Zumwalt Page 9

  With those words, Admiral King commissioned the class of 1943.

  Bud was one of about eighty classmates who were married on graduation day in Saint Andrews Chapel with all the glamour of a military wedding. Resplendent in their new ensign uniforms, the naval officers were permitted to marry as soon as they were sworn in, and an unprecedented number of marriages occurred on that graduation day.84 It was big news back home, the local Tulare newspaper headline, accompanied with a photo, reading, TULARE ENSIGN WEDS AT ANNAPOLIS. The photo caption read, “Ensign Elmo Russell Zumwalt, Jr., and his bride, the former Jane Carey, of Philadelphia, walk arm-in-arm out of the academy chapel under an arch of swords held by classmates of Ensign Zumwalt.”85

  In a final letter to his father before both men headed to war, Bud noted, “Our family of six scattered to the winds, two united in the final abode, four separated by the necessities of life, I feel more strongly than ever the inextricability of the spiritual tie that reaches out across the boundaries of time and death to unite us all—the tie of our association will be the bravest, noblest soul we will ever know.”86

  CHAPTER 4

  WAR YEARS

  The success of the torpedo attack by Attack section Two is attributed in a large degree to Lieutenant Zumwalt’s skill and courage. . . . His outstanding skill and judgment as well as exemplary conduct under fire were in keeping with the highest traditions of the naval service.

  —COMMANDER ELONZO BOWDEN GRANTHAM, JR1

  In preparing for deployment overseas, one of Bud’s classmates at the academy sold his car to a buyer on the West Coast. Bud was due to ship out from San Francisco on July 7 and offered to drive cross-country to make the delivery. The drive from Annapolis to San Francisco provided the newlyweds free transportation and time alone. They made one detour—to Seattle for a family reunion, where father and son introduced their respective brides. Bud and Jane were then joined by new stepsister Irene for the drive down the coast to San Francisco, where Ensign Zumwalt reported to the commandant of the Twelfth Naval District. Jane flew with Irene to Seattle, where she lived until Bud returned from the Solomons campaigns in the fall of 1942.2

  Joined by a score of fellow classmates, Bud boarded the Calamares, a United Fruit Company merchant ship that had been pressed into logistic service by the Navy. The Calamares was a transport vessel that was responsible for getting sailors to Pearl Harbor. From there, Bud transferred to the Dixie and a few days later to the troop transport Zeilin.3 A number of classmates were still with him, including longtime prep school friend and classmate Bryan Pickett.

  The Zeilin’s logs show it departing Pearl Harbor on July 21 to join a convoy en route to Suva in the Fiji Islands. By August 7, they sighted the west end of Guadalcanal Island, and the marines commenced landing operations as part of the first U.S. counteroffensive in the Pacific War, aimed at gaining control of an airstrip on Guadalcanal and preventing the Japanese from controlling the surrounding air and sea regions.4 The Battle of Guadalcanal lasted for six months.5 The Zeilin, under Captain Pat Buchanan, was one of three cargo vessels attached to the Espiritu Santo Group, Section Two, under Rear Admiral Norman Scott. “The Espiritu Santo Group carried the First Marine Aviation Engineer Battalion, Marine replacements, ground personnel of Marine Air Wing ONE, aviation engineering and operating material, ammunition and food,” wrote Colin Jameson in The Battle of Guadalcanal.6

  The operations ran with precision until the evening of the Battle of Savo Island in the early hours of August 9. It would be Bud’s first experience witnessing combat, in this case the worst defeat ever inflicted on the U.S. Navy, described by Admiral Ernest J. King as “the blackest day” in naval history. A fleet of Japanese heavy cruisers under Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa engaged a patrol group led by the heavy cruiser HMAS Canberra. Shortly after 1:43 a.m., the Canberra was struck and disabled by a barrage of gunfire.7 “More than thirty Japanese shells struck the Australian heavy cruiser, killing her commander, Captain Frank E. Getting, and other senior officers,” wrote James Hornfischer in Neptune’s Inferno. “Almost at once both of her boiler rooms were destroyed, and with them died all power and light throughout the ship. She was a floating nest of flame.”8

  Mikawa’s force then attacked the U.S. cruiser force guarding the transports that had been landing the First Marine Division at Guadalcanal and Tulagi.9 In the course of some hours, the heavy cruisers Quincy, Vincennes, and Astoria sank without inflicting any significant damage on the Japanese fleet. “In thirty-seven minutes, more than a thousand American and Australian sailors had been killed, fatally injured, or forced into the sea, where they would drown,” wrote Denis Warner. “Another seven hundred were wounded. Four invaluable cruisers had been lost, and the U.S. Navy had suffered the worst open-sea defeat in its history.”10

  “I was able to witness this whole thing,” recalled Bud, who had been asleep below deck when the battle began. Bryan Pickett rushed down to report on a tremendous naval battle going on.11 “We watched and cheered along with the rest of the crew on the Zeilin as we saw these four huge fires, because we were all convinced that it was the U.S. Navy sinking Japanese ships. It was only in the wee hours of the morning that the terrible news came in that the ships that we had cheered for being sunk were, in fact, the Canberra, Quincy, Vincennes, and Astoria, and that there were many losses, among whom were some classmates who had just recently been transferred to those ships in the week before, having traveled that same voyage with us from San Francisco and down from Pearl Harbor.”12

  Nothing had prepared Bud for this first experience in battle and its carnage. Bud was especially saddened by the loss of classmates Salty Eversole and Pete Hamner. “It was a time of great sadness and personal reinforcement of the tragedy of the war . . . these were individuals that I’d known well during my Naval Academy days. Indeed, they were battalion mates of me. . . . Seeing death reinforced . . . and sobered us all.”13 Midshipmen often glamorized the idea of dying in battle for the glory of their country. He and his friends had talked repeatedly about it. They now wondered aloud about their own odds of surviving the war.

  In August 1941, future admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten made a war-rallying, goodwill trip to the United States. One of his stops included the U.S. Naval Academy, where he gave a rousing speech. Bud was in his final year at the academy and was selected to be part of a small cadet detail to conduct then captain Mountbatten around the campus. When he had a moment, with thoughts of looming graduation and a ship assignment, and Mountbatten’s recent experience in the Mediterranean, Bud asked Mountbatten what it was like to be in battle. Mountbatten thought for a moment and said, “Well, there you are on your ship. High in the sky you see an enemy plane turn and dive to begin its strafing run on you. Intellectually, you know that the plane’s equivalent of .50 cal. or 20mm bullets can cut through the 3/8" steel skirting on the bridge wing like a knife through butter . . . , but at the appropriate moment you duck down behind it anyway.”14

  It must have given Bud comfort to understand that, regardless of one’s station in life, everyone is the same—scared—in battle, and that it is OK to be scared. When he was finally tested, Bud found the best medicine was immersing himself “into what you know you’ve got to do with intense concentration, in part because it’s your duty to do so, and partly because that helps you to forget any concern you might have.”15 Bud was detached from the battle raging at Savo Island, but Lord Mountbatten’s advice would be handy in later encounters during the kamikaze aircraft attacks and torpedo attacks in the Surigao Strait.

  A few days following the defeat at Savo Island, Bud was transferred to the ship his orders had assigned him to—the USS Phelps. “I was transferred to the Phelps by high-line. In those days, we didn’t have the sophisticated boatswain’s chair. Everything was done in the cargo sack that food went over in. So I sat absolutely out of sight, as one was ordered to do for safety, while being brought aboard.”16 At this time Bud weighed about 195 pounds, the heaviest he had ever been. Emerging from
the cargo bag in the dark of night, he overheard the chief storekeeper say in a loud voice, “ ‘Huh! A new ensign; there ain’t nobody going to give him no shit.’ That was my official greeting on board the first ship to which I was officially assigned.”17

  The next morning, Lieutenant Commander E. L. Beck asked Bud for a debriefing of what happened at Savo Island. Beck was surprised and appalled by the firsthand report. He took Bud to see the squadron commander, who happened to be on board. Bud was ordered not to say anything about the damage and losses in the battle to anyone on the Phelps. “My lips were officially ordered sealed about the news of the things that I had seen firsthand.”18

  Something happened to Bud in those first days on the Phelps that ended up plaguing him for the rest of his time at sea—seasickness. Former high school classmate John Sturgeon recalled that during a father-son fishing outing in the Pacific, Bud got so seasick that he never got his line in the water.19 Somehow this never seemed a deterrent or even a consideration when Bud was weighing his applications to West Point and Annapolis. Destroyers have a peculiar high pitch and high roll, and with the exception of standing watch, Bud remained in his bunk for almost three months. “I carried my bucket with me and vomited on watch and retained very little food,” said Bud.20 The one benefit was losing twenty-five pounds, which he never permitted himself to regain.

  A new ensign becoming seasick so quickly created credibility problems with shipmates. During the first weeks aboard the Phelps, he was an object of “ridicule, initially, because they expected me to get over it, as most people did in a few days, and sympathy as it went on and on. Then I sensed that after a few weeks, it became one of admiration that I was still hanging in there and doing my duties on watch and getting to division parades and issuing the orders in between heaves.”21

  The Phelps returned to Pearl Harbor on September 28, 1942. Within days the ship was on its way to San Francisco for overhaul to receive its first surface radar before departing for the Aleutian campaign.22 Bud was detached for radar school at Treasure Island and sent to Long Beach for three weeks’ intensive study to serve as a combat information officer (CIC). In San Francisco, he reunited with Jane and was given ten days’ leave so that they could both join Saralee and her husband, Bill Crowe, in Dos Palos.23 “We spent our ten days on vacation in that little hometown getting caught up with my sister and brother-in-law.”24

  This was a difficult time for Bud and Jane. It was obvious to both of them that their marriage was not working. True, they had had little time together before Bud headed to sea, but Jane’s loneliness led her to be unfaithful, and she started to drink heavily. Bud was devastated. “Her reputation was a complete embarrassment to my father and his (Saralee) family who promised they would look after her while he was away. The community talked about it,” said daughter Ann. Jane’s behavior led Bud’s brother Jim to think he could never trust a woman, but Elmo interceded with sound fatherly advice. “You once said after Bud’s episode that you thot [sic] you would never trust a woman. DON’T hold to that concept. Most women like most men are GOOD. If it were not so the world would go to pot! But you and I must admit that we will never know women.”25

  Jane and Bud had been married only twenty months. “We didn’t think it was a compatible situation, and I persuaded her to agree to let me go into a divorce court in California.”26 An interlocutory decree was issued in 1943 in California and became final in 1944.27 The dissolution of his marriage was difficult on “the crown prince of the clan Zumwalt,” which is how his father often addressed Bud.28 Writing to his son about the lessons to be drawn from the experience of a failed marriage, Elmo explained that “you have already found that life is not a straight line but rather a curve, when at times we are in the depths and again on the heights—the bitter and sweet of life. That is a typical course. If life was a bed of roses, we should soon hate that beautiful flower and its perfume would become obnoxious. . . . I have always told you that regardless of the ups and downs of life, I was with you every time. I want you to always remember that statement. ‘To thine own self be true’ and there can never be regrets or remorse. We all have our periods of depression, but if we are fair, we can admit errors and gather up our forces. . . . Never feel sorry for yourself.”29

  Saralee joined the chorus of emotional support. “Hope you are all O.K. emotionally now,” she wrote. “I’m sure you will find some wonderful girl someday who will love you like I love Dick. If I were a young girl, I’d be mad about you. In fact, I’m generally in favor of you as a brother.”30 Three months later another letter from his sister reached Bud aboard the Robinson: “I hope you will have great happiness in the future. It seems you’ve had rather a rotten deal so far. Sometimes, I wish you had married Billie because I feel she would have been wonderful for you. Bud, I know things will work out.”31

  No longer married, Bud’s mental approach changed. The war became an adventure with “no place I would rather have been than fighting for my country at a time of need. I enjoyed the brotherhood of the wardroom and the ships—the sense of power and the sense of adventure. I had no wife or children to worry about and therefore felt none of the concerns about what ‘would happen to those I left behind.’ ”32 He and his fellow sailors were doing heavier drinking, thinking that their days were limited. “I was promptly seasick every day and would get over it as soon as we got into port, and would misbehave the next night.”33

  With its overhaul complete, the Phelps proceeded on a weeklong shakedown and refresher training.34 The Phelps then deployed from Long Beach to the Aleutians and began the campaign involving the capture of Attu and landings at Kiska. One of the first things Bud did was extraordinarily personal in nature. Somehow Bud had convinced Jane to return his mother’s ring. When he shipped out to sea on the Phelps, he decided to throw the ring into the ocean because it stood as a symbol of defilement to the memory of his mother. “When he told me of his plan to do that I tried to persuade him to sell the ring and use the proceeds for a worthy charity—one that our mother would have approved of,” recalled Jim. “When I next saw Bud, he told me that he had, indeed, tossed the ring into the Pacific. I think he felt he had to do this in order to erase the guilt that was tormenting him.”35

  Japan began operations in the Aleutian Islands in June with the bombing of Dutch Harbor. By June 11–12, substantial Japanese forces had landed and established themselves on Attu and Kiska.36 The Phelps was part of Task Force Roger, under the command of Rear Admiral Francis W. Rockwell. The Phelps served as the control vessel for the northern landing group. Bud’s battle station was officer of the deck, always beside the skipper during actions. He found the invasion of Attu fascinating because the ship patrolled very close to the beach, where Bud was able to observe the army closing in on the Japanese stronghold. The close proximity provided a sense of being “almost a unit of artillery in that action.”37

  The six months in the Aleutians proved to be the most unpleasant part of the war. The weather was usually rough and foggy, so bad during the Attu campaign that Bud was often unable to see the battleships they were escorting just a few thousand yards away. “The feeling of oppression was so great that numbers of sailors really developed the kinds of reactions that led them to be emotionally insecure,” recalled Bud.38 The one benefit of so much fog and drudgery was that Bud was able to do a lot of reading and began studying the Russian language.

  The Phelps was next involved in the August 2 bombardment of Kiska. Between August 2 and 15, the Phelps played a prominent role in ten bombardments conducted by destroyers. On August 12, Task Force Baker, with the Phelps taking the place of the Farragut, carried out another predawn bombardment. Landing operations started on August 15, but U.S. troops did not encounter enemy forces, as the Japanese had already evacuated the island.39

  The invasion of Kiska provided Bud with a particularly memorable experience. The Phelps had been detached to an area south of the Aleutians in order to rendezvous with a group of transports bringing the invasion f
orce to Kiska. It was a nighttime rendezvous, and the next morning a blinker message came in to the Phelps, “To Ensign Zumwalt, I am on the transport behind you. See you in Adak. Love, Dad.” Unbeknownst to Bud, his father’s field hospital had been assigned to the Kiska invasion forces. Elmo was commanding officer of the combat field hospital. Bud was jubilant about the prospect of being reunited in Adak.

  As the Phelps was about to enter Adak Harbor, a Japanese submarine was sighted near Dutch Harbor, several hundred miles eastward. The Phelps was ordered to break off and investigate. Bud’s commanding officer was considerate enough to call Bud to the bridge to explain there would be no family reunion in Adak. He offered to maneuver the Phelps close enough to his father’s ship so perhaps the two men could get a look at one another. The skipper sent a signal alerting the other ship of this maneuver. As the Phelps positioned itself, Elmo was standing on the wing of one bridge and Bud on the wing of the Phelps’s bridge. “We were waving at each other as the skipper came relatively close. I was very much afraid that that would be the last time that I would see him.”40