Worlds War Events - Volume 3 | Page 8

and so. I have learned more
navigation and ship-handling since being over here than in all my
previous seagoing experience. In the old ante-bellum days one hesitated
to get too close to another ship, even in daytime, far more so at night,
even with the required navigation lights on. Now, without so much
light as a glowworm could give, we run around, never quite certain
when the darkness ahead may turn into a ship close enough to throw a
brick at.
However, I am back in the ranks again now, as the captain has come
back and resumed command.
OCTOBER 9.
[Sidenote: Job of an executive officer is thankless.]
You must not be resentful because of things you have gone through,
unappreciated by those perhaps for whom you have undergone them. It
is one of the laws of life, and a hard law too, but it comes to everybody,
either in a few big things or a multitude of little ones. Do the people

who keep the world turning around ever get due recognition? I was
thinking in much the same resentful vein myself to-day, in my own
small way, how thankless the job of an executive officer is; how you
never reach any big end, or even feel that you have made progress, but
just keep on the job, watching and inspecting and fussing to keep the
whole personnel-matériel machine running smoothly, and knowing that
your recognition is purely negative, in that, if all goes well, you don't
get called down. And then I calm down and realize that it is all in the
game, and that it is the best tribute so to handle your job in life that
nothing has to be said. If your car runs perfectly, you neither feel nor
hear it, and give it little credit on that account. But let it strip a gear or
something go!!
[Sidenote: Roller-skating for amusement ashore.]
I hate to tell you what I was doing this afternoon. You will think I am
not at war at all when I tell you that I have been roller-skating. I was a
bit rusty at first, but warmed up to it. It is about the only exercise we
can get on shore, for it rains all the time. Each shower puts an added
crimp in my temper, as I have been trying to get a new coat of
camouflage paint on the ship. I think, if some of the old
paint-and-polish captains and admirals could see her now, they would
die of apoplexy.
[Sidenote: No chance for wives to come over.]
I fear there is no chance for you to come over. Admiral Sims
disapproves--not of you personally--one cannot find a place to live here,
and there would be too many hardships. How would it be for you when
we had said good-bye, and you saw the ship start out into a howling
gale or go out right after several ships had been sunk outside? With you
at home among friends, I can keep my mind on my job, which I
couldn't if you were alone over here.
Let me say right now that the destroyer torpedoed was not ours. It was
hard on you all to have the news published that one had been and a man
killed, and not say what boat, as that leaves every one in suspense. I
suppose the relatives of the man were notified, but that doesn't help

other people who were anxious.
[Sidenote: A destroyer is torpedoed but does not sink.]
I don't suppose I can tell you which boat either, if the authorities won't.
You do not know any one on board of her, however. They saw it
coming, jammed on full speed, and nearly cleared it. It took them just
at the stern and blew off about 30 feet as neatly as son would bite the
end off a banana. The submarine heard the explosion, of course, from
below, and came to the surface to see the "damned Yankee" sink, only
to find the rudderless, sternless boat steaming full speed in a circle with
her one remaining propeller, and to be greeted by a salvo of four-inch
shells that made her duck promptly. The man killed saw the torpedo
coming and ran aft to throw overboard some high explosives stowed
there--but he didn't quite make it.
[Sidenote: Damaged destroyers somehow get back to port.]
Our destroyers are really wonderful boats--you can shoot off one end of
them, ram them, cut them in two, and still they float and get to port
somehow.
Some time ago, on a pitch-dark night, one of them was rammed by a
British boat and nearly cut in two. Was there a panic? Not at all. As she
settled in the water, they got out their boats and life-rafts,