Clapper: The skipper
By Raymond Clapper
The following, written by Mr. Clapper before the battle of the Marshall Islands in which he lost his life, has been forwarded by the Navy.
Aboard an aircraft carrier, somewhere in the Pacific –
It was from some of the youngsters on the forward guns that I learned about the captain of this carrier, and incidentally about the youngsters.
It was still dark. We had just put off the dawn patrol, and I had had someone point out to me the Southern Cross, which below the Equator is to amateur astronomers what the Big Dipper is north of the Equator. We were at general quarters, with all hands at battle stations. I had been on the flag bridge watching the operation, and then I went over to the forward gun platform to talk with these youngsters.
One of them, who has a wife and two children in Massachusetts, plays in the ship’s band. He and a partner had a garage until the draft took their help, whereupon they closed up and our friend joined the Navy. With him was a blond youngster who also plays in the band. He grew up in New Jersey, but has a wife and baby in Tennessee.
I asked:
How old is the baby?
“Two months and three days,” he said, which shows what kind of new father he is. He has never seen his baby. He studied music at the Juilliard School in New York.
Boys bring up subject
I didn’t bring up the matter of the skipper. They did.
I was saying how glad I was to be aboard.
One of the boys said:
We think we have the best skipper in the Navy.
The other said:
His talks to us before we go into battle are wonderful. You should have heard the talk he made to us when the ship was commissioned. He said this ship would take us right into Tokyo.
Some of these boys think it is the skill of the captain that has brought the carrier through six tough fights without a scratch.
One of them said:
You should have seen the near misses dropping around us on the Rabaul strike! They were coming down right close on one side and then on the other side, but the skipper just swung her around and we got through between them.
When I asked the captain about it, he said God was with the ship. He said you can have the best crew in the Navy, and the best ship, but you still need some luck to get through.
Skipper spurns sadism
He has had luck, and not the least of it is to have a friendly, straight-shooting personality to go with his skill. He does not go in for the bellowing, sadistic explosions affected by old-time seadogs. He commands not only the confidence of the entire personnel but its affection, to a degree I have not observed elsewhere in this war, and which officers aboard say is exceptional.
I emphasize this because the Gen. Patton incident has shaken the confidence of some parents in the way their boys are being treated by officers.
Any number of bluejackets have volunteered to me some remark or other about the skipper of this happy ship. Recently he got orders for a promotion which involves his leaving this ship, and a number of the men have gone to him to say how much they regret his leaving. Several of them have remarked to me that they are glad he is staying on through the next action with them, for they are almost superstitious about their luck with him. It is a phenomenon which gives a lift to a civilian guest aboard this ship, especially one coming out of the atmosphere of Washington.
I don’t know what the explanation is. In fact, we seldom know what makes leadership. But you always know when it is there, as every last man on this ship knows it.