RECOLLECTION
Chester Hill 1989
Other shipmates have mentioned Warhead Williams in their contributions to this book. Some are not clear about when he came on board and left, and many think he must have almost been a fictional character, sort of like the Flying Dutchman. I must relate my memories of that very real and truly memorable person and shipmate. Walter Royall’s invaluable roster of just about all of us in the Appendix hereof lists one Henry (no middle initial) Williams as reporting on board on 30 June 1942, well before the North African landings, and departing Swanson on 10 December 1945, several weeks after VJ Day. Some seem to think he rose in a heavy mist of shoreline fog from the swamps of coastal southern Georgia, immortalized by Sidney Lanier as “The Marshes of Glynn”. My personal memory is his telling me on more than one occasion that he came from Greenville, South Carolina. I will always have my doubts, whatever. He is listed as having left us as a StM3/c.
My first strong impression of Warhead, after learning his nom de guerre and the reason therefore shortly after I came on board in early 1943, was the realization that the man not only could not read but could not even tell the time of day. However, he was a willing and likeable sort, and having grown up in the tobacco fields of North Carolina and knowing many unlettered blacks I took it upon myself to teach him all about the little hand and the big hand. Surprisingly, he learned rapidly, and was so proud of himself when at dinner in the wardroom I would look up at him staring at the bulkhead clock and give him a questioning glance, to which he would confidently respond with a knowing smile of assurance and gratitude that he could now indeed tell the time of day by a clock instead of just sunshine!
I will never forget that morning off Licata, Sicily when word was passed to PREPARE TO ABANDON SHIP and he with the others was released from the magazines. Very soon thereafter it was “Belay that last word. We can save her! All hands to jettison topside weight!” I was stationed on the after deck house with the port twin 40mm mount.
We had jettisoned everything in sight when word came to belay that procedure , as we were stabilized and getting some way upon her for the nearest drydock. BRING UP AMMUNITION to replenish those topside ready supplies which had been jettisoned ! As we started passing those heavy and cumbersome canisters of 40mm shells up from the magazines Warhead suddenly appeared and said he wanted to get back to his post down below but the passage was blocked by the hand-to-hand passing of the ammunition. What should he do ? It was taking two good men to lift the canisters high enough from the main deck for two others to grab hold and heave them on up to the top of the deckhouse, slowing down the process. And so I stationed Warhead halfway up the vertical ladder and told him to keep ‘em moving. He did just that, hanging on to the deckhouse lifeline with one hand and swinging those canisters up from barely out of the maindeck hatchway with his other hand right on up to the people waiting on the deckhouse. They moved a lot of 40mm ammunition up to the ready racks in what must have been record time! Warhead was not even breathing deeply !
Nights up there on the bridge after I qualified for standing Officer of the Deck watches every now and then late in the evening watch or sometimes halfway through the midwatch the quartermaster would take a ring on the sound powered phone and say "Mister Hill, Warhead wants to speak with you.”
“Hello, Warhead. What’s up?”
“Mr. Little Hill, wouldn’t you like a cup of Java and maybe a cheese sandwich about now?”
“Sure, Warhead. Bring ‘em up. “
Within a few seconds the blackout curtains to the chartroom would part and here we could see those shining white teeth and a tray with a “Here you is, Mister Little Hill just like you called for!”
He would linger around the pilot house as long as he could, enduring the jibes and jabber of the bridge gang and pleading with me to “Please let me drive this thing, Mister Little Hill !” until finally one calm peaceful night I let him take the wheel ! I instructed Sonarman 1/c Hollis Sellew, who was standing his normal relief from ping-yockeying, on the helm, to watch him closely from portside , while I personally did the same thing from starboard. We did not let him veer more than three degrees from the prescribed course, since the going was easy. When I would send him back to his watch station in the wardroom and ask him how he liked manning the helm he would say “Man, it’s just like driving a ’39 Ford.”
When we left Panama after waiting there about ten days ( with appropriate liberties) and now our long passage to new duty in New Guinea. With Warhead in our crew to bring us some bright moments in the oppressive heat of that forgotten part of the world, during the many interesting events, like the cannibalistic headhunters in Humboldt Bay.
My final sight and memory of that remarkable person dates from early 1946, after the war and about a year plus since I had left the Swanson. As a civilian I was settling into a life in Brookhaven, Mississippi with my new bride and one fine Saturday afternoon was riding atop the cab of a flatbed truck participating with a bunch of fellow veterans in a parade supporting some sort of civic endeavor. A long passenger train passing through the middle of town heading south from Chicago to New Orleans on the main line of the old Illinois Central RR blocked the crossing, and as we stopped there waiting I realized it was a train packed jammed with sailors, obviously heading from Great Lakes base for New Orleans for separation from active duty. Something caught my eye. It was nothing possibly on this earth but the gargantuan figure of WARHEAD himself, in his undress blues, white hat and all, swinging in and out of one of the doors with both hands clasped tightly around the vertical side railing of the car’s entry way. I screamed at the top of my voice, “WARHEAD ! WARDHEAD !”
He did not release his handholds, and continued swinging to-and-fro, but as the train rumbled on down that long
grade he looked straight at me and I could hear him shouting, “LITTLE HILL, LITTLE, LITTLE HILL---.”
I will never forget that shipmate, wherever he may be.