because he thought we
had a race question in the States. "There
is no race question in this ship," Capt.
Palmer' says and I wish you could of
heard the way he said it Mama, so quiet,
but like his voice would cut steel. Well
I never thought much about the skipper
before, he was just another skipper to me
but now I felt like standing up and saying,
Sir, that is the truth. But did not
make a move to let him know I was
there, as I did not want him to think I
heard him praseing me. I can do my job
without no prase from the gold braid,
much less the skipper, but he is the best
skipper in the fleet, all the guys say so,
not just me Mama.
. He is the one I wrote you took command
last Nov. when we are at Istanbul,
and you do not want to think he is soft if
you are going up to mast, like one old
c.p.a. said, Capt. Palmer will give you
the brig if you spit to windward. But is
always fair, and a pretty good guy for an
officer, the best four-striper in the fleet
and got the Navy Cross in the war, so no
wonder we win the meat-ball under
Capt. Palmer. Well enough about Capt.
Palmer, but he was skipper of a tin can
in the 2nd battle of the Filopine Sea
when the Japs caught our baby flat-tops
with their heavy stuff and our destroyers
had to turn into the Japs with a torpedo
spread and Capt. Palmer was in com-
mand of the lead destrover. His can took
a shell in her engine' room and Capt.
Palmer got a shell fragment through his
neck but stayed on the bridge and after
the Japs turned back he made emergency
repairs and brought his can back to Leyte
gulf almost sinking and holding his neck
wound together with his fingers. There
is this old c.P.O. named Yancey in the
Jamestown, an old guy about 35 that was
with Capt. Palmer in the destroyer and
he told me all about Capt. Palmer. But
I start to write about what happened to
the ship not the skipper, but no accident
happen so don't worry Mama. Anyway
I will be home most as soon as this letter,
as I will get liberty in Boston and cannot
mail this letter till Boston, but felt like I
had to write somebody what happen to
the Jamestown so why not you Mama.
Well not to keep you waiting, we are
three days out of Gib. heading for Boston,
a foul morning but all the guys feeling
good, thinking of liberty, their girls
at home etc. What I mean everybody
was feeling like sailors always feel when
the course is laid for home, when all at
once the siren sounds general quarters
and we all go to our places wondering if
something has blown up back in Europe
or the Med. that will take us fun speed
back to the Med. Then here comes the
Old Man's voice over the squawk-box,
"Now hear this." Well it is a radio he
just got from Washington and decided
we better hear the news from him than
to get it through the scuttlebutt. Well it
is the news I should of told you to start
with, as I guess you are all mixed up by
this time, but here it is, they are going to
de-commission this ship as soon as we get
home. They are going to put the Jamestown
in moth-balls and break up this
crew, the best in the fleet and they will
never get another crew like this crew I
don't care what anybody says even the
President! But it don't seem to count in
Washington that we are the champ in
our class.
They are knocking out the champ,
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