James Hardwick Oral History Interview JERRY WALTERS

James Hardwick Oral History Interview

JERRY WALTERS: Today is February 17, 2015. My name is Jerry

Walters. I’m a volunteer with the Oral History Unit at the

National Museum of the Pacific War. Today I’m interviewing

Mr. Jim Hardwick, who was a Navy veteran during World War

II. This interview is in support of the Center for Pacific

War Studies, Archives of the National Museum of the Pacific

War, Texas Historical Commission for the Preservation of

the Historical Information related to this site. Mr.

Hardwick, can you tell us where you were born and when?

JIM HARDWICK: I was born about three blocks from where I sit

now in Baylor Hospital, December 5, 1923.

JW: East Dallas, huh?

JH: That’s where I was born. But I was raised in south Dallas.

JW: What were your parents’ names?

JH: Walter and Gertrude Hardwick.

JW: Did you have brothers and sisters?

JH: I had a brother two years older and a sister two years

younger, Walter and Thelma.

JW: Can you tell us where you went to school?

JH: My elementary school was Colonial Hill Elementary in south

Dallas on Pennsylvania Avenue. My first year in high

school was at Forest Avenue High School down on Madison.

And I learned that they had technical courses over at

Dallas Technical. So after a year at Forest, I transferred

to Dallas Technical High School and stayed there until I

dropped out of high school as a senior and joined the Navy

at age 17.

JW: And where did you join?

JH: I joined at Downtown Dallas, Ervay Street Post Office on

the second floor. We call that the “new” post office. And

you want me to just to continue with the narrative or --

JW: Let me ask you first of all, what date did you join?

JH: I joined on my birthday in 1940, December 5th, the day I

turned 17. But before that, when I was in high school, I

was -- I lied about my age, and I joined the Texas National

Guard, 112th Cavalry, Troop A. We drilled out on the side

of what is now the Southwestern Medical School -- Harry

Hines was just a red dirt road. But these troopers, we

were paid a dollar a drill. Every Sunday I’d put on my

uniform and go out there and get on an Army horse and ride

around the neighborhood up and down Harry Hines, if you can

visualize Harry Hines as a red dirt road. The [side?] of

that 112th Cavalry Troop A was in World War I, hit by

smallpox. The death count -- there were hundreds of graves

for smallpox victims out there on [Summit?] Hill. But

that’s where we maneuvered every Sunday. In 1940, prior to

the beginning of the war, there was a big military maneuver

in Louisiana. And we were ordered to active duty for two

weeks in July 1940. And we packed up our gear and horses

and got on a train and went through the Kisatchie National

Forest down in central Louisiana at the site of Fort Polk.

Fort Polk didn’t exist. For two weeks, we were road

rattling through mosquito-infested jungles and ate hardtack

and --

JW: Now were you in the Navy at the time, or the --

JH: No, I was in high school.

JW: You were still in high school?

JH: Yes, 16. I never had handled a .45 before. They strapped

a .45 on me and put me on guard duty. I was sitting in a

squad tent by myself. I was holding a .45. And I pulled

the chamber back and released it, and that thing fired and

shot a hole right through the roof of the tent. Out on the

tent row, there was soldiers, one of them saying, “Who

fired a shot?” “Hell, I don’t know.” (laughter) But they -

- I later qualified with a .45. They didn’t even ask me if

I’d ever held one before that, you know. So that was an

adventure.

JW: I’ll bet.

JH: And I keep telling -- you know, the Army was still eating

hardtack back then.

JW: What is hardtack, exactly?

JH: Well, hardtack is a loaf of bread about like so, you know,

maybe a foot (inaudible). And it lasts forever. But I

remember a squad tent that had hardtack stuck to the

ceiling, like this. They were our rations. We got it

every meal. And it wasn’t bad if you soaked it in coffee

for about a minute -- you could chew it. Our uniforms --

the boots we wore, I’m sure men [have sewed up?] was at

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the federal prison. They must

have had a boot shop there. But those boots were worn by

somebody in World War I, I’m sure -- the ones I wore.

Anyway, that was in the summer of ’40. We got back off the

maneuvers. And I never will forget where I was when --

that year [to the?] beginning of World War in Europe. I

was thinking of that September the first of 1939, when I

was a kid standing at the corner of Lamar and Forest Avenue

in Dallas. If you know the area, that’s where the old city

dump was. And that cotton compress warehouse (inaudible).

And that compress caught fire. It was the worst fire I had

ever seen in my life -- that the news came out that Hitler

4 had invaded Germany, vivid in my memory, first of

September, 1939. But anyway, I’m going to jump ahead to

Kisatchie National Forest. Two weeks on maneuver, I was told that Dwight Eisenhower was on the (inaudible) me. And we had make-believe tanks. They had trucks. And they had signs up the sides of the “tank.” (laughter) Anyway, two weeks of that was enough to convince me I didn’t want to be in the Army. (laughter) And shortly thereafter, the

Selective Service Act passed, I guess. I wasn’t even old enough to register for the draft, wouldn’t be 18 by then.

So I never registered for the draft. But the 112th got orders to go on active duty at Fort Bliss. And here I was a 16-year-old [bastard?] kid. God, they’re putting me on active duty? But President Roosevelt was well aware they had a lot of underage kids. And I was certainly one of them. He put out the order that proof of your true age if you’re underage -- get it on [the list first?]. So I got it on an enlistment. And all of my old troop went to Fort

Bliss. And my older brother joined it. And I got out. He was 18, so he went with them. And there I sat at home.

That was September and October, 1940. And I read in the paper that at age 17, you could join the Navy on the Kiddie

Cruise -- the minority enlistment -- until you reach your

minority, age 21, it really starts. I thought, it’s a

wonderful place to be learning a trade and escape the Great

Depression. We were extremely poor.

JW: I think most people were in those days, weren’t they?

JH: Mm-hmm, ’30s -- terrible [time?]. Looking back then, I

don’t know how we existed. My dad never went home.

[Bill?] never went home -- three kids. And he didn’t take

much interest in our education. And I left the house in

the morning. He didn’t know whether I was going to school

or playing hooky. And half the time I was playing hooky.

It’s not that I didn’t like school. I wasn’t, like, a bad

guy. I was ashamed of my clothing. I had no car fare to

get to school. I had to walk.

JW: How far was it to school?

JH: My God, at that time, you know near Grand Avenue in south

Dallas. And you know where Crozier Tech is down on Bryan.

JW: Yeah, I do.

JH: One time I was gifted. I had an old bicycle; I rode it

back and forth. Of course, car fare on the Dallas street

was only, like, three cents. But three cents was a little

bit of money. Anyhow, that was my last -- in 1940 until I

learned that you could join the Navy at age 17, with your

parents’ consent. And my parents readily gave consent.

(laughter) “Get rid of the kid!”

JW: That was one less mouth to feed, wasn’t it?

JH: Yes, so on or about my birthday -- well, I never will

forget going to the physical that you had at the Old

[Bryan?] Street Post Office on the second floor. Medics

had all these recruits from Oklahoma and Texas up there

stark naked in a line. And they were doing this

preliminary exam. I was praying I would pass it, which I

did. But I never will forget the boy in front of me had

dirty fingernails. And the doctor said, “You have filthy

fingernails. Get out of there. You can’t go in the Navy.”

(laughter) I thought, “Boy, these people are strict.” But

the next thing, I found myself on the train headed for San

Diego. I never had been that far away from home. They put

some little sailor in charge of three or four of us in

Texas and Oklahoma. We made that ride to San Diego. And,

of course, you were in the Navy. You know what that’s like,

the first experience, they have you strip bare-ass naked

and issue a uniform and package up your civilian clothes

and mail them home to your parents. (laughter) So there I

sat in the San Diego Naval Yard.

JW: And what date was that when you arrived in San Diego?

JH: I think it was around December 14, 1940. I know it was

Company 110, 1940. And I got cat fever while I was -- you

know what cat fever is, I guess -- you’re a Navy man? Cat

fever -- [I was there?] it held me back one company. And

the 110 was the one I graduated with. I don’t know how

long -- I was sick for eight weeks. When you get your boot

leave, seven-day boot leave, that was my opportunity to go

home. But I didn’t have the money to go back home to even

take advantage of my boot leave. I had to stay on the

station until my boot leave expired. So I didn’t take that

leave at all.

JW: You didn’t get paid much from boot camp back in those days,

did you?

JH: Twenty-one dollars a month, a lot of money to me. Well,

the interesting thing I did was -- during that seven days,

they had me doing various duties at the Naval Training

Station. I worked at the armory. And I spent a real

interesting week just working there in the armory. They

had sabers and rifles and all sorts of armament that had

been used in the Navy. It was like a museum, working to

help maintain that armory for a week (inaudible). But

before that, I had to take an aptitude test. They

determined that I had some mechanical ability. And there

was a new trade school just dedicated at Ford Motor Company

in Michigan. And I was selected to go to that school. And

it was about a four-month school. And I saw a little bit

of (inaudible) out of that. Henry Ford II had (inaudible)

at Ford Motor Company. In 1940, he was drafted into the

Army as a [buckeye sprayer?]. I don’t know whether I want

to put this on the record, but --

JW: Oh, you can put anything on here you want to.

JH: -- my understanding was that he was expelled from Harvard

for cheating. (laughter)

JW: Really?

JH: And he was immediately drafted in the Army as a soldier, a

private. Meanwhile, granddad Henry dedicated this multi-

million-dollar command for machine space at River Rouge

Plant. And somehow or other, his grandson was honorably

discharged from the Army and given a commission in the

Navy. And later on, Henry Ford II taught mathematics in

the school. And of course, you knew about Ford. His

father was Edsel. His grandfather was Henry. And Henry

Ford II later became president of Ford Motor Company. The

machinists knew that the River Rouge Plant was the greatest

thing that ever happened to me. We had barracks within the

River Rouge Plant. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it,

but they told me there were -- 90,000 men were in that

plant. But we had barracks since 1941. The UAW-CIO had

tried for years to unionize Ford Motor Company. They were

the last of the motor manufacturers to become unionized.

He would hire staff workers to go out and crack some heads

every time they try to stir up. But that year, they

succeeded. And the Navy -- all of us sailors -- were

trapped in the River Rouge Plant. They had a ring around

the entire plant. And the River Rouge -- I don’t know

where it comes from, Minnesota -- they had drawbridges.

They had strikers catching the drawbridges. They were

raining bricks down on the ships below. It was really war.

JW: Sounds like it.

JH: The union finally won out -- in 1941 is when Ford became

unionized and (inaudible). Anyway, my work in the school

there -- typically, we had our own barracks and mess hall.

We would march down to -- and I don’t know how many --

there were only a couple-hundred of us. But we would march

down to the -- well, I have to tell you, Henry Ford

maintained a school in that River Rouge Plant where he gave

scholarships to young guys that had some mechanical skills.

And told them -- instead of going to public school, they

went to the Henry Ford School right inside the River Rouge

Plant clear through high school. (inaudible) and went to work for Ford if they wanted to. And I know some did. But that’s the school I attended. We were, in the morning -- studying all morning. And then we were assigned to a tool and die maker in the tool and die room. I was assigned to an old German, Otto [Skoll?] from Germany. He could make anything on a work bench. And he would assign me jobs. I tell everybody I made the dye for the 1942 Ford hubcap.

And so if you ever run into a 1942 Ford -- which you won’t, there were but few of them made -- look at the hubcap.

(laughter) During the day in the tool and die room -- tool and die makers were the elite in the motor company. They didn’t punch the clock. They came and went pretty much as they wanted to. So Otto would say, “Hey, Jim, you want to go see how glass is made?” “Sure.” So we went. And I observed the whole process, from sand to safety glass. And the other day it’s, “Let’s go to the open-hearth furnace and see how a seal is made.” And we’d go down and, mind you, everything that went into a Ford motor vehicle was made by Henry Ford back then. He had his own rubber plantations. He had soybean farms in Georgia that he made plastics from. And iron ore came down from the Mesabi

Range in Minnesota down to the lakes, up the River Rouge to

the open-hearth furnace. And he saw all this stuff funnel

into River Rouge, and at the end, these brand new

automobiles driving off one after another. (laughter) It

was fascinating.

JW: How interesting.

JH: And they -- so I got a taste of just about every form of

mechanics. In the press room, I saw these tremendous

presses where a roll of sheet metal would come out and go

under them. And a one-man operator would -- with each hand

on the control and each foot on the control -- to control

that die so it can mount up and out and come on top of an

automobile. And the tool and die room I worked in, they

made dies that did all that. And they had one marvelous

machine back there that -- a pattern maker would make a

model of that -- some part of the car. And I forget what

they call that machine, but he would make this out of wood.

And they would place it up on the platform on their

(inaudible), tremendous machine would come around and feel

around on that pattern. And this big chunk of steel over

here on the cutting machine would follow that cutter as it

cut the pattern and cut it in metal. It was great. I’m

sure that’s obsolete now. But then it was pretty

magnificent.

JW: Yeah.

JH: So anyway...

JW: So how long did you stay in the school there?

JH: Four months.

JW: Four months?

JH: And it could have been three, I don’t know. I didn’t get

out of there until June. I went in there in February, so -

- whatever the -- But anyway, I loved Ford Motor Company.

Ford made everything that went into the Ford car then. I

don’t know that it does now.

JW: Well, did you come home then?

JH: No. I didn’t get home for a long time.

JW: Really?

JH: The war in Europe was really getting hot. It was in the

spring of ’41. U-boats were operating on -- I guess they

were sinking a lot of our vessels in ’41 that were going to

England. And here I am in Michigan. It’s pretty damn

close to the Atlantic Ocean. Where are they going to send

me? I’m afraid I’m going to get right in the middle of all

that. And lo and behold, they gave me orders to go to a

light cruiser in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. (laughter) I go,

“Wow, where’s Pearl Harbor?” I had to look on the map.

(laughter) And they had to ask me what kind of ship I would

13 like to serve on. I don’t know why they did that, whether they gave that any credence or not. But I had requested the light cruiser. But I was assigned to the USS Honolulu.

And I took a long, long train ride. Back in those days, sailors carried their sea bags and hammocks around everywhere they went. It was stupid. Later on, after I got out of the Navy, they changed that practice. And they said, “Leave your hammock here. There’s one waiting for you where you’re going.” (laughter) But I carried that hammock halfway around the world. And we went on a long, long train ride, a group of us, all whose last name began with H or J -- Hardwick, Hughes, [Hovel?] Hansen, Jensen,

Hicks. Anyway, there were eight or nine of us who rode to

San Diego and got on a Navy transport whose name I’ve forgotten. I thought it used to be a president down there.

I think there were 5,000 Navy recruits on that headed for

Hawaii, and another 1,000 Navy relatives, wives, and so forth. But those of us who were down below decks, they didn’t know what to do with us. So they only fed two meals a day. By the time you finished breakfast, you better get in line for supper -- feeding 5,000 sailors. I think it took us four days to get to Hawaii.

JW: Well, that wasn’t too bad, considering it was an old troop

transport.

JH: Yeah, I think it was an old president, if I remember, but I

can’t recall his name. But we sailed into Pearl Harbor.

And they started grouping these groups, or the ships

they’ve been sent to. And they -- someone pointed at the

USS Honolulu sitting in the middle of the harbor, beautiful

ship. I thought, “Boy, that’s wonderful.” So eight or

nine of us were assigned to the Honolulu. And that began a

five-year career on the Honolulu. That was June of 1941.

JW: Tell me about coming into Pearl Harbor, and what did you

see?

JH: Oh, hundreds of ships as far as the eye can see. Ships are

ships. And this is well-known now. Back in those days, in

1941, at the time I boarded the Honolulu, I was assigned to

A division. There was four engineering divisions on a

warship -- A, B, M, and E (inaudible). A division has the

evaporators that make the ships distil water. It had all

the diesel engines that were aboard the ship and whaleboats

and motorboats and emergency generators and steering

engines. We were responsible for those. And what else?

Anyway, I was assigned to A division. And a short while --

I don’t want to jump ahead of myself, but that was June 6,

1941 that I boarded, June 6. And...

JW: Tell me about your sleeping quarters. Where did you sleep?

JH: I slept in a compartment that had metal bunks four or five

high. Actually, most of the time -- when I worked in the

evaporators where they distilled water, they had an Army

(inaudible) in there and slept in the evaporators because

it was -- I had a ventilator. I had air coming in. Out in

the sleeping compartments, there was very little air

distribution. In fact, they have it -- back in those days,

the enlisted personnel were in there. And then in the

South Pacific later, they would grab a blanket and go

topside to sleep at night. You just get settled in, and it

would rain. (laughter) You had this wet wool blanket. But

the compartments were very crowded, not bad, but not good,

either. And the (inaudible) to the Navy before Pearl

Harbor -- this is well-known now, well-known to the

Japanese. On Monday morning, a fleet pulled up. We

performed war games out and around the Hawaiian Islands,

had gunnery practice, (inaudible) salutes. And Friday we’d

come steaming back into Pearl, tie to the dock, and anchor.

And we would get liberty. No overnight liberty for

enlisted personnel, as you are aware. Sailors would go and

visit all the bars and the brothels in Honolulu and head

back to the ship before midnight. And then that went on,

as I say, from the time I boarded in June of ’41 until the

war started. And where I was when the war started -- my

birthday was -- my 18th birthday was December 5, two days

before the attack -- and my anniversary of one year in the

Navy. And do you know where -- have you been to Hawaii?

JW: Yes, sir.

JH: You know where Nanakuli Beach is?

JW: Mm-hmm.

JH: There were two of us at the Honolulu (inaudible) out there

to attend a luau at Nanakuli. We went there, I guess,

either Friday or Saturday -- Friday was my birthday. We

attended a luau Saturday night at Nanakuli and enjoyed the

beach. And the next day, I think we came on a narrow-gauge

railroad to [get there?], I forget. The next day, we were

to go back to the ship. So that’s what we did. We spent

all day Saturday at the beach there at Nanakuli. And then

Saturday night, they had this big luau. And the natives --

a bunch of native musicians were playing the ukuleles and

doing the hula. At midnight -- well, we were sleeping in

squad tents at Nanakuli. At midnight, I turned in. And

the next thing I knew, I heard a -- most of [the men?]

17 running up and down the tent row. Oh, we heard explosions.

We were trying to get back to our ships any way we could.

And that was sort of unheard of. You were well monitored when you went out in a group like that. See, “You’re a

(inaudible). Get out of here.” The day before, I had rented a little Brownie camera. And like a fool, I turned that thing in before I left. I should have taken it with me because I got a ride -- there was a musician there in

Maili Point -- gave me a ride back to Pearl Harbor. And the torpedo attack had already begun. I mean, it had finished. And Pearl Harbor was in total flames. And he took me up to the main gate, where I entered the main yard.

I wasn’t even challenged. The gate had been deserted. And

I ran right through that gate into the Navy yard. There was naval housing on my left (inaudible). And here’s Pearl

Harbor. Here’s Battleship Row. And these Navy wives are screaming out their doors for me to get off the street, that I’m going to get killed because they were strafing.

We were tied to Berth 31 -- which, you know Pearl is opposite a submarine station that -- opposite Battleship

Row. The torpedoes that went into Battleship Row were dropped off of our stern. We were tied to a Berth with a torpedo net. As I say, that attack had already begun --

completed. And, you know, everything was in an uproar.

Boats were beginning to crisscross Pearl, trying to pick up

survivors and dragging them out of the fires. And just as

I got to my ship, we were hit by a 500-pound bomb that hit

between the dock and the hull of the ship, ruptured the

hull, flooded a five-inch [cannon?] room that -- we had

real serious damage. But we were on the list of ships that

had minor damage.

JW: So it didn’t actually hit the ship? It hit --

JH: Yep, it hit between the dock and exploded and burst the

hull of the ship. The USS St. Louis was tied down north of

us, which was Admiral Kennel’s flagship. And while we were

there, he came speeding into the Navy Yard, raced across

our deck, and got in on the St. Louis, and took command of

the St. Louis, and they got underway. I think the St.

Louis was the only ship that got underway that day.

Unfortunate for them, they didn’t find the jets. The jets

were way off. But anyway, General Cross arrived that day

about 9:30 or something like that. The next thing that

happened -- of course, we were all at our battle stations,

waiting to see what was going to happen next. And everyone

expected an invasion. Well, here I -- this was December 7,

so I remember going topside with the fantail at Honolulu

and looking over at Battleship Row, of course, Pearl Harbor

still in flames. Directly behind my sight was -- or a

straight view was the battle Oklahoma turned upside-down,

California sank down with her main deck awash. And the

Tennessee and the Maryland -- I forgot all their names --

until you get down to the Arizona. It was utter havoc. It

was such a stupid act, lining those things up like ducks.

The Japanese really outsmarted us.

JW: Yeah, they did.

JH: And anyway, that whole day passed. We waited for the

invasion. We had no idea what was going to happen next.

And we were sort of amazed that nothing else happened. And

the rest of that month was clean-up time, trying to get

those ships back in operation.

JW: So the Honolulu never got underway?

JH: Oh, no, we couldn’t in the midst of all the activity. See,

we were in what we called, “cold iron.” You know that

expression?

JW: Mm-hmm.

JH: We don’t have a steam room.

JW: Yes, right.

JH: And we were taking power from the dock. Our guns depended

on electricity to operate. So the executive officer gave

order to (inaudible) mate to go down and cut all the lines

from the dock to the ship. He went right down at the

electric cable and chopped them in half. All of our guns -

JW: So everything went dark?

JH: (laughter) Don’t put that on the record, please. That’s

where we sat, anyway. And, you know, midnight came and

still nothing. And another day came, and another day.

Finally, they took us over and put us in dry dock and

started patching the hole. One of the worst casualties

there was the battleship Pennsylvania, which was sitting in

dry dock with the destroyers Cassin and Downes. And bombs

knocked the Pennsylvania off her chops in dry dock and the

Cassin and Downes were both capsized forward. They were

all three in dry dock together, a big mess. Once they got

our battle damage repaired, it must have been early

January. We were ordered to go to the West Coast to pick

up an Army convoy to take it to Australia. And that’s what

we did. We went to San Diego and picked up this Army

convoy. And one of the ships of that convoy was my 112th

Cavalry from Dallas, Texas.

JW: How about that? What a coincidence.

JH: We didn’t take them all the way to Australia. We landed

them in Noumea, New Caledonia. Are you familiar with the

South Pacific?

JW: Yes, sir.

JH: Noumea was a backward base at the beginning of the second

war. The Japanese extended down into the Solomons and the

(inaudible). But we took the 112th ashore at Noumea. They

hadn’t brought their horses with them. But they got

remounts from Australia. And it turned out the 112th had

been one of the last Army units in World War II that used

horses. But during the Solomon campaign, when they were

fighting then, they found that horses in the jungle were

useless. So they became infantry all during the Solomon

Campaign. But after we dropped them off -- I happened to

be the engineer on the whaleboat. And I went ashore and

saw some old buddies of the 112th. And then we proceeded

with the other ships laden with soldiers. Then we went to

Australia about February, 1942. And my God, what a

beautiful place that was. And I think we took most

American soldiers in Australia after the war. The girls in

Melbourne were happy to see us. All the able-bodied men in

Australia were in North Africa fighting Rommel, the German.

JW: So men were short and women were plentiful?

JH: But we only spent a week there, then back up by way of

Pearl -- Samoa and Pearl Harbor. We got into Pearl and

wondered where the hell we were going next. And somebody

said, you know, they’re bringing (inaudible) here. He

couldn’t be going anywhere but Alaska. This was in May

1942. So sure enough -- oh, no, that was a different

story. May of 1942, we were headed with a number of

cruisers -- the Birmingham is the only one I remember --

for Kodiak, Alaska. And we were in mid-Pacific, skirting

the battle of Midway. This carrier battle was occurring

out to our west, but we didn’t get involved in that. We

continued into Kodiak, this cruiser task force. Our

destination was the end of the Aleutian Islands, Kiska,

Adak, and Attu. But we spent a day or two in Kodiak, where

I saw something I’ve never seen or heard of since. And it

was a tanker made of concrete. You ever seen a ship made

of concrete?

JW: I’ve seen the USS Recruit on the San Diego Naval Base,

yeah.

JH: It’s odd, the very idea that a concrete ship would even

float. But anyway, I got a liberty in Kodiak. Kodiak was

a Wild West town back then, you know, dirt streets,

swinging doors on the saloons. These sailors -- and we

were given liberty until midnight. Midnight was two

o’clock in the morning. And the women would get all beered

up. And there was a two-gun marshal that policed that

street. And he’d walk through the swinging doors and throw

the sailors out the door. (laughter) And they had a bus

that carried the drunken crew members back to the ship.

And they had -- and well, I forget how they brought them

aboard. They had a cargo net that -- they lay these drunk

sailors in that cargo net, hoisted them up on the deck.

(laughter) But anyway, that was my experience in Kodiak.

And Kodiak -- gee, I really liked the place. That time of

year, it was beautiful. But (inaudible) we were a-sail

again, headed for the tip of the Aleutians, which, if

you’ve ever looked at it, extends out almost to Japan. And

the Japanese had occupied Kiska, Attu, and Adak, the only

American territory occupied by the Japanese.

JW: Had they already invaded those islands when you were there?

JH: Oh, yeah. They were established there. But our mission was

to go in there and blow them out. We carried four scout

planes on the Honolulu, you know, cattle cart planes. And

the weather out in the Bering Sea and headed into the

Aleutians was pretty horrible. You couldn’t see your hand

in front of your -- I don’t know why they ever did it, but

24 they catapulted one of these planes -- it’s a scout plane -

- and never saw it again. The radio man and the pilot, they just had to circle up there above all that until they ran out of gas and throw itself into the Bering Sea. But that was our first casualties. But anyway, on December -- on August 7, 1942, we sailed into -- well, we had made repeated runs into Kiska Harbor to try to bombard the shore. But the fog was so thick, we had to come out again until, all of a sudden, the fog lifted. And we sailed into

Kiska and just put a six-inch shell in every square foot of that island. (laughter) And then the Army la-- August 7,

1942, the news had reached ship that the Marines had landed in a place called Guadalcanal. “Where’s Guadalcanal?”

August 7, 1942 -- but anyway, our Army landed shortly after that on Kiska. I found out the Japanese had evacuated in the dark of night in the fog. There wasn’t a Japanese left on Kiska. But there were Japanese on Adak. So next we went to Adak and did our job of shelling. And the Army landed on Adak and tore it up quite badly. People don’t know much about Adak, but I don’t think there were many

Japanese survivors left. The Japanese didn’t like to surrender. They really didn’t. If you knocked them unconscious, then you could take them. Otherwise, they

wanted to die for their [crew?]. So the Army and Marines

were accommodating. (laughter) So when they landed on

Adak, as I say, they had a hard-fought battle, but they

took the island and got the Japanese out. I guess that was

the only American territory occupied by the Japanese in

World War II.

JW: I believe that’s right, yeah.

JH: So then, “Where were we going to go next?” We’re heading

for the States, Mirror Island Navy Yard, Golden Gate [route

to?] San Francisco. In the fall of 1942, we pulled into

Mirror Island Navy Yard. One thing that happened at Mirror

Island I’ll always remember is first seeing radar. We saw

this activity up on the mast in the Navy Yard. “What’s

that thing up there?” “They call it a radar.” (laughter)

You’ve heard of it.

JW: That was the first radar you had ever seen.

JH: Yeah. In fact, later on, I’ll tell you the first naval

battle fought by radar. We got a seven-day leave. I’d

never been home. I’d been in the Navy almost two years.

Seven-day leave, and I was at Mirror Island. I went out --

I got on a bus. And that bus route ran down the coast of

California -- you know how far that is -- and turned east,

and went all the way over to Dallas. I got on that bus

26 headed for Dallas on a seven-day leave with a few bucks in my pocket. And halfway down the coast of California,

President Roosevelt decreed the highest speed limit on the

United States highways was to be a maximum of 35 miles per hour. That bus slowed down to 35 miles an hour.

(laughter) By the time I got home, my leave was half over.

(laughter) And I -- anyway, I got home. And I spent about a day there. And I realized I couldn’t get on another bus.

I couldn’t go back and expect to get there. Somebody said they have a thing -- there was a naval air station in

Dallas. “A naval station in Dallas, Texas?” When I went in the Navy, I had never seen a sailor before. (laughter)

But they had a naval air station (inaudible). And they said, “Yeah, if you go out there, you know, they ferry torpedo planes and (inaudible) from the east coast to west coast. And they stop in Dallas. You can get a hop on one of them.” And there it was. My leave was half over. I said, “That’s my only hope.” So I went out there and stood around there for a day. And I didn’t get a hop. And then a Grumman torpedo -- a Grumman Avenger -- with just the pilot in it, and he said, “Hop in, sailor, you can be torpedoman.” (laughter) He put me in the torpedoman’s seat and carried me all the way to the North Island of San

Diego. My first view of the Grand Canyon was from his

torpedoman’s seat in the Grumman. But here I got the

(inaudible) from San Francisco, but what was I going to do

from there? I was a long way from San Francisco. The only

thing I knew was to get on another damn bus. When I walked

into Mirror Island Navy Yard, I started looking for my

ship. And I asked him -- somebody, I won’t give his name -

- said, “The Honolulu has sailed.” “It’s sailed?” I

thought if you missed your ship, you got the firing squad.

He said, “You need to report to the senior officer

(inaudible) aboard the USS Chicago. So I went up the

gangway of the USS Chicago. The Marine officer there said,

“What ship are you on?” “Honolulu.” He said, “You know

you missed your ship?” I said, “I know it now.” He said,

“OK.” And he called his Marines up. “Put this man in the

brig.” They threw me in the brig.

JW: Really?

JH: Oh, yeah. I mean, what were they going to do with me? The

next day, the Marine came down and got me, took me up to

the gangway. Another Marine was there with a sidearm, had

a handgun. And I was assigned to him. I was detailed to

go to Goat Island Naval Prison. When they got me at Goat

Island Naval Prison, they shook me down and threw me in

prison along with murderers, rapists, whatever. They said,

“What are you in for, sailor?” I said, “Well, I missed my

ship.” They said, “You’ll never get out of here.”

“Really?” (laughter) Fortunately, they were wrong. Later

on -- I spent one night there. Another Marine took charge

of me, put me on a bus, and took me to San Francisco. And

there, on First Street in San Francisco, sat the USS

Honolulu. And that Marine marched me up there in cuffs and

turned me over to the officer of the deck, [who said?]

“Hardwick, where the hell have you been?” (laughter) And I

told him, [“Summit Hill”?]. “Take the cuffs off. Let him

go below deck.” I got a summary court-martial with the

[mayor?] of court-martial. That’s just one below a general.

(laughter)

JW: So were you late getting back to the ship?

JH: Eight hours.

JW: Eight hours late.

JH: Eight hours late.

JW: Uh-huh, I see.

JH: Eight hours late. My summary court-martial went -- took

place. We’d sail, headed to the South Pacific again. But

en route, my summary occurred. There was three lieutenant

commanders lined up at a table. They said, “All right,

Hardwick, what’s your story?” I told them what I told you.

They said, “No excuse. You should have gotten off that bus immediately and come back to the ship.” Well, no shit, I got to do that. Anyway, they fined me $150 bucks. It hurt. They confined me to the ship for six months, which didn’t hurt at all because nobody got off that ship for years. (laughter) But anyway, that was my only offense when I was in the Navy. You know, you had to have four years of good conduct with a good conduct medal. I just managed to get that. (laughter) And anyway, the next -- we were headed again to the South Pacific. And Guadalcanal had started in August. And the Navy -- major ships in the

South Pacific in 1942 were the cruisers. There was an air battle, the Battle of the Coral Sea, that was fought by carriers, but, you know, no battleships. The cruisers were the heaviest. And we were headed down into the Solomons.

And the Guadalcanal Campaign was being fought back and forth. The Japanese would take Henderson Field. The

Marines would take it back, turn it over to the Army to hold it. And then they went somewhere else. And the

Japanese would take it away from the Army. And the Marines would take it back, and back and forth. And the Tokyo

Express, as they call it, was coming down from the Central

Pacific. You know, on a regular night, the [skivvies?]

would have replenished the supplies with garrisons dropping

down. They’d come in on destroyers, a whole fleet of

destroyers, with oil barrels filled with supplies. And

they’d sweep up near the shore and throw the barrels over.

And the tide would wash them up on the beach. And that’s

how the Japanese would get them their food and

replenishments. And so they called it the “Tokyo Express.”

It was a pretty regular schedule. When we got to the South

Pacific, the first place we went was to Noumea, New

Caledonia. The Battle of Savo -- I think it was the Battle

of Savo; there were two or three important battles at

Guadalcanal at the -- in mid-November, 1942, there was a

major naval battle, in which the Sullivan brothers were

lost. You remember -- you heard that story?

JW: Yes, sir.

JH: They were on a new cruiser, only about six or eight months

old, that was sunk -- I think it was at the Battle of Savo

-- but right there in Ironbottom Sound at Guadalcanal, that

all five of the Sullivan brothers that were in a pretty bad

defeat. The USS San Francisco had the flag. Every senior

officer on the San Francisco was killed -- admiral,

captain, executive officer. I think it was some lieutenant

commander who took command of that ship during the battle.

When we arrived in May, it had just come from the battle.

Its entire superstructure was blown away. And so we

wondered what in the hell we were in for. We took the flag

from the San Francisco and headed back to Guadalcanal. And

on a dark, moonless night, November 30, 1942, we went up to

The Slot with the cruisers New Orleans, Pensacola, North

Hampton, and Minneapolis. We were a number of five

cruisers and a number of destroyers. And it was almost at

the point of midnight we sailed into Ironbottom Sound

between the islands of Guadalcanal and Tulagi. And I was

on a damage control crew that night, standing on the main

deck under this little turret. As I say, there was no

moon, no stars, no lights. And all of a sudden, the whole

area became daylight with shellfire. And I don’t know

whether you know what a damage control crew does --

JW: Yes, I’m familiar with them.

JH: You have different skills in the crew as far as how to

handle damage which should occur. In fact, my main job was

an observer that night, sitting up there and watching the

fireworks --

JW: So you had a ringside seat?

JH: -- listening to the torpedoes whistle into the water. But

one thing that scared the hell out of me -- a cruiser has

15 six-inch guns, five -- three guns per turret in five

turrets. The main battery is five-inch, 25-inch secondary

battery. But periodically, with six-inch shells, they’d

hangfire, and we’d have to get them out of the turret

before they exploded inside the turret. And my job during

that battle was to grab the hangfires as they dropped out

of the turret and throw them overboard. (laughter) I

didn’t know what the hell I was doing, but I was getting

rid of them. (laughter) But yes, when that battle ended,

all four of those cruisers except the Honolulu had been

either sunk or badly damaged, put out of action.

JW: Now what battle was that called?

JH: The Battle of Tassafaronga.

JW: Tassafaronga.

JH: It’s in the history books -- it says the worst naval defeat

ever suffered by the US Navy. We were whipped by about a

dozen Japanese destroyers. Anyway, that was the beginning

of our Solomon Island campaign. The next thing was -- as

Guadalcanal was secured, we operated out of the island of

Tulagi, which is just across Ironbottom Sound from

Guadalcanal. And the next step was the New Georgia

Islands. If you look at the island chains, then it’s just

one little group of islands after another. This was in

July, 1943. On July 6, 1943, we took a cruiser task force

up. Well, this was similar to Guadalcanal. The Japanese

had occupied New Georgia. And the Marines and the Army

were fighting the Japanese on New Georgia. And it was very

similar to what we’d experienced at Guadalcanal, only not

quite as disastrous for us. (inaudible), we went up The

Slot, bombarding New Georgia, and -- with the cruiser

Helena. And the Helena caught a couple of torpedoes and

sank. And we went on the other cruiser -- it was a two-

cruiser task force. We survived again without a scratch.

And seven days later, we went back up there again with

another group, and we caught two torpedoes. One of them

blew about 75 feet of our bow off. And the other was a dud

-- it had a squaring fantail -- and put a hole 18 or 20

inches’ diameter. When the ship stopped, that torpedo

stuck [in the water?]. And I forget how we got it loose.

Our destroyer’s [boatswain’s mate] took the hanger crane,

and went down there and jiggled it. And it dropped to the

sea. I’m not sure that was true -- pretty brave guy.

JW: Yeah.

JH: But that knocked off 75 feet of our bow, all the way back

to my watch station in the evaporators. And they have

pictures of that thing. The whole fo’c’sle was just bent

down vertically. But that poor little ship was totally

unoccupied during the battle. We hadn’t had a single

scratch. No man was lost.

JW: What luck.

JH: Yeah. But it took a long time for us to get the battle

damage repaired. We made our way back to -- after some

emergency repairs down there at Manus and Admiralty

Islands, we were -- anyway, we went back by way of Pearl --

we went back to Espiritu Santos and then (inaudible). Do

you know where Espiritu Santos is?

JW: Yes, sir.

JH: That was called “The Pearl Harbor of the South Pacific.” A

bunch of men they call “Seabees,” which we’d never heard

of, came out on floating rafts and went underwater, cutting

out 75 feet of our hull. These folks would cut it off and

drop it to the bottom of the ocean and build us a blunt

battle, right there sitting on the raft at Espiritu Santos.

And we called them -- the instruction battalion --

“Seabees.” It was something new in the Navy. They did a

job --

JW: They knew what they were doing, then?

JH: Oh, yeah. That was the first time I’d ever seen underwater

cutting torches. You ever seen that?

JW: No.

JH: It’s a miracle. You know, they have compressed air that

goes down and forms a bubble under the water. And then the

oxyacetylene is inside that bubble. And they can -- they

maintain that bubble with compressed air. And they can cut

right through that steel. Anyway --

JW: No, I’ve never seen that done.

JH: I’d never seen it before or since. But anyway, they made

us a blunt bow. And with that blunt bow, we set off at

very slow speed, maybe 12 knots, all the way back to Pearl

Harbor. When we got to Pearl Harbor, they put us in dry

dock. Sitting up on top of the dry dock was the fo’c’sle

of the ship. They’d already built it while we were en

route. That Navy yard did a miracle job. They set us down

in the dry dock and hoisted that fo’c’sle up there, dropped

it down there, and welded it around. Of course, it was

totally empty inside. But from the exterior, it really

looked like a whole ship again. But we had to go from

there back to Mirror Island Navy Yard to get all the

insides of the ship.

JW: Back to San Francisco, then?

JH: Yep. So let me see, that was taking us through 1943.

Well, they got all our damage repaired. And away we went

again, this time, to the Admiralty Islands off the coast of

New Guinea. One island called Manus was a forward base.

JW: Manus, M-A-N-U-S?

JH: M-A-N-U-S.

JW: Mm-hmm.

JH: There’s a little story about Manus that I’ll add later

about the explosion of an ammunition ship with a total loss

of lives 285 men, or something like that. And they don’t

even know what caused the explosion. Anyway, we were

operating out of Manus up to Bougainville, New Guinea. And

then we wondered where we were going next, you know, up the

island chain. If every island -- if it took that long to

take every island all the way to Japan, we’d still be

fighting. Our next destination -- Eniwetok in the Marshall

Islands, which is an atoll, a tremendous atoll -- this was

1943. We entered Eniwetok Atoll, and I saw ships in there.

As far as my eye could see, there was a ship, a warship.

The United States had been building ships like mad. And we

were CL-48. And I saw cruisers with numbers like 542.

(laughter) And this was the beginning of the Marianas

Campaign. The attack on the Marianas was really a

tremendous task force in 1943, ’44? We went into Saipan

and bombarded the hell out of Saipan, softened it up for

the Marines to land. Saipan was sort of a sad place. The

Japanese were jumping off the mountainsides committing

suicide there when the Marines landed. Mothers with babies

in their arms were told that the Marines were going to go

rape them, torture them. But anyway, Saipan was taken.

And then we continued on down to Guam. Tinian, for some

reason, there was no action. There was three islands on

Marianas -- Saipan, Tinian, and Guam. And Guam became an

American possession. But Guam had some pretty fierce

fighting. After that ended, let’s see where we’re at -- we

were 1943 -- we went back to Manus in the Admiralty Islands

off the coast of New Guinea. That was the main station

down there. And --

JW: Now this is 1944?

JH: Yes. We set out with a task force for the island Peleliu.

And Peleliu was off on the southeastern coast of the

Philippines. And MacArthur wanted Peleliu for an air base

to assist in his return to the Philippines. Peleliu was

terrible battle for the Marines. We sat mostly on call for

our support and peppered the beach and chopped down every

tree on the island before the Marines went in. When they

went in, the Japanese came up out of the ground and were

picking the landing craft up, just one after the other. We

were seeing bodies flying. In spite of all that, the

Marines succeeded.

JW: And what was your job during this?

JH: I was civil, working the A division aboard the ship, the

machine shop, or making the ship’s distilled water. I was,

at that time, I think I was placed in charge of distilling

-- making seawater -- making saltwater --

JW: Freshwater out of seawater?

JH: Yep, it was a good job. In the evaporator that I had,

like, a home, I had a crew of about eight men who stood

watches for me. So that was my main activity, making

distilled water. I can honestly say no one ever got

thirsty in the shop. And anyway, Peleliu was a hard-fought

battle for the Marines. And when they took the island, we

were back to Manus, which was [still far away?]. The next

thing was in October of 1944. It was when the Philippine

campaign started. The cruiser Maryland was used by Douglas

MacArthur. And the Maryland and Honolulu sailed for the

Philippines in October, ’44.

JW: From where?

JH: From Manus.

JW: From Manus.

JH: And we pulled into Leyte Gulf. You know where Leyte Gulf

is?

JW: No, I don’t.

JH: You know, there are a thousand islands in the Philippines.

Leyte is a (inaudible) island, central, but ideal for the

landing force on the Red Beach.

JW: Oh, I misunderstood -- Leyte Gulf.

JH: L-E-Y--

JW: Yes --

JH: T-E.

JW: I’ve been there on my ship.

JH: Oh, have you?

JW: Mm-hmm.

JH: OK. But anyway, we accompanied the Maryland. And

MacArthur was aboard. We pulled into Leyte Gulf on October

17, 1944. And we were on -- well, the Army had landed.

The Marines weren’t there. The Army was the one that

landed on Red Beach, down on the 17th. But we had bombarded

from the 17th to the 20th. And at 10 o’clock, October 20,

the Army landed on Red Beach. And we were sitting in the

middle of Leyte Gulf with (inaudible) Army as their

artillery. And MacArthur went ashore at three o’clock that

afternoon. And we set up the cameras for his famous

photographs. I think he rehearsed it three times.

(laughter) But I had been on a 12 to four watch in the

evaporators. The ship was just sitting dead in the water,

firing its guns behind the Army as it advanced. And I was

relieved on watch. (inaudible) Two men relieved me on

watch, David [Ogyividas?] from San Antonio, and Raymond

[Eliford?] from Phoenix, Arizona. They were 19 or 20 years

old. And I went topside to get a breath of fresh air. And

I was standing under the number four turret, and they

sounded the alarm for air attack. There was one lone

torpedo plane came overhead in amidst all these ships in

the harbor, dropped a torpedo, came down, hit square in my

watch station, killed the two men who had just relieved me,

along with 100, 150 others. And I missed getting killed by

five minutes.

JW: That’s amazing.

JH: But the -- that ended the war for us because we were badly

damaged. And then we went back with all this battle

damage. I don’t know how we did it. But the evaporators

were knocked out. We had no fresh water. All the

freshwater was consumed on the ship had to be used on the

boilers. They had priority. (laughter) En route back to

Manus -- which was, you know, I don’t know, 1,500, 2,000

miles -- you had to take saltwater showers. We would be

covered with oil and trying to wash it off with saltwater

(inaudible). But every day, it rained, anyway. But the

whole crew would strip naked, (laughter) get up topside --

JW: Get in the rain --

JH: -- and scrub down, and take a rain shower. (laughter) But

I don’t know how many days it took us to get back to Manus.

But we went into a marvelous [bus?] of a floating dry dock.

I didn’t know how they can make that. A floating dry dock

can pick up 10,000-ton ship, 600-feet long, and lift it up

out of the water. But that’s what they did with us. And

we had two or three burials at sea while we were en route,

those men we could recover from the battles earlier. When

we got into the floating dry dock, we had a hole in the

port side of the ship about 60 feet, a terrible hole. And

the remaining dead washed out onto the dry dock. And we

salvaged them and buried them in Manus. And while we were

in the floating dry dock, one night -- well, there was, in

the center of Manus -- this was in 1944 -- an ammunition

ship, whose name I’ve forgotten, was anchored. And that

thing exploded for no reason with a total loss of life --

every man on board that ship. Of course, I can’t remember

its name. I don’t think it was ever reported in the

newspapers in the States. The only people that survived

were two men that were in the whaleboat that had gone after

the ship’s mail. They don’t know whether it was an enemy

action or a mishandling of the ammunition, a terrible

tragedy. But anyway, again, the Seabees came to our rescue

and patched us up with a false hull, with the guts just

blown out of the inside of the ship. And they ordered us -

- they put the evaporators back in condition. And some

repair ship there did a great job. And they pulled out all

our electric motors and (inaudible) other ones, and put

them back in place and in operation. They made emergency

repairs, the floating dry dock in Manus. And then we were

-- we didn’t know where we were going, but we were ordered

to Norfolk Navy Yard, 12,000 miles from where we were.

JW: Twelve-thousand miles?

JH: Halfway around the world. (laughter) And so that was an

interesting voyage. I was standing watches down in this

damaged compartment all the way from Manus all the way to

Norfolk, Virginia, with oil dripping down on my head. But

we made our way down through the canal, which was a

wonderful experience, and on to Norfolk Navy Yard. It was

43 now 1945 -- and entered Norfolk Navy Yard, where we were to remain for the next nine months, repairing our battle damage. I stayed aboard ship and drew my sea pay all that time. I had an opportunity to go visit Washington for the first time in my life and New York and Philadelphia.

That’s where I was when the war ended. In August of 1945, the atomic bomb was dropped. I said, “What’s an atomic bomb?” It was like, “What’s a radar?” (laughter) Well, we soon learned, and were very thankful for it. It was unbelievable that it just almost immediately ended the war.

And so there I sat, in 1945, August and September, the war ending. I was in the regular Navy. All of the naval reservists get to get out on points. They got out immediately. I had enough points to get three or four out.

But I had to serve the rest of my enlistment. A little minor thing I failed to mention -- if it hadn’t been for the war, my enlistment would have ended in 1944, when I became 21. But that date came, and they told me, “Well,

Hardwick, you’re going to have -- you’re out of the Navy, but you’re now going into the naval reserves. I said, “I don’t want to be a reservist. I’m a regular Navy.” We had some false sense of pride. When the reservists first started coming aboard ship, they referred to them as

“feather merchants.” I didn’t want to be a feather

merchant. (laughter) They said, “Well, you know, the war’s

still on. And if you ship over -- extend your enlistment

for two years, and you’ll get $226,” or something like

that. “Heck, yes. Let me have it.” (laughter) Anyway, I

was stuck in (laughter) -- for another two years. I wish I

had become a reservist. Well, let’s see -- at the Norfolk

Navy Yard, they were busy putting on another false hull on

the Honolulu, really reconditioning it. And the war ended.

So suddenly people started getting discharged left and

right. And I was left there. But I was placed on the

staff of the decommissioning crew. And, you know, I’m

getting ahead of myself. The first thing at Norfolk --

after we -- the war ended, the ship’s repaired, we made a

trip to Guantanamo.

JW: Cuba?

JH: Yeah, and then on down on Navy Day -- May 25, 1945 -- we

went up to New Orleans with the battleship Mississippi.

And the Mississippi and the Honolulu tied up at the foot of

Canal Street, and had an open house for the people of New

Orleans.

JW: Oh, I bet that was fun.

JH: Yeah. I’d never been to New Orleans. And it was a

wonderful liberty. So my ship’s nickname is “The Blue

Goose.” And they had a Navy parade up Canal Street. And

we had a goose that was dyed blue on a leash. (laughter)

Anyway, after New Orleans, we were sent to Newport, Rhode

Island, assigned duties as a training ship. It was some

kind of a midshipman school in Newport, I forget what it

was. But we would take these midshipmen out in the North

Atlantic. We’d sort of take them out there and make them

seasick. And then we all got seasick. (laughter) We did

that for a while. And then our captain was promoted to

rear admiral, and they had a commander -- I forget his name

right now -- that was -- never had had sea duty. But he

was on duty there at Newport. And they gave him temporary

command of the Honolulu, with orders to take it to

Philadelphia Navy Yard to decommission it by way of New

York City. What’s his name who wrote All the Ship’s at

Sea? I don’t remember, yeah. This commander was a -- I

guess he was a writer. I don’t know what his job would

have been in the Navy. But he was an author of a number of

books. He was the co-author of the book, The Ugly

American. You read that?

JW: I have, but I don’t -- and I know who you’re talking about,

but I don’t remember his name, either.

JH: He was the co-author of that book.

JW: And All the Ship’s at Sea?

JH: All the Ship’s at Sea. And while we were -- we were en

route from Newport to Philadelphia by way of New York City.

We went into New York for a while. But anyway, outside the

port of New York -- I guess we were leaving there -- we had

a collision with a submarine. The submarine ran into us,

but we were at fault because we had running lights on.

William Lederer -- William Lederer.

JW: Lederer.

JH: Captain Lederer. But he was court-martialed. In spite of

the fact that the submarine hit us, killed one man that was

on watch, and one other (inaudible). But Lederer was

court-martialed. And the court-martial board decreed that

he would never again be given command of a naval vessel

because he was negligent in not having running lights on.

It was peacetime, too. I heard later Lederer became public

relations officer to the commander-in-chief of the Pacific.

He had the Honolulu for a long time. And every now and

then, you’d read in This Week or something an article that

William Lederer wrote. He wrote another book, All the

Ship’s at Sea by William Lederer. Chapter eight describes

that collision. It doesn’t say that the author was court-

martialed for it. He had a fictitious name for it.

JW: He skipped that part, huh?

JH: Yeah. But that chapter eight describes that collision --

All the Ship’s at Sea by William Lederer. And anyway, we

made our way to Philadelphia Navy Yard in mid-1946. And we

were destined to become part of the mothball fleet. And

that was quite an operation. I don’t know if you are

familiar with it or not.

JW: No, not really.

JH: Every piece of bare metal had to be shined up like a new

dime and covered with Cosmoline to prevent any rust. We

had to go to our sea (inaudible), wet and dry dock, all the

water (inaudible) under the ship. But some of them were

monstrous. Sailors had to crawl under there and sand it

down to the bare metal and put Cosmoline on there very

thick -- and grease. They built cocoons over the guns --

exposed gun barrels. I think they borrowed some tricks

from Hollywood. They made a tape frame over a gun, and

then they sprayed that with something that formed a plastic

sheet over this tape, and it made it airtight -- and a

pretty little window in it to see in. And they put a 16

pinion nail, brand new nail, into it. And then the idea

was, if you saw a speck of rust on it, you had to open the

cocoon and re-secure the whole area. The interior of the

ship, we just had a skeleton crew driving us. The interior

of the ship was totally airlocked from the outside. And we

had machines in there that were pumping moisture out of the

air, like a refrigeration machine. And it was -- the

humidity in there was almost zero. And every bare metal

surface had to be shined and covered with Cosmoline. There

were three different grades. We had a very thin one, a

medium, and a heavy. And --

JW: What a job.

JH: -- protect it from rust. So I did that. So that ship was

my ship, the Honolulu. And about that time, we had a big

decommissioning dance, fortunately. Over the years, they

had accumulated a tidy sum, you know, from the ship’s

stores, and so forth. And so the captain said, “Take that

money and spend it. Have a party.” So on March 6, 1947,

we rented the grand ballroom at the Philadelphia -- at the

Ben Franklin Hotel and threw a ball. (laughter) And it was

a grand affair. And he invited the [several?] girls from

the local insurance companies to come and dance with the

sailors. That’s where I met her mother. We’ve been

married 60 years.

JW: 60 years.

JH: But anyway, after that, my job on the Honolulu was

finished. I’d spent five years with her. And I still had

about six or seven months’ enlistment. They assigned me to

the decommissioning crew. So I had -- as ships came in,

I’d go from ship to ship and instruct the crew on how to

preserve it. I did that for -- I had the cruiser and its

name -- I’ve forgotten. I was only aboard for a month or

so. And the USS Cabot, a Navy carrier, it had just come

from the Okinawa Campaign. That carrier was a -- had a

tremendous battle record. I think it shot down about 350

Japanese planes from the Navy carrier. But she was badly,

badly damaged. And I saw that Navy carrier, and another

cruiser, and then a repair ship, the USS Regal I put in

mothballs. And it came time for my discharge. And I was

supposed to be discharged in December, 1946. But I had

accumulated so much leave, that I was still in the Navy for

another couple of months after I put my civvies on. And I

left the area and my later-to-be wife in Philadelphia. She

was in New Jersey, 13 miles from (inaudible). But I came

back to Dallas and enrolled in college on the GI Bill.

After one semester, I went back up and married Elva --

F1: Elva.

JH: -- and brought her back to Dallas, where she’s been my wife

for 60 years.

JW: So how did you two meet?

JH: At the dance.

JW: At that dance?

JH: Yeah.

F1: Dad, was that in 1946? Because you got married in June of

’47. Did you meet her in the same year that you got

married? You said March of ’47. Was it the year before?

JH: Well, we were married in ’47. I was civilian.

F1: But you said you met her at the Ben Franklin Hotel in March

of ’47.

JH: Oh, I -- ’46.

F1: Forty-six.

JH: Mm-hmm, yeah.

JW: March of ’46.

JH: Anyway, I finished one semester in college and went up

there and got married and brought her back to Dallas, where

she remained for the next 60 years and gave me five

wonderful kids.

JW: Are they all as beautiful as the two I’ve met?

JH: (laughter) Show him the picture.

F1: Oh, we can’t record that.

JH: There’s 21 grandchildren.

JW: So you were in the Navy from --

JH: Well, I was actually in December of ’46. And I thought I

was out of the Navy. I came home and then enrolled in

school and -- you know, under the GI Bill. I finished one

semester or half a semester in engineering school. And

they told me I owe tuition. And they said, “Well, Mr.

Hardwick, you’re still in the Navy. You don’t qualify

until you get out.” I was on terminal leave. (laughter)

So I had to pay the damn tuition. (laughter) Back then, I

think tuition at SMU was only $900 a semester.

JW: That was a lot of money then, though.

JH: Well, so I’m out of the Navy and back home in engineering

school. And Susie was born in 1950. Is it all right if I

say that?

SUSIE: That’s correct.

JH: And Elva and I had four daughters and one son, and all of

them great.

JW: So you spent six full years in the Navy?

JH: Six years, two months, and 25 days. (laughter)

JW: Nineteen-forty to 1946.

JH: And I had accumulated all this leave that extended my time.

JW: Well, that’s an amazing story. Not many people had the

experiences that you’ve had. I’m going to wrap this up and

turn this off. But I want to tell you how much we

appreciate you and your service. And we thank you very

much.

JH: Yes, thank you.

END OF AUDIO FILE