- 1998 Coonen Family Newsletter; Another War Storyby Jim CoonenThe date was Nov. 9, 1942, I received a notice that my request to join t he Merchant Marine Cadet Corp was approved. They ordered me to repo rt to 45 Broadway, New York City on Nov 11. Suddenly the whole world w as opening up to me. I had never been outside the state of Wisconsi n, In fact, I had never ridden in any kind of public transportation, inclu d¬ing buses, trains, taxis and of course subways and ferries. This had a ll changed by the 12th. I arrived a day late but was for¬tunate to be joi ned by three others who were also late. After reporting, we went by subwa y, train, and a bus to the acad¬emy at Kingspoint, LongIsland. I was assigned with 23 other cadets to a class for engineering trainin g. We were given a fast six weeks of preliminary training which was ju st enough time to give us all the immuni- zations known at the time. We we re supposedly protected and ready to go to sea. There were 4 of us Cadets assigned to the same ship, The Andrea F Lucken bach. Two of them were Deck Cadets who were to learn seamanship, anoth er Engine Cadet and myself. We joined the ship in Brooklyn. I think it w as at the 36th St. pier. The Luckenbach was a state of the art ship when she was built back in 1 918. She was a twin screw turbine driven ship. We were told that she w as the largest general cargo ship in the US Registry at the time she enter ed into service. When we came aboard she was in the process of finishing off the loadin g. They were still bringing in and loading 500 # bombs into the hold s. We found out later that some of the holds were full of 37mm anti-aircr aft ammo. We kiddingly said that on this trip we would have no need for l ife jackets. We figured we would be better off with harps.Now that the ship was ready to go, we went to Boston to join a convoy. Ru mors were that we were heading for Mur¬mansk, Russia, above the arctic cir cle. The Germans subs along the coast of Norway had sunk most of the shi ps that tried to make the trip. The US kept trying in spite of the heavy l osses. This was the only access to our ally, Russia. Fortu¬nately, wh en we arrived in Boston our rudder jammed. By the time we had it repaire d, we were too late for the convoy so we returned to New York to join an¬o ther convoy.Finally after losing almost a month, we left New York on Feb. 28,194 3. We thought we were fortunate because six months earlier, the German U- boats were lying in wait off the east coast and were sinking ships dail y. I believe it was either the air patrols or blimps that forced the U-boa ts that forced them out to sea. In any event, our convoy of about 30 shi ps headed out to sea without any problem. The North Atlantic in Ma rch is rough and cold, 20 foot waves are not uncommon. On the 6th or 7th d ay out, a storm with higher waves and white caps hit. The storm was seve re enough to destroy all our life rafts on the starboard side. Even wi th the heavy seas, the convoy was able to stay in formation. They may ha ve increased the spacing between the ships during rough weather they disco ntinued the routine zigzag course. The zigzagging was done to make the ships a harder target to hit. The e ntire convoy would continue to turn like flocks of starlings. They follow ed a pattern of going a given number of minutes in one direction and th en turning sharply. At night or if visibility was poor, the turns were acc ompanied by a blast by the ship's whistle to keep the turns synchronized.On March 10th, when we were about 2/3 across the Atlantic we were torpedoe d. It was about 6:30pm. One of the Deck Ca¬dets and I were in our state ro om. I was lying on my bunk with my shoes off. I was wearing a light kha ki jacket and a pair of khaki pants. Mine was a lower bunk so I had my li fe jacket lightly tied to the bunk above me. Two torpedoes hit us spac ed 5 to 10 seconds apart. They shook the ship but not as much as you wou ld expect. I guess this was because of the thousands of tons of mass a nd the damp¬ening effect of the water. The explosions were strong enou gh to break the ship in two. The stern sank almost immediately. There we re no survivors from the aft quarters.Our training told us not to save anything except yourself. You should gr ab you life jacket and head for your assigned emer¬gency station. Cade ts were to head for the open deck on the same level as our quarters and em bark a lifeboat as it was lowered past that level. By the time that I arri ved at my station, which was a matter of seconds, the two lifeboats were a lmost down to our level. As it went past our deck, 3 or 4 of us climbed i nto it. The two men who were lowering it did a good job of keeping it leve l. A common problem in the excitement is to allow one end to get ahe ad of the other and dump everyone out of the boat. There was no problem g etting the boat into the water and free from the ship in spite of 15-20 fo ot waves. In practically no time we had the lifeboat full of men that we h elped pull out of the water. As soon as possible, we started to row away f rom the ship. The suction of a sinking ship can pull the life boat down w ith it. About one fourth of the ship sank immediately, the remainder disa ppeared from sight six minutes after the torpedoes hit. We heard shouts f or help from the water where the ship had bee. The officer-in-charge to ld us not to row over there because it appeared that there were many peop le in the water. He was afraid that too many people would swamp the bo at that was already fully loaded. He soon determined that all the "head s" that he saw were not men but 500 pound bombs, so we rowed over and pick ed up the one guy that was shouting. We rowed aimlessly for about an ho ur and then saw a ship appear. Here again our training says no ship ev er stops in a convoy to help anyone because they are a good target for U-b oats in the area. This ship was an exception, it was an English ship abo ut half the size of ours. It had been in a shipyard in the States for exte n¬sive repairs. When the repairs were complete, they manned it with Engli sh sailors who were stranded because their ships had been sunk off the ea st coast. Some of them had lost as many as four ships trying to get ba ck to England. I think every one of them had been torpe¬doed at least onc e.We rowed over to the ship, they had hung a landing net over the side f or us to come aboard. A landing net is like a big spider web made of rop e. Due to the high waves, we could only grab the net and climb aboard wh en the lifeboat was on the apex of a wave. One of the men who misjudged w as crushed between the boat and the ship. On board the English ship we mil led around to see who had made it. We lost all of the Navy gunnery crew be cause they were berthed aft. In the final count we lost 24 of the total 7 5.There were no medical personnel aboard, so our ship steward shaved a gu ys head and sewed up a cut with a regular needle and thread. Rum was us ed as both anes¬thetic and to steady the hand of the stew¬ard. Rum was pas sed around to the survi¬vors. A couple of them got a "snoot full". I w as too afraid to take one drink.After a couple of hours we rejoined the convoy which did not give us a ve ry se¬cure feeling. The destroyer escorts (DE's) were still circling arou nd the convoy and dropping depth charges. Several more ships were sunk aft er we caught up with the convoy.The English were very sympathetic, pro¬viding articles of clothing to tho se of us who were in dire need. They felt sorry for me walking arou nd in my stocking feet. I suspect that very few of them had a spare of sh oes because they were all survivors. In any event, I doubt that anyone h ad a size 12EEE. This ship being a tanker, had some special gear aboar d. When it was necessary to enter a tank that had explo¬sives vapors th ey wore spark resistant covers over their shoes. These were leather wi th wooden pegs instead of nail in the soles. The design was like little gi rls patent leather shoes. Someone brought me a pair of them. Needle ss to say they were plenty wide and long enough. When I walked on dec k, it sounded like a Dutchman with wooden shoes. My bud¬dies would say wh en they heard me coming, "Here comes Coonen with his 'Jesus shoes'". Th ey figured I could walk on water with them.After five days we landed in Lockalsh, Scotland in the Gebrides. We were t old this was a submarine base. we were trans¬ported by a narrow guage rail road in very small coaches to Inverness. We stopped just long enough to e at at a fancy hotel. The waiters wore tuxes and we were given a clean pla te with each serving of food. We had 5 or 6 courses of plates but not mu ch food. Can you visualize 55 men with black sticky fuel oil smeared on t heir clothing in this fancy setting.We continued on to Glasgow. Here we received clean clothe. I got a pa ir of gray slacks with a label in them "Christian Science Monitor-Boston ", shirt, sweater and raincoat. I traded my "Jesus shoes" for a pair of wh ite tennis shoes. Back in those days, tennis shoes were only use for tenn is or to do roofing work. After a couple of days we proceeded to Liverpo ol for transportation home. Six of us were assigned to the Santa Catala n, a Grace line ship. We left Mar. 24, 1943 with a convoy for New Yor k. A convoy can only go as fast as the slowest and convoys lose a l ot of time zigzagging.We arrived five days before the convoy. This was good, at least we thoug ht it was.We landed in NY on Saturday and could not get ashore until Monday becau se we had no passports. On Monday I went to the Luchenbach office to get p aid off but I had to wait until the captain returned to be paid. As I rem ember, I had about $5. in my pocket. The Merchant Marine Cadet Corp w as no help except they did tell me that there was a stranded sailor's shel ¬ter on 13th street. Sure enough, for 50cents a night, they furnished a bu nk in a great big room. Fortunately, most of the bunks were empty so it w as fairly quiet. I did sleep with most of my clothes under my pill ow so I would have them in the morning. I only had to spend two nights the reI returned home to Wisconsin less than five months after leaving home f or the first time. I had seen the world and was returning home a her o. My first Sunday home I think I had to shake hands with everyone at chu rch. I told my story over and over again as people near me backed aw ay to let new ones get closer.After three weeks at home, I was eager to get back to the new world that w as discovering.
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1920 - 2007 (87 years)
Has 40 ancestors and 11 descendants in this family tree.
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Coonen, Carolyn
