In the Navy:

An Interview With Raynald Bergeron

We had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Bergeron at the Canton Public Library on Monday, May 12th, 2003, at 2:00 in the afternoon. Raynald had received a sports scholarship for football and baseball but was unable to attend college because, after receiving draft papers, Mr. Bergeron decided to enlist in the Navy. He became Chief Petty Officer aboard the U.S.S. Denver, and he would stay on this ship for the duration of his time served in war, which was from 1942-1946. Raynald Bergeron allowed us to see the finer aspects of going to war, the friendships you made aboard ship, and the fun you had passing time while you were away from your family.

Question- Beth Day, or Ansley Lingenheld

Answer- Raynald Bergeron

Question: What was your rank?

Answer: I was Chief Petty Officer aboard ship, I took care of all the supplies aboard ship, I took care of about everything else aboard ship, dishes, food, everything but oil and ammunition.

Question: And, umm, where did you train?

Answer: I trained at Coddington Point, Rhode Island, in 1942 October.

Question: And umm, where did you serve?

Answer: Everything was out in the Pacific aboard the same ship. [We were on the] U.S.S. Denver and we put that in commission on October 12 in New Jersey. They had to put it all together and headed down the Panama Canal.

Question: Do you remember any of the names or dates of your missions?

Answer: What was that?

Question: Do you remember any of the names or dates of your missions?

Answer: The missions?

Question: Yeah.

Answer: Oh yea, got it all here, think you oughta make a copy of this. ‘Cause it’s quite a, quite a war record, to the ship. I was on it from the beginning to the end, when we decommissioned it in ‘46. You can take this and make copies as long as I get it back, we get one of these here about every six months. There’s quite a few of the sailors. It tells you how many are left here. But and, and their wives and everything. But we started with 1400, and I guess we are down to about, maybe 1700 now, getting old because I’m, I’m going to be 82.

Question: Did you enlist or did you get drafted?

Answer: Well, I got my draft papers, in January, and I ran right to New Haven, and joined the Navy. [chuckle].

Question: What did you think of the people, that you were serving with?

Answer: Ah, oh they were fine, they were all about the same age. We were all about anywhere from 19-22. But most of the sailors came from New England. When we first put the ship in commission at Coddington Point, where we trained, we were from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut, some from New York. There was a few old timers, you know, aboard ship already when we got there, but they couldn’t of done anything without the rest of us.

Question: So did you make any new friends in the service?

Answer: Oh yes, we still meet. In fact we’re going to meet tomorrow in Sturbridge Village. The New England sailors that were aboard ship and uh, out in the other parts of the country, they have mini reunions also, and we had one big one in September. My last one was down in New Orleans.....

Question: Were there people from all over?

Answer: All over, yeah. Yup, the sailors came from everywhere you know ‘cause a lot of the sailors were aboard ship when I first went on there, some got transferred. You know after you get past a certain training date, some want to be a cook, well how many cooks could you have aboard ship, so they bring them in, and put them all over the ship, so they..

Question: So how many years were you, in war for?

Answer: I ... I went in the 12th, of ...or the 10th, 10th of October in ‘42, and I got out February 8th ‘46; I was discharged.

Question: How old were you when you went in?

Answer: I was 19.

Question: Do you remember anything that you liked the least about war?

Answer: Well, it wasn’t too bad in the beginning, but then we laid off a little bit. Because we didn’t have all of our ships made already, because they were a surprise attack, on Pearl Harbor, and the rest of the world, and umm...

Passerby: I just happened to be eavesdropping. Now when he was in the service in WWII, everybody was patriotic, we all stood behind all the fellows of the service, and people, people had flags in their windows with stars. If you had the blue star somebody was in the service; and with the silver star, they were injured; and with the gold star, they were killed. The whole country was behind him

Answer: I had a picture, picture of the [unclear] that got killed and he was only, over in Europe for two weeks. He was the pitcher for Canton, and I was the catcher.

That was in 1938-39.

Passerby: I hope you didn’t mind my interrupting. But I was giving an idea of was it was like in those days. We used to save our empty cans, and they would use them for the war. And the kids used to buy bonds.

Question: Did you hear from your family much?

Answer: What was that?

Question: Did you hear from your family much?

Answer: Well, yeah, we got mail. We got mail when it caught up to us. Sometimes we didn’t get it, a letter for 7 months... 8 months, ‘cause we couldn’t stop. But about that question before that before she, uhh... joined the Navy, was [chuckle] uhh.. as it went on you’ll see after you read some of this here, how it really started to bang, we got hit by Kamikazes, we got hit with shells, then we got hit with an airplane, then we got torpedoed in ’43, and it was quite a ship. The whole division was. We had a four cruisers and eight destroyers in our division and we had a lot of landings, because you tell by the landings, that we had eleven battle starters. They tell you how many ships we sank, how many airplanes we knocked down, everything. Then, then you have to be friends then, when you’re fighting that close.

Question: Did you have any connections with the allies? At all?

Answer: Just in Philadelphia, when we put the ship in commission. They used to have tea and a band play every afternoon.... Other than that, we were out to sea. Because most of our allies, uh, they were over in Europe, like in the Atlantic, where I spent all of it in the Pacific. I only got 40 days off when we got torpedoed, and I came home. But by the time we got back in 40 days, I had the patch on there, ready to go. Ready to go again.

Question: You were ready to go back out after 40 days?

Answer: Oh yeah, Like the lady said, you couldn’t get gas stamps, so I couldn’t run my marmalade. [Laughs]

Question: If you ever had a chance would you do it again?

Answer: Uh, I would, yes. Not right now though, I’m getting too old, but them days, I mean we were all, we were all stuck together, went out together, went to the USO’s, and we didn’t get much, much liberty. Only when we were torpedoed.

Question: Did you feel that you accomplished a lot?

Answer: Oh yeah, yeah. Well, you know, in the beginning, when we first got out there you know, we were taking a beating. We were losing carriers, we were losing a lot of ships, ’cause they didn’t have any, but they made them so fast over here. Like our division, it was only around, oh I’d say maybe a year and four months, or something like that, they already had three cruisers built. Our sister ships. Of course it was competitive too, for boxing. I boxed aboard ship, against our own division. When we won three times. We get a whale boat and send over a boxing team and box on the hanger deck, see the hanger deck was back here because we had spotting planes, sea planes aboard ship. When we bombarded in [Webford, Landing] they spot tell us where to hit.

Question: Did you see many fatalities?

Answer: Oh yes, well we lost some men when we got torpedoed, and the names are right there. Some are from Hartford.

Question: Were any of them your friends?

Answer: Oh yes, yep. It’s pretty close. Especially like the business I was in. We had to bring on [stores] they’d all have to report to me on the hanger deck. ’Cause when you loaded something, you loaded maybe ten-fifteen tons, so there was just a regular chain. So you need a lot of people there, and a lot of them hate you, because you put them to work. [Laughs.]

Question: Did you mind all the work? Or was it okay?

Answer: No, it was okay, you didn’t have to work that much, there was so many to help out, so . . . I graduated from here, in 1941.

Question: Before you actually got the draft papers, did you ever even think about going to war?

Answer: No, ’cause it happened so quick. That was right after Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was in December, remember? That was the year I graduated high school.

Question: Did you have anything to do with Iwo Jima?

Answer: We bombarded it. It tells you in here when we bombarded it, what date it was, I guess it was July 6 or something like that, we bombarded it before they made a landing.

Question: So, did you have any like college plans, or anything that you had to back out of because of the war?

Answer: Yes, yeah, ’cause I had an athletic scholarship to a teacher’s college, in Springfield. But, I couldn’t go. Well, when I came back, I went two years, down in Central.

Question: What was the biggest impact going to war has had upon your life today?

Answer: Well, I think myself personally, it was just like going to school, a different kind of school, you learn how to get along with a bunch of people, because somebody is always hiring you all the way up to the captain. And ah, you got to stay within your rank. But, it was, well, we all got along, you know, there was no trash aboard ship, or nothing like that.

Question: Did you like the head captain?

Answer: Oh, yeah, we had four of them. All four of them are here. Two of them made admiral. Admiral Carney is the one that signed the papers in Iwo Jima with the Japanese, when they surrendered. Yep, he made admiral and he was one of the party that went over there.

Question: Did you have trouble sleeping on the ship, like were you scared you were going to get attacked?

Answer: Well, yeah, ’cause you had planes come up from all angles, and they used to call them bogies. “Bogey at 300 miles,” and then the alarm goes off, and you got to jump out of bed, out of your bunk, and get to your. . . well everybody had a battle station, even myself. I had my own office, and people working under me, and all the store rooms and everything aboard ship. You still had a battle station. I was a sight setter for the six inch guns, the big ones up on top. That was my job, every time I was down at the floors.

Question: What did they used to call them? Bogeys?

Answer: Bogeys. Bogeys are a enemy planes coming in. They could tell by radar how many were coming in, how fast they were going, and everything. So we got torpedoed; we shot the plane down that torpedoed us.

Question: Have you ever shot a gun before the war?

Answer: Not aboard the . . , well no, not in the Navy, there were trained gun men.

Question: Um, how did you feel when you got home, like was everything different when you got home?

Answer: Oh, yeah, I was best man two days after I got home for one of my friends, a sailor from New Haven. And ah, my sister got married. It was, pretty busy when I got back. But I was glad to get home.

Question: Were you married before you got in, or no?

Answer: Oh no, no.

Question: Ah, what did you miss most then, while you were away?

Answer: I think it was family.

Question: Are there any memories that stick with you the most about war?

Answer: I think when we got torpedoed, it was the worst. The ship was almost 700 feet long, and it started to tilt over, and we were on the lower deck when they hit. It was kind of scary that you want to make sure a fat guy is not in front of you if you are trying to get out of the hole. [Laughs.]

Question: So how badly did the ship get damaged?

Answer: It wiped out about two of the engines. There was four engines and two powder rooms. Powder cans are in there for the projectors. I guess we were lucky we only lost ... what was it...? 22-24 men.

Question: Were you injured at all?

Answer: No.

Question: So it must have seemed really crowded on the ship. Like when the torpedo incident happened, was it really crowded on the ship?

Answer: No, not that crowded. You wouldn’t think so, because the thing is, the ship was so big, it was about 700 feet long, and about 63 feet wide. That’s a big ship, and it’s not a battleship either. It’s a heavy cruiser.

Question: How big was the battleship?

Answer: Maybe another 30 feet longer, something like that, but they were a lot, lot wider because they got bigger guns. That’s what you go by, the destroyers got 5 inch guns, we had 6 inch guns, all the turrets on it, and then the battleships were 10 and 12 inch guns.

Question: Um, back to a while ago. You mentioned boxing on the ship. So did you enjoy doing that?

Answer: Oh yeah, I was boxing captain.

Question: Is that what you got the athletic scholarship for, or no?

Answer: No, it was for quarterback in football, and uh, I was a catcher on a ball team. We had a good team you know, very, very large.

Question: And boxing just help keep your mind off . . .

Answer: Oh sure, you had to do something, unless you wanted to get in on a poker game or shoot dice, or something like that. But you don’t make enough money to get into those kind of games.

Question: And there were never any fights between people on the ship?

Answer: No, no, you had nice arms. We had marines, we had 40 marines aboard ship. Yeah, so they did guard duty and century duty for the officers and the captains. They kept to themselves. If there was going to be any arguments, it would be between the navy and the marines, but it never happened.

Question: Were you ever in contact with different branches of the army, like the air force, or . . .

Answer: Only when we got... well, when we got liberty we’d meet.

Question: Did you make friends with anybody from the military, or like only from the Navy?

Answer: Well, like I said, tomorrow we are going to meet, there are going to be around 70-80 sailors and their wives there, and we meet in the spring and the fall. September we have a big one, different states and different cities.

Question: If you could change any events that happened, what events would you change?

Answer: I don’t know, I think there should have been more training, because we were, we were only there for about ten days, in Rhode Island, and half of us didn’t know one half of the ship from the other. And then we had to be able to fight already, we were heading down towards Panama.

Question: Have you ever been on any type of large ship before that?

Answer: No, a lot of small ones, but not big ones.

Question: How did the war change your perspective on the world?

Answer: Well, we got along with all the ones that we did meet from all the countries, even when we went to Japan. That was almost near the end of the war, and we went from Okinawa to there and we went on liberty, but we still had to wear a SP band and a gun, and they used to send us over two, three guys at a time. But you should see the look we used to get from the Japanese people.

Question: What’s an SP band?

Answer: Shore Patrol. They give you a side arm, a 45, no bullets, but that’s just one way of getting on liberty.

Question: What’s liberty?

Answer: Going to shore, having a good time.

Question: So, when you got the forty days off, what did you do during those days?

Answer: I was here. Some of us went home during those days, during ’46, but um, you know, you visit your family, and you’re not an old man yet, so you go out and have a good time.

Question: Did you ever box again after you were . . .?

Answer: Oh yeah, yeah.

Question: Do you remember what your draft number was?

Answer: No, it was a long number, I know that, it’s on your dog tag.

Question: Do you still have anything that you kept from the war?

Answer: Oh yeah, I got a little piece of wood, they call it a plank. When we put that ship in commission, on Christmas, we got a piece of a chain and brooch to put on, so I got quite a bit of stuff.

Question: What did you do for holidays on the ship?

Answer: Just like you do here; but, ah, we didn’t have all the turkeys and stuff to go along with it.

Question: What kind of food did you eat aboard ship?

Answer: When they ate, they always had good food. I made sure of that.

Question: So like what that lady was saying before, they had stars they put on the windows, so did you have a blue star on your window?

Answer: On my window at home, yeah. The one with the gold is the one that got killed. and down in Collinsville, there’s a monument they put up there, last year, for the ones that got killed.

Question: Did you have any siblings that were serving as well, or no?

Answer: No.

Question: Did you like your job?

Answer: Oh yeah, we saw a lot of action. But like I said, you wanted to know before everybody else found out.

Question: Was there ever a time where you feared you were going to lose the war?

Answer: Well like I said in the beginning, we took a shalacken for a while. Then we started picking up; that's when we got it straight and fought a battle and won. Battle of the Lady, we won that one. We went to a lot of islands.

Question: Did you know anybody else that had gone into the Navy?

Answer: Oh yeah, a lot of friends from New Haven went.

Question: Do you have any kids?

Answer: Yep, I have a son that lives in Harwinton. He’s not married, and I got a daughter that lives in Colombia, Colombia Lake, Connecticut, She’s got three children.

Question: Have they ever thought about going into the service?

Answer: No, no not yet. Grandsons are probably going in.

Questions: Were you ever scared, uncomfortable, or unhappy about anything on the ship, like I know you probably were scared when you got torpedoed . .

Answer: Yeah, yeah, you always get excited when you’re half asleep and you wake up and you only get four hours sleep and then you’re up with an alarm, and you can’t see, because everything is at night. Yeah, they do most of the fighting at night.

Question: Was their any routine you had to follow when you got torpedoed?

Answer: Oh yeah, some of the departments were on fire, so they had to put those out. And you got to stay in your battle stations, because you don’t know if another plane is coming.

Question: Do you remember what time you had to go to sleep and wake up?

Answer: They let you know, somebody was there to wake you up.

Question: With the boat being so large, you never got boat sick or anything?

Answer: No. We went through some rough times, we hit typhoons and everything, a lot of them got sick in the beginning, but ah, I was pretty fortunate.