IN THEIR OWN WORDS
PERSONAL ACCOUNTS OF THOSE WHO FOUGHT FOR OUR COUNTRY
Chief Warrant Officer Erick H. Bjorum, USN(Ret)
"A native of North Dakota and a Pearl Harbor Survivor, I enlisted in the United States Navy in March, 1938. After recruit training at the Great Lakes Training Station, I was assigned to the USS California (BB-44).
After 14 months on the California, I requested submarine school and was sent to New London for training. On 7 December, 1941, I was on board the USS DOLPHIN (SS-169) moored to pier 4 at the submarine base, Pearl Harbor. My rate at the time was machinist mate 2c, At approximately 0800, another machinist mate 2c by the name of George Baker (deceased) and I were on the dock preparing to start a battery charge when we noticed aircraft diving on Ford Island and dropping something. We, like everyone else, thought it was a drill being conducted by our own aircraft. shortly, there were torpedo planes, low winged with fixed landing gear and with big red balls painted on them. They were real low to the water and within 50 yards of us. I rushed below to inform the duty officer of the attack and then I started getting guns and ammo out of the magazine. I remember carrying a .50 caliber water cooled machine gun to the forward gun mount. We had an electrician mate 2c who was an ex-Marine who began firing the gun when it was
ready. I remember that one plane was hit and it was burning from nose to tail and wing tip to wing tip and it seemed to just stop and settle into the water. So much happened after that, it would take pages to tell it all.
ready. I remember that one plane was hit and it was burning from nose to tail and wing tip to wing tip and it seemed to just stop and settle into the water. So much happened after that, it would take pages to tell it all.
We left Pearl Harbor on our first war patrol on 24 December, 1941. During the war, I made nine war patrols which resulted in the sinking or damaging 22 enemy ships. We rescued nine downed B-29 airmen. My last assignment of WWII was Chief of the Boat on USS Springer (SS-214).
FOOTNOTE: The Executive Officer of the Dolphin was Lt. Ben Clary who later became the Commander of the Pacific Fleet with the rank of Admiral. The Engineering Officer of the Dolphin at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack was Lt. John Fyfe. Later, as the CO of the Batfish, he sank three Japanese submarines in three successive nights. He retired as an Admiral"
Erick H Bjorum
Submarine Veterans of WWII, life member #713
Life member of Los Angeles chapter
Memoirs of Bob Hills
"After many years of procrastinating about writing my memoirs on Sandlance, here I am, a 65 year old geezer reminising about those memorable times. I am somewhat prompted by the nice job that Anzel Holt did with his writeup. The Navy had documentary reports that contained facts but no emotion - so while I'm still in the mood, I'm going to try to put my recollections on paper. They may not be factual and they no doubt differ from the recollection of others and from official reports.
I joined the Navy in June of '42, the same month I graduated from high school but I didn't get called until December 4. Boot camp in San Diego and then torpedo school in Norfork Va. where I majored in aircraft torpedoes. Just before graduation I applied for submarine school and was accepted. I believe that I got to New London in May of '43 and went through the usual Spritz indoctrination followed by the classes, the escape tower and the scenic cruises on the Thames. Just before graduation in June I learned that I was assigned to SANDLANCE but because it was just launched, it wouldn't be ready for the crew to assemble for another month or so. Instead of going directly to Sandlance I was sent to Key West for 30 days training on the good ship USS R-11. I was originally assigned to the USS R- 12 but, because it was buiIt before World War I, and it was as rusty as hell, the bottom of the forward battery compartment couldn't stand the weight of the batteries, plus the corrosion of the metal from the hydrochloric acid the bottom fell out at sea about 2 weeks before I got there. The only survivors were the three people on the bridge, the skipper , the OD and the quartermaster. That wasn't particularly good news for those of us that were on the R- 11 since it was built at the same time. The things that I remember most about the R-11 were; Watson Craft and Leo Colvin, later to become Sandlancers, were also trainees with me on R-11. The temperature and the humidity in Key West in July is almost unbearable, and the bed bugs or the cockroaches are overly friendly. We slept in barracks and at night we shooed those black things out of our bunks and slept with only a sheet. One day when were making a run to the area where we fired exercise (retrievable) torpedoes and we were passing the area where the convoys for North Africa assembled, we came across a German U-boat on the surface, He was taking pot shots at the freighters and tankers at anchor in the harbor. We had 2 exercise torpedoes and 2 warheads aboard so we could have at least fired the warheads at him. In radio contact with the base at Key West, we were directed to return to the base because they were going to take care of him with America's latest and greatest anti- submarine weapon - the blimp. So we returned to the base and a couple of hours later, here came the blimp on the water being towed by a tug. The U- boat had finished the blimp off too.
It was August or September when we got to Portsmouth Navy Yard and saw Sandlance for the first time. It was a bee hive of activity. As I recall they were completing boats at the rate of one every 2 to 4 weeks. At first we lived on a barge right near the boat and then later we moved into a barracks next to the prison. The seamen kinda stuck together just like the firemen and the petty officers stuck together. It was during this time that Watson Craft became Gary Craft which is the name that stuck with him throughout his entire Navy career. He and I (the long and the short of it) became very close friends and we made many libertys together in Portsmouth and Kittery, checking out the local girls.
When we were living on the barge I remember some of the guys, Cabbie, Pinkley and others catching small fish. They would fill them with tabasco sauce and throw them back in and then the seagulls would swoop down and swallow them. A little while later the seagulls would be drinking gallons of water, trying to put the fire out.
After the commissioning party and ceremony we had sea trials and then went to Newport to pick up torpedos. When we got to the pier, there was no one to handle our mooring lines, so we gave a few loud blasts on the horn and still nobody came so we rammed the pier. Since the torpedo shop was on the pier, they got the message and we had lots of line handlers. When we were sea-ready we were sent to Cramp Shipyard in Philadelphia because they had built 3 submarines and all 3 of them had developed leaks at the weld joints upon launching. Our purpose in going there was so that their welders could examine our welds to see what a good weld looked like. That's where I first learned to eat scrapple for breakfast. Scrapple is a breakfast food that comes in a cardboard tube and its made of a mixture of ground sausage and oatmeal mush which they slice and fry in butter.
I remember that the steward's mate, Shelton, was sent ashore to get napkins for the officer's mess and he came back with sanitary napkins. After 3 days in Philly, we left for Panama. I remember standing lookout as we passed Cape Hatteras on Christmas eve 1943, which Anzel Holt told me was called "Torpedo Junction" because there were so many American ships sunk by torpedos from U-boats in that area.
Going through the Panama Canal at night , for some reason I was running aft from the conning tower toward the after torpedo room and someone (probably me) had left a line locker hatch open - and I fell right into it. If I'd had a brain I probably would have gotten hurt. The next day was New Years Eve, We tied up on the Pacific side and I was really impressed withe the tide changes. When we went ashore, the gangway was horizontal. When we come back, the gangway was vertical, a 26 foot change. It was during the 4 or 5 days we were in Panama that John Dykes told a group of us his famous story of the " Ribbon Frizzle ", which is about an unusual sex encounter that he swore was true. Leaving Panama we headed for Pearl Harbor. Enroute I overheard Cap'n Garrison talking to someone about "Guam". A day or 2 1ater, with Zeke as the OOD, on the surf ace, I spotted an object on the horizon which I reported to Zeke as "an object on the horizon, bearing 030 which appears to be GUAM, sir". Zeke reported it to the Captain's stateroom via the intercom just like that. By the time Cap'n Garrison leisurely came to the bridge, "GUAM" had become a huge white cIoud about 10 degrees above the horizon. I avoided Zeke for the next few days. The rest of the trip to Pearl was uneventful.
I was in awe as we entered Pearl Harbor. I had heard and read so much about it, Most of the damage that occurred as a result of the Japanese attack on December 7 1941 had been cleared away, but there were still ships on their side and some with only their masts above water, We tied up at the sub base which is near the torpedo shop and lo and behold one of my good friends from jr. high and high school, Stan Benbrooks was stationed at the base torpedo shop and was there to greet us. My mother kept in touch with all of the guys that has gone into the service that were on the Santa Monica High School football team so Stan knew that I was on the Sandlance and he apparently heard that it was coming into port, He showed me around the base and around Honolulu. We had some good times together. We arrived in Pearl on January 17 1944 and conducted voyage repairs and advanced training in preparation for our first war patrol. We departed on February 8, in the company of 2 other submarines and a pc boat, our destination was Midway Island. We were underway for 7 days and every day the weather got rougher and rougher. When we got to Midway., the weather was so bad that we couldn't enter the harbor, and we had to cruise around the island waiting for the weather to calm down. We entered the next day, Feb. 13, took on fuel, water and supplies. We departed the next day heading northeast. After we were well away from land Cap'n Garrison came on the loudspeaker and told us that we were heading for Paramushiro which is the northernmost island in the Japanese chain. At the time the Japanese were attempting to invade the Aleutian and KuriI islands. Paramushiro was their launching base. We were to be the first US submarine to go into that area so the picking should be very good.
About 2 days out of Midway we ran into a typhoon. The ships log recorded the waves as high as 50 feet and the wind as high as 100 miles per hour ! I remember one time looking at the inclinometer and it showed that we were rolling 48 degrees and we were submerged at a depth of about 100 feet. Lots of people got sick and there were lots of bruises from getting thrown around. This storm threw us about 100 miles off course. I remember standing lookout during that storm and watching the bow pass over those humungus waves until it seemed like we were airborne, then we would pass over the crest of the wave and then go careening down the other side and the bow would disappear into that huge green walI clear up to the conning tower. we would duck under the cowling and hang on for dear life. For a few seconds after every wave we would be under water and the further north we went, the colder it got. For some reason we always took binoculars to the bridge but they were of no value as they were always either under water or covered with water. If there had been an enemy ship in the area, we wouldn't have been able to see him nor would.he been able to see us.
Just before we reached Paramushiro, we were surfacing from a routine dive and captain Garrison raised the periscope to look around before we surfaced and bango - we surfaced under an iceberg and bent the helI out of the periscope. Since we had 2 periscopes, we weren't out of business but it was our wide angle - observation - scope that was out of commission. AlI we had left was our telephoto -attack - scope to use for the balance of the patrol. Later that day I was standing starboard lookout when Dutch Schwichtenberg and Cabby Cabiness climbed the periscope shears with tools to try to loosen the packing gland and lower the scope. That was the day those 2 guys became my heros because if we were attacked by aircraft while they were still up on the shears we would probably have to dive and leave them to their horrible fate. Later in a ceremony at Pearl Harbor they both received Bronze Star medals from Admiral Lockwood.
PARAMUSHIRO, COLD, COLD, COLD. God but it was cold. There was ice everywhere. The antenae were covered with ice, The periscope shears, the cables, the cigarette deck was covered with ice. The lookouts wore face masks and they were covered with ice. Once I went topside and it was very calm and still. I looked around and couldn't believe what I was seeing. The ocean was frozen solid. We were making headway very slowly and breaking up the ice as we went. But you could have walked ashore if you knew where land was. The sky was white, the water surface was white and the glare was almost blinding. It was like out of science fiction.
Shortly after we got to Paramushiro, we encountered a freighter with a sampan escort heading for port. We submerged and tracked it into shallow water near the harbor entrance. We then fired three bow tube torpedos. After about one minute we heard the first explosion followed by the second and then the third. About that time we bounced off the shallow bottom and broached. Now here we are sitting on the surface, heading toward the harbor and the shore batteries opened up on us. We turned toward the deep water and submerged without getting hit by the shore guns. My first reaction was" WOW that was really exciting" and we - especially me -were no longer virgins. Then after the euphoria wore off I had after thoughts- about those Japanese sailors now floating in the icy water- what were their chances of survival? They were probably no more than 30 to 45 minutes from being dockside - a warm bed - a shot of sake a friendly geisha - who knows, but whatever, certainly something better than a swim in those icy waters. After the sinking of the "Chicago Maru" the sampan escort dumped all of its depth charges overboard and headed for the harbor which was probably a smart move on his part. Other than the "S" boats out of Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians, we were the first American submarine to have gone into that area west of the Aleutians. The reason that we were sent there was because of the Japanese invasion of Alaska via the Aleutians. So much for history.
Several days later we received instructions from COMSUBPAC, Pearl Harbor, that we should proceed southward to Tokyo Bay. This meant warmer weather and probably more action. Enroute we came across a "0" boat which was a shallow draft barge with armament of some kind. We fired torpedos at it and they all went beneath it, without hitting anything. And then we fired again at a shallower depth, again without hitting anything,
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