Encoded for the Experiencing War web site for the Veterans History Project.
The recording of the interview with Jesse R. Jackson was digitized.
This transcription was encoded with minimal changes to the original text in an effort to preserve original content and idiosyncrasies of the person interviewed. Period language and terminology are also retained. Encoding is literal with regard to the transcriptionist's capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. Spelling errors are indicated with [sic]; however, recurring errors in spelling within a single document have been marked the first time and not subsequently.
This is March 8, 2002, and we're interviewing today Mr. Jesse R. Jackson a United States Navy veteran in his home in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and my name is Phil Shaull. I am a staff member of U.S. Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana. And Mr. Jackson, start out by telling us again what branch of the military you were in and where you served?
I was in the Navy, R Division Shipfitter. It's a fire fighter and general repair of the ship.
Okay. And you were on I think you said three different ships?
I was on three different ships.
What were those ships?
I was on Fort Dry Dock out in Dutch harbor and I was aboard an aircraft carrier on Gilbert Islands, Sea Breeze 109.
Okay. Very good. I think probably your most memorable experience was being in Pearl Harbor on the day of the attack December 7, 1941?
Well it was all memorable experiences you know what I mean.
Okay.
I went through seven engagements and each one of them weren't any good. It's just a bad experience and when the war was over, I was the first guy to leave the aircraft carrier.
Was that when your enlistment ended?
Huh?
When the war was over, was that basically when your enlistment ended?
Yeah I was the first guy out.
Okay. Okay. What did--were you drafted or did you just enlist in the Navy?
No I was a high school graduate and couldn't find a job in the depression.
Okay?
So I applied for the Navy my buddy and I. We went down to Indianapolis and they had a 120 guys there that day and if there wasn't anything wrong with you, you put your clothes on and I was one of them and they took 30 out of 120, and I was one of the 30. My buddy didn't get called up. He didn't make it, but he was good enough for World War II in the army.
So you enlisted and after you--where were you living at the time when you enlisted?
Huh?
Where were you living when you enlisted?
When I was in Busco, Churubusco (ph).
Churubusco, Indiana. Okay. Why did you join you mentioned?
Because I couldn't get a job.
Okay. Why did you pick the Navy over the Army or Air Force___?
Oh. I never thought they live in a helicopter, and tent that wasn't worth a dam. You live better in the Navy, eat better live better.
What do you recall about your first days in the Navy?
Well I know my first meal was breakfast and they had baked beans on Friday.
{Laughs}.
I thought I never had baked beans before on a Friday morning. That one thing stuck by me, baked beans on Saturday morning.
You were eager to go through your training?
What?
You were eager to go through your training and be assigned to a ship?
Yeah, yeah well, when we finished boat training, on the board they put the lists of the ships to choose and my buddy and I, he was from Terre Haute (ph) and we chose the Maryland. And we went aboard the Maryland the same day and the same division and we was in there for 11 months and then I transferred and so did he. Out of that portion, I went in the ship for the _____ and I wouldn't go ashore without him and he wouldn't go ashore without me. But all they ever found of him in Pearl Harbor was his shoes. And so I don't know where his battle station was, where it was with mine. But he got blown up.
How did it make you feel to learn?
Huh?
How did it make you feel to learn that?
Well he was my best buddy and he wasn't going ashore without me and I wasn't going ashore without him. And Pearl Harbor that day--when we was in port, one weekend you had the duty and the next weekend you had liberty. Well this particularly weekend, we had liberty. We was--we was over in Honolulu the day before and we was going to go back that day. So we shaved and showered but liberty didn't start until 9:30. So we was up on the (foksil) deck playing ace deuce. I saw the first plane come over. I sat right on topside and saw the first plane come over and there's planes flying all the time and we got used to planes but this one made an extra loud noise. So I looked up and I could look right up there at the airport at Ford Island and I could see the plane going up with no markings on it and it dropped two bombs. And I said, "What kind of drill is this?" And he went--I watched him go, he went up and then when he rolled, he rolled and there were red circles on the wing and I said, "My God that's a Jap." And down he come--Maryland was the first ship in line. We tied up Friday noon at Fort Island and Saturday noon the Oklahoma come in and tied up to us. If she hadn't tied up to us, I wouldn't be here. She took all the torpedoes and went bottom side up in seven minutes
Wow.
And--but this plane went up and he rolled, and I saw the red circles on her wings and he dove and come down towards with us with a machine gun firing each wing. And I don't know where the bullets hit, but I dove down the hatch head first and him right on top of me. And then we went to battle stations.
So you were on the USS Maryland?
Yeah.
And what kind of damage did it sustain in that?
We got hit up in the bough section and it's not much up in the bough section. It's a non-aircraft--an aircraft--air compressor down there and a machinist mate was manning that, and we got hit with a 750 and a 500 bom bom (ph) the same time. That ship weighed 37,000 tons and jumped right in the water. If you ever got up one morning in the your life and you thought this was it, you were never gonna make it out of here, and I don't think I--I was a young kid. I thought I had $32 in my locker. That's quite a bit of money back then. Well I'll never going to spend that money {Laughs}.
You were thinking the money is going to get out of the ship huh?
Yeah.
So the ship sustained would you call significant damage?
Well we got a lot of damage. The bough went down and sat on the bottom and they sent divers down and they patched the holes up, and we was pumping it out and would you know I--we had two pumps--went down and it was all flooded and we had two pumps out there, air pumps, and we had them on block and tackle. As the water went down, we kept lowering the pumps, and we got down to the last compartment, and they knew there was a guy down there. So they sent us down--(Corman) and when we got down, I dropped them down and would you know it was 2:30 in the morning, and a young guy--and I was manning and lowering the pumps down. And (?Corman?) said, "I want to see what damage you done down here." And so he had a ladder and we gone five decks down and so he got on his hands and knees and shone the light and he said, "All the fire mains all covered up." I told him there was no fire main up here in the bough section. What he saw this guy had been down there nine days and he was blowed up twice as big as what he should be. And what he saw was the guy's hair, and he thought it was the lagging on the fire main. So as I kept the pumps running, I finally sucked him right in the pump. Well I turned the pump off and went up told the officer of the deck the guy was down in the bough, I said, "I sucked him into the pump." Well everybody was down there then and they got the guy out. But I was just a young kid and I was down thereby myself at 2:30 in the morning. This (?Corman?), as soon as he saw this guy, he went up the ladder and I was down thereby myself--so
This was after the attack was over right?
Huh?
This was after the initial attack--
Yeah, yeah, yeah
--was over.
Well the first attack come in at 7:30, and we didn't get hit until 10:30. It was about 10:30 when the Maryland got hit. After that the Tennessee.
So for three hours you guys were inaffected?
Yeah.
Wow.
Ever time the Oklahoma was tied right to us and they couldn't torpedo us because torpedo runs in the water, so they--the Oklahoma she was the last one torpedoed. Every time my battle station was on the third deck on the odd board side on the left side the side that was hit. And every time she take a torpedo, that bulkhead would just b____. Well you think the next one coming in and that's just the way it was. You didn't think you gonna make it.
Wow. It lasted a few hours but it must have--did it seem like a lot longer time to you?
Oh yeah. Anybody that tell you they weren't scared, they're out of their head. We was all scared.
So afterwards your ship was repaired I assume?
Yeah, took them--took them nine days to get us up, get the holes plugged up and pumped out and then we went on to Dry Dock. Oh they told us we had to tear down the dock to get us out. And they got us out and it was just enough room to slip us all through there, us and the Maryland and Tennessee. Then we went over to ship yards and they patched the holes up and they poured four feet of concrete down there to stiffen it up, the bough and then we went to the (Brump) Navy yard.
Where's that located?
Huh?
Where's that located?
State of Washington.
Okay?
It's a one hour rough ferry ride out of Seattle on the Straits of Juan de Fuca.
Okay. What happened from there? Did that conclude your time on the Maryland?
They repaired the ship put on aircraft guns on every place they could put them on and we went back out.
Where did you go from there?
The first place we ever hit was Solomon Islands. that's the first islands we hit. The Solomon Islands, the (Mare) _______ Harbor and I can't think, _________. And we're just all over. We went down there and thought the Japanese were gonna attack the Panama Canal. So the third fleet went down there to cut them off and we was down there back and forth, back and forth to intercept them, and we never saw land for a 102 days. We're just running around the South Pacific hunting the Japanese, so.
Well what--those 102 days what did you find?
Huh?
Did you ever encounter the Japanese?
No no no. They didn't attack the Panama Canal. We thought they was gonna attack the Panama Canal and we was down there to contact them before they got a chance to get to there. So we were just gone a 102 days and never saw land.
Wow. What's it like to be out at sea for that long?
Well it's lonely. Of course we'll all got work to do, we all got jobs and there's 2,000 guys on there and they all had a job, job to do and it's like working in a factory you got your job to do, the same thing here.
But in the back of your mind you must have been thinking we could run into the Japanese at any point?
Well, they're not my favorite people. And it's just one of those things. What I mean when I went out on that aircraft carrier, the first place was Okinawa and when they had the Kamikazes, and we sat right at the dock in Okinawa and they had aircraft guns run all day, the Kamikazes. So you never know, you just don't know.
For all your time in the Navy would you--what happened after Pearl Harbor? Would you say that was your worst experience or how would you?
Yeah I imagine that was my worst experience. But I was out in other engagements, but this just was the worst.
What were the other engagements like in comparison?
Well, like, I don't know it's just bombardments of violence mostly.
Were they--were they less or more unexpected?
See we've--when you was in combat a year and a half, they had a program set up and they take you out of combat and give you a non-combat, well I--papers come aboard shipfitter first class. I grabbed it, any way to get back to the states, been gone down there a year and a half and I come back on a Swedish motor ship and I caught this--I went aboard this boat on Dry Dock. Well they towed us out to Dutch Harbor out in the oceans which is the worst weather in the world. And that's where I spent a year and a half there. And I made Chief there and those others, Chief Shipfitter and the first New Construction, and so I had to take that and come back and caught an aircraft carrier. It was made in Tacoma. So I went out on a aircraft carrier. Well that's all I know.
What was life like on the ship? Did you--were you able to communicate with your family back home or?
Oh yeah. Mail didn't come aboard maybe once a month down the South Pacific, but it's on the way all the time and soon as you're tied up some place or come anchored some place, well then the mail comes aboard. Probably didn't get any mail for a month. But then we all had watches to stand, like you had to c___ the floor in the afternoon and then you go to c___ the floor at night. Well you didn't have nothing to do in these stations so we write letters. We answered the letters we got.
So when mail came aboard that was your only chance that month to send a letter home or something right?
Yeah.
Did you do that frequently?
It's a long time back and forth.
So you had about a month to think about what you wanted to say?
Yeah I was up in Dutch Harbor and I got a letter from my folks that my dad had a heart problem and so they're getting a guy transferred back to the states for new construction and he was going Seattle, so I wrote a letter and put no return address on it and they sent you your mail you know. So I just wrote a letter and put no address on the outside I give it to him and I said, "When you get to Seattle just drop this in the mailbox." And I told him to go to Red Cross and request emergency leave and about a week later, a guy come aboard with a telegram and I got 30 days. So, I went over to Dutch Harbor over there and the only thing flying in and out of there were DC-3's and they had bucket seats along the side and all 32 guys--so I was on the list and I was the last guy on the list. So fifteen minutes before flight time, ferry pilots ferrying planes were C-1 priority and officers C-2 and me on emergency leave, the best I could get was C-3. Well fifteen minutes before flight time this full lieutenant come and bumped my off. Well I went up to the desk and I told him, he said, "Well, ____(3 seconds)three quarters of a hour and you'll be number one on the next flight." Well I caught that flight and went to Fairbanks, Kodiak, and we stayed ____ on that island all night. They had an air base and I told the guys about getting bumped off fifteen minutes before flight time. So the guy come up to me that night and wanted to me to stay that ___. He said, "Did you hear about that plane?" And I said, "No, what plane?" He said, "The one you got bumped off on." I said, "No I didn't hear nothing about it." He said, "That thing crashed between Dutch Harbor and Kodiak." And all hands never found a trace of him, and I got bumped off fifteen minutes before flight time.
Wow.
So I should a got it in World War II. I should a got it three times. Three times I should a got it, but I just lucked out.
Pearl Harbor on this flight?
And that plane and then we had a bad fire in Dry Dock in the steering engine room and they sent us down there--I was a fire call and I was a firemen, shipfitter and a fireman, and we got up 5 o'clock in the morning. So another guy and I went down there with a fire extinguisher apiece, and we saw that it was too bad and the smoke was too bad. It was in a store room down in the steering engine room and the smoke was so bad so we went back, went back to the back to the ram room to get some fresh air. We couldn't see for the smoke and somebody had shut the door.
Oh no.
And so we got a breath of fresh air and we was out of oxygen, and so we found the door and got out. We was the only ones out and that thing gutted out completely. And if we hadn't found our way out, we would have never made it. And the fire chief _____ fell down the hatch and broke his leg that day. And but that completely burned out down in there in the ram room and the steering engine room burned out. And if we hadn't--somebody had shut the door on us and we couldn't see for the smoke, couldn't find the door. When we finally found it and opened it up and got it, we was the last guys out of there. So I should a got it three times.
Wow. So when it came, when it came time for you to either reenlist or?
I extended my enlistment.
Did you?
Instead of shipping over in four years, I extended my enlistment two and then rode out the war on the--can't think of the name of it. During the war, I guess rode it out then. When that two years elapsed I--when the time the war was over, we went out on point system. And there's only one guy aboard that aircraft carrier had more points than I did and he was married. He got 10 points for being married, and I was single, but I was the first guy off that carrier.
Wow. Seriously.
So I had a busy life.
Yeah yeah. So when you, you were on the ships and you had some of these combat experiences, were there injuries among your shipmates?
Well yeah, yeah. There was a lot of injuries, and some guys didn't make it. Like the signal man and the officer up on the deck, up on the deck in the wheel house {Coughs}. He had a splinter shield in front of him. Well in this matter of battle they switched places, the signal man went where the officer was and the officer went where the signal man was and the bomb hit upon the ____ cut his throat. If he--the signal man cut the officer's throat. It just showed you when the Oklahoma went bottom side up, we got guys out of there nine days later. We were strapped when it turned over. In seven minutes it turned upside down and there's guys trapped down in there all over. We got guys out of there for nine days.
How many?
Oh it's hard to say. I know back in the steering engine room on the ships--I don't know if you ever been aboard a ship or not, but they got cork liners for sweating. Well when it turned bottom side up the _____ space to get through the bottom we used a cutting torch in a hurry. We could hear them tapping down there with a dog wrench, we could hear them tapping and we knew some back in the steering engine room. So we used a torch to cut that through and it was 12 guys back there, and we got the cork on fire and it smothered all 12 guys. Twelve guys was all dead. We didn't realize at the time that we got the cork on fire, which we did, and the smoke killed the 12 guys.
How did you handle it when you're out at sea and guys--
Huh?
When you're out at sea and guys on your ship are you know you have casualties? What did--how did you handle that?
Well we take them down to sick bay.
Okay.
Just like a emergency room in the hospital. They got core men down there and doctors, and huff I know being out to sea a long time, we had a doctor he was a surgeon out of Chicago. He wanted to keep practicing surgery so he didn't lose he cuts, so I think he circumcised every guy that needed it. So I was down in sick bay one day and he said, "Jackson, I want to see your Peter," and I said, "No." Well he offered, so I showed him and he said, "Sir, that's what I thought." Next morning I was in quarters _____ (4 seconds) Quarters you know and he heard (Corman) go up and he said, "Doc Wrights wants to see you." So I went down there and he circumcised me. So it's always something.
Yeah, I guess I guess. That's a unique story I haven't heard before, wow. What did you do for entertainment and stuff like that on the ship?
Well at peacetime, we would have a movie every night back on the quarterdeck, but then playing cards killed time, playing cards and playing acey-ducey and stuff like that.
What was acey-ducey?
It's like backgammon you know with checkers they call it acey-ducey.
Okay. Did you ever run short of supplies or anything like that out at sea?
Well we run a supply, supply ship come out of Frisco and we was in the South Pacific some place. I don't know remember where at but our supply ship got torpedoed. So by the time they loaded up another ship and it made its way out there, it was quite a while. So down in the refrigerators we was eaten steak and everything else that they saved for holidays. We was eaten--we got down to where we was eating steak until the ship got out there to give us provisions.
Sure.
We was pretty low.
Wow.
When you're in the states, they put milk in there in five gallon cans and it last 30 something days, and we take potatoes aboard. Well they'll last about 30 something days when it's all dehydrated, dehydrated milk and potatoes and, but fresh stuff last about 35 days aboard ship.
I assume refrigerated--
Yeah.
The milk was and stuff like that? Wow. What did you do when you had a chance to go off ship and?
What did I do?
Yeah. What were the things available for you guys to do?
Just run around as we hit a different place you know and it's all new to you and I went to the Panama Canal twice and _____ Balboa, we got ashore there each time and we, we was in Guantanamo Bay too but for three months and it's always something to see. Everything is new to you, and we was in Haiti. That's the worst place I ever saw in my life, the dirtiest, dirt streets and it was awful there, but it's always something to see.
Yeah.
I was across the equator so many times I don't know, and I was aboard the 180th Meridian that's Far East waters and I was beyond the Arctic Circle and so I got around.
You must of had to be prepared for all kinds of different weather I could imagine?
Yeah.
The equator?
One thing about aboard ship you carried your clothes with you.
Yeah so you had your coats ready and you also prepared for?
Huh?
You had your coats and stuff like that ready and I'm sure you're also prepared for the hot stuff?
Oh yeah, yeah hanging up. You live pretty good aboard ship.
Were the quarters cramped? Was that--?
Huh?
Were the quarters cramped? Was that an issue with you and your fellow seamen? I mean was there enough room or did you feel like?
Oh no. We had enough room aboard the battleship and aboard the aircraft carrier too. There was plenty of room.
Okay. Okay. What did you guys--do you remember any special humorous or unusual event during your time in the Navy?
Well, I don't know.
Did you guys like to pull pranks?
When we went across the equator on the aircraft carrier, we took all our planes in San Diego and we took them on a shape down cruise down the Christmas Islands. When we went across the equator they liked to be royal executor. Well they shouldn't did that cause the airplanes we took in, the marines--there was 800 marines aboard ship and all they done was take care of the aircraft, and the sailors take care of the ship. There was 1200 sailors and 800 marines. And none of the marines ever been over the equator, pilots and all. Well we initiated them as we went over the equator. They was (polywas___). Once you went over there, you're, you're shellback when you go across the equator. You're shellback.
What's that?
Well you go across the equator we'll make you a shellback.
Okay.
So I was elected royal executor. They shouldn't did that.
What did you do as royal executor?
There's a whole bunch of guys you can't win because every time they initiate a guy, he's one of you and the numbers go down and I just--we just initiate them.
What is that involved to be initiated?
Well, lot of places--like at peacetime, we set up a tank and they'll go in there and holler shellback shellback and they liked to drown them. They're initiating them and but on this aircraft carrier, we had all (shelladies) ahead of time made up and on the flight deck on this aircraft carrier we had a line they had to run through and each guy give him a swat, and it's pretty red when they got through.
I bet, I bet. Wow. That would be something. What--so you were able to have some good times?
Huh?
Was there more of this stuff going on at peacetime than say when you were?
Yeah yeah. Wartime is not too much.
More tense huh?
My job as a shipfitter at night we put a steel plate over each porthole so no light can get through. And you don't believe it if you never been at sea.
cigarette glow a submarine periscope can pick that up nine miles.
Oh if you didn't cover the windows?
So they put up a steel plate to keep the light out so no light shows, and I was going up there one morning, one evening, the darkened ship, the officers' room up there and they saw dark quarters dawn and dusk. Well when I went in the room, there sat an officer, full lieutenant sitting on the bunk. He says, "Excuse me. What are you doing? Don't you know you're supposed to knock then enter an officer's room?" I told him, "As far as I'm _____, when it's all dark quarters, everybody manages their battle station and he kept asking me a bunch of questions and I just a young kid, and he asked me something and I said, "Yeah." He said, "Don't yeah me. I'm not your buddy." And you know I never forgot that. I never forgot that. That's was the biggest--as many years as I had in the Navy and I left that was the biggest reason that I left the Navy. That's the only place I ever been in my life where two white men weren't equal, and they didn't let you forget it?
Was there a lot of that?
Yeah.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Anything else you want to tell us about your time in the Navy, your service? Anything else that I didn't ask that you want to tell us about with your experience in the Navy?
Not that I know of.
Covers everything. Okay. So you--you got out of the Navy, you were discharged? What did you do after that? Where did you go? Did you come back?
I went to I and M. It was a _____ like them. The first job I had was drive a city bus. Well I found out in three months I wasn't no bus driver. I couldn't handle the public.
And that was here in Fort Wayne?
Yeah.
Okay.
Then I went in there and got in a transformer gang. Well I didn't like that so I got a line truck and repaired lines and we helped put the first transformers in Adena, then I went inside, took a break and went inside the back door and I saw what that was and I put an application in and I got called the next morning. So I spent 31 years Adena.
You retired from Adena then?
Yeah.
Okay. Did you join any veterans' organizations?
What?
What veterans' organizations did you join? Were you a part of?
I still didn't hear you.
What veterans' organizations, Sir, have you joined?
VFW and Legion. I belong to 499 Legion on the Heligas (ph) Road and VFW out on South (Anthony).
Have you kept in touch with any of your ship mates from your time in service?
No.
Do you know if any of them were also from Indiana or from Fort Wayne area?
{Coughs} I don't know of any in Indiana.
Okay.
I know one down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Ed Davis. That's the only one I know whereof.
Okay. Very good. Anything else you would like to share with us, Mr. Jackson?
Nothing I know of.
Okay, very good. [END OF INTERVIEW]