RECOLLECTION

Bruce Broussard 1988

“Over the bounding main.”

During the Swanson’s early crossing between Newfoundland and Iceland, the weather was usually foul and the sea rough, and to a largely boot crew, sea sickness was a new and awful experience. But there was an understood rule: if you have to do it, you never do it anywhere but over the side, in the head, or in a suitable container. Among the most seriously affected by this age-old misery was a radioman named Jim Cahill. While most people began to get used to the ship’s motion after a couple of day or so, Cahill seemed to get worse.

Now the radio room was divided into two parts—the receiving room and the transmitting room—two small rooms together on the starboard side. At times when the weather was particularly rough, guys just coming off a four hour watch, or ready to go on the next watch would curl up on the deck behind the transmitters so as not to risk the open main deck back to the crew’s quarters. And in the usual rough weather, Cahill wasn’t even able to make the chow, let alone his own sack back aft. On watch, he had to sit there, facing starboard, and his chair lashed to the desk, copying Fox schedules.(code) with a typewriter for four hours, not daring to miss a dit or dah, while the dear old Swanson did all kinds of tricks. In the left hand desk drawer was a foul smelling, overflowing ashtray which had to be pulled out to use. The head was back aft over the main deck a hundred feet or more, and even getting near the side in that weather was too much to even think about. So, he had a bucket tied to the leg of the desk, just in case.

On a really rough night, getting dizzier by the minute, Cahill sat there sorting our his dits and dahs, hoping to get it all down on one of those old Underwood typewriters where the type swings upward and then bangs down on a piece of paper. Many a night that plack, plack, plack from the old Underwood put our top command—Kingsley the skipper, Connell the Exec. and Robertson the Engineer to sleep.

It was a day when we’d had some kind of soup with vegetables. Old Cahill was getting thinner and thinner, hungry as hell, sick of being seasick, and he got desperate enough to try some for supper. He went on watch at 20:00. With a swinging jo-pot (from the overhead) almost over his head, the vital fox code, out through his fingers and onto that old Underwood, and the Swanson going crazy, he got sicker and sicker. But he had a choice: out of that warm radio room and over the side (no way) , back to the head (he couldn’t make it), on the radio room deck (hell no, man), maybe in the ashtray but hopefully in the bucket.

Well, he didn’t even make it to the ashtray or the bucket. That soup, peas, carrots, celery, corn, etc. went right into that old Underwood. Aaaaaaa, but he didn’t miss a dit or a dah. He went right on in a cold sweat, copying the all important Fox schedules. Of course peck at a typewriter key sent a pea flying, or a piece of carrot, or a potato, or corn, etc.

Things got kind of messy, and I don’t think our communication officer, Eliot, enjoyed checking over the Fox schedules the next morning.

Now, I don’t know the upshot of that whole deal, but I understand that Frank Connelly, the Chief Radioman, told Cahill to either clean out the Underwood of have the cost of it deducted from his pay. Only God knows how, but he cleaned it.

Dit-dah-dit-dah-dit. (End of message.) Morse code for letters AR meaning end of message.

The late Jim Cahill was liked and respected by his shipmates, serving on the Swanson from June 1941 to March 1946. During this period he advanced in rate from Seaman 2^nd Class to Radioman 1^st Class.