July 14, 2000
The story that follows is based on the actual experiences of William Bristol, a Coxin in the U.S. Navy. William Anson Bristol was born on September 16, 1925 in Canton, Connecticut. He was the youngest of two sons of Stuart and Margaret Bristol, the brother of Arthur Bristol. William has lived in Connecticut seventy-five years and graduated from Canton High School in 1943. That same year on July 9, at the age of 18 years, he enlisted in the Navy in World War II in order to avoid being drafted into the Army. For the first two years of service he worked as a gunner for a Merchant Marine ship, the SS Arthur Dobbs. These ships were known as Liberty Ships. From there he joined the “real” Navy in which he became a third class boatman, otherwise called a “Coxin.” This entailed running the small ships which provided the men on land with such supplies as jeeps, tanks, and ammunition. Throughout William’s three years of service in the U.S.N. he had a great number of experiences; some good, others not so good. He was present during the invasion of France at Normandy, came down with malaria, and had many other experiences. In 1945, when war had ended, the ship he worked on, the SS Arthur Dobbs, and others like it ware used as troop transports which brought the men from Pearl Harbor to the mainland. From there he was moved by train
to Virginia where he was discharged. “I remember
the date like it was yesterday, March 16, 1946, but that’s not the only
date that I remember.”
It was July 9, 1943 when William enlisted in the war. His father, Stuart, drove him to Hartford where he was dropped off and not seen again until his first visit home. On this day the confusion of his emotions was so strong he couldn’t think. It was as if he were a kid again going to an over-night summer camp, not knowing what to expect. He was anxious to fight for our country but afraid to die for it. From Hartford he was transported to New Haven and then to Manhattan where he would find either death or honor.
“I remember my identification number as if it were my own telephone number, #807315.”
William’s ship completed work that might be looked at by some as unimportant, but to the soldiers they were “liberators.” Each trip his ship took would load up in New York and bring the supplies wherever they were needed, whenever they were asked for.
The ship traveled at eleven knots, which is the equivalent of eleven or twelve miles per hour. Each trip was a new experience and became a new memory. “I have many memories of my time in War.”
One day, returning from England where they had just loaded up with 90,000 cases of Glasgow Scotch whiskey, William witnessed something that affected him greatly. It was a hot summer afternoon in 1944, the sun was high and bright, and the ocean was as clear as day and as flat as glass. At about four hours off land, which is right when one can see the shoreline, all of the men on ship came on deck and disarmed themselves. William perched at the bow peering over the great span of ocean finally meeting the land with his eyes. The fifteen-ship convoy that his ship traveled with was lined up in single file.
“Almost there,” he thought, as he did every time. Two hours from freedom, his vision of the land was destroyed by the explosion of the second ship in front of him. Pieces of the ship showered to the water like fireworks on the Fourth of July. His eyes went blank as if all life had been stolen from them. None of the ships stopped; there were no survivors. All the men aboard the SS Arthur Dobbs came on the deck, stunned and speechless. Not a word was said, not by the sailors or later, by the War department. The explosion had been caused by German submarine’s torpedo. As William’s ship passed, he inspected the wreckage, observing the debris floating on the surface. The men were never instructed not to speak of the incident, but silence was implied. There was not one newspaper that wrote of it, nor was there anything on the radio. Everything was kept “Hush-hush.”
William never knew what the families of the men aboard the blown-up ship were told, but it was figured that those families were simply told that their loved ones were killed in action. Once William returned home for good, he never spoke of this secret, nor did he speak much of the war in general.
Cole Bristol