John Delach

June 2019 Revised. January 2024

The New York Football Giants 1966 season turned out to be an absolute disaster, the worst in team history. Entering Week Ten their record was 1-7-1 as head coach Allie Sherman led his boys into DC with their new back-up QB, Tom Kennedy. Three weeks earlier the Giants had plucked Kennedy from the minor league Brooklyn Dodgers of the short-lived Continental League. Kennedy was something less than a stellar addition to the Giants roster, but he assumed the starter’s role after Gary Wood, the team’s other sub-par QB, hurt his shoulder.

 Frank Litsky reported in The New York Times on Saturday, “The Redskins have lost three in a row, but Sonny Jurgensen’s passing will probably make them well.” Jurgy already had 18 touchdown passes, rookie Charlie Taylor had developed into a fast, dangerous receiver and the Giants had been reduced to playing three rookie linebackers, Mike Ciccolella, Jeff Smith and Freeman White who was supposed to be a tight end. The Skins were scheduled to start two former Giants in their backfield, Steve Thurlow, and the bizarre, Joe Don Looney.

Sunday, November 26 produced, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”

The Good:

The Giants scored 41 points, the most they would score all season.

They out gained the Redskins 389 yards to 341.

They had 25 first downs to the Skins 16.

Joe Morrison caught two TD passes from Wood for 41-yards each.

Homer Jones caught a 50-yard TD pass from Wood.

Wood ran one in for 1 yard.

Aaron Thomas caught an 18-yard TD pass from Kennedy.  

The Bad:

            The Redskins intercepted the Giants five times and scored on a 62-yard fumble recovery,

            a 52-yard punt return and a 62-yard interception.

The two teams scored 16 touchdowns, ten by the Redskins and six by the Giants.

The Ugly:

Bobby Mitchell scored the final TD for the Redskins by running the ball for 45-yards. Mitchell had last played as a running back in 1961 with the Cleveland Browns. Normally a flanker back, he shifted position due to injuries to the other running backs. Redskins head coach, Otto Graham, told reporters after the game, “He doesn’t even know the plays from that position.”

Kennedy started, but the Redskins defense befuddled him with blitzes and fake blitzes leading to three interceptions in the first half. The sore shouldered Wood replaced him, but finally had to give way to Kennedy again in the fourth quarter.

This opened the door for Kennedy to engineer a bizarre play that led to an all-time scoring record. With seven seconds left on the clock and with the ball on the Giants 22-yard line, Kennedy intentionally threw a fourth down pass out of bounds to stop the clock. His excuse was that he thought it was third down which begs the question: With seven seconds left on the clock and your team down 69 to 41, just exactly why are you stopping the clock?

Graham ordered Charlie Gogolak to kick a 29-yard field goal. When asked if his motive was to embarrass the Giants, Graham replied: “Hell no, I didn’t know anything about records. I wanted Gogolak to try a field goal. He hadn’t had a chance all day and he missed two against Cleveland last Sunday. I’m not one to run up the score on anybody.”

But new records they did set: It was the first NFL game with a total combined score of over 100 points. The total of 113 points was 15 more than in another game involving the Giants, a loss in 1948 to the Chicago Cardinals, 63-35.

The Redskins scored the most points ever scored in a regular season game, one shy of the 73 points the Chicago Bears scored against the Redskins in the 1940 championship game.

The 16 touchdowns scored set a record for most scored in an NFL game.

The Redskins 10 touch downs and Charlie Gogolak’s 9 PATs tied a record. If Charlie had made his first, another record would have been broken.

The New York Times also reported that the Redskins lost $315 in footballs that went into the stands. In this era before nets behind the goal line, 14 Duke footballs, then manufactured by Thorp Sporting Goods costing $22.50 each, became fan souvenirs. The Times article pointed out that the Duke is named after Wellington Mara, the Giants president.

Coach Allie Sherman wasn’t happy either. “I guarantee you this is never going to happen to a team of mine again.”

He was right, but then again, that’s a tough score to replicate. But the Giants did try. The next week in Cleveland, they lost to the Browns 49 to 40. At home against Pittsburgh, they crumbled to the Steelers 47 to 28 before ending the season with a milder 17 to 7 loss to the Dallas Cowboys in Yankee Stadium.

That game ended the season with a dismal record of 1-12-1.

Truly, the season of our discontent.

“There was no ship big enough to master the Atlantic Ocean. This included the Queen Elizabeth and I remember this one time when a big wave washed over the ship and took one of the lifeboats on the upper deck as if it was made of paper and smashed it into pieces. The North Atlantic and the Australian Bite were the two roughest bodies of waters that I was ever in.

“There were also many scams that were perpetrated on board the ships. Most of the fellows involved were from Belfast, but some from Dublin. One scam involved jackets. In summer, we wore white jackets, in the winter, navy blue jackets. They would go ashore with two jackets. They’d meet with fellows who wanted to come to America and give them one of the jackets. This was enough to get them on board and their buddies would arrange for places for them to hide for the five-day voyage. Nobody would know.

“The ship was that big. I came to understand how difficult it could be to find someone. I knew a fellow by the name of Peter Fox from Ballinamore and his uncle told me he had signed on to work on the liner. Even so, between the size of the Queen Elizabeth and time off between voyages, it took me three months to find him.

“If you were a Tourist Class passenger, you’d never see the First-Class passengers. Likewise, if you were Cabin Class, you never mixed. It was completely and utterly separate. The ships were constructed in sections. Separate blocks that were joined together and separated from each other by big steel doors cut into the bulkheads. Passageways connected each block, but if there was fog or a big storm, the crew would close those doors or the captain could close them automatically using switches on the bridge. The crew could open them manually by pulling the handle located on each door. If any section went on fire, they could shut off that area and flood it without any effect on the balance of the ship. This way the captain could secure the ship so that if anything hit it they could seal off that section.

“One of the most dangerous places on a passenger ship was the gangplank. A lot of people would be injured or killed coming up the gangplank late at night, especially fellows coming home drunk. The problem climbing up was at its worst at high tide when water lifted the ship way up above the pier. Then the angle between the pier and the ship would be very steep making the climb difficult to make even if the fellow was sober. In the old days the piers were made of wood and if a person fell into the water, they could climb back up onto the pier using the timbers for support. But then the newer piers were concrete with straight walls and no handholds. Unless a person was a fantastic swimmer, he would drown.

“The order to abandon ship had its own dangers. The ship would be stopped at sea, but the waves would affect the ship and it would swing from side to side as the waves came in. The life boats would be lowered on cables connected to the ship. At the bottom of the cables were hooks and, as soon as the boat hit the water, the crew had to unhook the cables and row as fast as you could away from the side of the ship. Otherwise, the next wave would smash the life boat into the side of the ship.

“I had moved to New York and I went down to the pier to watch the Queen Elizabeth sail to England for the last time. It was very sad. The British should never have sold the ship. There will never be another ship like the Queen Elizabeth again. The workmanship was magnificent and nobody could afford that degree of service ever again. There were nearly two crew members for every passenger carried.

“The plan was to turn the ship into a tourist attraction based in Florida, but when this plan fell through, C.Y. Tung, the Chinese shipping magnate bought the Queen and had it towed to Hong Kong for conversion to a floating school. Renamed, Seawise University, the old queen caught fire during the conversion and rolled over onto its side in the harbor. A terrible sight, the ship remained there for several years before being cut up for scrap.”   

“Queen Soraya of Persia sailed with us. Married to Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, King of Iran in 1951; he divorced her in 1958 on the grounds that she was infertile. She would not dine in the dining room unless she could bring her two dogs with her. A compromise was reached where she and her dogs would dine at off hours when nobody else was there. That is except us. We would peek in at her to watch her eat.

“One time the head waiter took me aside and said, ‘John, you have a famous man coming on board. I’m sure you’ve heard of him, George Formby.’

“Of course, I knew who he was. George Formby was a British comedy actor, singer-songwriter and comedian who had been a star of English stage and screen in the 1930s and 1940s. I had seen his films especially; When I’m Cleaning Windows, back in Ireland when I was growing up. I remembered him as being a tall, slim fellow, but his movies were a bit old by the time I saw them. I was excited to see him until he came on board. He must have weighed 300 pounds and he was bald! Certainly not the same man I remembered and I was terribly disappointed.

“The Queen Mary had captured the Blue Riband in 1936 becoming the fastest ship to cross the Atlantic, a record the vessel held until the brand- new SS United States beat it in 1952 on its maiden voyage. We believed even after this happened that the Queen Mary could have re-gained the riband if Cunard would give permission to open it up. But management said no and abided by their advertising slogan: ‘Getting there is half the fun.’           

“When a ship arrived in New York Harbor, it would have to anchor at an area designated by Customs and Immigration as a “Quarantine Zone” until the inspectors were satisfied that the ship was disease-free and cleared the ship to enter the port. In the late 1950s, there was a bad case of the Asian Flu and several ships were not allowed in.

“A small boat came out to meet every ship. On board this tender were a doctor, immigration officer and the pilot who would navigate the ship into the harbor and to its dock. The doctor went down to the sick bay to see who was sick and what ailed them. If he determined there was disease on the ship, he would order the yellow flag to be raised quarantining the vessel. Once quarantined, the ship was forbidden to dock until the doctor cleared it. 

“The Queen Elizabeth was so large that once cleared, it could not enter the harbor unless the tide was flowing in. The pilot had to navigate the ship through a narrow channel in the center of the Hudson River. The ship’s boson actually steered the ship and he took his orders from the pilot and not the captain.

“One time, the tug boats that guided the ship from the channel and up along-side the pier were on strike when we arrived in New York. The captain announced that he would bring the Queen Elizabeth in himself without assistance. He did it, brought the liner in without any tug boats and successfully tied up to the pier without damaging either the ship or the pier. It was a great achievement. Of course, he would have lost his command if anything had gone wrong.

“Back in those days, my good friend, Paddy Reilly, had a bar on Spring Street called the Emerald. It was a hangout for “dockees” (longshoreman) and harbor pilots. The pilots’ office was next door and the pilots would tell the boys what ships were coming in and where they would dock. He’d say, “The Queen Elizabeth is docking at Pier 95.” and they’d all rush uptown. The docks were Mafia controlled and the “shape-up” guy would call out the names of the men who would be working that day. At that time, if you knew your way around, which I did, there was a place near to Pier 95 in Hells’ Kitchen called the Market Diner. At the back of the Market Diner there was a little room where you could go to buy bottles of whiskey, cigarettes and nylon stockings. Nylon stockings were a great thing which we used to smuggle back home because you couldn’t get them in England or Ireland.

“All of these products came to the little room thanks to the longshoreman who loaded and unloaded the ships. They would take a few cases of whiskey, cigarettes, nylons stockings, etc. The ship’s crew knew what was going on but they couldn’t do anything about it. If the dockees worked slowly they could keep the ship in port and cost the liner substantial overtime fees. The men in charge had no choice but to turn a blind eye to the pilfering.

“The movie, On the Waterfront, reminded me of an awful lot of things that went down at that time. The piers were a great place for ex-boxers, people who were punch drunk. It was sad to see these big, strong fellows working on the docks carrying heavy loads and some of them didn’t even know where they were. Their wives would bring them down early in the morning and they’d be there carrying loads up and down until the shift ended.

“One time after we arrived in Southampton, I went down to London to get film for a camera. The fellow in the shop asked me where I had gotten my camera. I told him, ‘I got it in Japan.’

“He asked, ‘Would you be able to get me a couple of those cameras?’

“I told him that I could and he said he would pay me well if I did. The next time I was in Japan I bought several cameras, but then I thought how am I going to get them home and off the ship? I had to strike up an idea to get them passed customs on the dock. I took one of the cameras out of its case and put it around my neck. Holding onto an envelope, I went to the agent on the pier and asked him where a post office was where I could mail it. He checked the bag I was carrying gave me directions and let me go. I went to a nearby train station, rented a locker and stashed the camera in the locker. I did this, three or four times when there was a different agent at the gate. And that’s how I made a bit of money on the side by smuggling the cameras.”

ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN will not publish on December 26, 2023 but will return on January 3, 2024 when I will send out Part 3 of Papa John’s experiences on the Queen Mary

Introduction and Part One

In 2011, I self-published my fifth and final anthology of pieces I had written from 2001 to 2010. I gave it the title, The Big Orange Dog and Other Stories. Shaun Clancy, the salon keeper of Foley’s NY Pub & Restaurant located on 33^rd Street offered me the opportunity to have a book signing in his sports bar.

Shaun asked me would I be willing to record and transcribe his father’s life-experiences, an amazing collection of extraordinary stories.

Of course, I agreed.

At times, it was like pulling teeth, but we finished our mission in 2013, when we published: Never Say: I Can’t.

 When John finished school, his father set him up to move to London and become an apprentice at a pub in London. Too young to serve alcohol, he was relegated to being the lowest of the low in the pub’s hierarchy. Essentially, he fell into being an indentured servant who was treated like a dog. Once he turned, 18, John made his escape by signing on as an ordinary seaman in the British Merchant Marine. Unfortunately, his choices were few and he picked an old dog to be his first assignment, the  SS Otronto. This passenger ship was built in 1926 and had been relegated to becoming aa immigration ship carrying failed Brits to Australia, only to return those Brits who failed in Australia back home again on return voyages.

John made three voyages between Australia and London as a steward because of his experience apprenticing in that London Pub. He was promoted from the Otronto to the modern Orcades, the Orient Lines first post-Second War liner completed in 1948.

John Clancy joined the Cunard Lines in 1957, first as a steward on the RMS Mauretania. Eventually, he was assigned to the RMS Queen Elizabeth.

RMS Queen Mary and the Elizabeth were two sister ships, that while different in appearance, were similar in size. The Queen Mary went into service in 1936 with a tonnage of 81,237 and a length of 1,019 feet (310 meters) while the Queen Elizabeth, which went into service in 1940, was 83,673 gross tons with a length of 1,031 feet (314 meters) that went into service in 1940, both Queens were converted to troop ships for the duration of the Second World War. When the war ended they were refurbished and returned to trans- Atlantic service. 

Cunard Lines demanded the same degree of service from the staff on both vessels. The Queen Elizabeth was the flagship of the Cunard fleet and its designation of RMS stood for Royal Mail Ship. All of the transatlantic mail was carried on the Queen Elizabeth and its sister ships which heavily subsidized the cost of operating them. This was a double-edged sword because the line was restricted in the amount of the profits they could make so long as they held these mail contracts. It was only when the contracts ended that the ships made serious money for the owners. But by then the two Queens were gone and the newer ships were mainly cruise ships and not transatlantic liners.

The service on board the Queens was unbelievable. The First-Class dining rooms had a restaurant manager, a station captain at each table who took all of the orders and a wine steward who, funny enough, had the title “Baths and Wine.”  In addition to being the wine expert who would describe the different wines and offer samples to the passengers, he ran the baths. Back then the Queens didn’t have showers or bath tubs in the cabins, even in First Class. The passengers had to share the baths and, to reserve a bath; they had to book it with this steward.

“We had to be experienced and well-trained to qualify to be First Class waiters. The menus were all in French, believe it or not, but we didn’t have to take the order; we had to serve the food. We would have to carve the roasts and serve all of the ingredients. The greatest number of guests we would have at the table would be 10 people. Each table would be served by a station captain, two waiters and a busboy.   

“The food was wonderful. Before we set out to sea on a new voyage, we would arrange a grand display of food in the dining room for the passengers to review. All kinds of fresh fish were set out displayed in ice flanked by ice sculptures carved into the images of mermaids and other creatures. Every type of food you could think about was displayed.

“Lunch was special too in the First-Class Dining Room. A passenger could order anything they wanted at lunch. If someone asked for Irish stew or something like that, you’d have it. It was the same at dinner. The chef would come into the dining room at 3 pm every day to meet with any passengers who had special requests so that he could start the process of preparing their special meal for that evening. There were also two restaurants for the first-class passengers as good as any top-rated restaurant in New York, but the passengers had to pay for these meals and they were quite expensive.”

To be continued

Little Richard passed in April of 2020 at 87. RIP: Richard Wayne Penniman.

In 1955, he exploded out of the Rhythm & Blues (R&B) backwaters of the deep South and crashed into the early days of rock and roll with his hit song: Tutti Frutti. Granted, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and Bo Didley had previously crossed over from R&B to white rock, but Little Richard initiated a revolution and rightfully deserves to be called the Godfather of Rock and Roll!

As Tim Weiner explained in his New York Times obituary: “Little Richard, pounding the piano furiously and screaming as if for his very life, raised the energy level several notches and created something not quite like any music that had been heard before – something new, thrilling and more than a little dangerous.”  

Dangerous, indeed: Take my favorite Little Richard tune: Long Tall Sally. Most renditions muted the theme of the song that Uncle John was having an extra marital affair with Sally. The significant verse is:

Well, long tall Sally

She’s built for speed, she got

Everything that Uncle John need.

This verse was altered to:

Well long tall Sally’s

Kind of sweet, she got

Everything that Arkansas need.

Really! If it’s about Arkansas, then why did Uncle John have to duck back in the alley when he saw Aunt Mary coming?

But I digress. I was on my way home alone on a Friday afternoon at the end of another London business trip. (I made over a one hundred from 1976 to 2000.)

Seeking a hidden treasure, I stopped at the bookstore in the Heathrow’s Terminal Three. Luck was with me as I discovered a cassette featuring the mid-century R&B entertainers / song writers who became the roots of rock and roll.

Of course, Little Richard was one and the tape featured four of his songs: Good Golly Miss Molly, Lucille, Tutti Frutti and Long Tall Sally.

Pleased with my discovery, I made my way to the British Airways lounge to relax, have a bloody Mary and listen to my new tape as I waited for my flight to be called for boarding. When I saw it flashing on the departure board, I left the club and headed for my gate.

Back in the day, BA’s gates for flights to America were a long distance from the club. From repetition, I knew my gate’s location, so I strolled along the corridors listening to these great singers filling my headphones with songs like Long Tall Sally.

I was in the groove by the time I reached the gate. Cassette player off, I received my boarding pass. I thanked the agent and made my way on to the jetway. As I stepped onto the 747, I offered my boarding pass to the flight attendant at the door who examined it and directed me to my seat.

I began my usual drill to settle in for the long flight home. I removed the items I expected to use during this flight before I put my carry-on into the overhead.

Suddenly, I heard the following announcement: “Would John Delach please identify himself?”

I rang my call button identifying my location.

“Mister Delach, may I see your boarding pass?”

I handed it to the flight attendant. She examined it, then asked, “Where are you traveling to with us today?” (Got to love Brit-speak!)

“New York’s JFK”

“I see. The problem is the destination for this airplane is Boston. It seems that you boarded the flight at Gate 73. Our British Airways flight to JFK is at Gate 75.”

Fortunately, time was on my side, the correct gate was only one away and this crew had alerted the JFK crew that I was on my way.

“Long Tall Sally” had been my undoing but I wasn’t the only one asleep at the switch that Friday afternoon.     

My one and only Octoberfest experience took place in 1994 when the Munich Re Insurance Company hosted a meeting with our firm and our client Exxon. The meeting was planned for the first week in October, the same week that this annual beer festival began.

Curiously, on the Saturday morning, September 29^th, before I began my journey, my AM radio was tuned to WCBS-880, and this news station actually reported that Octoberfest was to begin tomorrow, Sunday, September 30th.

“Some coincidence,” I thought, “I’m about to make a trip to Munich with Exxon’s Treasurer, who doesn’t understand that insurance underwriters don‘t view Exxon the same way as their money managers does. Underwriters don’t worship having Exxon’s business. For them, you present the danger of loss whereas investors recognize Exxon as a safe place to put their money. Money managers didn’t have to deal with the Exxon Valdez!

“Oh well, this is what I am paid to do. Munich, here we come.”

I arrived in Munich early Sunday morning, gave the taxi driver the name of my hotel that turned out to be in downtown Munich along the route of the Octoberfest Parade. The driver had his radio on a station playing songs dedicated to today’s event. One song  grabbed my attention. It was a musical version of the beer commercial that I knew as:

My beer in Reingold, the dry beer. Think of Rheingold whenever you buy beer. It’s not bitter; not sweet; it’s the dry flavored treat. Won’t you try extra dry Rheingold beer.

I thought about this musical version of the Rheingold jingle and realized that this must be a classic piece that the beer company’s advertisers adopted for their brand.

This thought bounced around in my head until it eventually faded into my memory’s background.

The trip went well and the Octoberfest was a hoot. The fest takes place in a series of pre-fabricated structures packed with picnic tables that they call tents. We had twelve people in our group and our hosts did the ordering. Naturally, beer came first and our server brought us twelve steins of beer. My first reaction upon seeing my stein was, “Where’s my glass to pour this pitcher into?”

Finally, I realized that pitcher was my glass and the Octoberfest brew was outstanding.

 Supper was definitely German fare, pretzels for appetizers, various brats, and frankfurters for the main course with potato salads for sides.

The trip went well allowing me to establish a better relationship between my client and our team.

One German oddity about Octoberfest. The rest rooms are not free  and the user must buy a token from vendors to enter!  

Fast Forward

Far removed from 1994, earlier this November, Mary Ann and I were watching one of the last episodes from the series, Golden Girls, when the script led these stars to all sing, My beer is Rheingold, the dry beer, Think of Rheingold whenever you buy beer…both of usjoined the cast in singing the lyrics as well as we could.

It reminded me of my experience listening to the song in that cab, 29-years ago.

A simple hunt on the internet revealed that the music for this piece was written as a waltz by Emile Waldteufel: 1837-1915. His waltz was originally six- minutes long.

Can you imagine a six-minute beer commercial? Neither can I!

Finally, after sixty-three years of existence, the Texas Rangers won the World Series earlier this fall. Congratulations!

Over the years, I have attended several games at their home stadiums. Most of my memories are mundane, but there was one incident that my cousin, Bill and I witnessed that’s worth remembering.

I had flown from LaGuardia to DFW (Dallas-Fort Worth Airport) on a business trip visiting Exxon-Mobil’s home office in Las Calinas. Bill picked me up from my hotel after those meeting ended so I could stay at his home in Plano after we attended a Rangers game that night and returned to New York the next day.

We ate at the stadium’s buffet dining room before heading to our reserved seats in the upper deck behind home plate.

After the traditional playing of our National Anthem, the action on the field began while the crowd took their seats. Occupying several seats two rows below us was a home-town family of five Born-again Christians. I understood their message of devotion from their tee shirts that advertised Jesus, finding Jesus and/or being born again.

Ordinarily, this discovery would have been no more than a footnote

to my experience that night at the ballpark. But then, their daughter, a cute teenager about 16-years- old returned from the concession stand and announced to her father: ”Daddy, a man down below us told me that I have a pretty ass.”

“Well, darling, you do have pretty eyes.”

“No daddy, he said I have a pretty ass.”

“Can you point him out?”

She did and her daddy signaled to his oldest son who I guessed to be fifteen to join him. They made their way down to the perpetrator who met them standing, having a good time, clueless of his fate. Seconds later, Daddy, administered his daughter’s revenge as he punched her offender in the nose. Texas style justice had been administered.

Security arrived. Her daddy made his case. The perpetrator was removed from the ball park while daddy returned to his family.

Bill and I had taken in the drama from the safety of our seats. But, as daddy returned to his seat, I turned to Bill to ask him: “Bill, what do you say to $50? I’ll give you $50 if you tell her daddy that she does have a pretty ass?

He declined as I thought he would,   

When the order for the second torpedo attack was received, Admiral Sprague excused the destroyer escorts since they carried only three torpedoes. Never-the-less, the Samuel B. Roberts skipper, Lieutenant Commander R.W. Copeland, decided to follow the destroyers becoming the fourth ship in the attack column.

The Japanese concentrated on the three destroyers allowing the Roberts to remain undetected until it was less than 4,000 yards from the heavy cruisers. Roberts let loose her three torpedoes that ran, “hot straight and normal,” blowing the bow off of the heavy cruiser Chokai.”

The time was 0755.

By now the destroyer Heerman was dead in the water and sinking, but the two other destroyers, Hoel and the badly damaged Johnston along with the Roberts scurried back to form a screen around the carrier, Fanshaw Bay,  to make smoke and fire their five-inch guns at will. Their target, the cruiser, Tone, answered back with its main battery of eight-inch guns and around 0850, “Roberts took her first hit below the waterline followed by additional hits in rapid succession.”

At about 0900, Skipper Copeland reported that “…a tremendous explosion took place on his ship that he believed to have been caused by two or three 14-inch shells,” that only a battleship could fire. They tore a great, jagged hole 30 to 40 feet long and 7 to 10 high on the port side. The damage was so severe that all power was lost and the ship was reduced from stack to stern to ‘an inert mass of battered metal.”

Despite the complete loss of power, the crew of No. 2 gun managed to get off six salvos by hand. Unfortunately, a seventh attempt failed, killing the three members of the gun crew. Abandon Ship was ordered at 0910 but not completed until 0935 because the skipper insisted that the wounded be given first aid and placed on rafts.

Roberts lay over about 80 degrees then gave a twist and slowly sank by the stern at 1005.  

Copeland concluded his post action report by repeating what he informed the crew what they should expect over loudspeaker system:

“This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival could not be expected, during which time we would do what damage we could.’ In the face of this knowledge, the men zealously manned their stations wherever they might be and fought and worked with such calmness, courage and efficiency that no higher honor could be conceived than to command such a group of men.”

Of the compliment of 215 men, 90 went down with the ship or succumbed to injuries received or exposure during the 50 hours spent on rafts or in the water before they were rescued.

The American Navy lost two escort carriers, Fanshaw Bay and St. Lo, two destroyers, Hoel and Johnston, and the destroyer escort, Samuel B. Roberts.  

Admiral Kurita was never quite sure if he was fighting a lowly squadron of jeep carriers and their screening ships or Halsey’s powerful Third Fleet, but the little escorts and the flyers of Taffy 3 did enough damage to send the Japanese force back to their home port in Java. Most of these ships never went to sea again.

The little ships and their aviators saved the day, and Halsey’s legacy would always be  questioned by his decision to desert supporting these little ships in favor of chasing the former decoy Japanese carriers.

As in any battle, once the engagement began, fate became the hunter.

In June of 2023, an international oceanic exploration group led by Victor Vescovo located the remains of the USS Samuel B. Roberts This destroyer escort came to rest 22,600 feet below where it sank during the naval battle of Leyte to free the Philippines and made the Roberts the deepest combat casualty ever located.

The Roberts was one of the smallest warships in size and armament to regularly serve as part of the Navy’s main fleets. Usually, these little ships were relegated to escorting larger warships, or hunting for enemy submarines.

On the morning of October 22, 1944, the crew of the USS Samuel B. Roberts entered into harm’s way to

endure a remarkable yet brief combat experience. Nicknamed, “The Sammy B.” the Roberts was sunk by multiple hits from large caliber shells fired from Japanese battleships, cruisers and other major warships. How did this welterweight of a warship find itself in the middle of a heavyweight fight?

The naval battle that accompanied the invasion of Leyte was, by far, the largest of the Pacific War. The Japanese chose to engage the US Fleet in a winner-take-all showdown. Since the Battle of Midway in 1942, their fleet had suffered losses they couldn’t replace to their aircraft carriers and aviators that they couldn’t replace while the size and strength of the American navy kept growing by leaps and bounds. Such losses were especially terrible at the Battle of the Philippine Sea that proceeded the battle for Leyte. History still calls that air battle  “The Marianas Turkey Shoot.” The American fleet lost 115 aircraft while the Japanese lost more than 600.

At Leyte, the Japanese High Command divided their assets into three fleets, the Central Fleet consisting of almost all of their heavily armored and armed surface warships, the Southern Fleet consisting of obsolete battleships and the Northern Fleet, made up of their remaining aircraft carriers, now reduced to floating targets acting as a diversionary ruse.

The Southern Fleet was wiped out in a single night. Their Central Fleet took several major casualties early on from attacks by US naval aircraft and submarines. Our intelligence reported that their Central Fleet had reverse course and retreated.

Admiral William (Bull) Halsey, CEO of the Third Fleet, the primary American war fleet was obsessed with the whereabouts of the enemy’s carrier fleet. When he was informed incorrectly that the Central Fleet had reversed course, he dispatched this powerful armada to destroy it. With Halsey’s departure, the sole American presence protecting the landing beaches off of the island of Samar was reduced to  four escort carriers, also called baby carriers or jeep carriers. The purpose of their Marine aircrews was to protect and support the Marines fighting on Leyte using pre-war  Wildcat fighters.

Each carrier group  was assigned an escort of three destroyers and four destroyer escorts.

On the morning of October 25, 1944, the three carrier groups had completed their nightly patrol duties and were re-deploying to begin their ground support flight operations. At 0645, strange things began to happen unexpected anti-aircraft fire, unidentified surface contacts and Japanese chatter. At 0658, the Japanese opened fire.

One minute later, colored splashes from the batteries of Japanese ships began rising astern of the ships of this small fleet. Admiral Kurita, the admiral in charge of the Japanese Central Fleet became equally shocked and confused to see American aircraft carriers ahead of his fleet. He didn’t realize they were only jeep carriers ordered “General Attack,” against what he thought was Admial Halsey’s main fleet. Chaos soon ensued. By 7:00 all aircraft from the three carrier groups had been launched, but the Japanese shell splashes progressed closer and closer to the escort carriers.

At 0716, Admiral Clifton Sprague, the local commander ordered his three destroyers to attack. Unbeknown to Sprague, Commander Ernest E. Evans, skipper of the USS Johnston had already ordered his crew to general quarters, lit all boilers and passed the word “prepare to attack a major portion of the Japanese fleet.” When Evans received orders from Sprague to deliver a torpedo attack with Hoel and Hermann, the other two destroyers. He closed the Johnston at 25 knots to within 10,000 yards of a heavy cruiser and fired her ten torpedoes, whipped around and retired behind her own smoke.

At about 7:30, three 14-inch shells slammed into the Johnston followed by three 6-inch shells thirty seconds later. “It was like a puppy being smacked by a truck.” But speed was maintained at 17 knots and all gun stations remained on line.

Next in was USS Hoel together with the USS Hermann that

commenced their duels with the enemy battleships and heavy cruisers. As they formed up for a second torpedo attack, Lieutenant R. W. Copeland, skipper of the Samuel B. Roberts, decided to tag along with the big boys contrary to his orders.

 (TO BE CONTINUED…)                    

“Call me Buster.”

 I am a seven-year-old mixed breed part Chow / part Border Collie with brown and black hair I have pointy ears that I can turn 180 degrees that would make me a lousy poker player as how I set my ears gives away my mood. Let me tell you about my first trip to Florida.

Before we left, I had my hair cut. This was not my idea as January was cold and wet. When they did this to me. I thought that Mary Ann and John, the people I live with, were trying to kill me, but the next day we set out in their truck on a road trip that would take us to a special place, called Florida, where the weather is nice and warm in January.

I didn’t always live with them. A girl named Jodie, who I adored, adopted me from the North Shore Animal’s League’s shelter. She took me home to Connecticut. Later, she married their son, Michael. It was not a bad life until they had this kid. Didn’t like him, but food became more plentiful once he arrived. Then he became mobile and interested in me. A couple of bites later, it was goodbye Fairfield, and hello Port Washington, Long Island.

My life in this new home would have been much better if they didn’t already have Maggie living with them too. She arrived a year before I did, in 1999, another reject.

 She was thrown out of her home because she was a crazy ten-month-old Golden Retriever. Now five, she’s still nuts, and she’s a pain in my ass. Stupid Golden Retrievers think they are so special and this one thinks she is “The Supreme Being.” The fools I live with, especially, John, treat her that way.

You don’t believe me? She uses toys as props, rubber footballs, a rubber ring, a rope and especially tennis balls. She obsesses over her toys and God forbid, I borrow one, the bitch takes it away. Now toys are not a big deal for me, but fair is fair.

She also hogs the window in the back seat. She stands there waiting for them to open it, so she can put her stupid head out. And when they do, God forbid, I go over to it. She growls and snarls at me. It can get so bad on this trip that I said the hell with it and found a spot in the back of the truck. Mary Ann was nice enough to find a mat for me to lie on while “her majesty” had the entire soft seat to herself.

Spending eight hours in a truck every day for three days is not as bad as you think. It isn’t as though I had other things to do and we stopped often enough to stretch and relieve ourselves. Sleeping in those little boxy rooms was another matter altogether. There are too many strangers, each one a potential assassin. I was ready to stay up all night and let them know I was on alert, but John stupidly closed the curtains.

When we arrived at the house in Florida, I had to learn a few things the hard way. Glass sliding doors are not always open and what happens when I walk across the plastic cover on top of the swimming pool. My only pleasure was watching her majesty do the same thing.

Each morning we hopped in the truck for a short ride to the beach. As soon as we began to move, Maggie began to act up. Her ears flailed back making her look like a bolting horse. Her eyes blinked rapidly as her tongue moved in and out of her mouth at the same speed. She whimpered and cried. When she saw the water, the Loony Tune’s barking and crying became so high-pitched that it went right through me. It was all I could do not to bite her so she’d shut up. This cacophony ended only after John let her out of the truck. And this happened every morning!

The beach was great. Not many people, a few new dogs to meet and greet. Most of the time we ran free and I had a grand time cataloging new and different smells, rolling on dead creatures and playing in the surf. On the other hand, “nutsy Fagin” had to have something to chase and carry in her big mouth. Each morning, John found a different coconut that he would throw into the water. Maggie mindlessly chased them.

Her nuttiness gave me the idea that if I chased them too, that might drive her off the deep end. After I grabbed the coconut first a couple of times, she freaked out and started ripping it out of my mouth. After that I decided to back off and let her have it.

 John threw the coconut like a football, but its weight and the wind made some throws fall short. It was my fondest hope that sooner or later one would hit her on the head and kill her. (Imagine John having to call his kids to tell them what happened.)

Don’t get in an uproar, it didn’t happen. Actually, it was an excellent vacation with no mishaps after the first day. Neither of us went swimming in the bayou behind the house because the bottom was too muddy, and our instincts sensed danger. Good thing too because we found out alligators liked to swim there.

 We also avoided fleas and I had to smile because last year Maggie acquired fleas on the trip I missed.

So, you can put me down to recommending Florida as a good place to go to leave winter behind, but it would be much better to go there as an Only Dog.