RECOLLECTION

Henry Bishop 1987

MY FIRST TRIP TO SEA ! MAL DE MAR!

“O death where is thy sting ?” I Corinthians XV, 55

The Swanson sailed from New York on January 7,1944 down the coast for Panama, and I got so sick about two days out. I would go down to the Mess Hall and come back up top- side and heave over the side.

I would be laying on the deck and ole Oscar Fleury, Coxswain would say:

“Chicken do your throwing up over the side!”

“Man I can’t do that, it would wash me overboard !”

They had stored grapefruit and celery on the upper decks below the bridge. I would climb up the Mess ladder with the ship rocking back and forth. I would put grapefruit and celery in my shirt and get behind #1 Stack, and eat that stuff. The grapefruit I would eat peeling and all. I was sick as a dog. Never liked celery until then, now I love it, because it helped save my life.

I would stand my gun watch and then crawl down to my bunk until I was called for my next watch. I was crawling back and forth from my bunk to my gun watch. Then we came into the Caribbean Sea. I was standing a 4-8 watch in Gun #4 and somebody came along eating a ham sandwich. I grabbed that sandwich and ate it and happily it stayed down and I told James Delithanasis, the Gun Captain I was going to get something to eat.

So I went down into the Mess Hall grabbed a tray and filled it up and was shoveling the food down. The guy sitting across from me asked. "Do you Work in the Fireroom ?” and I answered: “No.” Then I put my tray away and said: “I think I’ll go back and take a shower.” I had not been in the HEAD for 5 days as I had not really been eating much, nor washed my face, or taken a shower – nothing! I had been too sick and weak to go anyway!

When I looked in the mirror, I understood why the fellow asked me if I worked in the Fireroom, because my face was filthy dirty from soot from the stack. I looked like “Warhead”. My pants stood out almost on their own. But I got in the shower and felt like a million dollars afterwards. I had been in bad shape. I was wanting to die and wanting to wash overboard and at the same time afraid that I would !