Phyllis Beveridge Nissila
The Lines
In an article by Elise Cooper in today’s American Thinker, “Remembering the Men of the Little Ships,” featuring an interview with Clint Johnson, author of the 2019 book Tin Cans and Greyhounds: The Destroyers That Won Two World Wars Cooper “reminds us that those serving on ships put their life at risk daily.”
The men in ships referenced in her article and Johnson’s book are those who served our nation–and helped preserve other nations–on the so-called “destroyer” and “destroyer escort” ships of the United States Navy.
They were called “tin cans” and/or “greyhounds” because “they had thin metal hulls that were useful for quickly navigating the seas but not a great protection for the men serving on those ships” notes Cooper.
In other words, survival on a destroyer (or a destoyer escort) was not guaranteed.
Cooper includes a quote featured in Johnson’s book by Lieutenant Commander Robert Copeland as he “calmly told his crew as their tiny, unarmored destroyer escort rushed toward giant, armored Japanese battleships at the Battle off Samar on October 25, 1944 that they were fighting ‘against overwhelming odds from which survival could not be expected.'”
“Unbelievably,” adds Cooper, “the Navy’s scratch force of destroyers and escort carriers chased off the entire Japanese battle fleet, though at great cost.”
Between the Lines: Dad’s “Tin Can”
My father, Yoeman Second Class, (YN2) Joseph P. Beveridge, served on one of those tin cans, the USS Ulvert M. Moore (DE-442), which was a John C. Butler-class destroyer escort acquired by the U.S. Navy during World War II, Lt. Comdr. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., the President’s son, in command. Dad served on the ship in 1944-45.
Like a lot of the men and women who served in World War II, and prior wars, Dad spoke very little of his experiences unless he was recounting, on rare occasions, some of the funny stories, or the stories he’d turned to humorous accounts. We loved his wartime anecdotes, and each time they were just as funny if only because Dad had an infectious laugh and, well, they were really hilarious–if you didn’t know the dangerous nature of the wartime efforts such “tin can sailors” were engaged in.
I loved them also because what with the many challenges Dad and Mom faced raising eleven children as best they could in the fifties, sixties, and beyond, there were darker periods of family life where humor took a back seat.
I do not recall, however, Dad ever talking about why he spent time on Hawaii recovering from a wound sustained while on duty, or even what his injury was.
Nor do I recall him ever talking about what I’ve learned through historical accounts about the ship’s crew having to go to “general quarters,” or battle stations, on many occasions due to attacks by Japanese “kamikaze” (suicide) pilots, during other kinds of air attacks, or when in the search of–and during attacks on–enemy submarines while all the while wondering, as combatants in particularly vulnerable situations do, if this would be the time…
He also never recounted the times when his crew rescued the casualties of other ships that suffered considerably more damage than did the Moore. He never talked about the men who were brought aboard, particularly survivors of submarine attacks who were burnt from the dense, smoking flames of a diesel fuel spill now spreading on the surface of the Pacific and that undoubtedly smelled like Hell.
He also didn’t tell us what it was like when in his official capacity he had to bring the news of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death to his son, still in command, during the final stages of the war.
At least he never talked about all of this to us kids.
The Ship’s Last Days
According to the Wikipedia summary, linked above, incorporating excerpts from the Naval History and Heritage Command report, the Ulvert M. Moore’s last involvement in the Pacific Theater of WWII, the ship served as one of “the supporting escorts for TF 32, then en route to Tokyo Bay for the Japanese surrender. On 2 September, [1945] the escort vessel entered Tokyo Bay, in the words of her ship’s historian, as ‘a fitting culmination to approximately 14 months of strenuous operation.
“After conducting antisubmarine and mine patrol duties in Japanese home waters, escorting Japan-bound transports with occupation forces embarked, and destroying floating mines with light-caliber gunfire, Ulvert M. Moore operated in the Philippines into the winter before she returned via Pearl Harbor to the United States. Arriving at San Diego, California, on 22 November, the destroyer escort was decommissioned there on 24 May 1946 and placed in reserve.”
Dad came home shortly thereafter, met Mom, and the rest is (our) history.
Dad’s Legacy
In keeping with Dad’s taciturn nature, this will be a brief summary of his legacy as part of what has been called “The Greatest Generation,” i.e., the generation in the United States that grew up in the stark years of The Great Depression, practiced the values of faith, family, and hard work that enabled them to do the difficult, usually thankless, more often dangerous work of defending this nation–and other nations–in that war wherein the world witnessed the unprecedented greatest attacks on freedom of life and liberty the world has perhaps ever known.
Dad might summarize it like this, I think. “I was preparing to go to the trade school (on scholarship) after high school and I got my letter from Uncle Sam” (draft notice).
He chose working for the U.S. Naval recruiting office in Washington, D.C., for his first duty station before he was sent to the South Pacific.
“Yeah, we saw some action in the Pacific, ” he’d likely say.
He might then immediately switch the subject and talk about the musicals he’d seen in New York City during his first years on days off, Oklahoma, his favorite, or the museums and historical tours on the east coast, of which he was a big fan.
Or, and this is more likely, he’d say, after taking his pipe out of his mouth and throwing his head back already well into a rolling laugh, “Did I ever tell you the story about Thermingale Shamblin*?”
Of course. But did we care?
Tell us again, Dad.
And then immediately he would launch into the gut-buster about his shipmate with the big feet who, at least according to Dad, was the world’s clumsiest individual, inevitably stumbling up, then down, then up, then down again the ship’s many ladders and narrow stairways, especially during the mad dash when general quarters blared over the loudspeakers.
A few siblings heard more stories, especially my brothers who are military veterans, from whom I learned a few of the items I related above.
But that’s about it.
Dad never went to military reunions nor did he join any Veteran’s clubs. He let us play with his Navy “pea coat” until we wore it out.
If he ever suffered from “shell shock” or “battle fatigue,” what they used to call “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” (PTSD) we never heard of it. Of course, now we think perhaps this may have been a factor in some kind of depression he seemed to slip into from time to time, when he would sleep a lot on his few days off, quietly drink his quart of beer every night, become even more taciturn than usual.
However, as perhaps his one, non-verbal testament to military service and war and politics and global, national, and local power-mongers that are always a part of what causes man to be so inhumane to man and leads to all the wars, when once Dad boarded the train heading back home, he opened the window and threw out his Navy-issue rucksack with all of its wartime contents and memorabilia–maybe even still smelling a little bit of burning diesel fuel flaming on ocean waters amid the screams of injured and dying men, very young men, really, like him.
My Turn on Dad’s War Time Legacy on a Day for Remembering our Fallen Heroes–and Taking Warning
I did not inherit a taciturn nature like Dad’s.
But I did inherit his love of music and museums, history, and a strong sense of fair play and justice. I inherited his faith in God, as well, which came later on in his life, but it came.
My takeaway from his and other WWII veterans’ legacies that I’ve listened to and read of, from this end of history, is this–and I think Dad would agree.
As long as there are those who continue to worship the kind of power and greed as did the despots in Germany, Italy, Russia, Cambodia, China, and elsewhere, in the last century, who left in their wake millions of dead civilians, cities and villages and farmlands destroyed, and far, far too many dead war heroes of all kinds, everywhere, let alone in all of human history, it is this:
HAVEN’T WE LEARNED YET?
Apparently not, as the world once again tenses up–and arms up–for some kind of imminent Armageddon, and very young men–and women–are once again sent to the most vulnerable front lines as the war-mongers invent subtler and more devastating ordnance, some, on the highest of tech levels, but all crafted to destroy.
Of course there is a prophetic narrative in what evil must come.
If indeed God gave men and women a free will, chances are 50/50 any invention will be used for good as well as for evil. Although our contemporary wars may be fought with the most sophisticated weapons, the impetus for war remains the same for all.
There will always be the “darkside 50%,” as it were, those who view innovation in technology and power as means of conquest and control.
If Dad were still alive, I believe that, in all the headlines pointing to impending war today, he, too, might agree it’s the same salesmen and saleswomen of the ideologies that drove the last century’s megalomaniacs to murder millions of innocent people and destroy their lands who are lurking just behind the curtains today, and advertising the same ideological Utopia to fool (later to force) the masses into a false hope of something better if they hand over all their rights and all their own power.
I think Dad would sniff out this Hell, too.
And I think he would encourage us to toss out all the rucksacks, so to speak, filled with Socialism, Communism, Marxism, and all the other related “isms” advertised on glossy banners and on smiling faces as the megalomaniacs’ stock in trade they always are.
And I think he would agree with me and millions of others with a sense of history and justice who say today: don’t buy it.
Resist.
I believe that is part of Dad’s legacy that would continue today, as one who served with his shipmates on one of the “little ships” at the tragic aftermath caused by all the same “isms” that necessitated a world war, then…
And here is another legacy of sorts, the kind you read between the lines, an encouraging legacy that keeps hope alive in every era and was illustrated on the seas of the South Pacific back in the second world war by that little “scratch force” of tin can boats : they did a whole lot more that they were ever expected too.
When you think about it.
And all those battle reports like the ones Dad logged reveal.
And, come to think of it, we can likely do a whole lot more, too, today, in each of our small “battle stations” than we think we can.
Or that today’s enemies of freedom and justice think we can.
So carry on, family, friends, and “freedom-lovers everywhere” (to borrow a classic phrase).
That’s what I think Dad would say, too.
He might add, “And don’t makes yourselves repeat the kind of ____ (fill in your favorite “sailor’s language” as Mom used to call Dad’s favorite expletives) we had to go through back then.”
~~~~~
*I’m pretty sure one of these is correct: Dad made up Thermingale’s name, or I have outrageously misspelled it. However, if it is the real name and spelled correctly, and if Mr. Shamblin, or your loved ones, is/are still alive, my apologies. But you, your father/spouse/grandfather uncle is still quite famous–and well appreciated–in my family, as we are sure, now, he helped not only provide a little comic relief for my dad and others on board during those dangerous, tense times, as well as adding to the legend and the lore of what was life on the USS Ulvert M Moore during its tour of duty in the South Pacific during World War II.
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On Memorial Day 2019: A Personal Legacy–and Warning–from Between the Lines of a New Book on WWII’s “Tin Cans and Greyhounds”
Phyllis Beveridge Nissila
The Lines
In an article by Elise Cooper in today’s American Thinker, “Remembering the Men of the Little Ships,” featuring an interview with Clint Johnson, author of the 2019 book Tin Cans and Greyhounds: The Destroyers That Won Two World Wars Cooper “reminds us that those serving on ships put their life at risk daily.”
The men in ships referenced in her article and Johnson’s book are those who served our nation–and helped preserve other nations–on the so-called “destroyer” and “destroyer escort” ships of the United States Navy.
They were called “tin cans” and/or “greyhounds” because “they had thin metal hulls that were useful for quickly navigating the seas but not a great protection for the men serving on those ships” notes Cooper.
In other words, survival on a destroyer (or a destoyer escort) was not guaranteed.
Cooper includes a quote featured in Johnson’s book by Lieutenant Commander Robert Copeland as he “calmly told his crew as their tiny, unarmored destroyer escort rushed toward giant, armored Japanese battleships at the Battle off Samar on October 25, 1944 that they were fighting ‘against overwhelming odds from which survival could not be expected.'”
“Unbelievably,” adds Cooper, “the Navy’s scratch force of destroyers and escort carriers chased off the entire Japanese battle fleet, though at great cost.”
Between the Lines: Dad’s “Tin Can”
My father, Yoeman Second Class, (YN2) Joseph P. Beveridge, served on one of those tin cans, the USS Ulvert M. Moore (DE-442), which was a John C. Butler-class destroyer escort acquired by the U.S. Navy during World War II, Lt. Comdr. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., the President’s son, in command. Dad served on the ship in 1944-45.
Like a lot of the men and women who served in World War II, and prior wars, Dad spoke very little of his experiences unless he was recounting, on rare occasions, some of the funny stories, or the stories he’d turned to humorous accounts. We loved his wartime anecdotes, and each time they were just as funny if only because Dad had an infectious laugh and, well, they were really hilarious–if you didn’t know the dangerous nature of the wartime efforts such “tin can sailors” were engaged in.
I loved them also because what with the many challenges Dad and Mom faced raising eleven children as best they could in the fifties, sixties, and beyond, there were darker periods of family life where humor took a back seat.
I do not recall, however, Dad ever talking about why he spent time on Hawaii recovering from a wound sustained while on duty, or even what his injury was.
Nor do I recall him ever talking about what I’ve learned through historical accounts about the ship’s crew having to go to “general quarters,” or battle stations, on many occasions due to attacks by Japanese “kamikaze” (suicide) pilots, during other kinds of air attacks, or when in the search of–and during attacks on–enemy submarines while all the while wondering, as combatants in particularly vulnerable situations do, if this would be the time…
He also never recounted the times when his crew rescued the casualties of other ships that suffered considerably more damage than did the Moore. He never talked about the men who were brought aboard, particularly survivors of submarine attacks who were burnt from the dense, smoking flames of a diesel fuel spill now spreading on the surface of the Pacific and that undoubtedly smelled like Hell.
He also didn’t tell us what it was like when in his official capacity he had to bring the news of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death to his son, still in command, during the final stages of the war.
At least he never talked about all of this to us kids.
The Ship’s Last Days
According to the Wikipedia summary, linked above, incorporating excerpts from the Naval History and Heritage Command report, the Ulvert M. Moore’s last involvement in the Pacific Theater of WWII, the ship served as one of “the supporting escorts for TF 32, then en route to Tokyo Bay for the Japanese surrender. On 2 September, [1945] the escort vessel entered Tokyo Bay, in the words of her ship’s historian, as ‘a fitting culmination to approximately 14 months of strenuous operation.
“After conducting antisubmarine and mine patrol duties in Japanese home waters, escorting Japan-bound transports with occupation forces embarked, and destroying floating mines with light-caliber gunfire, Ulvert M. Moore operated in the Philippines into the winter before she returned via Pearl Harbor to the United States. Arriving at San Diego, California, on 22 November, the destroyer escort was decommissioned there on 24 May 1946 and placed in reserve.”
Dad came home shortly thereafter, met Mom, and the rest is (our) history.
Dad’s Legacy
In keeping with Dad’s taciturn nature, this will be a brief summary of his legacy as part of what has been called “The Greatest Generation,” i.e., the generation in the United States that grew up in the stark years of The Great Depression, practiced the values of faith, family, and hard work that enabled them to do the difficult, usually thankless, more often dangerous work of defending this nation–and other nations–in that war wherein the world witnessed the unprecedented greatest attacks on freedom of life and liberty the world has perhaps ever known.
Dad might summarize it like this, I think. “I was preparing to go to the trade school (on scholarship) after high school and I got my letter from Uncle Sam” (draft notice).
He chose working for the U.S. Naval recruiting office in Washington, D.C., for his first duty station before he was sent to the South Pacific.
“Yeah, we saw some action in the Pacific, ” he’d likely say.
He might then immediately switch the subject and talk about the musicals he’d seen in New York City during his first years on days off, Oklahoma, his favorite, or the museums and historical tours on the east coast, of which he was a big fan.
Or, and this is more likely, he’d say, after taking his pipe out of his mouth and throwing his head back already well into a rolling laugh, “Did I ever tell you the story about Thermingale Shamblin*?”
Of course. But did we care?
Tell us again, Dad.
And then immediately he would launch into the gut-buster about his shipmate with the big feet who, at least according to Dad, was the world’s clumsiest individual, inevitably stumbling up, then down, then up, then down again the ship’s many ladders and narrow stairways, especially during the mad dash when general quarters blared over the loudspeakers.
A few siblings heard more stories, especially my brothers who are military veterans, from whom I learned a few of the items I related above.
But that’s about it.
Dad never went to military reunions nor did he join any Veteran’s clubs. He let us play with his Navy “pea coat” until we wore it out.
If he ever suffered from “shell shock” or “battle fatigue,” what they used to call “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” (PTSD) we never heard of it. Of course, now we think perhaps this may have been a factor in some kind of depression he seemed to slip into from time to time, when he would sleep a lot on his few days off, quietly drink his quart of beer every night, become even more taciturn than usual.
However, as perhaps his one, non-verbal testament to military service and war and politics and global, national, and local power-mongers that are always a part of what causes man to be so inhumane to man and leads to all the wars, when once Dad boarded the train heading back home, he opened the window and threw out his Navy-issue rucksack with all of its wartime contents and memorabilia–maybe even still smelling a little bit of burning diesel fuel flaming on ocean waters amid the screams of injured and dying men, very young men, really, like him.
My Turn on Dad’s War Time Legacy on a Day for Remembering our Fallen Heroes–and Taking Warning
I did not inherit a taciturn nature like Dad’s.
But I did inherit his love of music and museums, history, and a strong sense of fair play and justice. I inherited his faith in God, as well, which came later on in his life, but it came.
My takeaway from his and other WWII veterans’ legacies that I’ve listened to and read of, from this end of history, is this–and I think Dad would agree.
As long as there are those who continue to worship the kind of power and greed as did the despots in Germany, Italy, Russia, Cambodia, China, and elsewhere, in the last century, who left in their wake millions of dead civilians, cities and villages and farmlands destroyed, and far, far too many dead war heroes of all kinds, everywhere, let alone in all of human history, it is this:
HAVEN’T WE LEARNED YET?
Apparently not, as the world once again tenses up–and arms up–for some kind of imminent Armageddon, and very young men–and women–are once again sent to the most vulnerable front lines as the war-mongers invent subtler and more devastating ordnance, some, on the highest of tech levels, but all crafted to destroy.
Of course there is a prophetic narrative in what evil must come.
If indeed God gave men and women a free will, chances are 50/50 any invention will be used for good as well as for evil. Although our contemporary wars may be fought with the most sophisticated weapons, the impetus for war remains the same for all.
There will always be the “darkside 50%,” as it were, those who view innovation in technology and power as means of conquest and control.
If Dad were still alive, I believe that, in all the headlines pointing to impending war today, he, too, might agree it’s the same salesmen and saleswomen of the ideologies that drove the last century’s megalomaniacs to murder millions of innocent people and destroy their lands who are lurking just behind the curtains today, and advertising the same ideological Utopia to fool (later to force) the masses into a false hope of something better if they hand over all their rights and all their own power.
I think Dad would sniff out this Hell, too.
And I think he would encourage us to toss out all the rucksacks, so to speak, filled with Socialism, Communism, Marxism, and all the other related “isms” advertised on glossy banners and on smiling faces as the megalomaniacs’ stock in trade they always are.
And I think he would agree with me and millions of others with a sense of history and justice who say today: don’t buy it.
Resist.
I believe that is part of Dad’s legacy that would continue today, as one who served with his shipmates on one of the “little ships” at the tragic aftermath caused by all the same “isms” that necessitated a world war, then…
And here is another legacy of sorts, the kind you read between the lines, an encouraging legacy that keeps hope alive in every era and was illustrated on the seas of the South Pacific back in the second world war by that little “scratch force” of tin can boats : they did a whole lot more that they were ever expected too.
When you think about it.
And all those battle reports like the ones Dad logged reveal.
And, come to think of it, we can likely do a whole lot more, too, today, in each of our small “battle stations” than we think we can.
Or that today’s enemies of freedom and justice think we can.
So carry on, family, friends, and “freedom-lovers everywhere” (to borrow a classic phrase).
That’s what I think Dad would say, too.
He might add, “And don’t makes yourselves repeat the kind of ____ (fill in your favorite “sailor’s language” as Mom used to call Dad’s favorite expletives) we had to go through back then.”
~~~~~
*I’m pretty sure one of these is correct: Dad made up Thermingale’s name, or I have outrageously misspelled it. However, if it is the real name and spelled correctly, and if Mr. Shamblin, or your loved ones, is/are still alive, my apologies. But you, your father/spouse/grandfather uncle is still quite famous–and well appreciated–in my family, as we are sure, now, he helped not only provide a little comic relief for my dad and others on board during those dangerous, tense times, as well as adding to the legend and the lore of what was life on the USS Ulvert M Moore during its tour of duty in the South Pacific during World War II.
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