Never Forgotten: Gerald Anderson, Part 3

Please Note: This blog post is an account of World War II, including violence, illness, death, and other themes that may not be suitable for younger readers.  While these stories are an integral part of history, some of the following content may be slightly graphic in nature.

Part 1 Part 2

The following is an excerpt from “Never Forgotten: Stories by Scott County, Minnesota, WWII Veterans” by Tom Melchior. This is the story of Navy veteran Gerald Anderson, who earned a Baker Third Class ranking. As part of the Commissary Branch, bakers were responsible for all kinds of baking, operating ovens and other baking equipment, and setting up field ovens when ashore.

Gerald shipped out to the South Pacific, namely the Solomon Islands and what is now Papua New Guinea, aboard the USS Perida.

The temperatures were always over 100 Fahrenheit with about 85 Fahrenheit at night. At first, we slept on the ground, but later we got cots and even blankets. We burned a big pile of navy blankets because we had no use for them. Our tents would get ripped apart by shrapnel. Mostly we would put a new one right on top of the old one. Our bathroom was a tent with two sides, with seats, and a trough dug in the middle. We each carried our own paper.

We had earthquakes caused by the volcanoes. They rolled you out of your cot. Often our planes could not take off because of the violent shaking and rolling of the ground.

All doctoring and dentistry was done out in the open. The bread mixer flew apart and hit me in the face. The dentist put pegs in my front teeth. I had an awfully sore mouth for awhile. Our dentist, Dr. Mayerle of Chaska, just marvels that those pegs are still in place and are a very good fit. If you ever have watched MASH on television, that’s a pretty good example of what our hospital was like. I gave a direct blood transfusion one day to a man who had both legs amputated. I lay on a table with only a sheet between us. I never knew his name or if he survived.  

There was nothing built when we got to Bougainville, so we started from nothing. Supplies came in on our ships, and we built everything with canvas and stakes. The galley had center pole and a roof, but no sides. The ovens were heated with a diesel generator. The galley was bombed away many times and rebuilt. We were all on C rations until we got it built again. The ovens in the pilot’s galley were electric. Sometimes supply ships were hesitant to come in because of the constant shelling from the hills. We would often not get the provisions when we needed them. I remember even being rationed on ammunition.

One morning when I was on my way to the bakery, the shells started coming in. I ran back, grabbed Frank, and dove into our foxhole right outside our tent, and saw our tent blown away. He would have been killed. Frank always said I saved his life.

The Japanese also came down to watch our movies when we had them, but the movies had to end because they made too easy a target.

I spent two Christmases on Bougainville and they were much like any other day. We did have a church service, although not regularly. A young Catholic priest led all the services for everyone. All attended, no matter what faith they were. That young priest was killed on Bougainville. Prayer was an important part of my daily life. I had then and still have a firm bond with my Lord.

During the entire time I was overseas, I saw only three women. One was a nurse, who came to pick up the wounded. I believe one of the wounded she came for was the man I gave blood to because I saw her there. The other two were with Bob Hope, who came to Bougainville around Christmas time to give us a show. I remember the protection he and his group were given. I guess it makes sense now, but at the time it made me angry. Machine guns were all around the stage pointing at our men!  I never got to see the show, but we did feed them in the pilots’ galley.

Men reacted differently under fire and the continued stress. Many walked into the ocean or disappeared into the jungle. I saw them. It was hard to see. I carry those pictures in my mind. The officers tried to stop the suicides or spot the ones who were showing signs of snapping, but they didn’t always catch it.

There were quite a few little Koala bears. They were cute, lived in trees, and came down to steal food. There were also coconut rats everywhere. We hated them!  There were coral snakes that lived in and around the coral. They were poisonous. Before we could swim in the ocean, they would spray the beach with fuel and ignite it to clear the beach of snakes. There were many mosquitoes. At first, we had nothing, only the ground to sleep on and no covering. Later, we did have netting to put over our cots. There were also many kinds of lizards. They did not bite, so we ignored them.

We swam sometimes on Sunday afternoons. We also had ball games on the strip. The other entertainment was Tokyo Rose over the loud speaker once that was in place. She told us what we were missing.

The pilots had a better diet than we did, more fresh fruit. They could sit down and eat. Whatever time they came in we fed them. We got to eat the same food they did. One of the pilots was gonna have a birthday and he wanted apple pie. He brought apples in from Australia. I did ride in the planes with the pilots many times. The pilots were not supposed to take me along, but they knew I could bake apple pies. I went with him over the island of Rabaul while he dropped his load of bombs. There was a seat in the back where I sat. This was a thrill I will not forget. I went with them on practice runs over our ships. We’d go up really high, so high you could barely see the ship, and then dive at it. The ship got bigger and bigger, and then the pilot pulled the plane straight up. I did get sick a couple of times when we got back, but I would do it again if asked.

We did get time off, and during that time we wrote letters and washed clothes. Letters were our lifeblood. Sometimes, it would be days and even weeks before we got mail. The letters we wrote were all censored before they left the island. When people got my letters, they would be cut up – a word here and there, or entire paragraphs. I always read all my other mail first and saved Ione’s till last.  Her letters were so important!

Gerry got a 30 day rehab leave, his first in two years and four months, after serving 18 months on the islands. 

When we were finally ready to make the trip home by train, I wore my dress blues. I was thinking I wanted the folks to see me as a sailor and accept me. I was always proud of the fact that I was in the U.S. Navy. 

The feeling of “being home” was just as soon as I stepped onto American soil. My folks and Ione met me at the train depot. I remember sitting by Ione on the way home. It was, in a way, difficult to be home. I could not share any of my last two years. I did ask Ione to marry me, and we bought an engagement ring in downtown Minneapolis. When my 30 days were up, I was afraid to go back. I was sobbing like a baby when I walked away from the folks and Ione. I dared not look back.

Never Forgotten: Gerald Anderson, Part 2

Please Note: This blog post is an account of World War II, including violence, illness, death, and other themes that may not be suitable for younger readers.  While these stories are an integral part of history, some of the following content may be slightly graphic in nature.

Part 1

The following is an excerpt from “Never Forgotten: Stories by Scott County, Minnesota, WWII Veterans” by Tom Melchior. This is the story of Navy veteran Gerald Anderson, who earned a Baker Third Class ranking. As part of the Commissary Branch, bakers were responsible for all kinds of baking, operating ovens and other baking equipment, and setting up field ovens when ashore.

Gerald shipped out to the South Pacific, namely the Solomon Islands and what is now Papua New Guinea, aboard the USS Perida.

Bougainville

After the Marines had secured the beach head on Bougainville, we moved up there on LSTs during the night. I sat on one of three bulldozers. When we got to the bay, the front of the LST dropped down, and we were hit by artillery shells from the hills and we lost many men. I lost all my belongings. I followed the bulldozer in waist deep water going ashore. The LSTs were all sunk. As soon as we hit land, we dug fox holes. I found out I could dig with my fingernails. This bay was named Empress Augusta Bay. The area on the island was called Torokina. We had to restock by taking supplies off the men who had been killed coming ashore. 

Shortly after this, I was reassigned to a new unit, Casu 12.  My old unit, Acorn 15, lost about 600 men, who were either killed or wounded. Out of 800, fewer than 200 of us were left. We were not combat trained. We were issued rifles, but we had no gun training. Some of the men had never even fired a gun. We had been trained to serve on board a ship, but not in the ways of jungle combat. We had not been taught how to dig a foxhole or given any tools

This bay, which would be home for 18 months, was shaped like a crescent. It was about two miles deep (into the jungle) by 10 miles of shore. It was coral and very swampy. We could not dig very deep, or we would be in water. We always dug our foxholes right next to our beds because we never knew when shelling would start or when the Japanese planes would strafe the bay. We had to bury the dead men at night because we could not use light of any kind. The odor of death was so powerful. A body began to decompose within hours after death. After the attacks that killed so many, we had to pile the bodies, both American and Japanese, and cover them with airplane fuel and burn them. I was 19 years old. I lived with this for the entire 18 months I was there (and also for the next 50-plus years.)

We could see the Japanese bomber planes coming way up high. We got to understand that when our anti-aircraft guns would fire at them, the Japanese fighter planes would come in low to strafe the ground. They were trying to hit our planes. We had to hit the ground and we always covered our heads with our arms. The strafing was so frightening. The planes dropped incendiary bombs, and the shells that came out of the hills whistled or screamed. The bombing and shelling lasted for hours. To this day, anyone whistling makes me tense and hurts my head.

The largest Japanese stronghold was Rabaul on the island of New Britain.  Our planes would fly over Rabaul with bombs to try and knock out this camp. We never took Rabaul, which is also where the Japanese planes came from when we were bombed and strafed. The incendiary bombs would explode into fire, but unless it was a direct hit, nothing around it would burn. The ground was like a bog and the jungle growth was so green and thick, nothing would burn.

It rained every afternoon. The plants grew overnight. Every day we all had to cut plants that kept growing up in our tents. The plants looked like bamboo. I am sure that after all Americans had left the island, the jungle would have grown over everything we had built in just two to three weeks.

It surprised the Japanese when we came into the bay. They were well fortified on the mountain side. It must have been that the water in the bay was deep enough for ships. They expected us on the other side, the high side. There were two active volcanoes on Bougainville and they would bubble over. We could see the hot lava run down the sides. These volcanoes would kill our radar, so that we did not know when the Japanese planes were coming in to shell us. One night there was very heavy shelling, and we had to spend all night in the foxholes. When morning came, all the jungle trees had been mowed in half. We also had our own ships shooting into the hills from the bay. 

It was our job to feed the men, but under heavy shelling we could not bake. Frank Waliser and I took K-rations and ran through the camp, putting one (or two, three, and sometimes four) into each foxhole. All the while shells were bursting around us.

We used field ovens and a field galley. All the equipment was out in the open. The ovens were about a foot off the ground and made of heavy cast iron. We had a table to knead the bread on. The ovens held ten loaves at a time. I think we had five ovens. We put the dough in a 55 gallon barrel that we had cut in half to rise. The flour came in square tin containers. They held only enough flour for one batch of bread. The flour would mold when exposed to the air. The yeast came dry. The sugar also came in tins. Vanilla at first came in liquid, but the men drank it, so then it came in a pill form. We baked bread and cookies daily. Everything we baked was always eaten. There was no refrigeration. There were never any tables or chairs to sit at, so everybody ate standing up. Everyone ate off their own mess kit plate and was responsible for cleaning it. It was issued at the time you got your clothes.

There was never any fighting among the men that I was aware of. There was segregation though. The blacks were in one area, and whites in another, except for when I worked in the pilots’ galley. There the men were all black, except for AP Sprinkle, Ed Hawney, and myself. I was transferred to the pilot galley when I got a Baking II class rating. That’s when I met AP and Ed and from then on I lived with them.

At about this time the Japanese started infiltrating the camp and would kill one at a time by strangulation with wire. One morning after Frank and I had gone to work, the other two men in our tents were strangled. The Japanese used copper wire and would sneak into the tent in the dark and hold the wire tight. That way there was never any sound. Many men lost their lives this way.  To this day, I sleep with my arms up by my head.

Once a pilot brought in some fresh apples from Australia. I made apple pies, one pie at a time, with my mother’s recipe. They ate them as fast as I made them.  Another time, they brought in what we thought was hamburger. It turned out to be ground goat meat. It was terrible! They also brought in horse meat. It was like ham, only stringy. 

Sometimes we threw hand grenades into the ocean. It killed small sharks and then we had a feast of fresh fish. That feast required a lot of bread baking because the enlisted men were invited. One of the cooks, who was good with preparing fish, was from the Philippines. After the war, he sent me an invitation to a restaurant he opened in Los Angeles. His family had all been killed by the Japanese. He had a real hatred for all of them, killing as many as he could. He threw hand grenades into the prisoner compound at night.

Drinking water was a big premium item. You were issued one canteen per day for all your personal needs. Food was dehydrated, so there was water to prepare it. We also got orange marmalade in gallon containers. There were potatoes, rice, cabbage, eggs, dried beef, milk – all dehydrated foods. We also had canned SPAM and lots of beans. The beans were dried also, and just cooked with salt and pepper. I remember adding sugar to mine and that tasted a little bit better.

Never Forgotten: Gerald Anderson, Part 1

Please Note: This blog post is an account of World War II, including violence, illness, death, and other themes that may not be suitable for younger readers.  While these stories are an integral part of history, some of the following content may be slightly graphic in nature.

The following is an excerpt from “Never Forgotten: Stories by Scott County, Minnesota, WWII Veterans” by Tom Melchior. This is the story of Navy veteran Gerald Anderson, who earned a Baker Third Class ranking. As part of the Commissary Branch, bakers were responsible for all kinds of baking, operating ovens and other baking equipment, and setting up field ovens when ashore.

Gerald shipped out to the South Pacific, namely the Solomon Islands and what is now Papua New Guinea, aboard the USS Perida, after going to boot camp in Farragut, Idaho.

I remember watching my country slowly disappear while standing on the fan tail and wondering, “Will I ever come back?” We had no idea where we were headed and, of course, no idea what we were headed into.

Davy Jones Locker

We crossed the equator with the “initiation ceremony,” which included being washed with old dirty oil, going through a line of paddles, and given salt-water soap to clean up. Salt water soap did not remove the oil. It just spread it out more and would burn. You had that oil on all parts of your body, but mostly on your butt. You tried to scrape it off, but finally it just wore off. This treatment was given to officers and enlisted men alike. After all this, you were an official member of Davy Jones Locker. I crossed equator in October of 1943 aboard the Perida and again in November of 1945 on the USS New Kent.

Guadalcanal and the Russell Islands

We arrived at Guadalcanal and unloaded supplies. We were locked down in our lower compartments because of an air raid. This was my first look and feel of war. Then we sailed to the Russell Islands, south of Guadalcanal. When we pulled into the bay, a ship already there had been blown up. There were many lives lost and the ship sank. We reversed our engines to get away from the burning ship and the burning oil on the water. Later that night, we were unloaded over the sides on nets and into landing crafts and headed for shore. It was raining like crazy. We were led to an area in the jungle and told to set up our pup tents. We carried everything on our backs, including clothing, rifles, food, and half a tent. The Russell Islands were used as a stepping stone to get to Bougainville.

My assignment should have been on an aircraft carrier, but we lost both the Lexington and the Yorktown in the Battle of Midway on the Coral Sea. The only carrier left was the Bunker Hill. An air strip had to be set up on the islands. This was also why the air strips were built on Bougainville. The area was cleared and what looked like two foot x ten foot strips of metal mesh were laid down by the Sea-bees. This kept the vegetation from growing. Also, when they were damaged from shelling, they could be replaced. These strips could handle fighter planes, Corsairs, and light bombers, such as B-25s. We had room for 25 planes. When the bombers came back from a mission and hadn’t used all the bombs, they dropped them on the hills behind us where many Japanese were living.  When the war ended, there were more Japanese up there than we ever numbered on the bay, but the Japanese’s supplies were limited due to the difficulty of getting them on shore.

On the Russell Islands I was assigned to the Acorn 15 unit. We stayed there a few weeks. This is where John F. Kennedy’s PT boat sank, and I’m sure he was part of our camp for a while. Ours was the only galley, so I’m sure he ate some of my baking. No one knew him then and everyone is equal in war. 

We had not been on the Russell Islands very long before some of the men figured out how to make “booze,” called Raisin Jack. The man who made it was Jack Raisin. They drained the torpedoes of their alcohol which was the firing material. Then they came to us in the bakery, and got two loaves of bread. They ran the alcohol through the bread slowly. This removed the “pink lady,” which was the lead in the alcohol. The men ended up with small amount of 180-proof alcohol. They mixed coconut milk, sugar, water, and yeast. It fermented in three days. Then they added a small amount of the 180-proof alcohol to make a drink. We also used the alcohol for cigarette lighter fluid.

Tragedy

We were on the Russell Islands for several weeks. Then we were loaded onto LSTs to go to Bougainville. It is here that I experienced one of the horrors I have been unable to talk about until now. Our LST was sunk in a battle and I ended up in the water. I did manage to crawl into a breakaway (life boat). Some of us pulled guys into the boat. There were six of us in the boat. When we realized three of the men were dead, we slid them into the ocean. They and the dead and dying in the ocean floated right along with us. I was on this raft for three days and two nights. I think I vomited all the time. We were picked up by another LST and brought to Bougainville, where the invasion was still in progress. 

To Grandmother's House We Go

The following is an excerpt of “To Grandmother’s House We Go,” written by Roger Huss and recently added to the SCHS Research Library. For the full text, visit SCHS or email rogerhuss@optonline.net. If you would like to write for the SCHS blog, contact us at info@scottcountyhistory.org.

This excerpt begins with the fourth generation of the Huss family.

Do you remember the words to the song: "Over the river and through the woods / to grandmother's house we go?" It began as a Thanksgiving song and soon was adopted as a Christmas song. Well, this is a story about generations of Huss families, and they all had grandmothers. I had a special one, Elizabeth (Lenz) Huss, the only one I remember. We lived together on the Huss family farm at Union Hill. That farm was owned by four Huss generations, and, if you count the children of the fourth, five Huss generations called that house home. And they all celebrated Christmas.

With the seven daughters married and away, the Huss house was a quieter place, but not for long–John and Martha Huss began having children, part of the fourth generation. There were 9 children in their family. The daughters of Mathias and Elizabeth, except for Anna, were also having children. And, so Grandpa and Grandma Huss were blessed with 43 grandchildren that became the fourth generation, born over a span of 41 years. With all the uncles and aunts and cousins visiting our house on the farm during the Christmas season, it was an exciting place. Grandpa Huss died in 1933, but Grandma Huss, who died in 1950, lived to see all of her grandchildren except one, who was born the year after her death. 

So, what was Christmas like at that time at our house? It was fun being in a family of 9 children, and exciting with the visits of the uncles and aunts and their children, among them children of our ages. There was no limit to the fun we had and the trouble we could get into, especially the boys. In our home, and I think in the homes of our cousins, many of the customs handed down from previous generations were preserved. The Christmas season started with St. Nikolas Day on December 6th and ended on the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6th. That is one month of celebrations, but it started even earlier, in a way, because the children were admonished to be good to avoid St. Nikolas leaving a piece of coal as a gift. He usually made a short personal visit to our house, riding into the dining room on a donkey (so strange with eyes that looked like buttons), followed by a helper who brought the gifts, and Black Peter who carried the coal. I don't remember Black Peter leaving coal, surely because we were good kids. Pa had a personal connection with St. Nikolas, making sure visits were made to other families in the area, sometimes even leading St. Nikolas from place to place so that no one would be missed.

The next big event was the school play involving all the students from the Union Hill School. Several times, the play was an operetta with orchestral accompaniment by a small group of local musicians. Christmas vacation began the day after the play.

We always had a Christmas tree, and when electricity became available in the late 1930s, we used electric Christmas tree lights. If one bulb failed, the entire string of lights would go out, and it was necessary to find the bad bulb and replace it.

Santa came to our house on Christmas Eve, but only after the farm chores were done and, in the house, after the dishes were washed and the house was cleaned. The children helped even more than usual because they were full of anticipation. Sensing the excitement, Grandma Huss would suggest to Ma and Pa that she would take the children to the basement to await the arrival of Santa. Of course, our parents liked the idea and said they would join us shortly, which seemed awfully long to us. We met in the furnace room, enjoying the warmth of a crackling fire in the furnace and the delightful smell of burning wood (our answer to a fireplace which we did not have). After praying and singing carols, many of them in German because they were the songs Grandma knew, the anticipation grew as we wondered where Santa might be. When the suspense got to be just right, Pa would say he thought he heard something upstairs and suggested we check to see if Santa had arrived, but not too early, since Santa did not want to be seen. And, so, one of the younger children would crawl up the stairs quietly, open the door a crack, and, surely, Santa had arrived, left the gifts, and was on his way to the next stop.

Gifts would typically consist of items of clothing (perhaps to be worn at Christmas Mass), toys and lots of candy, nuts, and fruit. Grandma would have gifts for grandchildren, not store- bought, but rather, handmade woolen mittens and stockings that she had been knitting all year long. The best toys I remember are the Christmas horses, the first one a toy, and the other one a real animal. The toy horse was a tricycle with reins used to turn the head attached to the front wheel, and pedals under the horse to provide the power. We must have driven it around the dining room table a thousand times, and not without a few arguments about "it is my turn." The real horse was a Shetland pony, only about four feet tall, that we found tied to the washing machine on the front porch. We also got a buggy for the pony and would use it to visit friends, and even Grandma would ride along, particularly to pick chokecherries along the fence lines.

We did not stay up very late on Christmas Eve because we had to get up early on Christmas morning to attend the first Mass of Christmas at 5 AM. Mass was preceded by a visit to the crèche set up at a side altar where a reading known as The Genealogy of the Crib took place. It consisted of scriptural writings about the nativity and the lineage of Jesus. Then, the priest, along with all the servers dressed in red cassocks and white surplices, processed to the sanctuary. The four active servers joined the priest at the altar while the other servers carried candles to their places along the front of the communion rail. The choir, which would sing at three Masses, would rehearse for several months for the occasion. Union Hill was noted for the quality of its male choir and in some years would have orchestral accompaniment to the choir. Since most of the instrumentalists in the orchestra were also choir members, a mixed choir of men and women was formed to bring the choir up to the desired number of singers.

By the time the 10 o'clock Mass, the last Mass on Christmas day, had ended, throats were dry and a visit to the tavern in Union Hill was in order, especially because there was free beer until noon when the tavern closed for the day. This was a time for the men in the community to meet, socialize, and avoid being in the way at home while the women were preparing the Christmas dinner. Because all were having such a good time in the tavern, frequently the free beer flowed beyond noon, and it was not unheard of to receive a telephone call at the tavern suggesting (or demanding if it was the second call) that it was time to come home, that dinner was ready.

Food was an essential part of the Christmas celebration. Midnight Mass eventually became popular, and it became customary after returning home to have a snack, a liberal portion of homemade sausages: bratwurst, leberwurst, and blutwurst. The sausages might also be served for breakfast on Christmas morning or, instead, rings of delicious, warm baloney made in a meat market in Jordan. Christmas dinner served at noon (or a little later if the men were delayed at the tavern) would usually have as its main course chicken or ham and sometimes, but rarely, duck or goose, with mashed potatoes and gravy provided in liberal quantity. Vegetables would be those harvested from the garden in the summer: canned beans, peas, carrots, corn, and sauerkraut taken from the stone crock in the basement. It was considered acceptable to serve sauerkraut regardless of the type of meat being served. The meal was topped off with Ma's special dessert, lemon meringue pie - heavy on the filling and light on the meringue. Beer was the preferred type of libation, but always drunk before the meal, not with it. Usually, Pa would buy a gallon of sweet wine for use during the Christmas season and what was left might not be touched until the next Christmas. Interestingly, the term “cholesterol” was not part of the vocabulary at that time.

 Lots of visiting was done at Christmastime while we were on vacation from school, back and forth between our house and that of others. With Grandma Huss living with us, of course there were visits from her seven daughters, their husbands and families. Those who lived far away, the Krieglmeiers and Kaisers who lived in St. Paul (considered far away), sometimes would stay with us for several days or with other relatives in the area. With our household of nine children plus Pa, Ma, Grandma, and the hired man, adding uncles, aunts and cousins made it an exciting place. And, even if at the last moment guests would accept Ma's offer to stay for dinner or supper, it seemed to be no problem (at least to us children). It merely meant going to the basement for more potatoes for the kettle, some jars of canned meat, canned vegetables and fruit, and the addition of more plates at the table. And, for Pa, perhaps a trip was made to the tavern at Union Hill for a jug of beer.

The 27th day of December was a special day of celebration, the feast-day of St. John the Evangelist, the patron saint of the church at Union Hill, and of Pa, as it was for his grandfather, Johann Huss. While not a Christmas event, it fit nicely into the holiday season. At the church there would be a Solemn High Mass requiring three priests - celebrant, deacon and subdeacon - with the two extra priests coming from the Franciscan Monastery in Jordan. In a custom Johann brought over from Germany, in the evening there would be a name's day party at the Huss home. The guests would give the greeting: "Heilige Johannes Tag," or “Holy St. John's Day.” There would be card games and usually a pony of beer (four gallons in a wooden keg), and at the end of the evening, a lunch would be served.

The next event in the season was important to me but was given little attention. It was my birthday on December 29th. Birthdays were quiet affairs, maybe there would be a special cake, but there were no elaborate parties nor lavish gifts. New Year's Eve was a non-event for children; they went to bed. Pa might take his shotgun and visit a neighbor where they would fire a shot at midnight to announce the arrival of the new year. The festive season was winding down. The Christmas season ended on a religious note on the feast of the Epiphany on the 6th of January. While it was not a holy day of obligation to attend Mass, most of the parishioners in Union Hill did so.

And, so, while the days of the Christmas season were exciting for children, the days that followed were the dreary days of winter. But there was school, farm and house work, and games that were received at Christmas time, that kept children occupied. Eventually it would be spring, followed by summer and fall. The yearly cycle was complete and it was time once again for the wonderful and exciting season of Christmas.

And that is what Christmas was like for the fourth generation. Some things new, but many still the same–the customs Johann and Elizabeth Huss brought with them from Germany, the traditions of their ancestors.

Fifth and Future Generations

Time passes and things change! Now, into the seventh generation, most of the old customs have died out and are a matter of history rather than practice. I treasure them, and my reason for writing this article is to preserve and share that history with those who have an interest in it.

The last Huss that was an owner of the same farm Johann and Elizabeth Huss owned at Union Hill was my brother Linus, and his wife, Theresa (Shaughnessy). With six children on a working farm it was a lively place, leaving fond memories with our children who enjoyed vacationing there and got a bit of appreciation of what farm life was like. And, now, a large electrical power line is being built that runs along the road running through the farm, with an enormous substation standing on the hill to the east. I guess you can't stop progress; the power line must run through somebody's property.

I am saddened by the power line, but I am glad I have memories of those earlier times on the farm. How awesome, standing on the outdoor porch on a summer's day, looking east over the creek meandering through the pasture and seeing the beautiful landscape for almost a mile in the distance. The sun shone on the fields of green hay, tall corn in neat rows, and oats and barley turning from green to yellow, soon ready to be harvested. The dog was there too, anxiously waiting for the signal to run to the pasture to herd the cattle under the stone bridge and into the barn for evening milking. At 6 p.m., the Angelus bells at St. John’s were rung, and it was time to go into the house, recite the Angelus Prayer, and eat supper.

Thoughts

Drawing on my 8 years of memories of her while she was alive, I thought a lot about my Grandma Huss as I was writing this article, "To Grandmother's House We Go." Grandmas are always special, but she was extra special. While there are lots of endearing qualities that could be mentioned to describe her, when my brothers, sisters and I get together to talk, what we agree is most striking is that we do not remember Grandma and Ma ever having a cross word between them. They were saints. 

Little Shipyard on the Prairie, Part 3

This post was written by guest blogger Charles Pederson. If you would like to write for our blog, contact us at info@scottcountyhistory.org

Read Little Shipyard on the Prairie, Part 1 and Part 2.

Parts 1 and 2 of our story revealed the unexpected origins of Port Cargill, a shipyard in a most unlikely location. Part 3, the final chapter, discusses the nuts and bolts of launch, how the AOGs entered wartime service, and what became of them.

Launch!

Speedily setting up the shipyard, Cargill signed an initial contract with the U.S. Navy for six auxiliary oilers and gasoline vessels (AOGs). By the end of the war, the shipyard at Savage was to produce 18 AOGs and four towboats.

The USS Agawam was the first AOG turned out at Port Cargill. On May 6, 1943, its mostly empty hull was launched into the deep pool dredged in the river. It was positioned in an empty docking slot for initial fitting.

The launching of a vessel was quite an event. Dave Kenney, in Minnesota Goes to War, describes a typical sideways launch, as was practiced at Port Cargill:

Workers waxed and greased the huge twenty-four-by-eighteen-inch timbers—called sliding ways—that lay between the blocks on which the keel was laid. At the assigned moment, dozens of men armed with sledgehammers began driving wedges under the sliding ways until they lifted the keel off its blocks. The men then knocked the blocks away and ran from beneath the vessel as fast as they could. At that point, the ship was being held in place only by a hawser [thick mooring rope]. On the signal, the ship’s sponsor cracked a bottle of champagne . . . on the bow, and the launch master pressed a button that dropped a guillotine on the hawser. The ship, now free of all restraints, slid down the ways and crashed into the water.

It was an exciting moment waiting to see whether the vessel would right itself. It always did.

After initial fitting at Port Cargill, the Agawam was ready for delivery early in the morning of November 5, 1943. The vessel was expected to navigate the tricky intricacies of the Minnesota River 14 miles to Saint Paul and the Mississippi River. This was by no means a sure thing. Tugs and towboats escorted the ship. Its masts had been removed and laid on the deck so the ship could slide beneath bridges spanning the waterway. Kenney writes that “at several crucial points along the way, crews armed with trucks and cables stood by, ready to pull the tanker out of trouble should it run aground.”

The planners and crews needn’t have worried. The Agawam reached Saint Paul that same afternoon. The St. Paul Pioneer Press greeted its arrival: “A sleek gray ship, whose cavernous insides may carry fuel for planes to blast Germany or Japan, arrived in St. Paul. Fears that the vessel would be grounded on the turns on the Minnesota River . . . proved baseless.”

Finishing Touches

After completion at Port Cargill, the AOGs were towed to the Mississippi River, and thence to New Orleans. There the ships received final fittings, including a camouflage paint job as required. Then they were taken out for shakedown—testing the vessel under real-world operating conditions. Once the vessels received a clean bill of health, they steamed through the Panama Canal to the Pacific to support the war effort.

The entire list of AOGs includes (in order of production) Agawam, Elkhorn, Genesee, Kishwaukee, Nemasket, Tombigbee, Chehalis, Chestatee, Chewaucan, Maquoketa, Mattabesset, Namakagon, Natchaug, Nespelen, Noxubee, Pecatonica, and Pinnebog. Port Cargill produced its last ship, the Wacissa, in May 1946, about nine months after hostilities had ceased in Japan.

Additionally, four towboats had been born of the shipyard: the Bataan, Coral Sea, Milne Bay, and Bou Arada.

What Happened After

Many of the AOGs survived World War II and went on to have fruitful wartime and postwar lives.

The Agawam, for example, Port Cargill’s first ship, supported the invasion of the Philippine Islands in March 1945. Immediately after Japan surrendered, the Agawam was sent to Yokohama, Japan, to fuel Army bases through early 1946. It was stationed in various areas until it was decommissioned in 1960 and placed in reserve until being scrapped in 1975.

Not all Cargill-manufactured AOGs had happy or peaceful careers. The USS Chehalis (pictured in camouflage paint), was launched in late 1944. Five years later, one of its gasoline tanks exploded, and the ship burned and sank. The hull was raised in 1955 and sold to American Samoa. Courtesy of Archives Branch, Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington, DC. 

Some of the AOGs remained in the U.S. military, serving in Korea and Vietnam. Many received official recognition for their service during these conflicts. Some were sold to militaries in Greece, Colombia, and Taiwan. Some became civilian vessels, used for fishing or other commercial pursuits. Many were sold for scrap metal.

Several of the AOGs were used well into the early 2000s. The longest-lived vessels were the Elkhorn (renamed Hsing Lung) and Pecatonica (Chang Pei), which ended their useful life in 2008 as part of the Taiwanese Navy.

After World War II ended, government contracts for shipbuilding dried up. Port Cargill was converted into a grain shipping hub, which proved far more profitable than building ships had been. Today, hundreds of trucks a day drop off grain, salt, and other commodities at the port. From there barges carry the commodities down the Minnesota River to its confluence with the Mississippi, and from there to the rest of the world.

One or two buildings from the original site still quietly stand sentinel, perhaps contemplating the busy past. The sliding ways’ fingers still reach into the quiet waters of the Minnesota River, into a patriotic past.

Early 2022: A quiet winter evening at the remnants of the sliding ways at Port Cargill shipyards. Courtesy of Charles Pederson, with thanks to Cargill Inc.

Learn More!

Blegen, Theodore H. (1975). Minnesota: A History of the State (2nd ed.). University of Minnesota Press.

British Pathé. (2020, November 10). Five Ships Launched Sideways (1938). [Video].

Cargill.com. (n.d.). Building Ships to Provide Wartime Resources.

City of Savage. (n.d.). History: Cargill Ship Building.

Colton, Tim. (2021, August 7). Emergency Shipyards: Cargill.

Congressional Record. (1944, March 24–June 12). Launching of the U.S.S. “Chehalis”: Extension of Remarks of Hon. Fred Norman of Washington in the House of Representatives, Tuesday, May 2, 1944.

Duluth Seaway Authority. (2004). Launching the Quint Fleet [PDF].

Federal Reserve History. (2013, November 22). The Great Depression: 1929–1941.

Jordan Independent. (1942, April 2). Ocean Shipbuilding Will Be Done at Savage.

Kenney, Dave. (2005). Minnesota Goes to War: The Home Front During World War II. Minnesota Historical Society Press.

Minnesota Digital Library. (n.d.). Port Cargill, Scott County, Minnesota [Photograph].

MNOpedia. (n.d.). Launching the Agawam [Photo].

Naval History and Heritage Command. (n.d.). Agawam III (AOG-6).

Nelson, Tim. (2015, October 19). From Humble Beginnings to Global Power, Cargill Marks 150 Years. MPR News.

Roosevelt, Franklin D. (1939, September 3). Fireside Chat. The American Presidency Project.

Roosevelt, Franklin D. (1941, January 6). President Roosevelt’s Annual Message (Four Freedoms) to Congress (1941). Our Documents.

Roosevelt, Franklin D. (1942, January 6). State of the Union Address: Franklin D. Roosevelt (January 6, 1942). In Infoplease. https://www.infoplease.com/primary-sources/government/presidential-speeches/state-union-address-franklin-d-roosevelt-january-6-1942

Tapalaga, Andrei. (2020, July 14). The Tragic Story of the Dionne Quintuplets. History of Yesterday.

Time. (1943, September 13). Production: The Farmer Goes to Sea.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (n.d.) CPI Inflation Calculator. https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

U.S. Naval History Division. (1959). Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (Vol. 5). Navy Department, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Naval History Division. Click “Read for Free” button.

Wurzer, Cathy. (2010, June 16). Minn. Companies Helped Fight WWII in Surprising Ways. MPR News Morning Edition.

Zenith City Press. (n.d.). May 8, 1943: The “Dionne Quints” Launch Five Ships.

Thank you to Cargill for sponsoring this series and providing access that makes this story possible.