Life On The Indiana
The USS Indiana was a few steel plates in the building dock at the Newport News Shipbuilding Company when I reported for duty in the office of the Navy Inspector of Machinery in January 1940.
Shortly after 7 December 1941, I was advised I was to be the Engineering Officer on the USS Indiana.
On 2 March 1942 I formally reported for duty as the prospective engineer officer and as I remember, that made me the first person officially assigned to the USS Indiana. I was with the USS Indiana through her construction, sea trials, outfitting, shakedown periods and during her operations in the Coral Sea.
After the USS Indiana was Commissioned April 30, 1942, Captain Merrill had all his Heads of Department in his cabin for lunch. He gave a pep talk and served V-8 juice. I had never tasted it before but for the rest of his life V-8 juice reminded me of his meal in the Skipper's Cabin.
I served on the USS Indiana until 26 July 1943. My memory of precise dates is a little hazy. But this is a brief outline the USS Indiana during her first sea trials about June 1942. During that summer the ship made a cruise to Rockland, ME for trial runs and operated for training out of Hampton Roads.
The USS Indiana had, as was to be expected with any new ship, a number of problems arise in the Engineering Department. The other departments had problems too. Some of the notable ones in this Department were:
1. A circuit breaker problem which resulted in a minor casualty causing loss of the entire electric load.
While we were in the yard but operating our own turbo generators, a workman accidentally dropped a welding rod in one of our minor switch boxes. This caused not only a local short circuit but also tripping out all the circuit breakers all the way back to the generator. From a Damage Control point of view this was an intolerable deficiency. Fisher telephoned to the Navy Bureau asking for help. The next day the Head of the Electrical Section, Rickover, and a number of his circuit breaker experts arrived in force. Modifications were made in the breakers very promptly.
2. Vibration at high speeds resulting in a change from electric load.
3. Vibration at high speeds resulting in a change from 4 to 5 bladed propellers on two of the four shafts.
On our sea trials we had considerable torsional vibration at high speeds and it was decided that we should have 5 bladed instead of 4 bladed propellers. These were manufactured with unbelievable speed and stopped the vibration.
4. Thermal overload devices kicking out the steering engine due to normal heat in the steering engine room - this in a swept channel through a minefield
At this time there were minefields at the entrance of Chesapeake Bay and it was very uncomfortable to stray out of the swept channel. The USS Indiana had thermal circuit breakers to protect the control circuits of the steering motors. The steering engine room got a little warm. The circuit breakers were not smart enough to know that the overheating was not due to an electrical problem but merely a hot room. They tripped out while we were in the minefield. With a new crew it took a longer than one would have liked to get Steering Control restored. The Navy Bureau never did get a solution for this so Fisher chose the lesser of two evils. He shorted out the circuit breakers and took a chance on burning out the controls rather than losing Steering Control. When I left the USS Indiana a year later, they were still shorted out ...but they had not lost Steering Control.
5. Warped separately fired super heater tubes.
6. An annoying though trivial loss of fresh water pressure.
A couple days before the BB-58 left for the Pacific, they had problems with the fresh water system pumps. It was not a serious problem but everyone yelled about not being able to take a shower.
7.A piece missing from a tooth of a main reduction gear.
While at anchor in Portland, ME during one of our trial periods, Fisher was the senior member of a summary court martial trying a not guilty case. In the midst of the usual messy details, PA Division Officer Bill Lewis, broke into the court saying...he had to see Fisher immediately...an unprecedented and improper procedure.
It discovered that on a routine inspection of one of the main reduction gears had a section of one tooth was missing. This meant that the whole main engine lub oil system of that unit had to be broken down and inspected. They had to be sure the missing piece was not floating around in position to get in the gears or bearings and really raise havoc.
We immediately started to work and contacted the manufacturer-Westinghouse and the Navy Bureau of Ships for advice. For several days we worked night and day . We were not able to find the piece that was an inch and a half long.
The theory was that there had been a slag inclusion in the original gear forging that was covered by a thin skin of metal. This did not fail until the gear had been run under load for some time. The slag being brittle was ground up by the gears without doing any appreciable damage.
Whatever really happened, we smoothed over the edges of the break and the gear ran well ever after. The engineering crew had a real work out checking out the systems on a hurry up shift basis.
8. Mud filled condensers.
The pilot skidded the USS Indiana across a mud flat in the Elizabeth River enroute from the yard to the base shortly before we sailed for the Pacific
The ship was in the Norfolk Navy Yard taking on supplies, ammunition, etc Last minute odd and ends of work was being done to the ship. On our last trip from the Navy Yard out to the Naval Base, due to misjudgment of the pilot, we skidded over a mud bank and came mighty close to getting stuck. Fisher had a fit in the engine room. The condensers started to fill up with mud and the main condenser vacuum went down to 20 inches. One of the main generators tripped out due to low vacuum. Fisher telephone the Exec Commander Dupre who was on the bridge saying they had to shut down. Dupre asked that they try to hold on a little longer. Fortunately about that time we pulled clear of the mud flat. They gradually regained a little vacuum and were able to proceed. The engineers had to shovel the mud out of the condensers and wash them clean. It was a very close call.
In late September 1942 a man was killed when he mistakenly took the bonnet off a valve to repair it. The crewman misunderstood which valve was to be repaired. The steam to the valve to be repaired was turned off, but he was working on a different valve. He had taken all the nuts off the bonnet studs and then broke the gasket seal. The bonnet broke loose, hit him fatally. The proper procedure was to always leave a couple nuts on the studs while breaking loose the gasket seal. If this had been done, the man would have been burned by steam but probably not seriously in spite of the initial error. This was the sort of casualty that I felt responsible even though one can not check everything the crew does.
In the summer of 1942 the owner of our rented house in Norfolk, VA on 65th Street decided to sell it and the new owner wanted to move in immediately. (We found a house on James River Drive where Quill and the boys lived until the summer of 1944 when I returned from the Pacific.) It was clear at this time that it would not be long before the USS INDIANA left . Quill and the boys and I hoarded every minute of time we had together.
During October 1942 there was considerable naval activity in the Coral Sea. The men of the USS Indiana were particularly interested since they had a strong suspicion they would shortly be headed to the Pacific.
"The U.S. Navy at War 1941-1945" Admiral King's Official Reports, brief these actions as follows:
Battle of Cape Esperance 11-12 October 1942 US cruisers and destroyers in surprise night attack engage a sizable enemy force near Guadalcanal.
Battle of Santa Cruz Islands 26 October 1942 Blows were exchanged between US carriers and Japanese carriers operating with a powerful enemy force moving to support land operations at Guadalcanal. Two enemy carriers put out of action and four enemy air groups decimated.
After a final week in Norfolk, the USS Indiana departed for the Pacific 9 November 1943. (Quill Fisher had driven me down to catch the ferry from Newport News to Norfolk. It was early in the morning and it was still dark.)
The USS Indiana sailed South from Norfolk via Crooked Island Passage to the Panama Canal where they refueled They transited the canal and headed South and West for Tonga Tabu.
The radar was a new, strange and mysterious animal to me at the time. Shortly after transiting the canal on a dark night, radar picked up a ship at some distance. I remember saying. "My God, it is a ship". After that I believed in radar.
17 November 1942 we crossed the Equator headed South with all the usual horseplay.
Those were busy times. We fueled at Tonga Tabu. From there we proceeded to Noumea, New Caledonia.
During the trip there was more action in the Coral Sea and around Guadalcanal. We learned through the radio intercepts of battle reports which were read avidly.
"The US Navy at War 1941-1945", Admiral King's Official Reports, brief there actions as follows;
Battle of Guadalcanal 13-14-15 November 1942 Enemy concentrated invasion force at Rabaul. US naval forces covering reinforcements for troops at Guadalcanal met and decisively defeated this force in a series of violent engagements in which heavy losses were sustained by both sides.
Battle of Tassafaronga 30 November 1942 A Japanese attempt to reinforce was defected at heavy cost. USS Northampton lost, three US heavy cruisers severely damages.
In addition to the OOD, the line heads of department stood underway watch on the bridge. An unusual arrangement that in an emergency might have caused some confusion as to responsibility but fortunately...never did.
The ship reached Tongatabu and refueled. They met up with the USS Washington and exchanged visits and heard about their activities and battle experience. New Zealand solders were garrisoned at Tonga Islands...Nice group of men.
About 1 December 1942 the USS Indiana arrived at Noumea and for the next six months operated with carrier tasks forces in the Coral Sea or at anchor in Noumea for upkeep, etc. She steamed 25,000 miles and was never shot at or fired a shot except in practice. There were occasional alerts when Japanese reconnaissance planes approached.
On the trip out we were accompanied by a new destroyer, the USS DeHaven. I believe she was sunk a few months later in action off the Solomon's. Such were the vagaries of the Fortune in War.
We had main condenser salt water leaks on a couple of occasions. They were repaired by holding the engine concerned with the jacking gear, opening up the condenser and finding the leak by the time honored method of painting soap suds on the tube sheets. The leak can be spotted by the air bubbles coming through the defect from compressed air in the steam side of the condenser. With a four shaft ship this could be done while maintaining station in formation at fairly high speeds. Whether our encounter with the mud flat in the Elizabeth River and the resulting heat from the low vacuum had anything to do with this...who knows. We did not have time to worry about it.
We had no other underway engineering problems of note. However, getting underway from Noumea on one occasion, Captain Peyton got his tongue twisted and rang up ahead when he meant back.
Before things were brought under control with a couple of emergency full bells, too much strain was put on one of the anchor windlass shafts. It failed in torsion. Although the anchor windlass was in the bailiwick of the First Lieutenant and Damage Control Officer, most of the mechanical talent was in the Engineer Department. Our trusted chief machinist mate from our machine shop was able to hold the shaft together with a couple of diagonal straps and stud bolts drilled into the shaft. From my calculations it would probably hold if it were treated gently. It worked.
Many of the ships had problems with loose bars in the squirrel cage rotors of the training motors of their 5 inch mounts. Our machine shop figured out a way to replace them and repaired several both for our ship and other ships.
There is a saying, "Naval Warfare consists of long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of intense fear". We did a number of things to fight boredom. They played softball when possible in Noumea. I succeeded in catching a wet softball on the end of a finger. He had a very black finger with a possible small break that healed itself.
The USS INDIANA conceived the idea of a cup to be competed for among the wardrooms of the Battleships in any sport that was available. It was to become the permanent property of the ship which entered Yokohoma with the cup in their possession. Our coppersmith made quite a presentable copper cup. Captain Fisher always wondered what happened to the cup.
During this period the name of the signal flag Z was changed from Zed to Zebra. This inspired me to write the lament of the Yak at having no flag named for him as he was a proud and dignified animal. Everyone knew the zebra was merely a glorified jackass with stripes around his belly. This opus has been long lost.
Among the accomplishments of the engineers were:
1. A cribbage board.
2. A set of dinner chimes to announce meals in the wardroom. They were made in the machine shop and tuned against a violin played by our talented chief machinist mate.
3. A special "8 o'clock report" ash tray with a named slot for each head of department. This was a big convenience to cigar smokers as it was mounted in the passageway where the reports were normally made.
Captain Merrill had a deck tennis net set up on a portion of deck outside his cabin upon which he and the senior officers played regularly. It was a good way to keep reasonably fit and was fun too. Captain Peyton continued the custom but unfortunately slipped and seriously injured an ankle and wore a cast for several weeks but managed to do his job. Our machine shop made him a neat aluminum cane.
On one occasion something went wrong with one of the Skipper's dentures. The hospital ship said they needed an electric furnace to bake the repairs. We made them one.
The latest movies were sent to the fleet, sometimes before they had been released in the States. They were a big help to the morale of the crews. When underway they were shown below decks but at Noumea they were shown on the deck but the ship was darkened.
The movie "Casablanca" was one everyone enjoyed. "Round up the usual suspects" from the movie became our watch word when something went wrong. During a routine shift of turbo generators at anchor, the load was carefully shifted over to the oncoming generator, but that generator tripped out instead of the one that was to have been secured. It is an easy mistake to make - dumb as it sounds. Immediately we said "Round up the usual suspects".
When the time came for me to leave the USS Indiana there was the usual farewell party at the makeshift officers club ashore in Noumea the night before I left.
I gave Frank Luongo, the incoming Engineering Officer my bottle of aspirin. Frank was more than competent, but he would need them now and then.
I was given the "Crossing the Line" certificate ( 17 November 1942 signed by the entire PF Division), a wooden cribbage board, salt and pepper shaker made of 20 mm machine gun cartridges and a cigar humidor made of several kinds of wood. The "Crossing the Line" contained a bit of verse, author unknown:

On 26 July 1943 I left Noumea for Brisbane, Australia flying Pan Air across the Coral Sea. I remember I had a wonderful view of the beautiful coral reefs for which the Coral Sea is named. My new duty was on the staff of Commander Seventh Fleet.
William Gooding Fisher, Commander, Engineering Officer

Ballade For A Midwatch (Verse)
We're out in the (censored) patrolling
We've sighted not one lonely sail,
If we're lucky we will get in on Monday
For a two weeks assortment of mail:
We'll find out what we are doing
(the secrecy around us is dense)
The papers will tell how we're striving
For Glory------and National Defense.

We've taken to living like hoot owls,
Darken ship is the best drill we do,
Underway we've given up movies
For watches in condition two,
We've acquired eyes like tom-cats
It was that or our head fill of dents,
And our legs are all covered with hatchmarks,
For Glory------and National Defense.

Our blues we've retired in mothballs,
We've de-militarized our dress whites
We polish our shoes with the neckerchiefs
That we're issued for liberty nights
We've economized on fresh water,
And saving old cleaning rags-hence
We've cut the legs off our white trousers,
For Glory------and National Defense.

We've learned to eat beans, rice, and cabbages,
Forgotten about things like cows.
We've cautiously dated our fresh eggs,
As older than the law allows,
We've put away thoughts of home cooking,
As dreams of very past tense,
While we breakfast on prunes and stale crackers,
For Glory------and National Defense.

We've forgotten what our homes are like,
and the fact that we once drove a car,
We still recall where our girls live,
But wish to know where they are.
We remember, still, seeing our friends
But they have forgotten us since
They think we are pictures that sit on a shelf,
For Glory------and National Defense

We've forgotten the days when a dollar
Might buy us a movie and dinner,
Instead of purchasing a sandwich,
The size of a dollar, but thinner.
We remember the grocer and the milkman
And the buzzard who reaps in the rent,
We remember them for the prices they raised.
For Glory------and National Defense

We've forgotten the resting on Sunday,
The pleasure of sleeping all night,
We've forgotten the looks of our families.
But we still remember the plight-
Of the 40-hour men we're defending
(Those Strike-For overtime Gents)
We think about them in our 18 hour day.
For Glory------And National Defense.
Author Unkown

Webmaster's Note: Submitted by Whitner Livingston Griffin, Jr., Fire Controlman 1c, FA Division. Ballade was composed in 1944 by a sailor in 2nd Division that bunked just outside the FA Division compartment on the port side of Turret 2.

Three Who Got Back
"Ace Rescue, I got a job for you. There are two survivors in the water, one mile east of Agana Field. Oscar 9-0ver." The Ace was Lt(jg) Rollin "Rex" Morgan Batten, Jr., and Rescue his ship, the Indiana. A visual routine message from Admiral Mitscher, Commander Task Force 58, "Launch two aircraft", had set the machinery of "flight quarters" in sudden motion on the main deck aft on the Indiana. The catapulting teams of Johnson-Grumback and Brown-Ficklin shot the two Kingfishers piloted by Lt(jg) Batten and Ensign Backman into the air. "Oscar-9", a corsair gave the curt orders which were to save the lives of two men, SBD pilot Lt(jg) Clyde Brown of Wichita, KS, and his radioman-gunner Arthur J. Lynch, ARM1c of Cramp Point, Long Island, NY. Brown had made his dive on the airfield and was hit directly at the wing root by Japanes flak, setting his wing tank on fire. The plane suddenly became nose heavy; Brown rolled back his tabs and kept back pressure on his stick to keep the nose up until he could get the plane nearer the sea.
Radioman Lynch, in the meantime became unconfortably aware of heat below him, intense even for this climate. Lynch's reaction was movement upwards. As the flames licked below him he increased his altitude in the cockpit until he was finally astride of his twin 30 calibers. Brown decided it was time to hit the silk for a cooler land below and told Lynch to bail out. Lynch, however, decided to stick along for the ride a little while longer and continued to cling to the fuselage. The pilot released his safety belt and thrust the joy stick violently forward, throwing the plane into an inverted loop which flung him out of his cockpit and clear. Lynch was dislodged by all this and, in being thrown, his head was struck by the tail assembly. Now here's a curious thing - Lynch doesn't remember a thing that happened between the time he was thrown till he found himself in the water. They had bailed out over land, but a wind current had swept them a few hundred yards off shore. Lt(jg) Brown, when he hit the water, released a dye packet to signify to other pilots above that he was all right. Overlooking the waters into which the aviators dropped was a steep slope infested with the late, unlamented, soldiers of Nippon. They showered lots of attention on their American visitors below. Swimming seaward, Brown left the dye patch target area behind him.
Ten miles away, the OS2U's motor, humming like an aimless hornet on a summer day, belied the intensity and the importance of that day's mission. Spotting the yellow dye close ashore, while still about two miles away, Batten nosed his plane down to a landing and swept the tinted area. The Jap machine gunners, delighted with this impudent "target of opportunity" chopped up the vicinty with lethal greetings. Cursing in good English, Rex taxied his plane around searching for the men to be rescused. He was not more than 500 yards from the shore, an uncomfortable proximity. Fortunately some fighters swarmed shoreward above him and strafed the Jap positions. Then he noticed a splashing about 200 yards farther out. A man was lying on his back thrashing the water with all his might to attract Rex's attention. As he directed his plane toward this spot, Batten recognized an old friend and former instructor of his at Jacksonville NAS, Clyde Brown. Coming in close he yelled down, "Grab that line, Brownie!" The wet pilot clammering aboard exclaimed, as much in surprise as in relief, "Boy, Rex, am I glad to see you!" And having made his way aft on the wing, asked Batten to come back and show him how to open "this damned cowling." The Indiana's pilot taxied over to pick up Lynch, who, having kept all of his clothes on, was terribly tired. Enemy fire was still trying to sink the rescuing seaplane.
On his first approach, Rex had too much gun on and had to pass the weary Lynch before circling. An expression of anguish and despair crossed the radioman's face at this, for he feared that because of Jap strafing, the plane was taking off without him.He started yelling with what strength was left in him. He was too weak to pull himself up, and Brown assisted his gunner aboard. With both Lynch and Brown in the plane, Batten wasted no time preparing to get the hell out of there. With the rescue lines still dragging in the water, he had a tough time getting his plane into the air.
Throughout the rescue the one thing on his mind was the fear a wave would catch his wing and wreck him. But he made it! That's the thought which crossed my mind as they swung his plane on board. When the need was there and a slight miscalculation would cause disaster, skill and daring were also there, and what was needed was done. In a dispatch to the Indiana and ComBatDiv 8, Admiral Reeves sent "Congratulations on daring rescue by your planes while under fire." And later, "Reports are Indiana pilot effected extremely daring rescue of two Lexington personnel who bailed out and landed close to shore - under heavy fire from shore, pilot camly picked up survivors and taxied safety. Name unknown but deserves credit and has our thanks and admiration. Rear Admiral Reeves." For his courageous and fearless action in effecting this rescue Captain Keliher recommended Batten for the Navy Cross.
Rex Batten is from Caldwell, NJ. A Williams man, he played football and basketball for the Purple until graduation in 1940. Among his other adventures, the one that takes precedence - is his marriage to Suzanne Foster Woodruff. Wait until she hears about this! Probably will make him come home immediately.
Leo Richard Johnson, Ensign, 4th Division.

Webmaster's Note: The above article appeared in a July 1944 issue of the Hoosier Herald, the USS Indiana shipboard newspaper. The rescue occured on 04 July 1944 and Rex was indeed awarded and received the Navy Cross in a ship board ceremony on 15 August 1944. Rex died in Lincoln, NE in February 1984 at the age of 68. The Kingfisher plane that Rex used in the rescue was restored, as representing all Kingfishers, at the Paul E. Garber Facility in Suitland, MD., and is presently on loan to and may be viewed at the Palm Springs (CA) Air Museum.
The Kingfisher will be returned during the Fall of 2003 to the Air and Space Museum and will be on permanent display at the Steve F. Udar-Hazy Center, the National Air and Space Museum Annex at the Washington Dulles Airport in Chantilly, VA. The center is scheduled to be opened on 15 December 2003, the 100th Anniversary of Man's First Flight at Kity Hawk by the Wright Brothers.

Last Updated 02 July 2003

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