Another of the "Greatest" is gone

Pilawt

Final Approach
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Pilawt
Robert E. Lee died today.

No, not Robert Edward Lee, the Confederate general. It was my wife's uncle by marriage, Robert Elton Lee, age 96, in Martinsburg WV.

Fortunately, several years ago Uncle Bob sat down to dictate a memoir of his wartime service, and the family history that resulted from it. Here are a few excerpts. Read them and raise a toast to Uncle Bob.

In July of 1940, I joined the Navy. After boot camp at the training facilities in San Diego, I found myself aboard the USS Holland, a submarine tender, on my way to Pearl Harbor.

[...]

Upon returning to Pearl, I was transferred back to the radio shack. I taught myself how to read code, finally got up to twenty-five words per minute, which meant I could go on the skeds, which are the messages coming in from radio stations. We copied Radio Honolulu, Radio San Francisco and Radio Washington (all US Navy stations), which was the method used to relay the word to all ships and stations.

[...]

Next day I was informed I was being transferred to the USS Sailfish. It was reported that the Skipjack, one of our subs, was fired on, presumably by a Japanese midget sub, so we and the USS Stingray were ordered to go looking for it and sink it if found. No, we didn't find it.

[...]

In the spring of 1941 I had put in a request for transfer to the Army Air Corps at Hickam Field. So upon returning to Pearl from our hunt and seek, I was handed two letters. One was from the Air Corps to report to Hickam for a physical; and the other from the Secretary of the Navy: "No more interservice transfers will be allowed. Period." So my long desire was short-lived. You can't have it all.

Was transferred back to USS Holland upon their return and after all supplies and equipment was aboard, off we went. I guess it was on our third or fourth day out, as the morning light came, a very large ship appeared on our starboard bow, bearing down on us. General Quarters was sounded and we made ready to do battle if necessary. She pulled up about a thousand yards from us and stopped. We had four subs between us, which I'm sure she did not know. We laid to for about 8 hours, finally she up and steamed away towards Honolulu. It was said she was probably a mother ship for midget subs. The next day another ship came into view off our port bow, just scooting along as fast as she could. The deck officer looked in his Jane's Ships book and saw where she was a Japanese armed raider. Without any other doing we arrived in Manila Harbor November 22nd.

[...]

At 3:32 AM "LZT" December 8th, Manila time, the message came across on the sked channel, which was manned by Taylor, 3rd Class Radioman. I was the supervisor. Taylor was having a hard time copying the plain language, so I attempted to find a place to plug in my earphones, so I could help him. Both of us were quite nervous, but copied it down. The message was Pearl Harbor and Army Air Force locations are being attacked by the Japanese. Govern yourselves accordingly and put War Plans Nr 367 into effect. I flew down to the Captain's cabin, then the Exec's, then Officer of the Day.

Of course there was a big commotion, with everyone running around attempting to determine what to do. Of course General Quarters was sounded and stood in effect all day.

The first bombing came about midnight, I and several others slept topside that night. The noise woke us up, we could see over towards Cavite Naval Yard and it looked like a giant Fourth of July. There was quite a bit of damage done. The Japanese did not have a bombsight at the time, so they just pattern bombed.

[...]

After they bombed Cavite there was only one American plane left that could fly. As he was chasing the Japanese our own ground fire hit him and he had to bail out. Mr. Clark was picked up by one of our whale boats on their way back from Corregidor with supplies.

We were credited with causing one Japanese plane to crash. Our ack ack guns were WW1 guns, with altitude pre-set.

We left Manila late that night, along with several other ships we were ordered south to Balikpapan on the island of Borneo. [...]

Upon arriving there we found the American luxury liner Monterey, which had been on her way to Manila and other ports. As we left there, the current caught the bow of the Holland and it rammed a hole in the Monterey. Fortunately, the damage was high enough they could still go to sea.

[...]

We arrived in the Bass Straight, the body of water that flows on the underside of Australia. It's said to be the second roughest stretch of water in the world, after the North Sea. We found out it was rough enough to shake the braces loose, that hold the rudder post firm, leaving the post and rudder itself to be swinging around without any support. So the Captain ordered it cut loose and dropped into Davey Jones' Locker. We then went in circles for two weeks waiting for a seagoing tug to come from Melbourne and drag us in, which they did, stern-first, arriving sometime towards the end of October.

That's how I arrived in Melbourne, and much to my surprise brought me in contact with a little gal who became my wife for just under sixty years.

Bob married Ruby Watts, who was from a family of thirteen siblings in Melbourne. After the war they settled in California.

Ruby's sister, Dorothy (my mother-in-law), married an American soldier in Melbourne in 1944. In 1946 Dorothy, with hundreds of other war brides, sailed to San Francisco aboard the liner Monterey -- the very same ship that collided with Uncle Bob's USS Holland in Borneo days after the war began. Dorothy made only two short visits back to Australia before her death in 1999.

Next month my wife and I travel to Australia in hopes of meeting up with some of the family.

Godspeed Uncle Bob.
 
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Godspeed, indeed. Thank you for sharing, Jeff.
 
RIP Radioman.

The Holland had quite a life, that ship. She was Nimitz’ flagship for a short time when he was still a Captain.
 
Great idea to get the memoires. Just yesterday I was reading some letters my grandfather wrote to his new bride, my grandmother, in 1918. This was WWI in France. In one of them he tells her, they gave me a commendation and I told my commanding officer I did not deserve the commendation because I was scared to death and he said, "Then all the more reason you deserve it."

No idea what he did for the commendation. All his letters were marked "read by censor, no military content."

Godspeed your Uncle Bob.
 
Thank you for sharing that story.

One of my good friends is a B-26 Co-Pilot who was shot down on his 23rd mission in the ETO. Captured and spent the rest of the war as a POW.

Cheers
 
Yet nothing about John Young.
 
So I’m wrong again.... to a point.
Only a dozen posts about NASA’s greatest astronauts?

Disgraceful imo.
It's not about right/wrong. Very easy to not see a post on a busy board. Just mentioning that John Young was noted.
I won't get into contrasting the responses to noting the passing of a relative vs. a public figure. Obviously a very talented and dedicated public figure but still not a personal connection to most folks.
 
It's not about right/wrong. Very easy to not see a post on a busy board. Just mentioning that John Young was noted.
I won't get into contrasting the responses to noting the passing of a relative vs. a public figure. Obviously a very talented and dedicated public figure but still not a personal connection to most folks.
Well in the aviation community it should be. (And that’s in my best “get of my lawn” voice I have).
 
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