 |
|
| I was born and raised in
Herrington, Kansas. The war came along while I was in college at Baker University. We were
given the choice of joining the reserve program and graduating from college or being
drafted so I decided to join the Navy reserve program. I had already had two years of army
training in 1936 and ’37 – in the infantry – and I guess I have to be
honest, I wasn’t too delighted with that. So I joined the Navy reserves in 1942 and
graduated before I went to war in 1943. Altogether, I spent 3 years in active duty and 13
years in the reserves. I started my training at Notre Dame (a lot of the Midwest boys went to Notre Dame) but they had training at colleges all over the United States. The training was tough, physical training. There were exercises every morning to get us in shape, constant marching, and classroom training. They called us "90-day wonders". You see; you start as an apprentice seaman, that’s as low as you can get. And if you make the grade there you’re moved into mid-shipman training for 90 days. If you make the grade there, you’re a "90-day wonder" and you’re an officer in the Navy. Not everybody made it. We did more training on Chesapeake Bay. The ships were flat bottomed, you see – instead of V-bottomed – so they could run right up on the beach and not roll over. Then we could get the infantry men off and then push off and go back out. So there was shallow water in the Chesapeake Bay area that was conducive to good training. The training consisted of "beaching" and learning how to pull your ship back off the beach, and of course we learned about unloading troops. And we also manned anti-aircraft guns. If I were really honest about it, I’d say it’s a good job in a war: you get in and get your troops off and you get out of there. Then we went over to England and did more training. If I had to really describe what it amounted to, it was utter boredom. You do the same thing over and over and over. You drilled for general quarters which means; "the enemy’s close, so get ready" You had fire drills because if you catch on fire in the ocean you’ve got to put it out or you’re gonna drown. And you had damage control. If you were to have a hole shot in the side of your ship you had to get plates of steel to patch it up so you wouldn’t sink. If you got torpedoed in the early part of the war that usually did you in. You’re constantly training in all these things so you know exactly what to do. It has to come to you as second nature because you don’t have time to stop and think; "What am I supposed to do?" Here’s another thing: the LCI’s didn’t have radar early on. You get in a storm and you don’t see the sun or stars or anything for days on end. You just keep track of where you think you boat should be (it’s called "dead reckoning") you just "dead reckon" that you’re gonna be at that point in 4 days or tomorrow or whatever. And once a day the Commodore flies a flag and the flag says: "Give us your noon position". And every ship then has to tell the Commodore where their noon position is, latitude and longitude. So one time when we were in training we hit a storm right out of Norfolk, Virginia. We were in the storm for 4 or 5 days. And the convoy commodore ran up the flag: "Give us your noon position". So we did, and I was the navigator, so I ran up our noon position on our flag. After the convoy gives their position, then the commodore gives the true position, and we were 500 miles off! My captain said, "You’d better read those books a little closer". Toward the end of the war we were much better navigators. On the way
back from the Azores to Jacksonville we were a group flagship, so we were the convoy
commodore. I was assigned to sea duty aboard a ship in the Atlantic. I was an ensign when I went into the service and when I came out I was a Lt. Commander. The living conditions aboard ship were OK. You always had a bunk to sleep in and you always had toilet facilities, and you always had food. Although, if you got into stormy weather you might not eat a hot meal for days on end. But you’d eat everything else, I’ll tell you that.
At the time it was thought that LCIs would have little value outside of their use as landing crafts. However, after Normandy, LCIs were converted to rocket ships, equipped with radar and designed to carry anti-aircraft weapons to shoot down kamikazes. Our ship was part of the invasion force for the invasion of Normandy. On the morning of June 6 we went in directly behind the first wave. To be honest with you I felt scared to death. Our ship was bombed in England dozens of nights; we were strafed by the Germans when we started going into the invasion into France and had a constant threat from submarines trying to sink the ships with all the guys on them. I was actually assigned to 2 different ships during the war. The
ships all had numbers. One was a 418 and one was a 420. I began my service on 418.
That was the ship I was on during the Normandy invasion. But I left it to go to England
for an emergency appendectomy. When I got out of the hospital my boat was gone and I was
transferred to another boat the 420.
We had a problem at Normandy. We had to move our ships because the water was too deep. The guys were loaded down with their packs and all and they’d jump off the ships into six feet of water and just go down. They drowned under all the weight of their gear. So we had to find more shallow water. So then we took the troops up close to shore and the soldiers would climb down ladders on the sides of the ship. Sometimes that was a problem, because they get scared and don’t want to go. So you’ve got to force them off. You had to threaten to shoot them but we never had to shoot them. It might seem hard to do. But if you have .50 caliber machine guns shooting at you or German 88’s coming off the beach at you everyone is scared to death and wants to get out of there. So that makes it a little easier. It’s a sad but true thing: it’s selfish, it’s self-preservation. I do have a lot of strong memories. I met a guy in
training at Notre Dame,Joe Schmucker was his name. He was assigned to amphibious forces on
a LCT which was a flat-bottomed barge that that carried tanks into the beaches. Well, Joe
was on a LCT going into Normandy at Utah Beach when a mine blew a big hole in the ship. It
sank the ship and killed all the guys on it. I read about it on the casualty list in Stars
and Stripes. There was also a kid my wife and I went to school with who was killed on
a destroyer in the English Channel. I think if there was one thing I’m glad to have accomplished it is to have learned about the folly of war. I still have mixed emotions, but we knew back then of some of the things that Nazi Germany was doing to other human beings. And I have mixed emotions because you have to stop that, and war is the only thing we use to stop that. You can only negotiate if there is trust, and of course we couldn’t trust Hitler. We tried to negotiate with Japan and they were two-faced, planning to attack Pearl Harbor at the same time we were negotiating with them. So you’ve got to fight back to survive. That’s my folly. There has to be a better way.
The Germans developed a wolf pack. What that amounts to is a group
of six to eight submarines. Now each convoy may cover 100 square miles and the Germans
have these submarines all the way around the convoy and they’re waiting for someone
to have trouble. If someone stops they’ll throw a torpedo. One of the screening destroyers for our convoy was hit with an acoustic torpedo. We were headed toward the Azores when this destroyer was torpedoed. It was a beautiful day. The ocean was just flat like a mirror and the sun was warm. You know, just a beautiful day. All of a sudden this destroyer was hit with this acoustic torpedo. I think it was probably around 10:00 in the morning. And the convoy immediately started going at flank (that’s top speed) to move out of the area and we radioed to Azores. The Azores was owned by Spain and it was independent (they didn’t fight on either side) but they allowed the Navy to come in there for fresh water and repairs. We had an air base there and they sent planes our from there to cover the convoy on the way in. Later in the afternoon the commodore, who is the guy who runs the convoy, sent our ship out to find survivors. So we circled back to pick up survivors. We took 65 guys off of the destroyer and 4 of them were wounded. A day or two later we caught up with the convoy and we transferred them to the commodore’s ship. It was a huge ship, like a steamship which had the facilities to handle whatever was necessary. Our ship had 20 mm anti-aircraft guns, for both defense and offense. The problem was it only had a range of 1500 yards. So, you really had to be pretty close to shoot. Believe it or not, we were concerned about the cost of war. Have you ever heard the expression: "You can have guns or butter, but not both"? That was a famous line. You can eat or you can have guns to shoot the enemy, but not both. So that’s what you’re faced with. And we would go to certain areas to fire anti-aircraft guns, and then we’re through. Because I don’t know what each one cost, but I imagine the rounds for them probably cost about two bucks apiece. Well you can shoot and shoot a thousand rounds in nothing flat and you‘ve got five or six guns shooting a thousand rounds--that’s a lot of money. We were borrowing money from ourselves all the time; war bonds. That’s why everybody bought war bonds to finance the war. I was elated when the war was over. Our ship was being converted to prepare for the invasion of Japan. VJ Day was in August and we had sailing orders for Pearl Harbor. We waited 24 hours, hoping and praying for a cancellation, but we never got it. So we sailed to Pearl Harbor. But the war was over at that point and I was glad, because we were being outfitted for the invasion of Japan. I had gotten married in 1943 and we came back to the states in 1945.
The Navy I should be honest about how I felt about my contribution during the war. I really wasn’t too happy. After midshipmen’s school I was offered a job to teach other guys, but I was gung-ho. I was an enthusiastic, red-blooded American who had a lot of friends in the services. I turned down the teaching job so I could go to war and fight the Germans or the Japs. And a year later, after Normandy, when we came back to the states I ran into a guy who was on a shore duty I said, "Is there any way you can get me a teaching job?". But I couldn’t get it. That’s when our outfit was sent to Japan. The hot red blood that flows through your veins cools down when you are a part of the war. I guess that’s the only other thing I really want to include: Learn tolerance and acceptance of others so we don’t have any more wars, so we negotiate peace. Permission granted for use by Ken Schmutz © 2001
|
Thanks for visiting! Do you have any questions?
Comments?
E-mail us nbosch@aol.com,
web editor
Last update 03/25/01 08:21 PM
Copyright © 2001 Nieman Enhanced Learning Center
Ken Schmutz
Our ship was a LCI (Landing Craft Infantry) and
transported 200 infantrymen. Amphibious forces were new to the US military and 100,000 men
were assigned to the amphibious forces. The forces were made up of flotillas, 36 ships to
a flotilla. LCIs were newly developed in 1942 because you see, everything was
ocean-locked. There was no way to get into France or Belgium or the Netherlands or
anywhere to fight the amphibious forces were designed to get forces to shore and we
couldn’t have won the war without them. The job of LCI forces was to bring the second
wave of forces to the beaches. The first wave of soldiers got to the beaches in small
boats and we would follow up behind to send our troops in after them. 
On a large ship most everyone has one job. But on a small ship each man has
several different jobs. I was 2nd in command as well as navigator and gunnery
officer. My job on D-Day was to go up on the forecastle and get the guys the infantry
soldiers off the ship. 
During the war, the older torpedoes were used to sink ships and a lot of
times they’d miss. They might get one hit out of ten torpedoes. The Germans developed
a new torpedo, called an acoustic torpedo. You see, every ship has screws – a screw
is the thing that moves your ship, it’s a diesel-powered engine. All the ships have
at least one, and most of our ships had twins – that means two diesel-powered
engines. When the Germans developed the acoustic torpedo, they could get a submarine a
half mile or so away from a ship and shoot off an acoustic torpedo. The screws on the ship
are moving all the time creating bubbles and waves and so forth. The acoustic torpedoes
pick up the sound and hone in on it and go right in and hit those screws and blow them
off. Now it doesn’t sink the ship, but what it does do is it makes it stop in the
water. And the convoy will not stop. This is the bad thing, when you’re in convoy if
a ship is torpedoed you do not stop, you go on. Now later on, if the Commodore decides
there are no more submarines around he’ll release one or two screening vessels,
destroyers, to go back and they’ll throw off a cargo net. They won’t stop, but
they go through the area with the net and if there are any guys alive they can grab on and
then get pulled in.
headquarters put out a request for college graduates to enlist for training for the
occupation of Germany. I was debating about enlisting when we got a notice on the ship
that we were going to be refurbished and sent back to the states. That meant I would get
to go back to be with my bride. So I chose that over the army of occupation. I didn’t
know at the time that my wife would have like to go over to Germany with me.