My Navy Career
from the memoirs of Donald Ray Gustavson —
At age 19 I completed a civilian flight training program and received my Private Pilot License from the CAA. Soon thereafter I was offered a Second Lieutenant commission in the U.S. Army Air Corps. I turned down this commission because my assignment would have been as a glider pilot. Gliders were used in World War II to land troops behind enemy lines and I didn't like the concept of the one-way trip. I had also already completed the basic two-year Naval ROTC program at Northwestern University and thought I would be better off in the Navy.
By the summer of 1941, England and France were already at war with Germany, and although the United States was trying to stay out of the war, it was getting nearly impossible to do so in view of the Nazi submarine attacks on our convoys delivering war materials to England.
I applied for accelerated Navy officer training and was accepted. Ninety days later I was commissioned as Ensign, USNR and at the age of 20 reported for active duty with the Atlantic Fleet. I had requested duty on a battleship in the Pacific but received orders to a costal minesweeper in the Atlantic.
On December 7, 1941 I was taking Navy Diesel Engineering instruction at Cornell University. I can remember the general attitude of the local populace at that time, which couldn't fathom why we uniformed Navy guys were not out there fighting the war. We would be soon, however.
As an Ensign, I got my sea legs on the USS Kestral (AMC 5) and two 110-foot submarine chasers, the SC 638 and SC 1029. At age 21, I was promoted to Lieutenant (jg) and received orders as Commanding Officer, USS SC 739.
The SC 739 had 22 enlisted and three officers aboard, I took this little ship from Miami all the way to Western Australia where we performed anti-sub patrols for the Commander Submarine Squadron SIX (Admiral Christy) for about a year. We underwent attack by Japanese bombers in Exmouth Gulf but received no damage.
At age 22 I was promoted to Lieutenant and received orders as Executive Officer of the USS PCE(R)852 which I joined in New Orleans in time for its formal Navy commissioning. The PCE(R)852 was a brand new, 187-footer with a beam of 33 feet and a displacement of 1,000 tons. This is a small ship by any navy measure, but was a large and comfortable change from the small SCs I had been on. I even had my own stateroom! The crew consisted of 110 enlisted men and 12 officers. All of the officers and 95% of the enlisted men were reservists. We had identical firepower to the larger Destroyer Escorts, and also had a hospital bay on board. Our mission was two-fold: antisubmarine warfare and personnel rescue.
The PCE(R)852 was ordered to the Eastern Atlantic probably to take part in the Normandy invasion. However, at mid-ocean, radio dispatch orders were received directing the ship to go to Bermuda for a special assignment. There we were surprised to see a German submarine of the surface in the center of Hamilton harbor with a huge American flag flying from the conning tower. This was the U-505 which had been brought to the surface by a Navy hunter-killer group, and then captured intact by a boarding party. The capture of the U-505 was a remarkable feat. The Navy not only had a complete and operable enemy submarine of the latest design, but they also had all the secret documents and codes currently in use by the Germans. The Navy now had a close-up look at the secret Snorkel equipment which the Germans developed to permit running the diesel engines (for battery charging) without actually surfacing.
It was now the job of the 852 to transport the U-505 crew members who survived the deck strafing, from Bermuda to Norfolk, Virginia to be interrogated and held as prisoners of war. After the war ended, the U-505 was moved to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry where it is still on exhibition as the only enemy submarine captured of the high seas.
After the 852 delivered the U-505 prisoners to Norfolk, it was too late to take part in the Normandy invasion. In fact, Life magazine had come out with its first pictures of the Normandy landings. We showed the magazine to the German prisoners, but they laughed and called it propaganda. After all, they believed the "Fortress Europe" concept of Hitler and said it would be impossible to land on the continent.
The PCE(R)852 was now ordered to the Pacific and the war with Japan.
The Japanese fleet was still pretty much intact, holding back its largest and fast battleships and aircraft carriers until the time that they could be used to best advantage. We were wondering how a small, slow ship like the 852 would fit into the equation. Nobody would have believed that this small ship would find itself operating closely with the U.S. battleships Colorado, Pennsylvania, California, West Virginia, New Mexico and Mississippi, as well as the cruisers Honolulu, Portland, Louisville, Columbia the the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) Shropshire and Australia.
Who would believe that Japanese Kamikaze suicide pilots would think the 852 was a worthy target? And who would believe that a Japanese torpedo bomber would lay down a torpedo at the 852, missing the bow by only a few feet? And who would suspect that a Japanese battleship division would close to less than 30 miles from the U.S. fleet and the 852, at Leyte and then reverse course?
These and several unbelievable events actually occurred and are described in the book "War Patrol of the PCE(R)852" by Alfred P. Samuels, Jr. "Sammy" was a young hospital corpsman during the year of action which he vividly describes. He had his hands full at Leyte, Lingayen Gulf, and Okinawa as did all of the Navy who were present. His book is a compilation of events which he took from Navy Department logs plus his own personal recollection. He goes to great length to list the names and serial number of all of the casualties treated on the 852. This brings home the reality of war sometimes forgotten.
At the end of World War II, I was promoted to Lieutenant Commander and ordered to be Commanding Officer of the PCE(R)852. I was now about 4 years older, but felt much older. I took the 852 back to its home port of Philadelphia stopping en route at Key West, Florida.
Something funny happened there. The Base Commander had a message for me, so he sent his messenger to the ship. The messenger asked, "Where is the CO?" The deck watch said I could be found on the forecastle. At the time I was sunbathing in my swim trunks, all 135 pounds of me. The messenger approached and asked again, "Where is the CO?" I responded that I was the skipper and would take the message. He replied, "Don't give me that crap, where is he?" When some of the crew started to laugh he realized he had made an error and stammered out an apology.
I left the 852 at Philadelphia returning to complete my B.S. degree at Northwestern University.
Then I returned to active duty at Boise, Idaho where I was in charge of building the Reserve Training Center. After 16 months as Commanding Officer at Boise, I went on inactive duty, but took the annual two-week active duty training.
Eventually I completed 31 years of combined active and reserve commission service, and retired as Captain, USNR.