DUGGAN DUDLEY WEAVER

WORLD WAR II INTERVIEW SEPTEMBER 1, 2000


BY: KIMSEY M. "MAC" FOWLER

TYPED BY: JIMMIE B. FOWLER



DUGGAN DUDLEY WEAVER

1303 THIRD STREET

DUDLEY, GA 31022



I was working in Louisville, Kentucky living at the YMCA. I was across the street at Taylor's Drug Store drinking a cup of coffee; a boy came in and said the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. I thought he was kidding, but he said, "No". I thought some crazy nut had come by and dropped a bomb. I walked across the street to the Y and people were gathered all around listening to the radio. The news caused the hair on your arm to stand up! It was a day one will never forget.



The next day I went to work at Belknap Hardware Manufacturing Company. They distributed radios, which was very rare. Not many people had radios (especially in Dudley, Georgia. We didn't even have electricity in Laurens County). The company distributed radios all over to the place there were about 1500 employees. We listened to the news and everyone was afraid. That night I went to the Navy Recruiting office and signed up for the Navy. I had been turned down by the Army before leaving Laurens County and placed in 4F. The Navy took me. If you were warm, I think they would take you. I left Louisville on the 19th of December 1941. They put me on a train to Great Lakes, Illinois. The Naval Training Station at Great Lakes was running over. They issued us a few clothes, I was there two or three days and they sent some of us to the Naval Pier in Chicago, Illinois. The Naval Pier was built some fifty years before the war. It had nothing to do with the Navy. The Navy had taken it over about six months before the war. It was going to be converted to a school to handle about eight thousand men, but it was not ready and we had a solid mess. They did not have the equipment to issue dog tags and other identification. Three weeks from that day, most men had been inoculated and they were sent to sea. Sam Rundell, a fellow I had met there and I had the highest test grades and didn't go.



They sent us back to the Great Lakes and we slept in hammock in an Air Force hangar. Then they put us in a barracks and we went to school from 8:o'clock in the morning until 8 at night. I was in Quartermaster Signal School. The later part of June 1942, they sent us to Norfolk, Virginia to broad the Ship USS Merak, originally the flag ship of United Fruit Company. This was a very nice ship. They took us to Cuba. Most of the outfit stayed in Cuba, but after a few days, they put me on another ship, USS Pollux, a brand new ship on it's first run. We went to Puerto Rica, Virgin Islands and left there and went to Trinidad to a PC Base. Anybody as old as I am can remember "Drinking Rum and Coca Cola", a song that came from this base Chack Chi Carria (the name of the Naval Base). After about two weeks, they sent us to downtown Trinidad, about a block from our Naval Headquarters. They only had one barrack for the radiomen and the signalmen and we were there the first day that it opened. I was there two or three days and they put me on the nicest ship I had ever been on. It was a Norwegian Ship, MV (motor vessel) Talisman, which means "good luck". The Captain said it was suppose to go to New York but they pulled us into Key West.



Let me say this, I was in the Navy for four years and never had any dog tags nor ID card. I had no orders. I hitchhiked and thumbed just about all my tour. I was in an outfit called Convoy Control; they had a base in Key West, Panama, and Cuba.



I will never forget, we came into Key West and the Captain ordered and had me send a message "We need 150 bunches of bananas at least". We had about sixty monkeys plus some apes or whatever you call those bigger ones on board. (They were for a wildlife preserve owned by one of the Roosevelts)



The ship was loaded with we had smelted copper bars and palm oil out of Africa. It had been built to haul tung oil out of the orient. There was a fine crew on there. I loved everyone that I had anything to do with. They treated me like a King and they gave me my own room and bathroom. These Norwegians hated the Germans. This ship left Oslo, Norway, the day the Germans moved in.



I stayed at Key West two or three days and fussed with them and fussed them. I kept telling them that Carl Vinson was our Secretary of the Navy and he was from my District and that I was going to call him. I always tried to wear my hat square and be a good Navy man. I got into a lot of real situations that were real bad. One was that I couldn't even get on a Base and get any food. The Navy had a place there that I could sleep. After fussing, I got over the fence and got something to eat. I got a man to write me a note saying "Let this man in and out whenever he wants to," After about a few days, they put me on a ship, US Kansan and back to Trinidad. I stayed there two or three days. I had to carry my entire luggage plus a lot of signal equipment.



The US was not ready for this war. I left Trinidad and went back to Key West. After two or three days, they put me on a British ship, Cromarty sailing under the British flag. We came to New York, then back to Guantanamo Bay. I was the only American on board. We had a strange kind of thing to happen. I would flash the lights and hoist the flag and things that the Commodore would tell me to do. There was always one American signalman on every ship regardless of what country it was from to tell the Captain of the Ship how the Navy wanted him to do. I had two good buddies when I was in the Navy. The Captain went ashore and came back laughing and said "Some man over there asked me about you being on this ship and said he'd give me every map of this whole area if I'd get you ashore." He was working in the Hydro Graphics office and he was my friend. We went on to New York and up the Hudson River and stayed there one week. The British Captain went ashore (we had to buy our food). He came back and said that they had us down as being lost at sea for a week. The Captain and his ship were going to Nova Scotia, I told him, "Nobody's told me what to do, I don't know." The next morning, I was ready to go. We went up through the East River and there was a place there where we took on a new pilot. He said, "I expect you better get off. I don't know where we're going or what you're going to do." I got off and the Coast Guard got me and kept me all day under house arrest.







I didn't have any ID; I didn't have any orders. They wanted to know why an American sailor was on a British ship. I could talk all day about that day! I told them I had heard of the Armed Guard Center over in Brooklyn. I was not in the Armed Guard, but I thought that's where I need to be. I called the Armed Guard Center and decided that's where I should be. They sent me by boat to La Guardia Air Port. There was a Naval Intelligence Officer there. I was there an hour or so and a good looking lady came by in a Limousine and picked me up and took me to the Armed Guard Center in Brooklyn. I asked to see the Admiral. He said I'll take you to the Commander in charge in the morning, but don't talk ugly to him. I spent the night and the next morning, I did go see the Commander. I told him about not having any ID, orders, etc. and about a lot of the men who went to school with me that were washing dishes, etc. and were not doing what they were trained for. He said, "I've been in the Navy for forty-two years and I've never heard such a tale as the one you're telling me right now!" He told me that he would get in touch with the Bureau of Personnel this morning and he did. I told him I wanted to go back to Trinidad. Early the next morning they put me on a ship, the Jonathan Edwards, a Liberty Ship. This was the only liberty ship I ever served on. We were going to Trinidad but we got down south of Florida somewhere and got orders by blinker light to go to Panama. I told the Captain what the man said on the big ship. He said, "I'm not going to Panama, I'm going to Trinidad." Here's an old Captain who hadn't been to sea in fourteen years. I told him that was my orders and I called the Commodore on the big ship and asked him to repeat the message. It came back the same, "Go to Panama." We got down to Guantanamo, they shot a line with something like a syrup bucket on the end of it and again the written orders were for us to go to Panama. So we went to Panama. Again, I got off. I didn't know where to go and what to do. I still don't have a dog tag, ID card nor any orders. There was Ensign there and he gave me a fit for getting off in dungarees. I told him I was in the working part of this thing. Anyway, he took me out to the Navy Base and let me in and locked the gate. They fed me well that night though and the next morning I went to the canteen and some fellow was in there, I asked where the personnel office was and he told me to stay there a few minutes and he would take me. About fifteen minutes later, he put me in his jeep went about a mile to the personnel office. We got inside and he went around behind the desk and said, "You're speaking to the personnel officer of this Base." I explained my story to him and he said he had never heard of such a thing. He called a man downtown and talked ugly to him and said, "I want this man off this base". "Get him a way to go and get him off the base." I called a man, Dennard Collins living there in Panama from Dudley, Georgia. He had moved there when I was in the second grade. He came and picked me up and took me to a club and showed me a good time. I got back on that Base and stayed there about two days. The man from downtown called me up and said, "I've got you a way to go." He put me on the Gulf Disc, the largest tanker that Gulf Oil Corporation had. I went to Curiso Islands, a Dutch Island. I got off the ship and found someone who could speak English and asked them if they would call the Gulf Oil Company. I called the Gulf Oil Company and they sent a big limousine down and picked me up and took me to their office and talked with me. They told me they didn't have a Navy Base but that there was a Navy man down at Fort Willihemstad Guard, a Dutch Port. They took me down there and again; he gave me a fit about not having any ID or orders or the proper attire. He sent me out to the Army Base. They wore the World War I outfits and drank water out of lister bag and had the latrines. I didn't like that; I wasn't use to that in the Navy. There was man that came by everyday; I won't ever forget him. He had two years at Annapolis and probably got kicked out, I don't know. He had a Law Degree from University of Virginia and he was on my side. He was mad because he was on the Island and couldn't get off. But he got me a ride on the United States Transport Columbia. I went into Trinidad and got off that ship with all my gear and got on an ox cart looking thing and had them take me to the Base. When I got to the Base, they met me with two buckets that had a whole pie in each bucket. Every one of the men there including Duggan had got a promotion in rank. They were shouting, clapping hands and very happy! I was for a few days and they put me on the Empire Ballard, a British ship to New York.



I was born with a hernia; it was bad (the Army had turned me down with a 4F). The Navy took me but standing all day long on those decks I was having a fit. I went to see a Dr. in Brooklyn and he told me, "Man, yeah you need to get something done about this." He sent me to the Brooklyn Navy Hospital. I got to come home to Dudley from the hospital and went back. The weather was horrible when I went back to Brooklyn. It was January and it was freezing. I had pneumonia and almost died. Dr. Solly was the head Doctor there in Brooklyn but later came to Dublin I understand. Next, they sent me to Baltimore and put me on the SS George Washington, a big, big Passenger Liner to Trinidad. That was a tremendous amount of activity all up and down the East Coast involving German submarines.



They told us that the East Coast of the United States was completely closed in for three days, the Germans dropped demolition mines that was activated through magnetism. That war was horrible! I got back to Trinidad and they put me on the same ship, the Columbia. The United States Army Transport that they had named the Brigidare General Harry F. Rethers. I was in good shape there because they had an Army gun crew and we ran by ourselves. I wasn't really even needed. A few times, I put up a flag and answered airplanes or something like that. We went to British Guinea and Dutch Guinea. I was there for a few weeks and went back to Trinidad but I don't remember the name of the one I was on but it was a nice one. It was taken from Germany during World War I. They had cleaned it up and it was in A-1 shape. I got to New York and they told me I had plenty of time. I went over to the Signal Shack and I had plenty of points to go home, but we've got to have sailors, we have sent for sixty five today that had gone home. They assigned me to a tanker, the Axtel J. Byers. Our first trip was to Russia; British Isles, Scotland and we left there on my birthday, September 15, 1943. We lost nine ships, I didn't know if I would ever see Dudley again! Horrible! Horrible! I had seen ships blown up before but this was a terrible situation. We got back to New York and I thought they would let us go home. They sent us straight to Tampa, Florida for dry dock because this ship had been torpedoed before I had gotten on it. We had some Navy men on board, but I was responsible to the Merchant Captain.

My job was to keep him happy. We got along fine. So I got to come home for two or three days.



When I got back, we made two or three trips into the Mediterranean, three to the British Isles, five to Venezuela and eight or ten times to the Texas area.



A lot of things happened in between all this but these were the ships I was on and the places that I went. My last ship was an oil tanker and one thing about it, you see the sea. I was on this oil tanker the last two years of my tour of duty.



I was discharged September 14, 1945.



Note: I asked about my ID and dog tags many times, it was an unusual situation. I was actually in jail a time or two because of not having dog tags and ID. But they never did do anything about it. One time I was asleep over in Scotland and they came to my door and hollered, "Duggan". They were checking ID and I didn't have any so they took me straight on to jail.



The oil tankers were the more dangerous ships to be on.



Tetanus shots were recorded on your dog tags and since I didn't have one, I had to have extra tetanus shots.



My father was James Jackson Weaver. My mother was Nancy Pauline Duggan. There were eight children.



My wife is Beatrice "Bea" E. Bowles from Louisville, Kentucky. Her dad was Stanley M. Bowles and mother Iva E. Major, both from Bullock County, Kentucky.



Bea and I have two children, Jerry Duggan Weaver and Ellen Louise Weaver Ladue. We have four grandchildren.