All Episodes

August 27, 2025 • 24 mins
Pamela shares the light side of the Drexler.
Info@NewHeightsEducation.org
Radio.NewHeightsEducation.org

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/new-heights-show-on-education--4114185/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Welcome to the New Heights Show on Education. This is
your host, Pamela Clark, and this is an episode of
American servicemen and women tell their stories of survival. So
we've been covering the USS Drexler, which my paternal grandfather
gave us life on. We're going to continue with some stories,

(01:04):
but there is some lighter side recollections and incidents that
I wanted to share before we go into some more stories. Okay,
this is called the shakedown cruise. On the first morning
after leaving Boston, during breakfast, we encountered some fairly rough seas.

(01:25):
It was estimated that eighty percent of the crew had
never been to sea before. They sure turned green that morning.
The scene in the chow hall was total disaster, food
all over the place and the head was overflowing with

(01:45):
sea six sailors. During our stay in Bermuda, we were
busy undergoing all types of exercises at sea, usually with
other ships. We did get a few liberty while we
were there, but not too many. Christmas Day was spent

(02:06):
at anchor in the harbor. Some of the crew went
swimming off the ship on our way back to Boston
off Cape Off Cape Hatteras. We encountered some heavy seas.
It was reported that we took fifty eight degree roll.

(02:32):
The ship was designed to take a maximum roll seventy five.
We took green water, not spray, and the hatches of
the main battery director, which is located on top of
the pilot house and is fifty four feet above the waterline.

(02:52):
By the time we got into Boston, we were covered
with ice. Okay, next one Caribbean sea and Paine animal.
Between Trinidad and Panama Canal, we encountered some very tranquil seas.
The water was as smooth as glass. Large sea turtles

(03:12):
were surfaced and their backs were dry. Perched on the
back of each turtle was a seagull. The temptation was
too great. Some of our officers broke out small arms
and tried to pick off the little seagulls. Harold McMain
relates how he became the helmsman and critical situations. Going

(03:39):
through the canal was quite an experience for me. While
we were in the locks, I had been shooting the
breeze with McIntyre and Callaway, setting on the flag bag,
smoking and drinking coffee. Captain Wilson put Chief Agnew on

(04:00):
the wheel. Agnew was doing a little sight seeing and
the pilot told the captain to get a help, get
a helmsman. Guess who. I never did see the Mira
Flores and Gatun Lakes. That pilot wouldn't let me deviate
a quarter of a degree. All I saw was the

(04:23):
compass card. Carl, let me deviate a quarter of a degree. Wait, sorry,
I missed up my lines. Sorry, okay, let me go
back a little bit. Sorry about that. Carl. Let me

(04:44):
deviate a quarter of a degree. All I saw was
the compass card. Carl didn't mind. He enjoyed the rest
of the trip. That's how I wound up at the
helm for GQ in and out of fueling, transferring personnel
at sea coming alongside, and et cetera. One time though

(05:08):
I was on the wheel. The word is cut off.
I was on the wheel, something at sea coming alongside,
et cetera. One time though I was on the wheel.
When we transferred commodore Moose Brugger from the Compton by

(05:32):
breaches by you, he got a wet tail. Naturally it
was the Compton g or q em excuse me fault.
Most of the crew was looking forward to Liberty in
Balboa after going through the canal. It took us most

(05:54):
of the day to make this trip, and we did
not secure the ship until forty two hours in Balboa,
at which time liberty commenced. The length of the Liberty
was approximately one and a half hour's duration. How so

(06:14):
many sailors filled their own tanks in that time interval
must have been some kind of record. Next story, Pearl
Harbor to Guada malacanal Oh, was it hot? Morris Carlson
said it was as hot that we had to water

(06:37):
down the forty milimeter ammunition. He also said that he
had boiler trouble in number one fireroom just below we
were supposed to leave for just before we were supposed
to leave, Sorry, we had to punch tubes on number
one boiler. Many of us remember the beer party we

(07:01):
had on the beach when we were rationed two cans
of beer per person. Some of us had non drinking
friends made out okay. During this shore visit, there was
a USO show. Some of the girls in the show

(07:23):
were from Hollywood, and Dick Pappis or no, I'm sorry,
Nick Pappis knew most of them. He was greeting them
with huge hug or hugs and kisses, while the rest
of us were looking on with envy. None of us
visited a Nadia village. I'm sorry, I just my eyes

(07:48):
played tricks on me as I have vision problems, so
sometimes I have to read something twice. They many of
us visited a Nadia village, and some of us bought
spears and air from them. They lived in the grass hunts.
The natives would come out close to the ship in

(08:08):
their canoes and die for coins. Due to the extreme heat,
we were allowed to swim off the fantail as long
as a guard was positioned with a small arm to
guard against a wondering shark. Next Ulithi, this was a

(08:32):
busy place. Most of us had never seen so many
ships at one place at one time. It seemed like
we were always moving from one anchorage to another, loading ammo,
loading stores, taking on fuel and etc. McBain recalls that

(08:54):
one section went ashore for a beer party. McCoy, Collinson,
McIntyre and McBain were in charge of rationing twenty five
cases of Budweiser. Most of the shore party drank the
beer and played cards most of the afternoon. Next story

(09:19):
escort duty with carriers. During this month, we picked up
a number of splash pilots that had to ditch their
planes instead of trying to land on their carrier. One
on one occasion, a tv F dive bomber had to
pit or ditch and the three crewmen inflated their raft

(09:43):
and we moved in for rescue. For some reason, we
did not get close enough to them to throw them
a line, and it was too dangerous to shoot them
a line. Nick Pappus was on the m bear have

(10:06):
to see it. Nick Pappos was on the Faratude four.
Too dangerous to shoot them the line? Okay wait. Nick
Pappos was on the fore castle and was in charge
of the rescue crew, and he decided to take matters

(10:29):
into his own hands. After removing his clothes and tying
a line to himself, he swam out to the raft raft.
Needless to say, Nick was pooped. By the time they
got the raft alongside, two of the crewmen were injured.
There was quite a bit of confusion at this time,

(10:52):
and too many lines were in the water. Everyone was
having difficulty climbing on board. Insign ark Feltus decided they
needed to help, so he took off his wristwatch, put
it in his pocket, and jumped over the side to assist.
Someone later said that he couldn't even swim. Everyone finally

(11:15):
got aboard safely. The next day the ship's paper carried
the news of this exploit. In one comment which was
made was comma or a comic quote. What officer on
this great ship had the foresight to remove his watch
and put it into his pocket before jumping over the

(11:38):
side question mark end of quote. There was one occasion
when we picked up a sailor in dungarees, obviously not
a flyer, and we wondered where he came from. It
so happened that he was in a gun mount alongside
the flight deck when a plane land and the plane

(12:01):
started to veer in his direction. He didn't wait to
see if it would straighten out, which it did. He
went over the side, which has got to take some
kind of courage from that height. Luckily someone saw him
and we plucked him out of the water. One day,

(12:24):
while we were refueling from a carrier, we got a
little too close due to a ground swell. In quotations,
that says not McBain's errant helmanship end of exclamation, and
our superstructure struck the carrier. There wasn't much damage, but

(12:46):
we sure got away from the carrier in a hurry.
Joe Lapari recaused the time when one of our black
shipmates had an appendicitis and he and doctor Thomas were
transferred to a carrier. The patient was in a wire

(13:08):
stretcher which almost touched the water on the way over.
Doctor Thompson went over in a seat. After he returned,
the doctor told Joe how scared he was while being transferred.
In quotations, he was always smiling. Okay, end of that. Sorry,

(13:36):
Bob and Tia, and I hope I didn't Butcher that
name remembers. One day one of the returning planes crashed
into another plane after landing on one of the carriers.
No one can seem to remember which carrier it was.
It was like the fourth of July. Rockets off other

(14:01):
planes and ammunition exploded and caught on fire, and some
planes were pushed over the side. We came alongside to
try to assist, but we were too low in the
water to be of any help, so they waved us off.
There was or there were fires burning for three to

(14:21):
four hours and they finally got them under control themselves.
We watched the whole thing through our telescopes in the
main battery director. The next story Kirama Rito. This, of course,

(14:42):
was the anchorage we returned to between picket station assignments
to load up with ammunition, fuel and supplies. Several comments
were made that we lost an anchor here. Rumor has
it that Nick Pappus had something to do with its loss.

(15:05):
Our smoke generator was working overtime here o Tay. Next
story invasion of tory Shama Pshima. Everyone seems to refer
to this island as the quotation bird sanctuary. It seems

(15:26):
we made a direct hit on a tree and the
only living things we could see were birds flying out
of the tree. Duke Paine still had several papers in
his pockets after we were picked up after he was
picked up, excuse me, and following one is the most interesting.

(15:49):
A copy of our ship's paper concerning this great invasion.
It reads as such the Directxlor Scavenger Tortshima edition, May twelfth,
nineteen forty five. Rareties, oddities, rarities and absurdities in the

(16:13):
news flash flash Flash at seven oh five on the
morning of May twelfth, the Japanese stronghold of Torshimi Roshima,
located fifty miles west of Okinawa, fell before an ambitious
or no before an am bombardment by heavy and light

(16:36):
units of the Fifth Fleet. The enemy held island outposts
just two hundred and seventy five miles from Formosia was
secured by or Forge or forces. Any enemy resistance was negotiable.
As a matter of fact, this reporter believes all resistance

(17:03):
came from birds, the only inhabitants sighted thus far. Jean
Brick and a number of others recall that there was
an effort made to paint a ship's insignia on our stack.
He claims that our laundryman named Unknoan wrote the Borden

(17:25):
Milk Company requesting permission to paint Elsie the Cow on
our stack in living color. We apparently got permission from Borden,
but we were sunk before we had a chance to
paint her on the stack. Hal McBain claims that there

(17:50):
also was an effort made to paint our attack or
our stack with a palm tree with seagulls flying out
of it, to depict our invasion. Of Toriy Shami Orshima.
Jean Brick even went so far as to write the
Board and Company in October of nineteen eighty five asking

(18:13):
them if they had any record of this request. They
answered his letter stating that they did not keep records
from forty years ago and could not help us. Maybe
we could have a contest forty one years later and
took a vote after Gene and Howe gave us the

(18:35):
campaign speeches in behalf of each signia okay, next story,
rate our picket duty. There was not much response from
anyone regarding this period, other than the fact that we
were busy most of the time and of course our

(18:59):
faith full sinking on May twenty eight, nineteen forty five.
We were at stand by GQ most of the time,
and many nights we were at GQ through most of
the night. We tracked a lot of bogies in the
main battery directory. The Japs were pretty clever at night.

(19:23):
They would drop radar jamming material or tinfoil in several
areas so that it was impossible to attack them. Sorry,
I lost my line again to track them in several

(19:44):
areas so that it was impossible, okay, to track them
by radar in these areas, sorry about them. They would
then would then make their attack through these jamming areas,

(20:05):
and CIC had to pick them up quickly when they
broke through and get this information to their director so
we could start tracking them with our five inch guns.
Sometimes they came from two different directions. All in all,

(20:28):
we did a commendable job, since they never got through
to us. At night, the writer remembers one day in
broad daylight when our forward twin forty millimeter on the
starboard side open fired on a plane which came too

(20:49):
close to the ship. The gun captain apparently made the
decision to open fire without any command and from the
gunnery officer or the bridge. It was one of the
CAAP planes that just came too close to us, and

(21:10):
by that time some of us were a little trigger happy.
No damage was done and he got out of a
out of range in a hurry. Okay, what I'm gonna
do is in today's story, since that was lighter side,

(21:39):
and we're gonna be getting more into the sailor responses
again or stories, so I'm gonna keep those two separate,
is what I'm trying to say. I'm gonna play our
middle commercial and then exit the show and then do
the other one that I just took. I hope you

(22:01):
enjoyed today's show. Don't forget it airs Wednesdays by six
pm Eastern Time, and if you have a story to share,
email us at info at New Heights Education dot org.
Our main radio site is radio dot New Heights Education
dot org, so we'd love to hear from you until

(22:24):
next time. Are you enjoying the New Heights Show on education.
If you love our show, please consider liking and following
us on your favorite podcast player. To learn more, visit
radio dot New Heights Education dot org or email us
at info at New Heights Education dot org. Listen in

(22:45):
on Wednesdays for Education in the News with host Pamla
Clark at six pm and Fridays for our Empowering HR
and the workforse with host Manya Shukla at seven pm.
And don't forget to check out our organization's website for
the latest updates on courses, reading programs, comic books, magazines,

(23:08):
informational services and happenings, or even to learn how you
can become a volunteer. Consider donating to our calls at
www dot New Heights Education dot org,
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.

Crime Junkie

Crime Junkie

Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.

Stuff You Should Know

Stuff You Should Know

If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.