Crossing the equator for the first time

After eight weeks of boot camp, I took a test to determine the type of work for which I was best suited. They found I could distinguish between a dot and a dash in radio waves. Consequently, I was assigned to sixteen weeks of Signal School to study visual communications i.e., flashing light by using International Morse Code, semaphore, and wig-wag.

When signal training was completed, we received orders to ship-out. It was necessary that all of our clothing fit into our seabags. Then our blankets were placed inside our hammocks, rolled and lashed around the seabag. Both together I suppose weighed about a hundred pounds. I lifted the gear onto a truck to be taken to a waiting ship, but when we arrived to board, I couldn't get it up the gangway of the ship without help. I was six feet tall and weighed 130 pounds. Somehow, I and five-thousand others boarded the S.S. President Monroe and sailed for Noumea, New Caledonia.

We sailed alone without an escort vessel for 30 days crossing the Pacific, stopping once at Suva, Fiji. All the land lubbers, and general “no gooders", those crossing the equator for the first time, were initiated by His Royal Highness, King Neptunis Rex and his Court. The ships garbage had been dumped into the ships swimming pool and then filled with water in which to soak pollywogs, for the pleasure of His Highness. They threw some of us pollywogs in that stinking slop. There were other punishments, like running the gauntlet, which was just as bad for those found guilty of invading the realm of His Majesty, Neptunis Rex.

August 6th, 1945

When Bob & Carol recently took Dan and me, and others, to visit the World War ll Memorials in Washington D.C., many old forgotten incidents surfaced and are still coming back. For example, today marks the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.

On August 6th, 1945, I was stationed on a weather ship between Guam and Japan gathering weather information for the B-29s to carry out the Manhattan project, or the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima.It was the most boring duty imaginable. We went to a certain spot, sometimes as near as 90 miles off the cost of Japan, and cut our engines and drifted. We were not told why we were there until the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, and Japan surrendered. Then we got the story.

News bulletins were coming in fast and furious. It was reported that the areas where the a-bombs fell would be contaminated for a hundred years; no life would exist there; that nothing would grow there; the rivers and streams would be polluted forever.

We had 100 men and 10 officers aboard our ship. Each person was happy to see the bombs fall. Even though many were killed, we felt it shortened the war and saved many lives.

WWII Links
RIDING OUT A TYPHOON Aboard the USS PCE 884

Copyright © 2005 Jim Thompson. All rights reserved.

Tags: World War ll, world war 2, bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, weather ships, B-29s, Manhattan project