National Museum of the Pacific War
Nimitz Education and Research Center
Fredericksburg, Texas
Interview with
Mr. Edward Fournier Date of Interview: December 2, 2009 National Museum of the Pacific War
Fredericksburg, Texas
Interview with Mr. Edward Fournier
Interview in progress.
Ed Metzler: This is Ed Metzler and today is the 2nd of December, 2009. I am at the Nimitz
Museum in Fredericksburg, Texas; I am interviewing Mr. Ed Fournier.
Mr. Fournier: Fournier (corrected pronunciation).
Ed Metzler: Fournier. Sorry, I’m sorry, Ed, I got it right...finally! And this interview is in
support of the Center of Pacific War Studies, archives for the National
Museum of the Pacific War, Texas Historical Commission, for the
preservation of historical information related to this site. Okay, Ed, let me
turn it over to you. Why don’t introduce yourself and when and where you
were born and we’ll take it from there.
Mr. Fournier: My name is Ed Fournier. I was born in Youngstown, Ohio and I grew up in a
little village not too far from Youngstown called Poland, Ohio; went to Poland
High School.
Ed Metzler: What was your birth date?
Mr. Fournier: I was born 28th of July, 1926.
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Fournier: And...I guess I wasn’t really a bad kid, but...after looking like kids today in
high school, well...they didn’t have drive by shootings in my day, but there
was other things that took the place, and I was one of these guys who...I
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learned how to forge the principal’s name real well and I had class admit slips
coming and going; people were coming and going out of that school like a
Greyhound bus station.
Ed Metzler: Now what did your dad do for a living?
Mr. Fournier: My dad was in manufacture; he owned a...a company in Youngstown,
Needrope (sp?) Industrial Handling Equipment. Uh, his statement to me for
many times was, “Yes, you can come to work for us as soon as you show that
you have ten thousand dollars in the bank.” And my answer was, “If I got ten
thousand dollars in the bank, you ain’t going to see me!” (chuckles)
Ed Metzler: Why work?! If you got that...(laughter).
Mr. Fournier: That’s right, in those days, why work?
Ed Metzler: Now did you have brothers and sisters?
Mr. Fournier: Two younger brothers.
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Fournier: And both of who...managed to get their butt into the Coast Guard Academy;
both graduated from the Academy; both are retired; both had thirty years
service...uh, twenty years service.
Ed Metzler: Hmm! So anyhow, let’s go back to your high school days now. So you’re
not...you’re not the...the model student and...
Mr. Fournier: No, no, I wasn’t a model student, but I wasn’t their worst.
Ed Metzler: ...and the model citizen.
Mr. Fournier: But, after...passing out a number of admit slips, why, the principal called me
in the office and said that...since the...the school’s not big enough for both of
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us and he had seniority, I guessed who was leaving, and he was right, I left. I
had thirty days to go for graduation; my parents had sent out all the graduation
invitations...
Ed Metzler: (Chuckles).
Mr. Fournier: ...and they weren’t too happy about the situation.
Ed Metzler: Well, you got some gifts anyhow (chuckles).
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, I did.
Ed Metzler: (Chuckles).
Mr. Fournier: But, the thing was that...my father decided that I would meet with him for
lunch and...and we would determine what my future was going to be.
Ed Metzler: Now what year is this, Ed?
Mr. Fournier: 1944.
Ed Metzler: Alright, so this is ’44.
Mr. Fournier: And at that particular time, I went down before I met him for lunch...went
down and enlisted in the Navy, and asked him to sign the papers at lunchtime
which he did. I don’t think he was really shocked; he was probably at that
point glad to get rid of me. But anyway...
Ed Metzler: Why the Navy?
Mr. Fournier: I wasn’t going to walk!
Ed Metzler: (Laughter), you were going to float!
Mr. Fournier: That’s right. Well I...I’m a sailor from way back when, rag sailor, and I...I
built a nineteen foot Lightning innovation (sp?), (unintelligible) I didn’t know
Lightning was a manufactured boat at the time; I got the plans and built it, and
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I used to sail up Lake Erie and I’d go from Cleveland to Canada in my
(unintelligible) using my Boy Scout (unintelligible) compass. You know, if it
pointed north, I was in the right direction to Canada. And...but that started
probably my career; I’ve always liked the water. But anyway, I...got all the
way through the...the introduction of joining the Navy and got to a point
where they made a statement that...asked a question, and this is kind of unique
because I’ve never heard it since. The psychiatrist said, “Well look, tell me
young man, have you ever been down on a sheet?” I had no idea what the
hell he was talking about! What he was talking about had I ever had a girl in
the sack.
Ed Metzler: Ohhh, I have never heard that term!
Mr. Fournier: Neither have I!
Ed Metzler: Thought I’d heard of them all (laughter)!
Mr. Fournier: I...I thought I did, too, and I’ve worked with stevedores and I have never
heard that expression. Anyway, he said, “Well, why don’t you come back in a
couple of years from now,” he said, “you’re just too young.” So...okay. So I
left there...so...
Ed Metzler: So they rejected you?!
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, at that point they did. So I got on a bus and immediately went to
Pittsburgh (chuckles), because I knew they had a Naval office up there, and
walked in and went through the whole thing and...and got to their psychiatrist
he said...he said, “What are you looking for?” I said, “I’d like to go aboard a
submarine.” “Well,” he says, “now, we don’t have any submarines.” he said,
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“Tell you what, you come back next year when you’ve got a little age on
you.” And I was kind of naïve for seventeen years old and I said, “Okay.” So
I went back and told my uncle; he said, “What do you mean; they threw you
out?” I said, “Well, they don’t want me now.” “You come with me.” Now
you have to understand, I have an uncle in Pittsburgh that was the largest Ford
dealer in the...Pennsylvania and he wouldn’t take no for an answer on
anything, so the two of us went down to the Pittsburgh recruiting office;
walked in; it’s the old post office building, and he...first thing out of his mouth
was, “Who’s in charge here?” And that was a gentleman by the name of
Commander Geckler (sp?).
Ed Metzler: Geckler?
Mr. Fournier: Geckler, and he says, “Where’s his office?” And the shore patrolman pointed
over there, you know. My uncle took me over and he says, “You sit here and
wait,” and he didn’t even knock on the door; he just opened the door and
walked in and closed the door. And, of course, at that point, anybody that
came by me pointed to me and talked to the shore patrolman and...nobody
seemed to know what was going on. The next thing I knew...out comes my
uncle and Commander Geckler, arm in arm, old buddies. And Commander
comes over, he says, “You really want to go in the Navy, son?” I said, “Yes,
sir.” He said, “Good; let me see your papers,” and he put “passed” on and I
was on my way.
Ed Metzler: It depends on who you know not what you know! (laughter)
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Mr. Fournier: That’s right! And...what my uncle told him, I have no idea. I still think he
gave him a car.
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: Really...I...I think he probably found a...a...
Ed Metzler: A good used car (unintelligible words).
Mr. Fournier: A convertible or something; I mean...he was that kind of a person. And...right
up to the time he died, I would ask him, periodically, “What the hell did you
tell this guy?” He says, “Hey, you got in the service; that’s what you wanted;
let it go!” (Laughter) So I did. But...at any event, they wanted to know what
I wanted and I said, “Well, I’d like a submarine.” “(Unintelligible) oh naw,
can’t...can’t put you on a submarine,” he said, “but how about...how about a
minesweeper?” He says, “You know, that’s the next best things to
submarines,” and he said, “they get...if there’s fresh food brought into an area
and no subs pick it up...minesweepers get it.”
Ed Metzler: Oh, that’s not too bad!
Mr. Fournier: (Chuckles), not knowing what the life of a minesweeper was. (chuckles)
Ed Metzler: Yeah. Yeah, not knowing anything more than the name, huh?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, or how they were built. In the meantime, I went through Diesel School
and all sorts of mechanical engineering type schools that the Navy could find.
Ed Metzler: Now where...where were these located?
Mr. Fournier: They...anywhere...Richmond, Virginia; uh, Great Lakes; I did boot camp at
Great Lakes and then went to a...a...Engineering School there, and then from
there went to Richmond, Virginia to a Diesel School, and then from there to
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Norfolk, Virginia to a Diesel School, and then from there...to Lorain, Ohio to
pick up a brand new ship called the USS Surfbird.
Ed Metzler: Now, what was the date...or not the exact date, but when did you actually go
into the Navy? It was early part of...?
Mr. Fournier: March of ’44.
Ed Metzler: March of ’44, okay. And how long were you in all of these various schools
before you went to Lorain?
Mr. Fournier: (Pause)...
Ed Metzler: Because seems to me like...
Mr. Fournier: November.
Ed Metzler: That’s right, because she was launched in November, right?
Mr. Fournier: (Unintelligible), yeah. (Unintelligible words), I wrote it down.
Ed Metzler: Okay, alright.
Mr. Fournier: And...
Ed Metzler: So the USS Surfbird is a minesweeper and what is her designation?
Mr. Fournier: She was an R (?) minesweeper; two hundred and twenty footer...that...
Ed Metzler: So AM...
Mr. Fournier: AM-383.
Ed Metzler: AM-383, okay.
Mr. Fournier: And...
Ed Metzler: Okay, so tell me about the Surfbird.
Mr. Fournier: Well, at that particular point, the Surfbird did not have a boiler hooked up in
her yet; had a lot of things...no armament on it, and they wanted to get her out
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of the Great Lakes before it froze up. So, we started...the...some Admiral had
the introduction speech at the commissioning and made the statement that, “If
this vessel leaves the dock here and goes out in the middle of Lake Erie and is
sunk and all hands are lost, it’s more than paid for itself.” I always thought
that was kind of a...cruddy way of...telling all the relatives who came to see
you off (chuckles)...that you might not be back! (chuckles)
Ed Metzler: Why...well why...why would it have already paid for itself? I mean...
Mr. Fournier: Well, it could have been a troop ship that went down...
Ed Metzler: My lord!
Mr. Fournier: ...or a freighter of some sort. But anyway, and mine sweeps are built in three
sections – bow, midships and a stern, and to go between any of those sections
you had to come up and go on...on the weather deck and back down again.
Well, the idea is...some guy had a bright idea – if...if the back end blew up, the
midships and the bow would stay together or if the bow blew up, the midships
and the stern would get...stay together. The biggest problem was...mine
sweeps blew up in the middle and nobody figured how to get the bow and the
stern together (laughter).
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: And so they sunk in about three to five minutes.
Ed Metzler: Oh my gosh!
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, they didn’t...they didn’t last at all. Now this was a steel minesweeper.
There were a lot of hundred and thirty –six footers that were wooden
minesweepers called YMS – blood and splinter fleet. They’re very...I don’t
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know if there’s one plaque out here on the wall of a YMS, but most of them
are gone. And...the steel mine sweeps were kept...some of them went to
Mexico as a Mexican destroyer...
Ed Metzler: Talking about after the war?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah.
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: But...I spent my time in the engine room and between...Lorain, Ohio and the
Great Lakes passage on the...no, I can’t think of the name they called it, but
anyway, on up to...Nova Scotia which we loaded some ammo...we loaded at
Nova Scotia and on down to Boston to the Chelsea yards to be finished
out...we had no heat aboard. This was in November of ’44. It was damn cold!
Ed Metzler: I bet.
Mr. Fournier: So I spent twenty-eight days sleeping...
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: ...between the heads of two main...of the main engine. Then I just laid my pea
coat in there and that’s where I’d curl up when I was off of watch. I had
twenty-eight days of...I was...twelve to four watch.
Ed Metzler: Hmm. So what was your position then; you were Engine... Mechanic...?
Mr. Fournier: I was a...a Fireman...
Ed Metzler: Fireman
Mr. Fournier: First Class Diesel Specialist.
Ed Metzler: Okay, Diesel Specialist.
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Mr. Fournier: And...then eventually became a Motor Machinist, Third and a Motor
Machinist Second. Life aboard that ship was...really something. I’ve seen...
Ed Metzler: Now did you have a full complement of crew when she sailed?
Mr. Fournier: We had...yeah, did.
Ed Metzler: From Lorain?
Mr. Fournier: Yes, eighty men and officers.
Ed Metzler: Okay, so were all of these...
Mr. Fournier: (Unintelligible) crowded, because you only had four wash bowls in the crew’s
head. (chuckles)
Ed Metzler: Holy mackerel!
Mr. Fournier: Had four toilets. (chuckles)
Ed Metzler: And you had...
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, it was kind of busy! (chuckle)
Ed Metzler: Man, you had...you had to take a number, didn’t you? (laughter)
Mr. Fournier: Almost, almost! (laughter) And...typical crew. These guys that I served with
were...most of them were twenty, twenty-five, twenty-six years old. A lot of
them were married; had kids; some of them were waiting to get married.
Ed Metzler: Now were they from other ships or were they green like you?
Mr. Fournier: Some were from other ships; I would say the biggest majority of them were
from other ships.
Ed Metzler: So you got a...experience onboard?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, yes, very much so. Some of them had lost mine sweeps.
Ed Metzler: Really?
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Mr. Fournier: And...and there was a couple of them that I know had lost a sweep over in the
European theater.
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: So they were...they were pretty knowledgeable and...and most people don’t
understand when they sweeping for mines. “Uh, how did you do this?” And
it’s kind of a unique system. You have three types of mines. You have a
contact mine; you have a magnetic...or an acoustic mine and you have a
magnetic mine. A contact mine has an anchor and there’s...the...the general
picture is a round ball with spikes sticking out of it.
Ed Metzler: Yeah, it’s the old traditional image of a mine.
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, yeah, it is. And...there’s a cable between the anchor and the...and the
round ball that holds it probably at some particular depth that’s predetermined,
and then off of that round ball is another cable and a little float...like an
antennae...that’s also...if you hit that or the cable between it and the mine or
the cable between the mine and the anchor or the anchor...or the line itself, it’s
going to go off, and so you...you have a system which is a...a cable with two
strands wound in reverse direction. It just looks like a regular cable except
two of the strands are reverse wound on it. And...just run your hand over it;
it’s not sharp; doesn’t cut or anything; it’s about, oh, an inch in diameter,
and...and pulling that through the water about...twelve, thirteen knots, it would
actually saw a quarter inch cable in half.
Ed Metzler: Good gracious!
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Mr. Fournier: Just...rubbing against it. And then, to make sure that that...if it didn’t saw it,
there was explosive devices that looked like a “V” on a cable...on a...this
rough cable...that the mine cable could come into and it would cut them or it’d
ignite it and they...they would have a cutter blade that would fire into them
and shear them, and that would leave the mine to float up to the surface.
Ed Metzler: So you can drag these through the mine field by...
Mr. Fournier: Yeah.
Ed Metzler: ...behind...off the stern, and...
Mr. Fournier: Yes. And what it was... was you had a...a...what they called a depressor or an
otter (sp?) which looked like a sled; two sides with scoops on it, and it had
three...three cables coming off of it; that was the bridle. So you set the type of
angle and depth that you wanted it. Then from that...out to another depressor,
that kept it out...away from the ship and then from that...up to...really was an
old aviation gas tank that had a socket (?) on it with a flag on it and that...you
can find out...if you hit a mine, that thing would dip down, and...or the...the
tension on the cable would go up to twenty-two thousand pounds instantly.
Then...that took care of the mechanical mines. Then on the...on the...the
acoustical mine...you had two big jack hammers in the front in the bow of the
ship, and they hammered against a big diaphragm plate and you could regulate
the speed of the hammering which was the thump of a propeller. So that you
could have...nothing to say...small ships go over that...nothing happen, but if a
large ship went over...
Ed Metzler: Boom!
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Mr. Fournier: ...go off. And...or they...had a device that some Boatswain’s Mate had
invented which was quite unique. It was a couple of pieces of pipe, uh,
probably about three foot long and they were...had a...say...they were one inch
pipe...they had a three inch rod through them, and these two pipes were just
about like that and pulled through the water; they would bang back and forth.
It would also set off an acoustic mine. Then you had...had magnetic mines
and with that you had a...a big electric cable probably...four or five inches in
diameter and one end was a little shorter than the other and it was bare copper
wire. And they would drag that behind the ship and pulsate DC current
through it...going this way once and then reverse the current and go through
the cable in the other direction.
Ed Metzler: So what’d you have a generator onboard that generated these things?
Mr. Fournier: One of the generators off of the main engine.
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: So, as long as it was 440 and the amperage was who knows; I...I know it was
up there.
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Fournier: But...one of the things with that was you went through the mine field first!
(laughter)
Ed Metzler: Yeah, well that’s true actually of...of the...all...all of them.
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, we had a statement that “Wherever the other ships were going, we’d
been there first.”
Ed Metzler: Yeah, you’d already been there!
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Mr. Fournier: That’s right. And...but this...this magnetic deal was...pretty unique in its...in
its way; you just hoped that your ship didn’t have a magnetic field around it.
They would every so often run a degaussing range and when you degauss...all
it means is that...in the hull of the ship is a cable that goes all the way around
the...the ship horizontally and one that goes around the ship vertically, and...
Ed Metzler: Now this is in the hull?
Mr. Fournier: In the hull; built into the ship. And when...they degauss it, generally
speaking, they...they take most everybody off of it. And the used to tell the
story that, “Well, it would...it would sterilize you.” Well, of course, then it
was a fight to stay on the ship.” (laughter)
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: But whether it did or not, I don’t know, but the thing was...if...if you had taken
any new ammo onboard or any new tools or anything in the way of metal,
then you had to run a degaussing range, and that neutralized the ship and any
metal on it so that it wouldn’t affect a magnetic mine.
Ed Metzler: And did that last forever or did it have to be re-done?
Mr. Fournier: Had to be done every...every six months.
Ed Metzler: Every six months?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah. I don’t...I don’t know whether it lasts forever; I don’t know whether it
really had to be done every six months, but it was something that
they...somebody had decided that...
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: ...thought it was a good idea.
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Ed Metzler: So what you had to do was to hook up to one heck of a current to be...and they
would hook it up into the built in cables...
Mr. Fournier: That’s right.
Ed Metzler: ...and run the current through there.
Mr. Fournier: Another ship that had generators or a...a range.
Ed Metzler: Now you couldn’t use your own generators?
Mr. Fournier: Could not, no; they were...they were being degaussed.
Ed Metzler: Right.
Mr. Fournier: And we...we carried minimum armor I would say; we had a five inch...or three
inch fifty Ford (sp?); we had a hedge hog...Ford (sp?); we had...
Ed Metzler: Tell me about hedge hog.
Mr. Fournier: Hedge hog is a...a lot of rockets...together, and by aiming the angle like this,
you could change how they land in the water – circle, square, an X, whatever.
If one goes off, they all go off. If one doesn’t go off, none of them go off.
And they go off on the...on the fact that you hope you...you get a submarine
with one.
Ed Metzler: And that’s what they were for...was to be...
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, anti-submarine. Uh, they...then we had eight, twenty millimeters.
Ed Metzler: Now that’s a fair contingent of anti-aircraft stuff!
Mr. Fournier: Oh yeah, and we had two K-guns for depth charges, and two racks for depth
charges...plus numerous rifles and...
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: ...handguns or whatever. But...
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Ed Metzler: Now what kind of engines did...
Mr. Fournier: Twelve seventy-eight eighties; EMDs. They were the same engine that’s used
in the electric locomotives.
Ed Metzler: Okay, so it’s a General Motors?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah.
Ed Metzler: A Thalison (sp?)?
Mr. Fournier: (Unintelligible).
Ed Metzler: No, Detroit diesel.
Mr. Fournier: Detroit diesels.
Ed Metzler: Right, right.
Mr. Fournier: We had...had four of those; two in the forward engine room operated one
shaft; two in the aft engine room off of the port shaft.
Ed Metzler: So what kind of horsepower are we talking about here?
Mr. Fournier: Seven hundred and...I know I had it here some place.
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Fournier: Uh...
Ed Metzler: So what she good for in knots...maximum?
Mr. Fournier: Oh, you could walk alongside of it! (laughter)
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: Seventeen knots was maximum.
Ed Metzler: That’s nice.
Mr. Fournier: That’s with no gear out, you know...
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
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Mr. Fournier: ...good weather.
Ed Metzler: Tail wind.
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, tail wind, hopefully (laughter).
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: And our Skipper was a unique guy. He was from Louisiana and he was
probably twenty-seven years old or thereabouts and his knowledge of
seamanship was the fact that he had a nineteen foot outboard.
Ed Metzler: That was it, huh?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, and the Navy decided he would be good enough to be Captain
(laughter). He made a lot of mistakes which was kind of unique. As I
said...backing up, we went from Lorain out the Saint Lawrence Seaway, and
once in the locks...froze up...and...in Quebec, and that was a nice town; good
liberty town. And we decided that we were going to stay there for the war.
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: So...and so the engineering department, including myself...
Ed Metzler: So this is Quebec City?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah.
Ed Metzler: Uh huh.
Mr. Fournier: ...we kept pouring fresh water on the gears on the locks and I...I mean they
were really froze solid until some dumb Frenchman came along and...with a
Steam Jennie (sp?) and...(unintelligible)...damn!...thawed them out!
Ed Metzler: (Laughter), yeah, you almost had it
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Mr. Fournier: Oh geez. But anyway...went on into... Lévis and...in Canada where we loaded
ammo and then on down to Boston. On the way down to Boston I had gone
outside to...have a cigarette in the middle of the night, and of course, you have
to understand now, we had no hull paint on us. Our hull was as shiny as a
new silver dollar and the North Atlantic was a prowling ground for the Nazi
submarines. I’m standing up there at the bow and...and this one night...having
a cigarette and I look up on one side and I see three rows of bubbles coming
straight for the ship. And before I could say anything or holler or do anything,
they were going out the other side...still going and...
Ed Metzler: They went under.
Mr. Fournier: That’s right. He set the depth too low because we had the silhouette of a...a
destroyer, and we think that that’s what he was thinking he had. And that was
the last we ever heard of him, but we got the hell out of there!
Ed Metzler: So what was the draft on a mine...
Mr. Fournier: Seven foot. (chuckles)
Ed Metzler: That little?!
Mr. Fournier: Yes. (chuckles)
Ed Metzler: And that’s on purpose, I guess, to try and void getting...hitting mines and...
Mr. Fournier: Probably, probably. It’s hard, even today, it’s hard to find out anything about
minesweeping in the Navy. It’s not talked about; it’s not...published in
any...Naval forms other than, yeah, they sold this one; that one sunk. If you
get a hold of Jane’s Fighting Ships and look up mine...minesweepers in it,
you’ll be amazed at the number that sunk.
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Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: I mean they...they had a very short life; a lot of them...six, seven, eight
months...
Ed Metzler: Man!
Mr. Fournier: ...with better than fifty percent of the crew lost.
Ed Metzler: Man!
Mr. Fournier: So, you know, it was...kind of like submarines; it’s a...it’s a short life program.
Ed Metzler: Uhm! Yeah, and the submariners...feel like they don’t much recognition
either.
Mr. Fournier: That’s right; same thing.
Ed Metzler: And...
Mr. Fournier: So, you know, how danger can a ship named after a bird be? (laughter).
Ed Metzler: Yeah right; doesn’t have that ring to it, does it?
Mr. Fournier: That’s right, no. (laughter)
Ed Metzler: (Laughter), Surfbird doesn’t quite sound like the Enterprise or...
Mr. Fournier: Well, you know, well, I remember one time out in the Pacific...I don’t where
we were...I think Okinawa, and was after the war was over, and...they had a...a
Gunner’s Mate Shoot program and we had a good Gunner’s Mate
from,...some place down in southern Ohio; his name’s Dedowski (sp?)...he’s
since passed away, but anyway, anything he aimed at with that three inch fifty
he hit, at least that’s what we thought. And so, we entered...the Skipper
entered the ship in this contest, and it was a lot of money between the officers
being bet on this...until they opened a...ammunition locker and discovered we
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didn’t have any contact shells, or proximity shells, excuse me. Proximity
shell is the shell that if it gets close to what it’s aimed at, it goes off and, you
know, it’s a hit.
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: He’d used all those for shooting mines, and he...he never missed! (laughter)
Ed Metzler: No wonder, huh?! (laughter)
Mr. Fournier: They immediately backed the ship out of that contest because the old man
would have lost a fortune. (laughter)
Ed Metzler: Yeah!
Mr. Fournier: But he was a...the Skipper was kind of a unique guy; he...he didn’t know too
much about the Navy.
Ed Metzler: Now what was his name again?
Mr. Fournier: Nelson (sp?).
Ed Metzler: Nelson.
Mr. Fournier: Robert Nelson, and he was from New Orleans or some place over there.
And...good Engineering Officer, uh, when Mark Livingwell (sp?), who was a
Chief Warrant...he was a kind of a guy that would come down and say,
“They’re having a fleet inspection next week, and I think the engine room
needs a little touch up here and there.” That’s all he had to say. Everybody
would turn to. I mean it...it looked like a brand new engine room; the guys
liked him and he treated them fair. And he taught me how it
worked...that...never ask somebody to do something you wouldn’t do. You
may not be able to do it, but you would try. So, you know, if you live by that,
Page 20 of 83
you’ll have a good crew, and I found it to be true. After I got my commission,
that’s the way I lived. But...we had another guy by the name of...took his
place...by the name of White (sp?), Lieutenant White, and Lieutenant
White...he just...he was our Engineering officer, but only by the fact that he
probably knew...a box end wrench from an open end wrench. I can recall one
night, and I had a broken high pressure fuel line at one of the engines, and I
called him out of his rack at two or three o’clock in the morning and said,
“You know, I got diesel fuel spraying all over the engine room, but I got to
shut this engine down.” He says, “Well, that’s supposed to take twelve
hundred pounds.” And I said, “I know that, but it broke.” And I said, “You
know, well, you know,” I said...after finally getting him to come down to the
engine room and see that thing spraying oil all over every place...finally
agreed to shut it down. But we had...had a good...Chief for electricians, Chief
Emory (sp?). The engine room had a Chief by the name of Mack (sp?), Chief
Mack. It...it was funny...in...in those days, you know, if you’re an engine
man, you didn’t go up on the fo’c’sle or up on the bridge; that was off limits.
I felt fortunate enough that I saw what was a radar which eventually...with the
way we looked at it...it was the third world’s...first manna oven, because we
were toasting cheese sandwiches on the power supply.
Ed Metzler: (Laughter), oh my gosh!
Mr. Fournier: Anyway, we got to Boston to get fitted out, and so on and so forth, and they
put us in a Marine railway and poured us a bottle of water. And...in the
meantime, going to Boston from Lorain, we had one refrigerator go bad and
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we had fifteen hundred pounds of butter in there...which went rancid, and they
wanted to throw it away. And I...
Ed Metzler: That’s a lot of butter!
Mr. Fournier: That is; that’s a big chunk...like this (showing size of butter)!
Ed Metzler: That is a lot of butter!
Mr. Fournier: And...told them, “Don’t throw it away; put it in the freezer and freeze it. It
won’t have any (unintelligible),” and that was derived from the knowledge
that...I remember one time my dad took me into a bar, and went into the urinal
and it was full of ice. And I asked him, “Why did they put the ice in there?!”
He says, “Keep the odor down.” I remembered that. We freeze that butter;
nobody will be able to smell it. (Unintelligible words) to bargain with, and we
did. We had a white porcelain bathtub between...the main engines in the aft
engine room; we had a still that was first class and had a few other things –
like a steaming locker that was converted into a refrigeration locker
(chuckles).
Ed Metzler: My gosh, all the comforts of home!
Mr. Fournier: Uh, that engine room, yes. Now I can remember...sitting in that damned
bathtub one night reading a comic book with a cigar in my mouth and the
Engineering officer walked in (chuckles).
Ed Metzler: How’d you explain that?
Mr. Fournier: He just took a look at me; shook his head and walked out again.
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: I know he wasn’t going to write that up (chuckles).
Page 22 of 83
Ed Metzler: Because...nobody would believe it!
Mr. Fournier: That’s right.
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: But we sold the butter to get the still...and the bathtub, and we waited until the
last minute...we left at something like...five in the morning, so at three...we
loaded the butter into some of these guy’s...in the yard...their pick-up trucks,
and said, “It’s yours now; you got to get it out the gate!” (Chuckles) And
how they did, I don’t know, but I know that when it started to thaw you could
probably smell it all over Chelsea! (laughter)
Ed Metzler: That’s when they know they’ve gotten had.
Mr. Fournier: That’s right...(unintelligible).
Ed Metzler: (Unintelligible), you guys were all...at sea by then, I hope!
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, we were on our way to Chelsea. (cough) But, any event...out to Pearl;
went to San Diego...
Ed Metzler: So you went down through the Canal.
Mr. Fournier: ...went through Panama Canal; we waited five days down there. And they
sold beer two ways...at the PX at Coco Solo Naval Base...gallon and a half
gallon...fifty cent and a dollar (chuckles).
Ed Metzler: Well, that was a lot of money back then...a dollar!
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, it was, but you could give the guy a five dollar and say, “Hey, when it
runs out, that’s five gallons...beer; when it’s gone...(unintelligible)”
Ed Metzler: Yeah, you can...you can get fair...high on five gallons!
Page 23 of 83
Mr. Fournier: Oh man! And...that was a...that was quite an experience down there. I had
shore patrol one night and the city of Coco Solo was just one big whore house.
Ed Metzler: Coca...?
Mr. Fournier: Coco Solo.
Ed Metzler: Spell it.
Mr. Fournier: C-o-c-a S-o-l-a [s/b Coco Solo]
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Fournier: It’s on the eastern shore of Panama.
Ed Metzler: Okay, so it’s on the Caribbean side?
Mr. Fournier: Yes, and we had to wait to go through with...they wouldn’t put small ships
through. The (unintelligible words). But...
Ed Metzler: So when you went down there you were alone; you weren’t...with any other
ships or anything?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, the Toucan...
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Fournier: ...our sister...our sister ship.
Ed Metzler: Okay, so your sister ship went, too?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah.
Ed Metzler: And what was the name of your sister ship?
Mr. Fournier: Toucan.
Ed Metzler: Spell it.
Mr. Fournier: T-o-u-c-a-n.
Ed Metzler: Oh yeah, okay, as in the...the bird with the big nose and the colored bird...
Page 24 of 83
Mr. Fournier: Yes, that’s right, that’s right.
Ed Metzler: ...etcetera?
Mr. Fournier: Another bird, you know.
Ed Metzler: Yeah well...
Mr. Fournier: All mine sweeps are named after birds.
Ed Metzler: I get it; I’m getting the trend.
Mr. Fournier: And...but from there we went out to...from...from Coco Solo, our base, we
went on up to San Diego; loaded some supplies and stuff in San Diego and
then went out to Pearl.
Ed Metzler: So what are we talking now...end of ’44, early ’45?
Mr. Fournier: Oh, December.
Ed Metzler: December?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah.
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Fournier: And on the way to Pearl, we had...sonar picked up...submarine; it wasn’t ours.
Ed Metzler: So you had sonar onboard?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, and...
Ed Metzler: (Unintelligible).
Mr. Fournier: ...very unique sonar, too. It went down and then you could swivel it any way
at all. Some place along the line they ran into something; it was a little
shallower than they thought and damaged it.
Ed Metzler: Oh no! (chuckle)
Page 25 of 83
Mr. Fournier: But anyway, the submarine was determined to be enemy and we were not
allowed to do anything with it. And it would surface during the daytime;
some place where we couldn’t see it; then I suppose charge batteries.
Then...and at night it would...drive along underneath us or between us and the
Toucan, and it got to the point where nobody would go...go below deck to
sleep. I mean, you know, submarine down here, who you kidding?! I want to
be out here where I can get blown into the water!
Ed Metzler: Now what do you figure...what do you figure the Japanese submarine was up
to?
Mr. Fournier: We don’t know; never did find out. Whether they had somebody aboard there
that they...(pause), a spy, who knows? Just one of those deals. When we
were about four or five hours out of Pearl...submarines disappeared.
Ed Metzler: So how come you guys didn’t depth charge it?
Mr. Fournier: Weren’t allowed.
Ed Metzler: And why?
Mr. Fournier: No reason.
Ed Metzler: Order is an order.
Mr. Fournier: That’s right.
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Fournier: And, of course, from there...went out to...well, we had...we stayed in Pearl
for...probably a week and then went out into the Pacific...various
minesweeping chores...here...there. The big chore was we swept the, I think it
Page 26 of 83
was the South China Sea... archipelago (sp?) straits, and this was...each...there
was eighty-five mine sweeps in that operation.
Ed Metzler: Eighty-five?!
Mr. Fournier: Each ship was sweeping a half of one mile; let cables out; half a mile on each
side.
Ed Metzler: So you could really put a cable out a half a mile on each side?!
Mr. Fournier: Oh yeah! No problem. How high can you fly a kite? You had a bridle out
there on this...depressor out there...that would pull it out. As you’re pulling
through the water, it wants to go that way.
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Fournier: Just like...like a kite.
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Fournier: And, in fact, that’s what they called them, so...
Ed Metzler: It’s kind of like a bird with the wings out, you know, you just...
Mr. Fournier: ...yeah, and...so, you know, when this thing turned, it’s eighty-five ships
turning in one big arc.
Ed Metzler: Well, were you sweeping anything or was it...?
Mr. Fournier: Oh yeah! Yeah, they were popping up like corks. (chuckles)
Ed Metzler: Really?!
Mr. Fournier: And...
Ed Metzler: Now which strait was this?
Mr. Fournier: They call it the arch...I want to think it was the archipelago strait; it was in the
South China Sea.
Page 27 of 83
Ed Metzler: Okay, so it’s a strait between...islands or...?
Mr. Fournier: Okay, I don’t know; I really...even looking at a map today....I...
Ed Metzler: Okay, well...just...
Mr. Fournier: Again, it...that...at that point in life, and that position on the
ship...Quartermaster’s knew where we were; nobody else did. And, you
know, that was the way it is.
Ed Metzler: Now they kept you in the dark so to speak, huh?
Mr. Fournier: That’s right.
Ed Metzler: Well, you had a job and it didn’t really matter where you were; the job was
the job.
Mr. Fournier: That’s right; that’s exactly right. Some things happened in the engine room
that were...if I look back now, they were a riot. I mean, bent over...laughing,
but at that time they were serious.
Ed Metzler: Like what?
Mr. Fournier: Oh, like...we had a runaway diesel...these are...V-16s and we had a leak in one
of them and of course, that’s all it needed was to get oil in the air blocks and it
would just keep running. And so one of the kids that was on watch picked up
a fire extinguisher and (chuckles) squirted it in there...and you want to see an
engine stop?! (chuckles)
Ed Metzler: Man!
Mr. Fournier: Like, on a dime!
Ed Metzler: Did it ruin it?
Page 28 of 83
Mr. Fournier: Uh, not too bad, but we...we had to replace the blower on it; it had a
(unintelligible) blower on it.
Ed Metzler: Oh, so these things were super charged then?
Mr. Fournier: Oh yeah, yeah! All...all those AMB engines would...had blowers on them,
(unintelligible) on them.
Ed Metzler: ...be darned!
Mr. Fournier: And their...their...each had...their...I guess you could say, a head, a piston, the
valves, injector; everything right here...and then right next to it...another
one...dut-ta-dut-ta-duh, and another one.
Ed Metzler: Air cooled or water cooled?
Mr. Fournier: Water cooled.
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Fournier: But each...each head was a...an engine unto itself, so to speak.
Ed Metzler: So one cylinder engine almost...
Mr. Fournier: Yeah.
Ed Metzler: ...and just connected to a common...
Mr. Fournier: Crank shaft.
Ed Metzler: ...uh, crank shaft.
Mr. Fournier: And you could...you could take everything off on that one crank; pull a
piston...we had...we had...let’s see, it would be the starboard engine in the
after engine room; we had a cracked liner; we pulled it out; we had two liners
onboard; we replaced it; that liner cracked; we replaced it and that liner
cracked.
Page 29 of 83
Ed Metzler: Something’s going on there.
Mr. Fournier: Who know? I mean, they finally took...we got all new liners...when we were
in Pearl. And...why they cracked, who knows? Bad machining; bad metal;
you never know.
Ed Metzler: So you replaced them all and it was okay then?
Mr. Fournier: No problem. You had three other small engines – three cylinder, and noisy
sons-of-guns, but they were...electric generators for ship’s electric. You had
two in the forward engine room; one in the after engine room; the after engine
room had two main engines, two generators, or one generator, uh, two big
generators for the main engines; two big electric motors; one gear box, uh,
vapor cloxer (sp?); a boiler; (unintelligible) distiller evaporator for fresh
water; that was it for...for that engine room. And then forward engine room
had two main engines; two main motors and two main generators...uh, two
small generators – these three-cylinder jobs for ship’s power or whatever he
needed; they didn’t have a boiler or anything up there.
Ed Metzler: Hmm. Now when you were doing the minesweeping operations, were you
stationed out of Pearl or did you go and...
Mr. Fournier: That fleet.
Ed Metzler: ...work out of a...out of a port out there in the western Pacific or what?
Mr. Fournier: You worked as a part of...I don’t know what fleet it was anymore.
Ed Metzler: But when you left Pearl you left with a bunch of other minesweepers...
Mr. Fournier: Yes, we did.
Ed Metzler: ...in your first...
Page 30 of 83
Mr. Fournier: This was our first really...
Ed Metzler: ...your first mission if you will...
Mr. Fournier: ...yeah.
Ed Metzler: ...was to sweep the straits in the Ch...South China Sea or...
Mr. Fournier: That’s it; that...in that area. We never crossed the Equator; we never
got...across the International Date Line...that I recall.
Ed Metzler: Well, you must have because...
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, we did cross (unintelligible words)...
Ed Metzler: ...the International Date Line’s out there in the Pacific somewhere. You went
from one side of the Pacific to the other.
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, we went all the way to Sasebo, Japan.
Ed Metzler: Uh hum. So after that big operation where you had eighty-five ships all
working in parallel...
Mr. Fournier: Then it was Okinawa Juno (sp?) operation.
Ed Metzler: Then you did what?
Mr. Fournier: The Okinawa Juno Invasion.
Ed Metzler: Okay, so tell me about that.
Mr. Fournier: Well, that...our job was to sweep in Buckner Bay, and one of the...one of the
deals that I recall was...I...I think it was the [USS] Boston, it was a cruiser,
and we would sweep...alongside like that and go around and the Boston would
move in and we’d sweep again and...and she’d move in a little, and of course,
then we’d go underneath her guns like that and she’d fire broadside, and that’s
an experience. Had sixteen inch shells and when they fire broadside, that ship
Page 31 of 83
would move backwards in the water, sidewards I should say, twelve
foot...just...(slap sound).
Ed Metzler: Isn’t that amazing?!
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, that’s a lot of energy...and...
Ed Metzler: And so she was...shelling the...the shoreline then?
Mr. Fournier: The shoreline. At night...you’d hear these...they’d taken boats and put wheels
on them and had them up in the hills and they would...come down like a roller
coaster into the water and they had a torpedo lashed in the front.
Ed Metzler: This...this is the Japanese?!
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, and...wasn’t a bad idea; it was their suicide group.
Ed Metzler: So tell me again now what this was; they would...?
Mr. Fournier: They’d have...they’d have...say...say, an eighteen or nineteen foot boat...with
an engine in it, and a fuel tank and then a torpedo in the bow, and they’d be up
on the side of the hill on these little railroad cars, you know, like you’d see in
a mine, a coal mine or something.
Ed Metzler: Uh hum, uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: Then they’d push them off and they’d run down the hill and go like mad
across the water and aim for one boat.
Ed Metzler: Now this is off of Okinawa?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, this is in Buckner Bay. And you could hear those...those wheel
screaming and banging (errrhhh sounds) going down there and you’d just sit
and wait, “Which way is he coming?”
Ed Metzler: And so did they hit any ships with those things?
Page 32 of 83
Mr. Fournier: Oh yeah, two or three of them.
Ed Metzler: Really?!
Mr. Fournier: But...
Ed Metzler: Well, that’s the first I’ve ever heard of that.
Mr. Fournier: It was quite unique. They...they...the boat was like a Japanese landing craft, if
you will.
Ed Metzler: I heard of the...of the suicide boats, but I didn’t know that they were launched
on a...
Mr. Fournier: On a roller coaster.
Ed Metzler: ...on a roller coaster (unintelligible).
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, once you started downhill, the guys couldn’t get out (chuckles).
Ed Metzler: Well that...
Mr. Fournier: But...
Ed Metzler: But none of those ever came close to you guys?
Mr. Fournier: Not that we know of.
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: Not that we know. We had smoke generators that...I can remember one night
one of them caught fire and you really didn’t want that during an air raid
because it lit up the whole back end of that ship like a flood light!
Ed Metzler: Man!
Mr. Fournier: But we finally got it out.
Ed Metzler: So tell me about the air raids.
Page 33 of 83
Mr. Fournier: You know, two...I want to think one of them was off a Truk. A couple of
planes came over and...I...foggy, but they...somehow or another they...they
sounded general quarters and the next thing we knew...we were going by a
Japanese destroyer that was backed into a cay or a slot on this island getting
repairs done, and the only thing that saved our neck was he couldn’t lower his
forward guns low enough to hit us.
Ed Metzler: Now this is on...still Okinawa?
Mr. Fournier: This was...one of the islands; I don’t know whether it was...
Ed Metzler: Right around Truk?
Mr. Fournier: Or someplace like that.
Ed Metzler: Part of...part of the Okinawa Campaign?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, and...of course, we landed everything we had on that poor guy, and it
was right...I remember one thing, it was right at suppertime when they
sounded general quarters and everybody was bitching because, you know,
geez, just get a hot meal and you want to take it away from us! But there was
another...during Okinawa there was, you know, “do a fair game.” Give...you
were the wrong side.
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: So you had planes that came in and they were looking for battleships or...I
remember the [USS] Franklin was a...CVE, a small aircraft carrier, they had a
bet...it came in...shot the last...the last plane of the...of the Franklin’s fleet, and
pulled in and rolled in that place and nobody noticed him. And all the ones in
front of him landed, and he landed...torpedo on him...on the main deck.
Page 34 of 83
Ed Metzler: So it was kamikaze?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah.
Ed Metzler: Or was it a bomb?
Mr. Fournier: It was a bomb, and the deck looked just like that when they were coming into
Okinawa, Buckner Bay. I don’t know...how many killed or anything about it;
we just knew that they’d gotten hit.
Ed Metzler: So did...did you see the Franklin when she came in?
Mr. Fournier: Oh yeah, yeah, (unintelligible words).
Ed Metzler: Because she later...got sunk when they were towing her to the U.S. I think,
by...I think that one may have been a kamikaze, I’m not sure.
Mr. Fournier: I don’t know.
Ed Metzler: There’s a lot of debate, I think, over that.
Mr. Fournier: Well, it was...
Ed Metzler: It really took some hits!
Mr. Fournier: It did, and...I have to say that basically unless you were actively involved in
something, the crew was kept...behind hidden curtains, so to speak. You
didn’t really know what was going on, especially the engine room.
Ed Metzler: Well, you were down...down in the black hole...
Mr. Fournier: That’s right.
Ed Metzler: ...and you were busy making engine (unintelligible).
Mr. Fournier: That’s right, and you know, I can remember a lot of times when had general
quarters sounded...I was a Gun Captain, and so I would get out of there, but a
couple of times...
Page 35 of 83
Ed Metzler: So you were Gun Captain on what; one of the twenty meters?
Mr. Fournier: Forty millimeter.
Ed Metzler: Forty millimeter?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, we had two quad forties, and...
Ed Metzler: Uh hum, so what’d you have...a gun crew then...?
Mr. Fournier: You had...as Gun Captain, you fired it, and you...let’s see...on this side...you
had elevation. The guy sitting on the other side had horizontal movement.
Now this I thought was...so I wasn’t even in engineering in those days and I
thought, “Boy, that’s a stupid thing!” This guy’s over here cranking the barrel
to go this way, and you see the target over here and you’re raising the gun up
and down...
Ed Metzler: You really got to be coordinated with that guy, don’t you?!
Mr. Fournier: (Laughter), yeah.
Ed Metzler: I mean...
Mr. Fournier: “What...what are you looking at, Charlie!”
Ed Metzler: Yeah, “Wait, wait, wait, no, back the other way!” (laughter)
Mr. Fournier: That’s exactly what you hear!
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: So...so you got...
Ed Metzler: (Unintelligible words) those two guys and then you got what...a Loader and
a...
Mr. Fournier: You got...got...
Ed Metzler: ...and...and an ammo guy that brings the...
Page 36 of 83
Mr. Fournier: He brings it up, he brings a...a pack of four shells up then the Loader shoves
them down in, and the gun tub is full of brass, about that deep (chuckles)...
Ed Metzler: Uh humm
Mr. Fournier: ...and you’re looking at that thing and, “Boy, I sure wish they had all stuff
back in the States some place! (chuckle)
Ed Metzler: Yeah, well that’s...
Mr. Fournier: And you know where most of...a lot of it went? Tailpipe extensions on hot
rods!
Ed Metzler: Well, yeah, that’s about the right size! (laughter)
Mr. Fournier: It is; it is...(unintelligible) down.
Ed Metzler: Yeah, and it (unintelligible).
Mr. Fournier: ...all you have to do is cut the fuse end off...
Ed Metzler: (Laughter), yeah!
Mr. Fournier: ...and it’s brass. So when you got like that to it...it rings.
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Fournier: And if you wanted a good sound coming out of your hot rod...
Ed Metzler: Man! Hadn’t thought about that!
Mr. Fournier: ...you had to have a brass one! (chuckles)
Ed Metzler: So did you actually...far as you know...bring any...any aircraft down or...?
Mr. Fournier: I think one or two.
(end of tape 1, side A)
Ed Metzler: This is tape 1, side 2. Okay.
Page 37 of 83
Mr. Fournier: You...you’re looking at a bunch of planes out there and you’re firing at them
and, you know, every fourth round or so is a tracer, but you don’t know if you
hit that one or that one.
Ed Metzler: Because there’s a...first there’s a lot of tracers out there.
Mr. Fournier: That’s right.
Ed Metzler: There’s a lot of airplanes up there.
Mr. Fournier: And they’re coming from other ships, too.
Ed Metzler: Right.
Mr. Fournier: So you’re not the only one shooting at them.
Ed Metzler: And...do you have a...a mix of U.S. aircraft up there also or they stay away
when...
Mr. Fournier: Uh, it depends. Uh, I take it back. When we...let’s see, yeah, when we were
in Boston...because I was a Gun...I was going to be a Gunner on a forty
millimeter, a bunch of us were sent to Rhode Island...to a Gunnery School up
there.
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: And geez, it was cold! And I remember the...the instructor said, “If you think
you guys are on the target and had...TBS, (unintelligible) target sleeves, you
know...
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: ...if you think you’re on a target, fire!” Sure...we shot the tail off of a TBF.
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Page 38 of 83
Mr. Fournier: That son of a gun, it didn’t kill him, he got wet, cold and he came looking for
us afterwards.
Ed Metzler: I bet!
Mr. Fournier: And he wasn’t happy! (chuckles)
Ed Metzler: Heck no!
Mr. Fournier: But...I mean...that was your training, you know. You had...had the blind
leading the blind so to speak.
Ed Metzler: Well, of course that wasn’t your primary purpose in life.
Mr. Fournier: No, it wasn’t.
Ed Metzler: You...you guys were supposed to sweep mines and...
Mr. Fournier: We kept track of the mines. We...that...that...we knew we swept...those were
the ones that you brought to the surface that you could shoot at and sink,
Ed Metzler: So when you pop them to the surface, you then have to pop them with a gun?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, that’s why our Gunner’s Mate was so good (chuckles).
Ed Metzler: Right! He had a lot of practice.
Mr. Fournier: Oh yeah, but he didn’t even have to hit them.
Ed Metzler: Well, that’s right, and anywhere in the neighborhood!
Mr. Fournier: If his shell got...got within fifty foot, it went off! (chuckles) So...but...then we
had...my job was to paint the...the mines and I think...
Ed Metzler: What...paint the little insignias on the mines?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, yeah...a little round deal; I made a stencil for it.
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Page 39 of 83
Mr. Fournier: I want to think we...we were up to twenty-five or twenty-six mines that...that
we knew we sunk. You really...some of them sink and they go straight to the
bottom when you cut them loose; they’re not floating.
Ed Metzler: So were the Japanese mines pretty advanced or were they rudimentary; I mean
how...
Mr. Fournier: Rudimentary. There’s a lot of them out there...even today...
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Fournier: ...rusting. Most of them had a...a deal that...I’m trying to remember where it
was...I went through Mine Craft School; it was a...had a salt pill (?) of some
sort with two conductors and when they throw them off the water would
dissolve the salt and then the mine became armed. Uh, they were supposed to
have some sort of de-armament that...was over a period of...I understood when
I heard about it...a ye...over a year. In other words, and it’s an international
deal that the wine...mine is supposed to become inactive after so many years.
Ed Metzler: Oh, kind of like a Geneva Convention type thing!
Mr. Fournier: Uh, whether they did or not...
Ed Metzler: Yeah, I was going to say, they weren’t real good about following the rules as I
remember (laughter).
Mr. Fournier: No, no, and...but their stuff was...I would say pretty fair. Their rifles
were...they had thirty-one caliber rifle (cough)...which was pretty smart on
their attitude. Their thirty-one caliber rifle would take a thirty caliber
projectile...from our guns.
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
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Mr. Fournier: So they could use our ammo if they captured...our...we captured their...
Ed Metzler: Couldn’t use it?
Mr. Fournier: Couldn’t use the damned stuff.
Ed Metzler: They were just slightly bigger.
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, they had...they used...and then they had a...I want to think it was
Nambo (sp?)...twenty-five caliber; it was a sniper’s rifle; it was well made.
But the thirty-one caliber, they still had the turn marks on...from the lathe on
the barrel, I mean...they were rough!
Ed Metzler: They were cranking those things out!
Mr. Fournier: Once over the...yeah, well...pop and that’s it, you know, don’t come back
(chuckles). But...
Ed Metzler: So after...so you guys were there the whole time during the Okinawa
Campaign?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, oh yeah.
Ed Metzler: And...
Mr. Fournier: Yep, that was our last campaign. Then we went to...Shanghai. We went
to...Ukiska (sp?), Japan, or...not Ukiska, but to Sasebo, Japan.
Ed Metzler: That’s S-a-s-e-b-o as I remember.
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, Sasebo. Went there to have some work done; one mine went off close
to the ship and it dent one of the struts, and so we went in there to have it
repaired; they had a...dry dock in there.
Ed Metzler: Now this was after the war was over obviously.
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, yeah. And then from there we went to Shanghai.
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Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: And...
Ed Metzler: Why’d your ship go to Shanghai?
Mr. Fournier: I don’t know why we went over there; went in and out of Shanghai a couple of
times. I think we were still sweeping the entrance to Shanghai on the South
China Sea, but then...I got transferred to...the [USS] Boyant, B-o-y-a-n-t,
which was a hundred and eighty foot minesweeper...which was going to be
sold to the Chinese. So the government sold the hull...the crew sold all the
figs – door knobs, anything. I can remember taking a can of fire foam which
is soybean juice...
Ed Metzler: Hum!
Mr. Fournier: ...and, you know, you mix it with water and it makes foam. But it comes in
a...in a red can, five gallon can, and we would...take...pour most of it out;
throw some paint, white paint, in it then throw in...maybe a couple of gallons
of diesel fuel. And if you stirred it, the white paint’d...stick to the
stick...looked like pigment, and the oil looked like...paint oil, and we’d sell it
to the Chinese for, you know, water-proof oil. (chuckles) And they’re
probably still waiting for it to dry.
Ed Metzler: Yeah, (laughter)! Naughty you!
Mr. Fournier: Uh, we sold...we had a spare spool of minesweep cable on the Boyant; they
tried everything to get it out of it...after mine gear storage. They
couldn’t...just could not pick it up.
Ed Metzler: Too heavy?
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Mr. Fournier: Yeah, too heavy. So one of the Chinese that would come aboard every night
to bargain, you know, “We want that door knob or that gauge,”
whatever...they wanted to buy that by the foot. Okay! So here we ran a bar
through it; put a chain fall on each end and got it up to just so it’d clear the
deck; “you pull it out and we’d measure it,” see, and when he got to
where...where his money was running out...take a torch and cut it. I can
remember a couple of them got greedy and they got too much for the sampan
and the whole works went down!
Ed Metzler: Oh, no! (laughter)
Mr. Fournier: But...
Ed Metzler: So were you on shore much when you had Shanghai duty?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, every other day, every other day.
Ed Metzler: And how long were you in the Shanghai area?
Mr. Fournier: Oh, probably a couple of months.
Ed Metzler: So what was Shanghai like? This is...
Mr. Fournier: New York City.
Ed Metzler: It’s like New York City in the orient, huh?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, it had a...on the...on one of the buildings downtown had Camel’s
“Smoke Cigarettes,” sign that blew smoke rings only the wording was all in
Chinese.
Ed Metzler: Yeah, that’s just like the one on...on...
Mr. Fournier: The one in New York.
Ed Metzler: ...on Broadway, yeah, Times Square.
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Mr. Fournier: Yeah, same...same thing.
Ed Metzler: Huh!
Mr. Fournier: Same thing.
Ed Metzler: And all of that had survived the war? Wasn’t Shanghai pretty beat up during
the war?
Mr. Fournier: Not really, not really. The people were, but not the buildings and that. The
Weon (sp?) Company was the same as Marshall Field [s/b Marshall Fields]
and they still had three types of money in Shanghai; you had the Gold Seal –
well, that was...that was for sure; that...you could cash that any place!
Ed Metzler: Now Gold Seal...what...?
Mr. Fournier: Gold Seal...bills.
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Fournier: Then you had...China National Bank, CNB.
Ed Metzler: Correct.
Mr. Fournier: See, that was pretty fair. Then you had CNC, China National...or (pause), I
forget now any more, anyway that...the third one, nobody wanted; it was
Japanese; it was not worth it then. I...but it looked like...it looked like...
Ed Metzler: It’s kind of like occupation money, huh?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, and it looked like the good stuff, so we would get...you...you...for...four
dollars...you get that much of it! (chuckles), so you stick it under your blouse.
It was up on the...the Weon Company had a...had a restaurant patio on the
fourteenth floor; it was outside, and if you can imagine Times Square...the
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people trying the leave after a New Year’s Eve celebration...that’s what the
streets looked like every day of the week.
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: And you just get this stuff...over the side of the buildings, and you sit there
and watch them. You know, they’re seeing all this green stuff coming down;
heck, that’s money, you know?! Maybe they had that much of it; probably
worth a penny (chuckles).
Ed Metzler: But they still scrambled for it though, huh?
Mr. Fournier: Oh yeah! It...the traffic jams were tremendous!
Ed Metzler: Uh hum, uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: Prices fluctuated every hour; you could go ashore with a twenty dollar bill;
have dinner; get your uniform embroidered inside and out and do all these
different things and buy stuff and come back with twenty dollars and all the
loot...if you knew when the money changed. When...when the dollar, the
American dollar, was worth more, that’s when you sold it. When it was worth
less, that’s when you traded it.
Ed Metzler: So you were day traders (chuckles) only with...with money...
Mr. Fournier: That’s right.
Ed Metzler: ...for money...for currency.
Mr. Fournier: For currency.
Ed Metzler: Currency day trading in Shanghai.
Mr. Fournier: Yeah (chuckles), never thought it that way.
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Page 45 of 83
Mr. Fournier: That’s about what it was!
Ed Metzler: Well yeah, that...that’s (unintelligible) version of it.
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, the wing on...or not the wing, the Shanghai Club was equivalent to
probably the...the best golf course operation in that part of the world; had an
excellent restaurant and in the basement...
Ed Metzler: So did you go there?
Mr. Fournier: Oh yeah, oh yeah! The basement...it had a duck (?) vent (?) alley and
remember being swept out of my mind going down there and throwing
the...the balls are about that big, you know, and throwing at the
(unintelligible) pins! But...
Ed Metzler: So how...how did the Chinese people treat American...
Mr. Fournier: No problem; they were...they were spenders. So we had no problem.
Ed Metzler: Had the money, so...
Mr. Fournier: We had the money. Also the Chinese were...were somewhat gullible to some
of the more...sharper American sailors...that, you know, you...you’d...turn
your pea coat sleeve inside out and stencil your name on it and turn it back in,
see, then you’d sell it to some Chinaman (chuckles) for ten dollars and call the
shore patrol, “Hey, he stole my pea...pea coat! It’s got my name in it.” And
shore patrol go over, “You’re right (swish sound),” take it away from him,
see, and you go find another...
Ed Metzler: (Chuckles).
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Mr. Fournier: ...shoes. We paid five dollars for shoes and sold them for twenty-five dollars.
I can...I can remember many times going back to the ship
barefooted...stocking feet.
Ed Metzler: Well who would you sell...who would pay twenty-five for it?
Mr. Fournier: To the local Chinese.
Ed Metzler: So you’d buy them for five from whom?
Mr. Fournier: Ship’s store.
Ed Metzler: Ah, ship’s store! Sure!
Mr. Fournier: Yeah.
Ed Metzler: Well, they must have come back rich!
Mr. Fournier: Not really.
Ed Metzler: (Chuckles).
Mr. Fournier: I did...I...I bought a string of pearls that were not...materially made; they
were...they were really pearls and about that long; they were graduated; the
largest one in the center and went out...and I paid sixty dollars for
them...in...at...in the café hotel gift shop. And the guy asked me, he says,
“How do you know those are real?” I said, “I know two officers that just
bought pearls over here,” and I said, “if they’re not real, I can tell you one
thing, your life is at stake.”
Ed Metzler: I’ll be back (chuckle).
Mr. Fournier: I...I’ll be back with a couple of other guys!
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
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Mr. Fournier: And...but anyway, when I got back to the States, I thought well, you know,
it’s something nice for my mother. I took them down and had them appraised
– fifteen hundred dollars worth!
Ed Metzler: Wow!
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, I paid sixty.
Ed Metzler: Wow!
Mr. Fournier: Good buy.
Ed Metzler: Good mark up!
Mr. Fournier: I had a lot of other stuff including...uniform...my...my good uniform and I sent
it back; I packed up a box; I had two bolts of silk tablecloths; camphor wood
chest; some jade; a bunch of other stuff that I’d gotten...and packed it up and
shipped it back and the damned ship got in Typhoon X and sunk!
Ed Metzler: Oh no!
Mr. Fournier: So that was all my Christmas presents for four or five years.
Ed Metzler: Oh no!
Mr. Fournier: (Chuckle).
Ed Metzler: Oh my gosh!
Mr. Fournier: But...
Ed Metzler: So do you remember the day when...the Japanese surrendered; hearing about
that aboard ship or...
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, you know...
Ed Metzler: ...stick in your mind at all? Wasn’t a big deal?
Mr. Fournier: Well, the war was over.
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Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Fournier: I mean...there was a lot of times when you heard war news about such and
such happening or such and such ship being sunk, but it wasn’t anything you
could see, so...
Ed Metzler: Did you ever hear of Tokyo Rose on the radio?
Mr. Fournier: Oh yeah! Yeah.
Ed Metzler: Tell me about that; that’s a real experience I would think.
Mr. Fournier: Ah! Oh, she would name names but never named anybody on our ship; we
weren’t important I guess. But she would call out names, and of course, you
had no...no knowledge of whether these names were real or not, you know,
like George so and so from such and such a ship. Well, you know, maybe the
guys on that ship knew there was a George on there or maybe there wasn’t,
and they just laughed at it. But anybody else heard says, “Oh, she’s getting
pretty close to all...naming the people like that.”
Ed Metzler: Yeah, right, right.
Mr. Fournier: But I don’t ever...have any idea of what happened to her.
Ed Metzler: Hmm, I think they tried her for war crimes after the war.
Mr. Fournier: Probably, probably.
Ed Metzler: But...was there ever a chance that you guys were likely to be involved in the
Invasion of Japan; do you...you know, they were planning to invade before
they dropped the atomic bomb.
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, I’m sure that that was going to happen. We were asked if we
wanted...and...and you brought up something. We were asked if we wanted to
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see that atomic explosion and everybody on...on the ship with me...had the
same attitude, “What the hell, we’ve seen explosions before; we want...it’s
time to go home!” That ‘s the key thing – it’s time to go home; get rid of
this...stuff! I had a neighbor...living up here in Ingraham (sp?) where I do,
right across the street; he was in the Army; he went to watch it; he was burnt
from one end to the other. He said...
Ed Metzler: When you said went to watch it, you talking about the ones they dropped on
Japan?!
Mr. Fournier: No, the ones on the...the atolls.
Ed Metzler: Oh! The...Eniwetok Atoll and all the ones where they were testing...
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, yeah.
Ed Metzler: ...the weapons against the old ships...
Mr. Fournier: Yeah.
Ed Metzler: ...and yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mr. Fournier: And what I could never figure out, you know, they already used two of them
in Japan; now they’re going to test and see if they work. Those two really
worked! And of course...
Ed Metzler: Yeah, but maybe they were bigger...better designs or something.
Mr. Fournier: Who knows; who knows?
Ed Metzler: My gosh.
Mr. Fournier: But he was...he was burnt bad from...radiation.
Ed Metzler: (Unintelligible).
Mr. Fournier: His hands were black; the color that...of your shirt.
Page 50 of 83
Ed Metzler: Wow!
Mr. Fournier: And...
Ed Metzler: Now what about... Sasebo (pronunciation) or Sasebo (pronunciation), however
you pronounce...
Mr. Fournier: Sasebo.
Ed Metzler: ...in Japan...what...what did you see when you were there and...
Mr. Fournier: A shipyard; a...houses on the side of the hill; gardens which we...if they were
growing strawberries or anything, we...we’d raid and then found out that we
couldn’t eat them because they were fertilizing with hummus and (chuckles)...
Ed Metzler: Uhm!
Mr. Fournier: ...yeah.
Ed Metzler: How did the Japanese seem; were they...indifferent or...?
Mr. Fournier: I...I can remember going to a dance hall and...and yanking (chuckle), I think I
still have a picture of her, yanking a gal out to have somebody take a picture
of me and her; she was in a white satin gown that came down to here, but
actually it was more gray than white; it was about the color of that file case...
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Fournier: ...and I...as long as I had a hold of her, she would stand next to me, but she
had GI socks on and GI boots (chuckles).
Ed Metzler: (Laughter), this is the old, “Ah, your mother wears Army boots,” only this is
your date...wore Army boots! (laughter)
Mr. Fournier: And I mean, the minute I looked over...her...(psst sound)...
Ed Metzler: She was gone!
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Mr. Fournier: ...she was gone! I don’t know if she thought we were going to rape her or
what, but...hundreds of people standing around. Most of the Japanese I saw
were...were kind of glad to see the Americans. They really weren’t
after...they didn’t like the war...because...
Ed Metzler: Yeah, they got beat up pretty bad.
Mr. Fournier: They did.
Ed Metzler: I imagine Sasebo got bombed pretty thoroughly.
Mr. Fournier: It did; it was a big...big yard. We had a...one of the guys found a...a railroad
train, and so we used that to haul people in to town and back. Engineers
on...on our boat were very...ingenuity-wise; they...they, you know, give
them...give them a piece of metal or something and...
Ed Metzler: They could make it work.
Mr. Fournier: ...and they’d make it work whatever it was!
Ed Metzler: Yeah, (laughter).
Mr. Fournier: We had the train with three or four cars; we had two trucks that we
confiscated that worked on charcoal burners.
Ed Metzler: You know I’ve heard about that!
Mr. Fournier: Yeah (chuckles). I would hate to ever take one apart to work on it because
they were nothing but soot pots (chuckles)!
Ed Metzler: How much...don’t see how those things could work, but I guess they did.
Mr. Fournier: The fumes from the...from the charcoal, compressed charcoal; horrible
fumes...be smelling it a mile off and (chung, chung chung sound)
Ed Metzler: Isn’t that something?!
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Mr. Fournier: Didn’t really...uh, in Sasebo...we were involved in the yard. We found out
one thing that the guys in the yard, the Japanese, would work longer if we fed
them, and they ate chili that would...make jalapenos look like...gun drops
(chuckles)!
Ed Metzler: Really?!
Mr. Fournier: I mean...I can remember that cook dumping pounds of red pepper into the
chili to stretch it (chuckles)!
Ed Metzler: Well, some of their stuff is hot, you know, their food, so...
Mr. Fournier: So, you know, they thought was pretty...pretty...
Ed Metzler: ...they (unintelligible) be okay.
Mr. Fournier: ...they worked like mad.
Ed Metzler: (Laughter), god!
Mr. Fournier: They worked till sundown, and...
Ed Metzler: So how long after the war did you come back to the States?
Mr. Fournier: Well, let’s see, I came back in...June of ’46.
Ed Metzler: So...from...September of ’45 until June of ’46 you had the Shanghai
experience; the Sasebo...
Mr. Fournier: Oh yeah.
Ed Metzler: ...and what else; was there anything else other than...
Mr. Fournier: No. Oh, yeah. We stopped at Guam, and shortly after Typhoon X hit...gone
over Guam, and after that...Typhoon X rolled us ninety degrees; we took
water in the stacks...which immediately as dispersed because those were the
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air intakes also, and it dispersed into all the quarters through these Anemostat
grilles (chuckle), so everything you had was soaked with salt water.
Ed Metzler: So the whole...ship interior got...
Mr. Fournier: Got wet.
Ed Metzler: ...a nice spray of salt water.
Mr. Fournier: Oh, geez, really bad. But...
Ed Metzler: Now did you get...just a little seasick; got...?
Mr. Fournier: No, I’ve never been seasick in my life.
Ed Metzler: Never bothered you. Of course, you had been sailing in...since you were...just
a kid, huh?
Mr. Fournier: That’s right, and...there’s day when it was rough and you learned...don’t
watch the horizon ‘cause it’s doing this...and you’ll get sick!
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: Uh, it’s...some reason or another, the Navy always served pork chops on
rough weather.
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: I don’t know why, but...
Ed Metzler: Good, greasy, yeah (laughter).
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, greasy. You learn not to drink a lot of coffee when it’s rough out,
and...but no, I...I never got seasick. I’d get so I was...I didn’t want to horse
around...nothing...no pranks or anything.
Ed Metzler: Yeah, you weren’t playful anymore, huh?
Page 54 of 83
Mr. Fournier: Yeah. (Pause) I don’t say it disrespectfully, but I don’t know...on that
ship...maybe some of the officers had a little bit more sense, but most of the
crew never took anything real...really serious. I mean it was always a...wasn’t
serious, it was a damned problem if something happened, “Hey, now we got
to fix that!”
Ed Metzler: What do you think that...what do you think caused that?
Mr. Fournier: Age.
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Fournier: That’s...heck...
Ed Metzler: They were old enough to be cynical.
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen when I came home; I was still grown up; I
wasn’t old enough to buy a damned beer! And...and, you know, when I think
back upon it, that was serious! And...
Ed Metzler: Well...what was kind of a...toughest experience for you when you were over
there? What, you know, what was the low point in your...experience over
there?
Mr. Fournier: Not coming back with my ship.
Ed Metzler: Oh, tell me about that.
Mr. Fournier: Well, they transferred, you know, if you’re going home..., “Okay, you’re
though,” you know, “we don’t need you anymore; transfer you to a ship that’s
going back to the States.” And I said, “Well, I...I want to stay with the ship.”
“Well, can’t do that.” So, no reason why...just, you know, “So long.”
Ed Metzler: So that’s when they stuck you on the other ship?
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Mr. Fournier: Yeah.
Ed Metzler: And you had to stay longer as a result of that?
Mr. Fournier: I stayed a little bit longer.
Ed Metzler: But not with your guys?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, but not with my guys, a whole...whole new crew, and some of us were
from the Surfbird, but most of the guys were from the Boyant...were...or from
wherever they came from; I don’t know, and we left the Boyant there. In fact,
I...I had the paper, and I don’t know the newspaper, Shanghai Herald, and I
don’t know whatever happened to it, but when we left there was the Boyant
and three other ships tied outward to us in the Yangtze River. It seems that
the Boatswain’s Mate that was with us sold all the lines on the inboard
ship...except one! Then when he got off, he jerked it and this whole section of
ships swung out into the Yangtze River! And, you know, I can remember
standing on the stern of that ship I was on looking and say, “By god, they got
it!” But, you know, that was the attitude basically...most everybody that I
could think of was looking for something for free...whether to use it where
they were or they take it with them and go home. I had a toolbox
that...Lefingwell (sp?) assigned for me...that I had...I...I had a Machinist
tool...tool chest; everything you’ve ever wanted as a Machinist, and a nice
chest. And I found out there was no way for that to get off the damned ship
without getting caught...over the side.
Ed Metzler: They wouldn’t let you take that home?
Mr. Fournier: No.
Page 56 of 83
Ed Metzler: That was government issue, huh?
Mr. Fournier: That’s right.
Ed Metzler: Hmm.
Mr. Fournier: I can remember...mustering out at Great Lakes; walking out of the room and
there was a big waste basket by the door; typical government waste basket,
about that big around...about that high and a newspaper laying on top of it.
This is one of those things...you walk by and you..., “I wonder what the hell’s
in there that’s got all that newspaper on it?” Picked it up; says, “The brace of
’45.” There’s a right and a left hand...pearl-handled 45s down there. No, I
don’t want those; that’s...you know, a rifle, you can get away with; no hand
guns though. Lose a handgun and you’re name was hung!
Ed Metzler: Really?!
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, and...in any part of the service. You lose a handgun and boy, you better
figure out where it went. You lose a rifle, well, that’s okay.
Ed Metzler: Yeah, there’s tons of those, I guess, yeah.
Mr. Fournier: And...
Ed Metzler: So did you guys use that...still to good purpose? What...
Mr. Fournier: Oh yes!
Ed Metzler: So what did you brew and how did you brew it?
Mr. Fournier: Well, you know, we took anything – potatoes, bananas, any kind of fruit,
vegetables that you cook and yeast; we needed yeast. So whenever the...the
Cooks were making bread, the fans in the galley would go off.
They’d...they’d suddenly have a short (chuckle), and then a Cook would come
Page 57 of 83
down in the engine room and, “Boy, can you get a...,” “Man, we...we can’t
spare a man, Cookie, we’re just, you know, we’re up to our neck in...cleaning
up the engine room,” or some damn...lame excuse and we’d wait till he was
down...about the third time...just sweat’s pouring off of him, you know? The
galley wasn’t any bigger than this and it had three caldrons and two ovens in
it.
Ed Metzler: Oh, so it was about a...an eight by twelve room, huh?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, and..., “Geez, man!” He said, “Well, is there anything I can get you
guys?” “No, got any prunes?” “Yeah, we got prunes.” Said, “Okay, we can
use some prunes. How about some yeast? We need some yeast,” (chuckle),
you know, and that would be whatever we made.
Ed Metzler: So this is just like white lightning or something (unintelligible)?
Mr. Fournier: Oh yeah, it’s...strong stuff!
Ed Metzler: (Chuckles).
Mr. Fournier: And you don’t want to eat the (unintelligible) because that’s like taking Milk
of Magnesia by the quart!
Ed Metzler: That’ll go...right through you!
Ed Metzler: So you (laughter)...had to learn that the hard way probably.
Mr. Fournier: And...yes, but most everybody did.
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: And, we learned one thing, too; it cost us our still. We had a...an unwritten
law that, “You didn’t run the still when...when we were sweeping,” because
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occasionally you would back down and that meant that the odor from the
still...could get up to the bridge.
Ed Metzler: When you say back down, what do you mean?
Mr. Fournier: Reverse.
Ed Metzler: Oh, you, oh you put her in reverse, okay.
Mr. Fournier: Or even stopped (chuckles). And I remember one of the...one of the
Quartermasters called us and said, “The old man is on the way down, and he
didn’t hit a step on that ladder!” (chuckles)
Ed Metzler: Really?!
Mr. Fournier: And...that was the end of the still (chuckles).
Ed Metzler: That, too, went overboard, huh?
Mr. Fournier: That...went overboard.
Ed Metzler: Complete with the bath...the bathtub and everything?
Mr. Fournier: (Unintelligible), we had a...an L-5 airplane that went overboard in San Diego
Harbor (chuckles) on a freighter. We were on a...on...on the USS Delta.
Ed Metzler: This is when you came home?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, ARG. A kid from Pittsburgh, he was a washed out cadet, and he
managed to steal a...an L-5 and take it apart and they had it aboard the Delta
and we got in and...boy, they were going through everything like mad,
so...airplane went over the side (chuckles).
Ed Metzler: My gosh.
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Mr. Fournier: But I mean...that’s nothing, I mean...you hear stories of people shipping parts
of jeep home and all...they did do that. And, you know, if it was the
governments, it was mine.
Ed Metzler: Well, yeah, I mean it was probably just going to get thrown overboard or
thrown away anyhow.
Mr. Fournier: Oh yeah, it just...
Ed Metzler: The waste was...just amazing.
Mr. Fournier: And...and it’s kind of funny; I skippered a private yacht...before I retired. Oh,
I’m going back...just twenty years now before I came here, and we sold it; it
was a fifty-six foot Chris-Craft; it had...the owner sold it, but we had...he had
plenty of money and we had plates – gold-rimmed with the emblem, the ship’s
emblem on it, silverware, crystal, well, just everything. When they sold it,
they threw it all over the side. Problem was these...the people or the guy that
owned it had weak wrists, so they threw all the mattresses over the side; they
took the toilets out and then went up the Mississippi; threw them over the
side; scared to death of AIDS.
Ed Metzler: Yeah, hadn’t thought about that!
Mr. Fournier: And this was in...in the days when you didn’t talk about it.
Ed Metzler: Yeah, and they didn’t have any solutions either for it!
Mr. Fournier: No, nobody knew what the hell it was. And when I heard about it, “Man, god
damn!” I would have given anything to have those plates (chuckles).
Ed Metzler: Yeah, yeah.
Mr. Fournier: But...
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Ed Metzler: Well let’s...I want to rewind for a minute.
Mr. Fournier: Sure.
Ed Metzler: I’m going to go all the way back to when Pearl Harbor happened. You were a
kid in high school I guess?
Mr. Fournier: Yep.
Ed Metzler: What do you remember about that day...if anything?
Mr. Fournier: Very little. In other words, we got attacked by the Japanese. But the war had
been going on in Europe, so you had been getting the news at...at night...after
supper, you know, family always listened to the news on the radio. So, you’re
getting kind of hardened shell, a hard shell, to war-time problems.
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: Then all of a sudden you have this new problem in Japan...or Pearl Harbor.
And really, if you weren’t there, you didn’t...you couldn’t comprehend.
Ed Metzler: And so it didn’t really change anything as far as...I mean, your family life or,
you know, society around you or just...?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, it...it did. You had more guys that shoot the hoop that were one year
ahead of you going into the service or going into cadets; gasoline got harder to
get; butter was rationed. I never could figure that out, and they collected tin
or foil off of candy wrappers, you know? Must be...a warehouse some place
in the country that’s full of...those things!
Ed Metzler: (Laughter), still full of...Snickers wrappers (laughter)!
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, got to be. And...and just a lot of stuff like that.
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
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Mr. Fournier: There was a constant fear of...of anybody knowing too much. Just like aboard
ship, engine...engine crew never got up on the bridge or they never got up on
the fo’c’sle; that was, oh, off limits! I mean, officers were up there!
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: And...so ev...I think...that was probably, in my hometown, we had Germans
and...and one of them was a baker, and the FBI sat out in front of his bake
shop...every day! And they’d follow...he’d walk home; he only lived about
two blocks and he...he walk down the street and that car would...old
Plymouth, you know, they’d follow him down and park outside in front of the
house.
Ed Metzler: What in the heck do they think a German baker’s going to do, sell...
Mr. Fournier: I don’t know (chuckles).
Ed Metzler: ...military secrets to the Nazis or something?!
Mr. Fournier: That would...well, case in point. We had a guy that lived in the town, just a
little village. Youngstown, Ohio is a steel mill town or was.
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: No longer a steel mill town, but you had four major steel mills there.
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: And...you had a guy that worked for the Youngstown Sheet and Tube. He
was a German; he would go out in the middle and walk past a piece of
machinery, say a draw-bar mill, and he’d go back and to his office and sketch;
sketch it close enough to make one; correct measurements and everything.
And...he would throw parties at the main hotel in town, and invite all these
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executives from Youngstown Sheet and Tube and a bunch of party girls. And
then the next week you’d see his name in the paper; he’d just been made vice
president of something or other (chuckles), and I’m sure that was because he
took a...photograph of...Susie B. and showing the guy...
Ed Metzler: Uh hum, in a compromised...compromising position, yeah.
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, and so when they finally decided to...oh, he got caught going
through...Grand Central Terminal in New York...by the FBI; he had two
suitcases full of money and he was going to meet the Germans that came off a
submarine, and they, of course, nailed him.
Ed Metzler: How did you hear about that?
Mr. Fournier: The guy I worked for when I came back from the service. I went to work in
the Metallurgy department of Sheet Tube one summer. He had...he was
a...part of the...the trial and had to testify, and he had copies of the whole
(unintelligible); it’s like reading a...it’s like ready a mystery book; it’s really
fabulous! Anyway, they checked this guy’s house in my hometown, little
village of Poland (unintelligible), and they took the dresser in the front yard
and peeled the back of it off and between two layers of wood were
photographs of bridges, rail centers...I mean, you could count the damned
rivets in them...they were that good!
Ed Metzler: Wow!
Mr. Fournier: This was from World War II (chuckles).
Ed Metzler: Wow, what a story!
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Mr. Fournier: And...it...it was interesting. I often wished I’d made copies of it, but, you
know...
Ed Metzler: Well, yeah...
Mr. Fournier: ...he’s dead now, but...
Ed Metzler: Well, what do you think about the Japanese after having fought in the Pacific?
Mr. Fournier: Well, I think you had as many...Japanese soldiers that were...there because
somebody ordered them there, and you had...some Japanese soldiers
that...were sadistic; were fed a bunch of bull crap to begin with. I don’t think
the Japanese navy...was as dumb as the guy out in the field.
Ed Metzler: The armies.
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, they weren’t as brutal and they...they, I think they realized that they
made a big mistake at Pearl Harbor.
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: (Unintelligible)...back out of it. At least that’s my thinking.
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Fournier: I don’t know...whether that...stands to reason or not, but I...I know that, you
know, when they dropped the first bomb and then dropped the second bomb,
they didn’t need to drop a third; they got their immediate attention.
Ed Metzler: Finally!
Mr. Fournier: And...it probably saved a lot of lives; not Japanese lives, but a lot of American
lives because I think if there was an invasion of Japan, it would have been an
all-out deal. I think you’d of had civilians shooting at...if they had a rifle...at
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American soldiers regardless of whether they could do anything about them or
not...because somebody told them to do it.
Ed Metzler: Yeah, well yeah, yeah, they’re nothing if not regimented, you know.
Mr. Fournier: I never had any problem with them in the ship yard...being in the engine room
and that. Their...guys were just...they were Machinists, and you know, they
were plenty glad the war was over, but...they didn’t cheer; pat me on the back
or anything.
Ed Metzler: No.
Mr. Fournier: But...you’d ask them to something and they’d get it done.
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: I was amazed that as many of them understood English as they did.
Ed Metzler: Really?
Mr. Fournier: But...pidgin English.
Ed Metzler: Yeah, but they could at least communicate.
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, you can get...get across to them what you wanted done, and they got
across to you what they wanted to do and what they would do and how much
they would charge you.
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: But...I came back with a samurai sword; I don’t know whatever happened to
it. And I had a thirty-one caliber rifle that I...sold to a friend of mine who was
a gun collector. But other than that, it was just another part of my life.
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
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Mr. Fournier: I mean, and now, it’s...it’s so far back it’s hard to really realize...what all
(unintelligible).
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: I mean, yeah, I can remember the funny stuff. Probably...I was the most
scared when the ship rolled ninety degrees.
Ed Metzler: That sounds like a real...because...I mean, it’s only got a seven foot draft, so
that means she rolled easily.
Mr. Fournier: Oh yeah, oh yes, a round bottom.
Ed Metzler: Flat...basically...if not flat bottomed, at least a round bottom.
Mr. Fournier: Well it is...
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Fournier: ...it...it just comes down like that...
Ed Metzler: Right.
Mr. Fournier: ...and it has two rudders on it. And that’s one of the reasons Bruce Flanigan
(sp?) bought it because they left those on. Today, they come into the beach
with a...slick bulldozers and tanks and all sorts of equipment on; they drop a
big (unintelligible) anchor out here and then they...put it to it and drive it right
up on the beach. And then they drop...open the doors and drop the ramp; all
the stuff goes off; anything that’s going back down to...home or...or wherever
in Alaska, they rode on and then they start cranking that (unintelligible)
anchor in and they pull it back out into water that’s steep enough to run it in.
Ed Metzler: Now just for the purposes of the tape here, that’s what the...ship is currently,
the Surfbird is currently doing...
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Mr. Fournier: It’s a...it’s a freighter.
Ed Metzler: It’s a freighter up in Alaska.
Mr. Fournier: Alaska.
Ed Metzler: It’s been heavily modified and it’s been through multiple owners and...
Mr. Fournier: Well, no, it’s only a second owner.
Ed Metzler: Oh okay.
Mr. Fournier: It’s...it’s been decommissioned and re-commissioned back in the naval
service, and decommissioned and re-commissioned back in, and the last time
it was...sold by DefCon (sp?) which is a department of...Commerce or
something that the military has to get rid of everything that they don’t want.
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Fournier: And...it was sold to a shipyard up there and they...bought it probably because
of...it was galvanized; it was in good shape; the engines were worn out in it;
they were really worn out. They...the (unintelligible) RPM wanted them
seven hundred and fifty RPM...yeah.
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: ...but...bad. You (unintelligible) as many years, that’s what...fifty something
years ago! So, you know, if...if the guys that took it over, it would have
became a degaussing ship; it was stripped. There’s pictures of it in here
(sorting through pictures) that...as a degaussing ship, you...you wouldn’t even
know it was a minesweeper (sorting through more pictures).
Ed Metzler: It’s really rather unusual for a small ship like this...
Mr. Fournier: This...yeah.
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Ed Metzler: ...to still be...had not been scrapped by now.
Mr. Fournier: That’s right!
Ed Metzler: So she served in Korea, Vietnam, World War II...
Mr. Fournier: (Unintelligible words) still.
Ed Metzler: ...and...and the Valdez Oil Spill up in Alaska and she’s still working.
Mr. Fournier: Yep! And it has (unintelligible) scars to prove it (chuckles).
Ed Metzler: That is something!
Mr. Fournier: That’s what...now one thing that I would like back...(pause)...here’s a roster
and the dates that the guys were on it.
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: This guy...Bill Nugent (sp?) is still living; he’s in a home up in Albany, New
York...or in Niagara Falls rather, and it...it really bugged me because when I
found him I had lived in Cleveland on the...on the west side; I...I was only a
fifty miles from him...for years!
Ed Metzler: And didn’t know it.
Mr. Fournier: Didn’t know he was there. Uh, let’s see, and...Guy Albanese (sp?) is still
living. I think Joe Patagnis (sp?) I think he’s dead; I’m not sure anymore. But
there’s only three of us left that are original crew.
Ed Metzler: Hmm!
Mr. Fournier: And then you see how the...this all by years.
Ed Metzler: Yeah, it just keeps going and going.
Mr. Fournier: Yeah. Every time they bring it out, they put a new crew on it.
Ed Metzler: That’s interesting. Quite a history in this ship.
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Mr. Fournier: That’s right. Everybody that looks it up, and I get a...I get a...email chains –
what a deal! You can Xerox these things, but I’d like them back.
Ed Metzler: Yeah, well why don’t we do that while you’re here.
Mr. Fournier: Alright.
Ed Metzler: Okay, let me...
Mr. Fournier: Stick those aside some place over there.
Ed Metzler: Yeah, let me...I can give that back to you.
Mr. Fournier: This...(looking through documents)...this is a very good picture, but it...gives
us some data...this...decomm...or the commissioning picture.
Ed Metzler: Okay, well take (unintelligible).
Mr. Fournier: These are...these are all civilians...
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Fournier: ...that you see on it; some of those. Uh, she...displace eight hundred and
ninety tons. The keel was laid the 14th of February ’44; she was launched
August of ’44; commissioned 25, November of ’44; diesel electric twin
(unintelligible) thirty-five hundred horsepower. As...I’m...say to copy this
because it’s not a very good picture.
Ed Metzler: Yeah, well I think there’s...there’s reproductions of that on the internet as
well...(unintelligible words)...
Mr. Fournier: Oh yeah, yeah.
Ed Metzler: ...so they’ve been preserved.
Mr. Fournier: Let’s see (looking through pictures), that’s myself.
Ed Metzler: This is just a photo in one of the...
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Mr. Fournier: This is..., yeah, our reunion at...France and (unintelligible) (?).
Ed Metzler: ...2003.
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, and...
Ed Metzler: Well, why don’t we do this...why don’t we wrap up the recording here, and
then let’s just talk about...
Mr. Fournier: Sure!
Ed Metzler: ...of these things that we want to...I wanted to...finish up the recording by
asking you if there was anything else, Ed, that we needed to get down on the
tape that comes to your mind if we’ve missed so far.
Mr. Fournier: Well, I remember Christmas (looking through pictures and documents), this
was the Christmas menu and...
Ed Metzler: Onboard ship?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah. I...I remember taking...we had colored paper up in the radio
shack...depended upon the intensity of the message depending on what it was
printed on...like red for...right away...
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Fournier: ...and yellow and green stuff like that, so I got a bunch of that and crunched
them up and we...we made...and then also cut strips and made rings, you
know, locking rings like you do when you’re in grade school?
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: (Chuckles), I don’t know where we got the damned Christmas tree; one of the
guys came back with a Christmas tree...
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
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Mr. Fournier: ...and...but we had Christmas (laughter).
Ed Metzler: Yeah, this looks like a pretty good meal that...
Mr. Fournier: It wasn’t bad!
Ed Metzler: “Early return home, my personal best wishes to you...,” from the...this from
the Captain?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah.
Ed Metzler: ...for good luck and success in years to come.”
Mr. Fournier: He...when he came in to the Boston, that’s when we discovered he wasn’t
much of a...a sailor. He came in to Boston in Chealsea Yards. And the swing
bridge in Chelsea in order to keep him from damaging it they had cars on it; it
was closed...they swung it open with cars on it so he could go by.
Ed Metzler: (Laughter), that’s when you knew you had a hand-full here (laughter).
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, and...one ship coming the other direction went aground, and let’s see,
that was one. Then we got down to Norfolk to...to Little Creek to take some
mine craft training, and I remember coming into that Norfolk channel, and all
of a sudden the ship went like this and leaned on its side. I said, “My god,
what the hell’s happening here,” you know? I’m from the engine room, I
come barreling out of the engine room and I open the hatch and I’m looking at
the water! I said, “Good Christ, we’re in shallow water; we can’t be sinking!”
He got...screwed up somehow bringing the ship in. And when he got up to the
pier...supposed to go in here...took the bow of the ship and went right up like
that!
Ed Metzler: Right into the pier!
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Mr. Fournier: Yes, split it on both sides, so...
Ed Metzler: Bisected it (laughter).
Mr. Fournier: ...you...you could step off the ship onto the pier!
Ed Metzler: Yeah, either way! (Laughter)
Mr. Fournier: (Unintelligible) make any difference. And I remember there was a...a tug boat
Captain there and he leaned out the window and he said, “That’s okay, Sonny,
you’ll learn; it takes time but you’ll learn!”
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: Jeepers! You know we...we loaded ammo in Charleston, South Carolina and
it was bad weather and we were in the channel and we were trying to get the
damned ship up to the pier, so he decided to use a line gun. So the
Boatswain’s Mate goes down...get’s a line gun and a bucket of line and puts a
load in it and he fired that sucker and he was shooting supposedly over the
barracks; it went in one window...across the barracks and out the other
window...on the other side...went right out!
Ed Metzler: It’s a good thing it didn’t take somebody out! (laughter).
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, we were tied to the barracks for a few minutes.
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: But these are things that, you know, I remember that took the seriousness out
of the situation. And I can remember also...taking on fuel in the Pacific. Now
you’re taking a fuel hose that big...
Ed Metzler: So this is like an eight inch or...
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Mr. Fournier: Somewhere around there...two hundred pounds of pressure (chuckle); it’s got
a...and a nozzle like that, see (slap sound). And you’ve got this thing tied
down to the fuel fill...
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: ...and they’re pumping it aboard, and so I got her all tied and everything, but I
put a guy up there and I said, “Now, you stand on this and if it feels like it’s
coming up holler and we’ll shut the pumps off.” “Okay.” Next thing I
know...he’s hollering, (unintelligible) he was standing on it; it’s up like this
and its shooting fuel into...into the ward room.
Ed Metzler: Oh no! (laughter)
Mr. Fournier: I mean it took the paint right off the wall instantly. There was...
Ed Metzler: This is diesel fuel, huh?
Mr. Fournier: Yeah.
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Fournier: Everything in that wardroom stunk with diesel fuel!
Ed Metzler: Yeah, smelly stuff!
Mr. Fournier: That...,you know, geez, the officers no use for the black game from that day
on; that was it!
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: But we did; we got him back. They had a felt tablecloth so every time you
would make something like a...an ashtray from three-inch, fifty shell casing or
whatever, you know, and it...it was going to sit on a table...naturally you had
to have felt on it. Well, you just couldn’t just cut a square out; you got to cut
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it...the whole length of...of the tablecloth, see, and by the time the war was
over, the tablecloth just came to the edge of the table!
Ed Metzler: (Laughter), just barely made it to the end! (laughter)
Mr. Fournier: That son of a gun must have hung down two foot when we went aboard ship!
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: But...and those were the days when you had black Steward Mates; the
Officers country...black Steward Mates, and so...
Ed Metzler: So you...had...black...black Americans onboard or the...?
Mr. Fournier: Or Filipino.
Ed Metzler: Or Filipino.
Mr. Fournier: Filipino and blacks made Steward Mates. And...you took care of them right
away because you may want a piece of steak some day! I can remember
coming back in Shang...from Shanghai liberty one night and all these people
were standing around the mess hall door looking through the port, and I said,
“What the hell’s going on?” “Well, so and so came back, and...and he’s in
there with a galley fork and another guy’s in there with a big knife and they’re
fighting it out, see? And the old man came back and...wanted to know what
was going on; I told him. He turned to one of the Steward’s Mates and he
says, “Rasmus,” or whatever his name was, “go in there and stop that.” And
this kid looked at me and says, “Not me Skipper!”
Ed Metzler: (Laughter), I ain’t going in there!
Mr. Fournier: Jeez, yeah, that were the days when...
(end of tape 1, side B)
Page 74 of 83
Ed Metzler: This is take 2, side 1. Go ahead, Ed.
Mr. Fournier: Where were we?
Ed Metzler: We were...let’s see, talking about...the fight in the...
Mr. Fournier: Oh yeah, the fight, and...and then I...this was during the days when the world
still looked at a black person as a black person.
Ed Metzler: Right.
Mr. Fournier: Almost a slave.
Ed Metzler: Right, right...almost, yeah.
Mr. Fournier: And the Fili...and the Filipinos...were Steward’s Mates and Mess Cooks for
the Officers Country...always. I mean they...they made out! You...you’ll find
a lot of Filipinos served thirty years and have...and then another thirty in
civilian life with a real good job some place because a...some Admiral or
some thing...
Ed Metzler: Yeah, yeah! Somebody that they...they impressed, yeah.
Mr. Fournier: But as you rate one...as you rate one up, so did the number of Steward’s Mates
that you got. And so that, you know, those days were kind of unique. And if
there was a...a lot of times when you sweep...sometimes a mine would stick in
a gear, and so you’re reeling all this in; all of a sudden, “Whoops!”
Ed Metzler: Oh stick...okay, yeah.
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, here’s this big hunk of...iron ball and there were all these horns on it
hanging off the stern of your boat, you know?
Ed Metzler: Not good, not good!
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, boy, well who do you think get to untangle it? Steward’s Mates!
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Ed Metzler: (Laughter), yeah, that’s what they’re for, right?!
Mr. Fournier: That’s right; they’re expendable.
Ed Metzler: Right, my gosh!
Mr. Fournier: And...yeah...and of course, having...having a Skipper from the deep
south...made them more expendable.
Ed Metzler: Oh...even more, yeah.
Mr. Fournier: But...you know, I...I never questioned that. I was born in...as a Yankee, and
we didn’t have that problem.
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Fournier: So...but...I can’t...I can’t complain. I wouldn’t have had the experience if I
hadn’t been kicked out of school.
Ed Metzler: So do you think being in the...on a minesweeper in the Navy...made you grow
up fast or...
Mr. Fournier: Yes, yeah, it did. Uh, really kind of funny...when I came back out of the
service, I had equivalent of two and a half years of college under my belt, and
so I said, “I’m going to go up and get that high school to assign me...a
diploma,” since they wouldn’t let me graduate with the class at least, you
know, get a diploma. Damned principal would not sign me a...I had to go
back to the college in my hometown and...
Ed Metzler: Was that the same principal that...the same guy?!
Mr. Fournier: Same...same guy!
Ed Metzler: Boy, you impressed him, didn’t you?! (laughter)
Page 76 of 83
Mr. Fournier: I did. Well, from that point on, every year, I sent him a Christmas card signed
with his name in his hand writing .
Ed Metzler: Just to...
Mr. Fournier: Yeah (whomp sound).
Ed Metzler: Just to stick...
Mr. Fournier: ...got you again!
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: But...oh, there was...I can’t remember...one particular deal...Junior/Senior
Prom, and two of us were working on sets and stuff like that. “Ah, what the
heck can we do, you know, to raise hell?” So we got in the girls’ ward room;
opened up a Century and (unintelligible) machine and packed a condom with
each one of the sanitary napkins and closed the machine back up again.
Ed Metzler: You wouldn’t do something like that, would you?!
Mr. Fournier: The next day it was priceless. I mean you would have given anything to have
a camera or to be able to listen to the conversation of some of these girls who
had no idea what a condom was...
Ed Metzler: (Chuckles).
Mr. Fournier: ...or what they were supposed to do with it coming out of the ward room.
Ed Metzler: (Chuckles).
Mr. Fournier: And then...one of the English teachers came out. Boy, she...hell bent for the
office! (chuckles)
Ed Metzler: They ever catch you on that one?
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Mr. Fournier: Not on that one, but they caught me on something else which I think probably
was the reason I got tossed out. I’d taken...we had a...a cigarette purge; they
would go through your lockers while you were in class. If they found
cigarettes in it, they’d take them out, and you know, give you some kind
of...many days suspension or something...I don’t know what, but anyway, I
took a pack (unintelligible) which is the height of a cigarette and it’s kind of
white, milk glass...
Ed Metzler: Uh hum.
Mr. Fournier: ...filled it with crank case oil; took a truck valve spring (wring sound); put that
lid on there, boy, that was hard! Put it in the back of the locker and put some
books on it and forgot about it. So a couple of months went by...well, all of a
sudden I..., “Ed Fournier, report to the office!” I said, “What the hell!” I
hadn’t skipped school; I hadn’t done anything wrong yet. I walked out
there...there’s oil on the ceiling; oil on the floor, the door is open; there’s oil
on the door, and I’m thinking, “God, I wish I could have seen this!”
Ed Metzler: Wished you had a movie of that?!
Mr. Fournier: Oh that...went in the office and here they are – the janitor; the English teacher;
the Principal and the Superintendant...back in his (unintelligible) and he got
brown paper (unintelligible words); the jar, the lid, the spring and who knows
all (unintelligible words).
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: In fact, the only guy who didn’t have any oil on him was the janitor. And the
first thing...I looked at it, and I said, “Oh my god, what did you do?! Oh geez,
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you ruined my experiment, oh my god!” Yeah, well they wanted to know
what that was, and I says, “Well, I’m oil tempering that spring.” “Well, who
told you to do that?” I said, “The guys up in the truck shop,” I said, “oh god,
it’s...I only had another month to go on it; gee whiz! You know, and so
far...I’m (unintelligible) three of them – the Teacher, the Principal and the
Superintendant are buying this, see? And I’m looking at the janitor and he’s
got a smirk on his face and I know damn well he...
Ed Metzler: He knew better!
Mr. Fournier: ...he knew better.
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: And they said, “Well, no more experiments in school; you take them home; do
them at home; don’t bring your stuff to school.” I saw Freddy, the janitor,
when I came back from the service; we were talking and he says, “You really
smoothed those guys over, didn’t you?” And I said, “Well, I didn’t get you,
did I?” He says, “Hell no, I knew what you were doing!” He says, “You
know that they nev...they never went after cigarettes again after that
(chuckles).
Ed Metzler: (Laughter), god.
Mr. Fournier: But, you know, in those days that was serious; today...that was nothing.
Ed Metzler: No, times have changed.
Mr. Fournier: And...it’s just like in the service, I mean...for awhile...boot...boot Fireman and
boot Seaman...who wore Chief’s hat! And, you know, that didn’t go over
with a pea coat; Chief never wore a pea coat. And I can...I can remember
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when I was in boot camp, you were supposed to salute Chiefs...that was to get
you accustomed to saluting an officer because their hat was pretty much the
same. Well, I had a friend that was in the Navy and I knew pretty much about
it and so I walked past a Chief and I didn’t salute him; I may not have saluted
him, but I walked the whole grinder...one whole Saturday from eight in the
morning til five in the afternoon with an hour out for lunch! I broke in a pair
of shoes real well.
Ed Metzler: And you...you walked what now?
Mr. Fournier: The drill field; the grinder.
Ed Metzler: Oh! The grinder, okay.
Mr. Fournier: And...
Ed Metzler: So you got some mileage in on those shoes?
Mr. Fournier: Boy, did I ever!
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: I remembered that you saluted Chiefs thereafter (chuckles).
Ed Metzler: Yeah, that stuck in your mind!
Mr. Fournier: Boy! But...and there was things like...I remember in boot camp...we had a
kid...I don’t know what he stole, but he stole something out of somebody
else’s diddy bag or clothes locker or something, then a couple of guys took
him in the...in the...bathroom, in the head, and with (unintelligible) brushes in
cold water, scrub him till he was the color of that chair...and then let him go.
Ed Metzler: Color of the chair.
Mr. Fournier: Was red...
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Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: ...raw!
Ed Metzler: Raw! Raw meat!
Mr. Fournier: Oh, but...I mean...you could never do that today. And the two guys that
scrubbed him, they were never punished. But the...the fear of having
something go wrong that...that you might possibly have two more weeks of
boot training...and that...really stuck in your mind.
Ed Metzler: Hmm!
Mr. Fournier: And...
Ed Metzler: Okay, well why don’t we close it down here; that was some great stories
there!
Mr. Fournier: Well, you know...
Ed Metzler: You...you guys were pretty innovative!
Mr. Fournier: Yeah, you get that way. That’s why I feel bad about...guys today. I don’t
think a lot of them, I won’t say all of them, but I don’t think a lot of
them...have that initiative...today.
Ed Metzler: Yeah, it’s a different world.
Mr. Fournier: I mean, you know, I know that just by looking at you in your age, that you
probably worked all week on the car so you could use it on Saturday...
Ed Metzler: (Laughter), yeah.
Mr. Fournier: ...for a date.
Ed Metzler: Yeah, and put fifty cents worth of gas in it.
Mr. Fournier: Gas, yeah, that...boy, that’d get you a long way!
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Ed Metzler: Get awful empty! (laughter)
Mr. Fournier: Yeah.
Ed Metzler: (Laughter).
Mr. Fournier: I can remember pushing a car home after a date once.
Ed Metzler: That’s no fun.
Mr. Fournier: But, I mean, you know, kids today, you know, “Hey, I want a Corvair or I
want...want this; I need that.” And I listen to these kids who...their parents
has a fifteen hundred dollar bill on a cell phone! My daughter ever showed up
with a fifteen hundred dollar bill on a cell phone, she’d be working for
the...for the phone company (chuckles)!
Ed Metzler: It’s a different world.
Mr. Fournier: It is.
Ed Metzler: I’m going to end it here, but thank you, Ed, for coming up here...
Mr. Fournier: I appreciate it.
Ed Metzler: ...and sharing your experiences; we don’t have, as I told you on the phone, we
don’t have many interviews of people who were on minesweepers, so this is a
very interesting addition to our archives.
Mr. Fournier: Well, I didn’t...delve a whole lot on how mines are swept on that; I think
enough to give somebody that listens to this an idea of how they swept.
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Fournier: Well, but it is...it is a...a silent, silent service.
Ed Metzler: I...I...yeah, you and the submariners.
Mr. Fournier: Yep.
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Ed Metzler: Okay, well thanks again.
Mr. Fournier: Ed, thank you.
(end of interview)
FINAL copy CD – #OH02787a,b – Mr. Edward Fournier Transcribed by: K. Matras Houston, TX April 18, 2018
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