*************************** Sea Story by Robert G. Yerkes (RD3) Tour of Duty Oct 23, 1954 - Dec 1, 1956 I reported to Charleston, SC where the Conway was in the yards. Since my sea bag did not make it there with me and all I had was dress blues I spent my first week on liberty. We left Charleston on 24 Nov 1954 for Norfolk where we stayed until Jan 1955. In January, we departed for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. On the way, we stopped in Havana where I, as a raw recruit, spent my first liberty on foreign soil. The only thing I remember of that experience was being picked up by Shore Patrol as, it seems, I was found walking down the street with a shot glass in one hand and a quart of rum in the other. Other than that, it was a nice liberty town. We spent April 8-10 in Palm Beach, Florida. While getting underway, one line was left tied up causing the ship to swing around, take out a marker buoy and run aground. We bent the shaft and ended up in Baltimore for yard work. We got the word that a destroyer had broken down in Boston and we were going to the Med. May 18 we arrived in Lisbon, Portugal. On May 18th we docked in Lisbon, Portugal. My family had no idea where I was in all that time. I'm not sure how long we spent in the Med but remember that on our way home I received orders to report to Class "A" Radar School in Norfolk. I graduated from there and made RD3 next test time. After that, we went to St. Thomas where, while target practicing with a tug pulling a sled. Fire Control locked on the tug and accidentally started firing at the boat. Whereupon, the tug captain broke off the exercise and returned to port. The thrill of my life came when I was high lined from the Conway to our sister ship (USS Cony DD508) to evaluate their performance coming into port. From Aug 10-13 (1956) we were in NYC where I was supposed to have duty weekend. Prior to entering port, we were operating with a sub. The captain told the radar gang that anyone spotting the sub's periscope would get liberty. With my luck I spotted it and got the promised liberty. When we returned to Norfolk, I received orders for shore duty. I was sent to Newport, RI where I spent 17 months guarding 21 boys in the brig. On my way to duty I met my wife who after 42 years is still my mate. We've had 4 children who've given us 9 grandchildren. Following 26 ½ years working as a mailman, we've retired and now live in Florida.
************************** Kinston WWII Vet looks forward to another cruise Posted Feb 2, 2018 at 4:54 PM At 91 Jerry Kanter looks forward to a ride on PT-305, the only combat-veteran PT boat in existence. It’s been 73 years since Jerry Kanter sailed through the Pacific on a “tin can” during World War II and in a couple of months he will be on another Navy vessel - the last of its kind. Kanter, 91, who grew up in Kinston and has traveled the world as a sailor in the U.S. Navy and later as a retailer, plans to take a cruise on March 17 on the only fully restored, combat-veteran PT boat in existence: PT-305 sponsored by the National WWII Museum of New Orleans, LA. The boat will take guests on a cruise of Lake Pontchartrain, waters where PT-305 first was tested before heading to the European War Theater during WWII. Kanter, who once lived in New Orleans where his sons were born, said he was thrilled at the opportunity. The National Museum is paying for his $350 ride into history, he said. “This is really an honor that is not given to everybody,” Kanter said. Carrie Corbett, travel and conference services sales manager for the National World War II Museum, said the museum provides complementary rides on PT-305 to all WWII veterans and sometimes it can be a an overwhelming experience. “There are not many of them left,” Corbett said. “It can be pretty emotional. Most of them have been on one before.” When Kanter was only 17, his “tin can” plying the Pacific was the Fletcher-class destroyer USS Conway. He remembered sailing past Iwo Jima after it had been secured. “That was horrible,” he said of the bloodiest battle in the Pacific War which lasted five-weeks. The Conway assisted in landings on Lingayen, Corregidor and Parang. It also took part in landings at Saraganji Bay and Mindanao. In 1945, the Conway patrolled east of Leyte Gulf and supported minesweeping activities in the Yellow Sea. Kanter said he visited Jinse, Korea and sailed along the China Sea picking up Chinese troops in Indo-China and taking them to Manchuria. When you are 17 years old, everything is pretty much new to you,” Kanter said. “Of course, they didn’t teach these things like Manchurian history at Grainger High School.” Kanter said he joined the Navy because he did not want to be drafted and put just anywhere, in any service. “The recruiter said I would have to get my mom to sign for me,” he said. “When I asked her, she said she would not sign it. ‘They are blowing up tankers off the North Carolina coast!’ she said.” Kanter, determined, got an application for the Merchant Marines and his father saw it. “He said: ‘That’s a wild trip - the Merchant Marines - with the way they are blowing up ships off the coast of North Carolina,’” Kanter said. Kanter ended up going to California with the Navy where he was shipped out to the Pacific War Theatre. One of the biggest surprises on the Conway for Kanter was running into two other boys serving onboard who were from Kinston, Donald Molloy and Clifton Everett, both of whom are now dead. When they passed away, Kanter said a candle-light ceremony was held for them on the fantail of the USS North Carolina in Wilmington. “There’s not too many of us left,” he said. Kanter is a retired sales and marketing professional. He was appointed to the N.C. Global TransPark Board of Directors in July 2013 and is an alumnus of the University of North Carolina and an active member of the community. His community service activities include: aquatics advisor to the Woodmen Community Center, founding member of the Kinston Evening Rotary, Lenoir Committee of 100, Lenoir County Red Cross, St. John’s Lodge #4 AF&AM, Temple Israel, Pride of Kinston, USS Conway/DD 507 Veterans Association, Downtown Irish Club of New Orleans, First Flight Society, Sudan Shrine Temple, Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels. Other boards and commissions Kanter has served include the Kinston Regional Jetport Commission from 1971-1987; Airports Council International, Small Airports Committee; and the Lenoir County Chamber of Commerce. Kanter is an avid swimmer. He and his wife, Sharon, live in Kinston, and are the parents of two grown sons.
*************************** My First Night Aboard the DD-507 By Noel Anenberg "Anenberg"! That didn't wake me. It was eleven thirty, I mean 23:30 hrs for God's sake. I had just flown to Norfolk, the duty station that I tried to avoid. I had just graduated from an "A" school that was not even close to being on my Boot Camp wish list. I wanted Photographer's Mate or Heavy Equipment Operator, not Fire Control Technician. I knew less about electronics even after "A". The chances of electrifying a friendly just by working on the fire control gear were far greater than ever getting at the enemy. Hey, I told them I had absolutely no aptitude for electronics. Oh well, where was I, sound asleep in the Fox Division compartment. "Anenberg, hey Anenberg wake up." "What the hell is it?" I finally answered. "You got the watch." "I don't have the watch you idiot, I haven't even been assigned a duty section." It was something like December 28th and there were two feet of ice around the Conway's hull. That morning, it was 73 degrees and clear in Malibu as I boarded the United Airlines jet out of LAX. As I laid there in the dark the thought "Why did I join the Navy" whirled around my head like a towel in a clothes dryer "How, tell me how can I have the watch?" I asked aga "Hey California, all I know is the OD just said "get Anenberg, he's got the watch". "I'm just following my orders." "I just reported aboard" I mumbled in the dark as the sailor in the rack above me rolled over and let go a long low tremulous fart. "You already told me that" the voice behind the flashlight said "but like I said, you got the watch. ten minutes, 01 level, midships." I crawled out of my rack and searched my foot locker for the proper attire for standing on the deck in sub-zero temperatures as I remembered that just before graduation from Gun Fire Control School in Bainbridge Maryland, we were asked to submit our top three choices of duty stations. I remembered sitting with my "A" school buddy Nevins and debating who had made the best three choices. Mine, Pearl, Diego and Long Beach beat out Nevins' Newport News, Ville France and London, I thought. Well, I must have pissed somebody off, I was thinking, nobody but nobody wanted Norfolk. I got it. So I put on everything I had in the sea bag, waddled out on the deck then struggled up a ladder to the 01 level. I then turned forward and found my post between the stacks which were adorned with red green and blue Christmas lights as were most of all the ships in the bay that early morning. A very, very pretty site actually, if you were looking at it from a Hampton Boulevard hotel room. Let me tell you something, it was fra-eeeeeeeez-ing. I found the sailor I was supposed to relieve and the object I was supposed to guard. The sailor had his P-coat buttoned with the collar turned up. His arms were tucked in under the coat and the brim of his white hat was folded down and over his head giving him the appearance of a Hostess Twinkie. His teeth were chattering like the plastic wind up ones found in a Magic Emporium. "Yo, you here to re, re, relieve me?" he sputtered. "Yeah, but my name ain't yo" I answered looking at the object he was and until 0400 hours I would be guarding. It was a large, a very large white torpedo with a crack in its fuselage. A thin steady stream f smoke was streaming from the crack as if some guy was inside the case and blowing steadily on a Marlboro. My eyes widened to the size of silver dollars. This was a very large device with enough explosives to blow me and the 507 clear to the North Pole in time to meet Santa and his sleigh. "This gets better". The sailor I was relieving was holding a wilted garden hose that hung from the front of his P-coat. "I give up, what's the hose for?" I asked. "Oh, they t-t-t-t-t-told me that if the smoke gets th-th-th-th-thicker I'm s supposed to spray the cr-cr-cr-cr-ack with cold water", he shivered. Oh, that's smart I thought, if this thing blows I'll be sprinkling it with cold water from a wilted green garden hose. Boy was I ever glad I went to Fire Control "A" School, I would have been lost without the training. "Don't ta-ta-ta-ta-take your eyes off the crack " the seaman warned as he walked forward of the Number 1 stack then disappeared. So there I stood looking out over Chesapeake Bay staring at the Christmas tree lights and wondering whether Nelson, Rickover or Nimitz got their start this way. Well not actually, I was really thinking about how I could manufacture some kind of ailment that would get me out on a medical and quick. But luckily that was only my first night aboard that proud 21 ton torpedo catcher that I now yearn to take just one more cruise on. A ship aboard which I sailed away a boy then returned a man.
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Steady Dash Man and Author, Steacy Hicks, at NOAA the 1960's viewing the William Ferrel tide-predicting machine, the first tide predicting machine used in The United States (1885-1914).
The Steady Dash Man By Steacy Hicks In the ordinary activities of daily life, there are, occasionally, persons with proficiencies that far exceed normal expectations of their peers. In the U.S. Navy during World War II, a signalman with these exceptional abilities was known as a “steady dash man”. To explain what it means to be a steady dash man, an example is necessary. Since radio transmission silence was required, all messages between ships within visual range were sent by directional flashing light, using Morris code. The standard procedure was that a sending ship (Ship 1) would point its signal light at the intended receiving ship (Ship 2) and flash out the latter’s call sign. Ship 2 would answer with the letter (dash dot dash) which meant, “Go ahead”. Ship 1 would then send the message, pausing after each word wit a single flash. However, The steady dash man on Ship 2 did it differently. He would answer with the standard K but would keep his light on continuously with the second dash (dash dot dashhhhhhhh). To Ship 1, this meant that the signalman in Ship 2 thought he was really hot stuff and could read everything that Ship 1 could send, no matter how fast. If the signalman in Ship 1 happened to be a steady dash man also, he would accept the challenge and send Morris code as fast as he possibly could. Both hoped that the other would falter in understanding, speed and/or accuracy. You couldn’t become a steady dash man by trying to do it over and over, because the message using both methods, partially, would be too confusing; it just wouldn’t work. When you thought you were ready, you just did it! You couldn’t bluff, and complete confidence was required. Otherwise, you wouldn’t dare to try. lest you be disgraced. Being a steady Dash man was independent of rate (grade, rank). Anyone could achieve the status, from chief signalman to signaman striker (seaman in training for signalman). However, in reality, it was usually a chief petty officer and/or petty officer 1st class, since months or years of practice were required. I n a signal gang of eight (destroyer size), only one or two would normally rise to this level. The steady dash procedure as not authorized by the Navy, but no one ever complained since it was the most efficient way of transmitting the large quantity of required messages. The steady dash man was not recognized for his accomplishment. His only reward was the amazement of his peers and all the bridge personnel, including the captain. Now I know what all of you are wondering, “Was Steacy a steady dash man?” Yes, I was a steady Dash man!