Print Story Email Story Discuss Story (5)

Recommend ( 0 )

U.S. Navy photo Floyd Rider of Lake Placid was on board the USS Joseph Hewes when it was struck by a German torpedo on Nov. 11, 1942, off the coast of Africa. He made it off the ship before it sank, but more than 100 men on board were lost.

Related Links

advertisement

published: Friday, November 11, 2011

A special reason to remember Nov. 11

By FLOYD RIDER

Special to newssun.com

Editor's note: Operation Torch, the American and British invasion of North Africa that was the first step in pushing back the Axis powers in World War II, was launched on Nov. 8, 1942. Floyd Rider, a Lake Placid resident, was there. This is his story.

From January 1942 until October of 1945, I was on active duty in the Navy. The Navy, for the most part, was good to me. I went in right off the farm as an Apprentice Seaman and in two years and nine months had been promoted to Chief Electrician's Mate.

After boot camp I was sent to electrician's school. In August of 1942, I was assigned to the USS Joseph Hewes AP50, an amphibious transport. The Hewes was a converted freighter with a 400-man crew. We carried 1,200 soldiers headed for the invasion of Africa and all their equipment and supplies, including food, fuel and ammunition, to support them for 90 days.

We had on board, 17 landing barges, of various sizes, used to put all this ashore. We were typical of the ships used in the African invasion.

My first job aboard was to care for all the batteries. Each landing barge used two big heavy duty batteries. This totaled about 24, then we also had about 20 spares. Also on the ship the telephone system was battery-powered and this required another bank of batteries. Altogether, I had 60 some batteries and it was my responsibility to keep them fully charged.

We put our troops ashore near Fedala, south of Casablanca. We had been at battle stations for three nights and four days, when suddenly, just at dark on the fourth day -- Nov. 11, 1942 -- battle stations were secured. First and third sections were sent to the showers and second section took the watch. This left me on a search light platform about 20 feet above the main deck.

A few minutes later, I heard this guy screaming in the second power phone, "Torpedo on the port bow!" About the time I realized what he had said, the platform I was standing on tossed me in the air. When I came back down, I was fortunate to land on the platform again. As I was scrambling to try to get on my feet, several tons of water came down around me.

The captain immediately ordered the anchor hoisted and signaled the engine room full speed astern. We were only three miles off the beach and apparently his attempt was to beach the ship.

What the skipper could not know was that the steam lines to the anchor engine had been ruptured, so the anchor could not be hoisted. Remember, also, that this was an old ship and it took time to get the turbine up and running.

The torpedo had hit about 100 feet back from the bow and broke the hull wide open. We were taking on water and the bow was already sinking. By the time the engine room got the shaft turning the screw was coming out of the water, so we didn't move.

A moment later the captain came out on the flying bridge and called in my direction, "Pass the word, abandon ship." That was the last time I saw the captain, as he followed the old Navy tradition and went down with his ship.

A new directive was issued some time later that said in effect, "no more of that." Upper echelons realized that we could needlessly lose a lot of good men with that tradition.

On the third and fourth days of the invasion, our ship had been acting as a temporary hospital. We had put out all of our troops and supplies ashore and were now taking on the wounded from the beach. We had 50 some wounded men below decks. I'm not sure how it was accomplished, but we got every one off in the 17 minutes we had before the ship slid under the water. We lost more than 100 crew members and soldiers.

Of the 17 landing barges we started with, we only had three left. These were in the water and were manned.. They started coming alongside, so that men climbing down the nets could step right into the barge. A couple of ships which were not far away also sent their barges. The nets were all centered amidships, but all of these we put some lines down over the side for men to slide down to the barges.

My station was at the head of one of these lines. I was to help men get started down. A man about ready to go over the side, showed me his expensive gold wristwatch. He was concerned about what the salt would do to his watch if he had to go in the water. Talk about stupid things we do, would you believe I took the time to fold up his watch and wrap it in electrical tape? He went over the side and I never saw him again.

The last man to come to my station was a young fellow who looked to be about 15 years old. I'm sure he was too young to be in the Navy, but here he was. His problem was that he had broken his arm a couple of weeks back and the arm was still in a cast. He was afraid he would not be able to hold himself on the line, so I got over the side on the line and then had him get on right above me. I told him if he had trouble holding on, to just slide down until his feet were on my shoulders so I could help hold him back from going too fast.

We slid down with no trouble, until I came to the end of the line. I looked down and I was still seven or eight feet above the barge. I looked up and yelled, "Let go." He did and we both fell in the barge. However, as he landed on top of me, he had his arm with the cast extended in such a way that it struck the edge of the barge and broke his arm again.

The barge pulled away from the ship and, in my mind's eye, I can still see the screw, well above the water and silhouetted against the sky. A moment more and the USS Joseph Hewes was gone.

Eventually, I was returned to the states and sent to Brooklyn Navy Yard for some more schooling.

When I graduated, I was given three choices of sea duty. I asked for destroyer duty in the South Pacific and got destroyer escort duty in the north Atlantic. I went to Houston, Texas to be part of a crew being assembled to man a new destroyer escort, the J. Richard Ward DE 243. This was to be my home for the next 27 months.