The Graybeards - KWVA - Korean War Veterans Association

GERALD DOYLE from page 8
one of the Navy’s historic “right arm”
rates. His duties involve assisting the
Officer of the Deck, maintaining charts,
writing the log, assisting in celestial navigation,
and other bridge duties. His rating
device is a ship’s wheel since one of the
quartermasters usually mans the helm
during general quarters.
The first view of his future ship was a
letdown for the former destroyer sailor. It
was in poor condition from misuse and
lack of care according to U.S. Navy practice.
It had a red star painted on the bow
and a Russian name on the stern. The
mess trays of Russian sailors were still on
the mess tables when the Americans first
went on board.
By a quirk of Navy realignment of ratings,
Jerry ended up as the only “true”
quartermaster on the crew. By informal
arrangement with the other sailors, duties
were divided so that his concentration was
on charts and navigational matters. His art
training stood him in good stead since
before new charts could be created and
provided, much had to be redrawn and
transposed from old Japanese charts.
Rubber stamps of navigational symbols
were created for him by a Japanese craftsman
in Sasebo to help make these charts
more quickly.
The re-commissioning and shakedown
of the Glendale was taking so long and the
war in Korea was going so well that it
appeared that there would be no need for
Glendale and no opportunity to assuage
Jerry’s feelings of guilt. This was not to
be, however, and the tough little vessel
when called upon performed in memorable
fashion
The day Glendale left for Korea, men
of her crew attended Mass on the
Almirante Padilla, a Columbian frigate,
tied up alongside. The evacuation of
Hungnam must stand as the most significant,
historical, and memorable event in
the young sailor’s life. Meeting the U.S.S.
Missouri at Point X-Ray and escorting her
through a swept channel was as impressive
as watching her giant shells tumbling
overhead.
Recent talks with his old watch mate
Richard Stark of Groton, CT who as
Lieutenant j.g. was the O.D. of the watch
confirmed Jerry’s recollection of the
event. Another vivid recollection was the
passage close aboard of the S.S. Meredith
Victory, the subject of the book “Ship of
Miracles” which took 14,000 pitiable
refugees out of Hungnam. This mass of
humanity aboard that ship burned an
unforgettable image into the memories of
Jerry Doyle and Richard Stark. Dick Stark
reminded him of the one North Korean
that Glendale saved. A small boy perhaps
9 or 10 years old – was brought aboard
Glendale while she was moored to
Hungnam docks. There was talk of keeping
the lad as a ship mascot, but the Navy
vetoed that plan.
The Gendale stayed tied up at the
Hungnam docks in part to transfer fuel to
a DE that was serving as a power station
supplying power for the evacuation.
Besides being on a firing station with the
cruiser Rochester and the battleship
Missouri, the Glendale served as harbor
entrance control vessel. At the end of the
evacuation on Christmas Eve, while
Hungnam was burning, Glendale led the
screen of the final convoy out of
Hungnam to Pusan (see cover picture).
Immediately continuing on to the west
coast, Glendale duplicated its mission by
helping to evacuate and destroy Inchon.
While there on flycatcher duty, guarding
against sampans slipping out at night to
lay mines, Glendale engaged and
destroyed a large sampan. (See photo of
painting)
New Years Day was in Inchon, and
Jerry’s understanding (perhaps apocryphal)
that the mid-watch log of the New
Year should be written in rhyme led him
to do that with the quartermaster’s log
which was then transferred to the official
log by Lt. Dick Stark. (See back cover)
Although the rigors of tin-can life were
known to him, nothing could compare to
the mid-watch at -27 in a blinding snowstorm
on the open bridge of a patrol
frigate. On one such occasion following a
British cruiser down a swept channel,
Glendale saw a signal light sending a PVT
(private not official communication).
When the signalman read off to them,
“Just like one of Mother Moses`s cards”
they were baffled and just replied
“Roger.” Later when the former art student
realized the Brits were referring to
Grandma Moses’s Christmas cards they
were very embarrassed knowing the
British love of “Bon Mots.”
On many lonely, dark, cold nights Jerry
thought of his brother, (Lawrence to the
Army, Austin to his family) over on that
shore possibly as a prisoner. He had been,
in fact, a prisoner with the first group
taken .in the war. The captured soldiers
along with captured nuns, priests, missionaries,
diplomats, and stateless people
formed a group that to this day are known
as the “Tiger Survivors,” so called
because of a brutal North Korean colonel
called “The Tiger” who was known to
have executed victims on the march.
After his release from active duty, the
young sailor returned home to Baltimore,
Md. and started his professional life in the
Baltimore City Public School System,
beginning as a teacher and spending the
last 20 years as a supervisor and director.
Before the prisoner exchange at the end of
the war, he and Margaret had already
named their first son Laurence Austin
after his uncle. The Army finally established
a death date of 3 February 1951 for
Austin leading Jerry to ponder for many
years those months during that terrible
winter that his brother was a prisoner.
After many decades of accepting those
facts as truth, it has been a succession of
revelations as a newly re-invigorated
office of POW, MIA within the Defense
Department has found startling new evidence.
Defense department representatives
visited Jerry’s home to obtain blood
samples for a future DNA match as the
department’s data base in Honolulu
grows.
Cpl. Austin Doyle (MIA) Korea 1950
Page 60
The Graybeards