National Museum of the Pacific War Nimitz Education and Research Center Fredericksburg, Texas Interview with Mr. C. T. “Ted” Cummings Date of Interview: July 10, 2007 National Museum of the Pacific War Fredericksburg, Texas Interview with Mr. C. T. “Ted” Cummings Interview in progress. Ed Metzler: …I’m…I’ll take you where we’re going to go; don’t worry about it. This is Ed Metzler and today is the 10th of July, 2007. I’m located in Fredericksburg, Texas at the Nimitz Museum and I am interviewing Mr. C. T. [Ted] Cummings. This interview is in support of the Center for 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. C.T., let me start out by thanking you for spending the time today to share your experiences with us and let’s get you started by having you just introduce yourself; tell us when and where you were born. Mr. Cummings: Well, my…he called my name. I’m C.T. Cummings; that means Clyde Theophilus Cummings. So when I came back out of the Navy on leave one time I met my wife there in Pampa, Texas. She was a legal secretary for a…for a building company. I didn’t want to tell her what my name was ‘cause in the Navy they called me Tex or C.T. So she said, “You’re a Ted.” So I’ve been Ted for a lot of years. And that…and that’s…finally got used to that but when I joined the Navy my brother was a recruiter in San Diego before Pearl Harbor. Well I had signed up prior to that for regular navy, six Page 1 of 76 years, for Seaman. Well all they had…in the CC Camp before that and I had a structural machinist training for Cabot Shops; Cabot…Cabot is a well known company…you name it. So he said, “Listen,”…said, “you’ve got a…you’ve got some good qualification to go in the Navy as a Petty Officer. So I went back to the Chief there in Enola (sp?), Texas from Pampa, Texas and they said, “Yeah,” said, “you qualify.” So I had to get six recommendations, and…and so I came in…in the Navy as a Second Class Metal Smith. Ed Metzler: Well let’s go back to when you were born; what’s your birth date? Mr. Cummings: Oh, oh, I was born November 7th, 1920. Ed Metzler: Now where were you born? Mr. Cummings: And I was born in Mineral Wells, Texas, but I was raised up in a place called Hall County right next to Turkey, Texas…Bob Wills country. And I saw…now I… Ed Metzler: Did you…did you go to school there? Mr. Cummings: I went to school there at Lakeview, Texas to the seventh grade; then I went to Pampa, Texas…is an oilfield town. Our…our cotton back during the Depression days couldn’t make a living so we sold our cotton farm and went to Pampa, Texas there at Pampa, Texas and then went through high school. When I got occupational training I got to go to work for Cabot Shops there training to be a structural machinist. So my brother joined the Navy and when he come…come back from the Navy then…well… Ed Metzler: He joined before the war? Page 2 of 76 Mr. Cummings: Yeah, he joined before the war, and…and that was in October, ’41. So in the meantime…meantime I went to the recruiter there in Amarillo and…and joined October of ’41 myself. But on the job…construction work…I had (unintelligible) run through my left foot and it crippled me up. So I had to wait till I could pass my physicals so I didn’t get my…I wasn’t sworn in until 22nd of November. So I was in…middle of boat camp in San Diego when Pearl Harbor was hit. Ed Metzler: Now you went into the Navy? Mr. Cummings: Uh-hum. Ed Metzler: Okay, why the Navy? Mr. Cummings: Well I…my brother come back and…talking to me and that recruiter I talked to found out my dad had a blacksmith shop. And in the CCCs well I had mechanical training and…and construction and that type thing…and through Cabot Shops there I had to have five thousand hours of ma…machine study and work; blueprint layout; structural steel and mechanical drawing. So the Chief that signed me up (unintelligible) said, “We need…need you in the Navy…in the reserves…four years or the duration of the war and that’s how I got stuck in…in San Diego then as a Second Class Petty Officer. Along with our special group; there’s thirty-five of us…a Reserve Chief right on down to a Petty Officer Third Class. Ed Metzler: Now this was all still before the war? Mr. Cummings: Yeah, this was all before Pearl Harbor. So we made a big mistake one time there…the…the old Chief said, “Well,” said, “you guys don’t need much Page 3 of 76 military grilling and…because all you guys know how to shot rifles…stuff…say if you do, raise your hand.” Well we all raised our hand and…and…we…next thing I knew then Pearl Harbor was hit and they didn’t have any police action in San Diego. Then it was raining…as I say, cats and dogs, you know, (unintelligible) so they put a…give us a rifle and a bandolier of ammunition and trench gear and what not and I slept in that stuff for two weeks standing by for a police action in San Diego…which we didn’t have to do that. And… Ed Metzler: A police action; what do you mean? Mr. Cummings: Well they didn’t have…they…everybody was sent overseas…the Marines and everybody and the police were all involved some way. And so we were standing by to help the police in San Diego because they had a lot…of collaborators; they had…they had collaborators galore! Ed Metzler: Ah! Mr. Cummings: And nobody was aware of that. So we found out later then…from the (unintelligible) well they found these farmers there had…had machine…had mowed their grass and crop down; had the ammunition pointing to the ammunition dumps; fuel dumps and everything else, and it was a mad house out there which the public never was aware of that. Ed Metzler: Really?! Mr. Cummings: That’s right. Then they put me in a destroyer base down there then. So we had…one hundred…old Navy destroyers there we called rusty buckets and then we had a skeleton crew to put ashore and some of them couldn’t even get Page 4 of 76 out of the harbor…they were…they were sitting ducks. And they had…had the enemy…known that, we would have had a lot of…more trouble than we did! The next thing I knew then…they was going to send us to…to New York and the Chief there at the San Diego destroyer base wanted to keep me there because I was fitting in real well and helping get those old tin cans ready for…going to sea. Ed Metzler: So you…so you were working on re…fixing those up to go back to war, then? Mr. Cummings: That’s right. Well they… Ed Metzler: What kind of condition were they in? Mr. Cummings: They were…they were in moth balls; just your rusty buckets…and they was really on bad shape, and they… Ed Metzler: Did you work on the engines or what? Mr. Cummings: No, just…surface preparations. And they had…I had a reserve crew come aboard; now they were engine room men, and boatswain’s mates…what not…to…to maintain lines and…and that type thing. But our duty there was to help get the surface and maintain…what…to clean…to clean them up because they was in…some kind of spray or…or…we call them moth balls type thing (unintelligible). Really I can’t…I don’t…I don’t know how to explain it, but that…we call them tin buckets and rust…rusty buckets really. Ed Metzler: Yeah. Mr. Cummings: They been sitting there for years. Ed Metzler: Yeah, they were left over from World War I, I guess. Mr. Cummings: I guess so, yeah. Page 5 of 76 Ed Metzler: Yeah. Mr. Cummings: And so they sent me to New York City and my first ship there was the [USS] Lafayette, the Normandie; she was a French liner to the Queen Elizabeth and the…and the Queen…Queen Mary…and the Normandie were the three top line surface ships, and the Lafayette was a French liner when they caught the Normandie. Well they caught fire and burned there in the harbor when I was aboard that thing. Ed Metzler: Now did they rename the Normandie the Lafayette? Mr. Cummings: Yeah, they…they was laying…they named it from the Lafayette to the…to the Normandie [s/b renamed the SS Normandie the USS Lafayette]. Ed Metzler: Okay. Mr. Cummings: Yeah, and we were getting ready to carry twenty-five thousand troops to…to Sicily, Italy, and we were…(unintelligible)…it…it was fast. Ed Metzler: Now what…now what time are we talking about now? Is this (unintelligible)? Mr.