USS Cascade (AD-16) - A Personal Message From The Commodore To All Hands in Service Squadron 10

A Personal Message From The Commodore To All Hands in Service Squadron 10

During World War II the Cascade was assigned to Service Squadron 10.

The following is a personal message from Commodore W. R. Carter to all hands in Service Squadron 10. The message is undated but is assumed to have been written in the later part of 1945 (probably July 1945, when he was ordered back to Washington for medical examinations — he was found physically fit but the war ended before he could return to the Pacific theater. Following the war Rear Admiral Worral Reed Carter, USN (Retired) authored the book "Beans, Bullets, and Black Oil" - The story of fleet logistics afloat in the Pacific during World War II.

As some of you know, I am under orders to be detached, and upon being relieved as Commander Service Squadron 10, I am to proceed and report to a naval hospital in the United States for treatment. Upon the eve of my departure, I wish to express some thoughts about the Squadron, its people, and the work they have done during the past nineteen months. To give you some of its historical background, the Squadron had its beginning back in November 1943, and Lieutenant (jg) Simon, my Staff Secretary, Lieutenant Commander McCall, my Ammunition Officer, Lieutenant Connitt, Lieutenant Weaver, and other "old timers, so to speak, with me will tell you that we started from scratch in every sense of the word. We began with very few personnel, but we did have backing and we had an idea. That backing was from Admiral Nimitz, Admiral Spruance, and others whose support and foresight stimulated the development of the idea; and that idea, or mission, was the LOGISTICS SUPPORT OF FLEET OPERATIONS FROM FLOATING MOBILE BASES. In other words, we were to be mobile and to serve the fleet from floating equipment, and to move forward as the operations advanced to the westward. As I have already mentioned, our beginnings were modest ones — few officers, few men, and scant equipment marked those early days. However, we progressed and from a small office in Pearl we later set up operations in Majuro on 13 February 1944 when the Squadron Flagship, U.S.S. Prairie arrived from Pearl with my staff and enlisted personnel. Two or three days before the arrival of the Prairie, the U.S.S. Vega had reached Majuro with a load of pontoon cells. Based on difficulties encountered while attempting to assemble pontoons ashore in the South Pacific (sic), arrangements were made to assemble sections in the water alongside the ship. In twenty-one days, twenty pontoon barges were put together without shore assistance. Later as we grew, more adequate transportation was procured, but, this incident is recalled as it marked an early means of servicing the fleet. Pontoon barges were used for transportation of provisions, supplies, and were even employed then to take liberty parties ashore. As I look back, I feel grateful to the men who assembled and manned those barges — their service was invaluable in supplying the fleet in those early days. I should like to mention, that, of comparatively few ships which carried the work load of the Squadron at Majuro over a year ago, some are still with the Squadron. The Prairie, then commanded by Captain Kneeland; and the Vestal, commanded by Commander Singer; were the only repair ships and tenders at Majuro when we started and for the first hectic weeks thereafter. Later we were joined by the Ajax, commanded by Captain Brown, which arrived from the Gilberts; the Markab, commanded by Captain Farrell; the Phaon; and the ARD-13, commanded by Commander Travis. The Cascade had been running the Service Squadron 10 business at Kwajalein, under Captain Ogden, who was also my representative there. When the Argonne arrived in May 1944, it was sent to Kwajalein to serve as the flagship for the Service Squadron 10 Representative, and the Cascade, the commanded by Captain Gates, joined us at Majuro in May. All of the above still carry on. During our days at Majuro, it was my privilege to commission six naval vessels two thousand miles from the nearest naval district. They were six over-age merchant tankers which were commissioned as the Aretusa, Quiros, Signal, Malvern, Antona, and Manileno. Those ships, along with the Sepulag, have been the backbone of our harbor fuel fleet. The daily life of the officers and men on those ships may have seemed dull and unexciting (and it certainly was not very inspiring) but I am most appreciative of their persistent efforts, and fine work accomplishing without complaining. Prior to our departure from Majuro, we were joined by the first of the concrete ships, or "crockery" fleet, the Trefoil and Quartz. The above were the ships we had at Majuro. The were the ships that serviced Admiral Spruance's fleet prior to strikes against the Palaus, Truk, and the Marianas, prior to the occupation of Hollandia, and prior to offensive operations against the Marianas in the summer of 1944. They were the ships that helped to stage the amphibious forces through Kwajalein, Roi and Eniwetok prior to landings on Saipan. After Majuro days, ships too numerous to mention individually, joined the Squadron. In June 1944, the Squadron moved to Eniwetok. Here the demands upon the Squadron increased as more combatant units had to be replenished, and amphibious groups staged through. As in Majuro, with hard work and "Yankee" ingenuity, and with facilities sorely overtaxed, you overcame the many difficulties imposed upon the Squadron by this greatly increased work load. This was our critical test period, and our "fight" during June and July and part of August was tough, but you made it. In August, Captain Rhoads was sent to Saipan as a representative, Captain Odgen to Manus, and in September, Captain Houser was sent to Guam. We were spreading out and I look back with pride upon those days when the Squadron was becoming better known and when it was beginning to play an increasingly important part in giving service, not only at the main fleet anchorage, but at advanced island bases as well. We made our share of mistakes and pulled a boner now and then, but we tried to do better the next time, and we did. In October, we began the trek from Eniwetok to the westward. This time our destination was Ulithi Atoll in the Carolines. This was accomplished by despatching four towing convoys consisting of strings of floating equipment of assorted types and sizes — liberty ships towed barges and pontoon floats; fleet tugs towed drydocks large and small; smaller tugs going along as retrievers. Into the drydocks were loaded LCVP's, derrick barges, and small harbor tugs — LCM's were loaded on the deck of any ship that would carry them. Our supply and ammunition ships went forward. Covered lighters with ammunition and provisions, drydocks with their precious cargo of small craft, target rafts, etc., made their way across 1400 miles of open water, slow and vulnerable to storm damage and enemy submarine action, to a new operating base. I can not pass these incidents without a most favorable comment on the manner in which these large groups of slow vessels, with their ponderous tows of no-self-propelled equipment, were mothered across the ocean without a single loss. This incident testifies to your painstaking attention to the many details to insure, as far as you were humanly able, that the transfer of our equipment to a new location would be accomplished without mishap. Needless to say, I am humbly grateful that we encountered no bad weather. It was while at Ulithi that the duties of Service Squadron 10 became more arduous, and the responsibilities more challenging than ever, for it was here that greatly increased naval task forces of all types were serviced prior to action against the enemy, this in spite of storms and rough water. The tempo was being stepped up, and sometimes you had only a few days to replenish a group before it had to sail again. This meant careful planning and hard work, both night and day. In relatively short times, very large quantities of supplies and materials of all classes were delivered. You may be interested in learning some of the figures recorded for a period during one of our operations. The daily average volume for a month of some items was as follows:

• Dry provisions: 376 tons
• Fresh and Frozen: 320 tons
• General stores: 289 tons (including 5 tons of rope)
• Ship's store stock: 50 tons
• Black oil: 75,000 bbls
• Diesel oil: 8,000 bbls
• Aviation gas: 216,000 gals
• Water: 157,000 gals
• Ammunition: 660 tons
• Prepacked medical supplies: 1 ton (plus)
• Whole blood: 100 pts
• Transportation of planes between ships: 10
• Salvage aviation material: 14
• Transportation air group personnel: 300 men
• Repairs to: 27 different ships
• Issued by radio pool: 4,000 items
• Spare parts issued by one ship: 227
• Transportation of recreation parties: 4,125 men
• Issues of 35 mm films: 157 programs
• Issues of 16 mm films: 45 programs
• Issues of sea prints: 33
• Surface and anti-aircraft firing: 5
• Exercises set up, Visual messages: 527 (one every 2.7 minutes)
• Radio traffic: 21,298 groups (14.8 groups a minute)
• Officer Messenger Mail center: 450 ship's representative's called at office; 897 pieces of mail distributed.

The above are representative items of various departments, and take note that these figures are average for one day only. Obviously, in this letter, one cannot assemble all of the descriptive data properly to show the work necessary to make the delivery of all items, or the effort expended to accomplish all services, some which have not been listed. But, whether recorded or not, I have not lost sight of the part all must play in the game of replenishing, repairing and rearming the fleet. The term "all" must include everyone; not forgetting — coxswains and bow hooks of boats, men on tugs, on barges, storekeepers on concretes, welders on repair ships, fuze setters, winch handlers, hatch tenders, stevedores, shore patrol, cleaning details, divers, yeomen, signalmen, ammunition handlers, pharmacists mates, every one in every contributing capacity, almost too numerous to name. To all — well done! Or as Commander Third Fleet stated it in a message to me just after his command had been serviced, "A rousing well done to you and your hard working gang for a magnificent job in taking care of our needs. Beans, bullets, black oil, bulk stores and even bulkheads have been promptly forthcoming on each request. Service Squadron 10 is a tried and proven member of our big blue team." Signed "Admiral Halsey." I was immensely proud to have received that message. It gave me cheer and confidence, it made us tighten our belts for more strenuous duties to come. And more strenuous duties did come with the demands of the fleet steadily increasing! For the Third Fleet, and later again the Fifth Fleet under Admiral Spruance had to be made ready for strikes against the enemy. The fleet was reaching out to support operations moving steadily westward and northward toward the Empire and to make strikes of its own against the Japanese homeland itself which included air strikes over Tokyo. The Admiral brought his ships back into port again and again to be replenished, repaired and rearmed by you. Again an Admiral in command of a Fleet after periods of replenishment, in this case, Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, sent our Squadron messages of appreciation of the work accomplished. Task force, task group and task unit commanders also commented favorably. These messages gave us a warm glow of pride, and spurred us on to even greater efforts. Over a period of eight months you worked at Ulithi, and except for the inspiring sight of the fleet coming in and going out again, you had another to look at taller than an 80-foot coconut tree on the top of the coral rim of the atoll. Officers and men of the active units of the fleet had the excitement and inspiration of attacks against the enemy, while you had the steady grind of the work day and night, in order that the fleet might keep its unrelenting pressure steadily on the enemy. With unchanging scenery, sameness, and tropical heat, you did your work without complaining and you did it well. I give you credit! However, in May 1945, a change of scenery came at last, and again you packed your boats into docks, took the barges in tow, and again, through threat of typhoon and danger from enemy attack, made your way across the ocean to our present operating base. The good Lord was with us, and again our equipment arrived without loss of personnel or material, to set up our organization for the servicing of a fleet operating still closer to the Japanese Empire. This brings me near the end of my message to you. We must soon part company but I hope it will only be temporarily, for, having been in the game so long, I want to see it through to the end. However, come what may, I want you to realize the important part you have played in the prosecution of this war, and that your work has fully justified the soundness of the idea that the fleet could be supported from floating and mobile bases, moving that floating equipment along with the fleet as it advanced further toward the Japanese Empire. As I have mentioned heretofore, your job may be lacking in the spectacular and glamorous features of battles at sea, nevertheless, as time goes on, and more of the history of this war is written, you will find that the contribution of our Squadron to the war effort will be one of the unique pages in the annals of this war, and so I want you to know the honor which I feel in having commanded Service Squadron 10 in carrying out its mission of giving LOGISTICS SUPPORT TO FLEET OPERATIONS FROM FLOATING MOBILE BASES. In closing, may I offer my sincere thanks to all of my officers and men for your leadership, hard work, your foresight, your effective planning, your loyalty, your tireless support, - without any of these, the job could not have been done. Keep up the good work! Good luck!

W.R. Carter