VE to VJ Day at Sea
I was sitting in the upstairs parlor of the parsonage at St. Marks (edge of the French Quarter when the phone rang. Mr. Wright, the union dispatcher, informed me that a radio operator was needed in Houston. I jumped on a plane to get over there. But in flight I realized I had left my operator's license at home; a radio operator without a license is worth nothing to any steamship company.
At Houston I called Dad and informed him of my quandary. He agreed to send it post haste to the hotel where I was staying. The next morning I went into the steamship office and informed them of my quandary. What to do? I was the only man available, such as I was. They told me to come in as soon as I got it.
I got it later that day, went to the office. They had sent the ship, another T2, the Drapers Meadow, down the Houston Ship Channel to Galveston; it could legally go that far without a radio operator. They put me in a car with an office boy (he happened to be a (discharged) Air Force Major (jobs were in short supply about that time). Anyway we hightailed it down to Galveston and were there waiting for the Draper's Meadow. When she arrived I went out and boarded her, and away we went to Norfolk, or rather Newport News to put her in mothballs at the boneyard with dozens of other old tubs of every description-- no longer needed with the end of the European War.
Home I went again with a nice check in my pocket. Next week I got the Pan York. Formerly a nice steamer, she had been retired and turned over to the Panamanians about 1904, but rejoined our merchant fleet during the war. She was a banana boat. We took cargo down to Colombia-- a lovely place to visit at that time (Cartegena and Barranquilla), then up to Panama for a load of bananas and back to New Orleans.
We often had to lay over several days at Panama. The U.S.Army installation was available to us, the post exchange, etc., but more common was the waterfront bars. At that point I became a drinking sailor. Worse than the others, being perfectly free with the ship in port, I used to go ashore at 11 or 12 o'clock, so I had a pretty good head start on my shipmates who got off a 5. Rum and coke was 25 cents, and went down easier and easier.
On board we spent time in what we called the 'saloon'; a better name for it would have been the officers' mess. We had a purser, a pretty nice man, but a terrible wino. One day, half drunk as usual, he said to me, "Sparky, you're a nice kid, but you're getting to be a terrible wino." Me? I thought, oh my stars, what about you, purser.
But it made me do some thinking and I got off that ship.
Mr. Wright liked me; he must have thought I was a cut above most of his clients. Anyway we offered me a real plum for my next cruise. The Delta Line was the premier steamship company running between N.O. and B.A. and all points between. He gave me the Cuba Victory (the Liberty ships ran 8 knots; the victories 14, a much more decent speed).
Our first cruise was Virgin Islands, Trinidad, several ports in Brazil, culminating in Rio, then Montevideo (capital of Uruguay), and Buenos Aires. They were all beautiful places for a (fairly innocent) 20 year old very interested in seeing the world. Those ports were seaman's ports par excellence (or something like that).
At Houston I called Dad and informed him of my quandary. He agreed to send it post haste to the hotel where I was staying. The next morning I went into the steamship office and informed them of my quandary. What to do? I was the only man available, such as I was. They told me to come in as soon as I got it.
I got it later that day, went to the office. They had sent the ship, another T2, the Drapers Meadow, down the Houston Ship Channel to Galveston; it could legally go that far without a radio operator. They put me in a car with an office boy (he happened to be a (discharged) Air Force Major (jobs were in short supply about that time). Anyway we hightailed it down to Galveston and were there waiting for the Draper's Meadow. When she arrived I went out and boarded her, and away we went to Norfolk, or rather Newport News to put her in mothballs at the boneyard with dozens of other old tubs of every description-- no longer needed with the end of the European War.
Home I went again with a nice check in my pocket. Next week I got the Pan York. Formerly a nice steamer, she had been retired and turned over to the Panamanians about 1904, but rejoined our merchant fleet during the war. She was a banana boat. We took cargo down to Colombia-- a lovely place to visit at that time (Cartegena and Barranquilla), then up to Panama for a load of bananas and back to New Orleans.
We often had to lay over several days at Panama. The U.S.Army installation was available to us, the post exchange, etc., but more common was the waterfront bars. At that point I became a drinking sailor. Worse than the others, being perfectly free with the ship in port, I used to go ashore at 11 or 12 o'clock, so I had a pretty good head start on my shipmates who got off a 5. Rum and coke was 25 cents, and went down easier and easier.
On board we spent time in what we called the 'saloon'; a better name for it would have been the officers' mess. We had a purser, a pretty nice man, but a terrible wino. One day, half drunk as usual, he said to me, "Sparky, you're a nice kid, but you're getting to be a terrible wino." Me? I thought, oh my stars, what about you, purser.
But it made me do some thinking and I got off that ship.
Mr. Wright liked me; he must have thought I was a cut above most of his clients. Anyway we offered me a real plum for my next cruise. The Delta Line was the premier steamship company running between N.O. and B.A. and all points between. He gave me the Cuba Victory (the Liberty ships ran 8 knots; the victories 14, a much more decent speed).
Our first cruise was Virgin Islands, Trinidad, several ports in Brazil, culminating in Rio, then Montevideo (capital of Uruguay), and Buenos Aires. They were all beautiful places for a (fairly innocent) 20 year old very interested in seeing the world. Those ports were seaman's ports par excellence (or something like that).
posted by Larry Clayton at 2:05 AM
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