In 1942 my mother had just been born when grandpa got the news that his number would be coming up soon in the draft. He did not have a problem with going and serving his country. What he had a problem with was seeing his enemy. He did not care for the idea of fighting in the jungle or in the city because he did not mind the idea of being shot at just he wanted to know WHERE the shot was coming from! So grandpa went down and enlisted in the NAVY! At least in the NAVY he felt that for the most part nothing was going to shoot at you that you could not see! After basic training off Grandpa went to fight for Uncle Sam! He ended up being stationed on the USS Houston. Everything was going okay when according to grandpa their new commander came aboard and he did not like him. It seemed to grandpa that this guy was going to get them killed. His main goal at the time was to SURVIVE the war. This commander took unnecessary risk and this scared the hell out of everyone according to Grandpa.
The opportunity came up that a commander from another ship needed someone to basically .... be a secretary... The only problem was that grandpa did not know how to type. So he LIED and said he could type. Then he had a buddy give him a crash course on some of the basics of typing. He got off of the USS Houston. He said the next time he saw it it was being towed into Pearl Harbor torn all to hell. A hole was in hull that was so big you could drive a SEMI truck through it. Later the Houston was sunk at the battle of Guadel Canal.
During Grandpa's transfer he spent two weeks on the battleship USS Washington. He often mentioned that the safest he ever felt was on that ship. There were multiple reasons. First, those guys could SHOOT. During AA practice he said NOTHING could get near it! During gunnery practice they sank an old WWI cruiser with two shots...from 15 miles away.
His new assignment was as a secretary for the captain. Type up memos to the crew..work the telegraph...that sort of thing. His battle station was to carry ammunition from the ammo box to the guns during battle. The ship was a supply ship. Basically, he was on a floating gas station. They supplied fuel and ammunition to other ships. He did see action in a major battle. The Battle of Leyte Gulf. In this battle his ship was hit and he was blown off of his ship and landed on deck of the ship next him. He got back onto his ship during the battle by diving into the water and scaling the hull of his ship with the help of the netting over the side. Once he got to his battle station he realized his pants had basically been blown off of him and his legs were burned pretty good. For the rest of his life he had no hair on his legs! EVER!!
Grandpa went on and his ship survived. It was at Tokyo Bay for the surrender of Japan.
Little Factoid- As a result of the surrender my grandfathers commanding officer got several Japanese military swords. He gave one to my grandfather. My grandfather kept it under his bed for 40 years. He put some type of oil on it to keep the blade from rusting.
In the mid 1950's he did use it to chase a peeping tom from my mothers bathroom window but the kind police let him keep the sword.
He did give it to me when I was in college. To this day it can slice paper with ease.
My mother had the sword encased in glass and it hangs in my house at this moment.
Thank you Granpa Fincannon for everything you did to serve our country!
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