Clapper: How big
By Raymond Clapper
This is another of the dispatches written by Mr. Clapper before his death in the battle of the Marshalls, and forwarded to us by the Navy. His last article will appear tomorrow.
With the Pacific Fleet, in the Marshall Islands – (by wireless)
By now I hope the Navy will have told the world, especially the enemy peoples, how many big battleships we put into the battle of the Marshall Islands, because then you could multiply some of the things, I want to report about just one of these big battlewagons, and sense for yourself how we have recovered and grown since Pearl Harbor.
One big gun barrel weighs about 100 tons – and you know how big a pile of 100 tons of coal would be. Each of these battleships has nine such 16-inch guns, and in addition 20 guns of 5-inch caliber. It would take a good-sized truck to haul one shell for one of the bigger guns. Some 150 men are needed to operate one turret.
Battleships are rather crowded now, because in the last few years many anti-aircraft guns have been added. Not only do the guns themselves occupy much of the previously available space, but also the extra men necessary to man and maintain the guns are the equivalent of a village. Large as a battleship is, its personnel are packed into a kind of sardine community, lacking the great spaces of a big carrier where the men will rig a volleyball court on an airplane elevator, play baseball on the flight deck, and drive several jeeps around as on a city street.
Heroes hear it straight
The day I went aboard the battleship, the captain addressed all hands on what we are fighting for. The men of this famous ship were already heroes, as a result they were just a bit inclined to throw their weight around among new men coning aboard. So, the new skipper is welding his crew together with frequent talks about war aims.
He told his men they were about to go into a big battle. He said he hoped they would keep in mind why it was worthwhile. He said we must take these islands, and must hold them after the war. He said we were fighting with our Allies to free the world from aggression, and that it was also important that the Allies stand together after the war if there was to be a secure peace. Much of his brief talk was devoted to stressing the need of a unified team aboard ship and of a unified team of Allies during and after the war.
By stirring our stumps
He finished by saying that all this would be achieved not merely by wishing it or talking about it, but by “stirring our stumps” – which is what this and the many other ships in this vast striking fleet proceeded to do.
There was no sign of the tension of approaching battle aboard the big ship at that time. The men were excited at the moment over the arrival of belated Christmas gifts from the labor union that built the ship. The union sent 2,400 duffle bags, and each was filled with toilet articles, a sewing kit, a small cribbage board, playing cards, and a money belt – the latter being especially popular. At least that was what was in the bag of one man when he dumped it out for me to see.
One of the minor discomforts of the war out here is that the men have nothing to send their money on. They have underground crap games on payday, which are frequently raided by the ship’s master-at-arms. He takes the kitty for the ship’s welfare fund.
War sometimes sure is what Sherman said.