SHIP AGROUND
USS YUMA ATF 94   ISLAND OF

Communication came in that an Army transport is aground on a small island east of Guadalcanal. Left Tulagi Harbor and headed out to location pursuant to orders. Storm is dying down and good weather is settling in.

Upon arrival, surveying the situation, we found an Army Transport, of unknown vintage, had apparently been trying to seek shelter from the storm by trying to find a quiet harbor. Apparently the Captain had thought he had found a quiet harbor for shelter.
This was the last thing he should have been looking for, as he would have been much better off riding out the storm at sea. We soon found out the way the man did not think. Apparently the ship had headed into the “harbor”, heard the surf straight ahead, then hitting hard left rudder, to avoid the rocks, and then went right on to the beach and became hard aground. Apparently from the looks of the position of the ship on the rocks he hit them at full speed. His ship was half out of the water and the heavy surf was rapidly destroying the ship.

This appeared to be a cargo ship of possibly 75 tons chartered to the Army with an Army crew of about 20 people.

In order to attempt a pull on the ship, we had to rig an “L” shape pull. We had to rig up by securing our tackle to a large rock, with a burchess (pulley) at the apex of the “L” and pull at a 90 degree angle. We got the tackle rigged with some great ingenuity, hooked up to the cargo ship and prepared to pull.

It was necessary to place a signalman on the ship because we could not communicate with them otherwise. Signalman Land was sent over to be our communications to our ship. After a couple of days of pulling, without success, Land requested to be relieved. Captain asked if I wanted to go and I volunteered, always looking for new experiences. One gets bored just watching things happen, I always wanted in on the action.

I soon found out why Land wanted off the ship. This Skipper was paranoid as hell. This man was really crazy, but he was also armed with a sidearm.  A real Captain Queeg we would call him now. (From Here to Eternity had not then been written). This old man was genuinely nuts. I would communicate with the Yuma with semaphore flags and often shot the breeze with the other signalmen through “pvt” signals. Naturally I was slipping in to my messages what the real situation was there and the actions of the skipper for the benefit of my captain. His crew was scared to death of him and stayed out of his way as best they could. I saw with real reason, this man was dangerous and always armed.

He kept asking me what I was saying to my ship. I tried to convince him that I was shooting the breeze with my shipmates (which was not quite the truth). He suspected me of all kinds of diabolical plots against him. When he would want to send a signal to our ship, he would write it out and count the letters. He couldn’t read semaphore flags but he knew that each position of the flags meant a letter. He saw that I did not add any addenda of my own. I decided it was to my own better health to obey even though he was not in my chain of command. Somehow this did not seem important to me at the time. He watched me like a hawk from that point on. He was the skipper and he was armed and I dared not disobey his order.

This charade went on for several days. All the time we were pulling and trying to work the ship off the rocks in various ways. The salvage crew many tried many different things with great imagination.

A great many natives came down out of the hills and wanted to sell us everything they could in the way of souvenirs. We had a lively trade going on with everything, mostly shells and carvings as they had nothing else and did not understand money. Our guys traded some of the little things we had for their things. It was all a form of barter. They wanted mostly knives, tools, watches, and food. Our guys came up with some of the things they wanted. It was funny to watch the bartering. They had mostly shells, beads and carvings. None of their stuff was very good, mostly very crude.

It became apparent we had to lighten the load on the ship. We were getting no-where with the pull, even at high tide. We needed manpower and a lot of it as the unloading of the cargo had to be done by hand. We had no authority to hire anyone and they were not interested in dollars anyway. They wanted to be paid in cans of corn beef or meat. It was apparent that they lived on vegetable plants and fish. They wanted beef of any sort.

Upon inquiry, of the cargo being hauled, the skipper apparently did not even know what the ship was carrying. He claimed no one told him. We did not inquire of his paper work. We knew by this time we did not want to push him in any direction.

We tried to communicate this to the native chief in pigeon and sign language. We had great difficulty until a native missionary came down out of the hills that could speak a fair amount of English. Apparently he had been educated on Guadalcanal by other missionaries.

We promised the native Chief all of the cargo, whatever it was if his people would only unload the ship. This negotiation took at least a half a day. It was rather comical seeing the attempts of our Executive Officer, Lt. Streeter, Captain of the cargo ship, Chief and the Missionary. They were having trouble understanding each other with very few of the terms both were attempting to use in carrying on the negotiations. Even English did not help if none of the terms meant anything to the other side.

Finally the natives agreed to take the cargo in exchange for the labor. They started the unloading process of dumping dozens of boxes of the canned food cargo into the surf. There was no name on the cartoons, only Army numbers. Finally, one of the natives was able to open up a can from one of the cartons and it turned out to be a cargo of green beans!

The work stopped right then and there.  They did not need more vegetables they wanted meat! We had none to offer so the program was canceled, work stopped. Back to square one pulling at full speed while the ships engines were backing at full speed. Even at high tide it appeared useless.

After about a week or ten days, with the salvage crew trying everything in the book and with great imagination, it became apparent that salvage efforts were useless. They finally concluded that even if we were able to float the ship it would sink and we could not keep her afloat even with all our pumps. The bottom was too damaged to save.

We requested permission to abandon the effort after reporting up the chain of command and permission was given.

We finally abandoned the effort. I cannot remember what we did with their crew. I believe that we took them to an Army station in Guadalcanal and left them on our way back to Tulagi harbor.

I would love to get our log, which I was not keeping, and see all the efforts we made and the comical things that happened to us on this adventure.

I often wondered what happened to the crew and the Captain. I wonder if the true story ever got out.

This may have inspired the story of Here to Eternity and Captain Queeg. He would have made a real character in any book or play.

In discussions with several shipmates, they had different memories, all of which I have tried to incorporate in my memories to complete this saga.  My thanks must go to Lyle Peterson, Fred S. Van Dyke, Rob Ray, Mauro Alvarado and Robert Cale. We all had fun discussing the adventure.