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THOMAS PATRILLO - US NAVY WWII
Heroes in Our Midst
By Ted Tripp
(03/06/07)
METHUEN
Sixteen million Americans served in World War II. Only a
fraction of this number saw action in both the European
and Pacific Theaters. And only a handful of those served
on both a battleship and an aircraft carrier. This brings
us to Seaman Tom Petrillo, who served on the Battleship
Massachusetts during the 1942 landing in North Africa and
later aboard the Escort Aircraft Carrier St. Lo in the
Philippines.
On October 25, 1944, the St. Lo became the first U.S.
ship sunk by a Japanese Kamikaze airplane. That day, five
out of 13 ships in St. Los Taffi 3 Task Force would
be sunk by a superior Japanese naval force which
surprised the Americans in the Battle off Samara. Tom
Petrillo, badly wounded, would spend most of that day in
the water before being rescued by the Destroyer USS
Raymond. One hundred and twenty eight of his shipmates
were not so lucky and perished at sea.
Thomas J. Petrillo was born in 1917 and grew up in the
Pleasant Valley section of Methuen. In 1934, in the midst
of the Great Depression, he left the public schools to
work at his brothers store, Als Grocery, to
help out the family. Some years later he would learn the
carpentry trade from his father. By 1940-41 he was
building apartments in Portsmouth, N.H.
On December 7, 1941 Tom was with his father at work when
the radio announced that the Japanese had bombed Pearl
Harbor. The following month Tom received a letter from
Uncle Sam ordering him to report to Ft. Devens on March
1st for induction into the Army. One week before March
1st, Tom went down to the post office in Lawrence and
joined the Navy instead. He just couldnt picture
himself slogging through the mud and dirt and eating cold
rations all the time.
On March 31st Tom reported to the Navy in downtown Boston
for the mandatory haircut and physical. The next day he
was sent to the Naval Air Station in Newport, R.I. for
five weeks of basic training. Completing his basic, he
was then ordered to South Boston to become part of the
crew of the newly completed battleship USS Massachusetts
(BB 59).
The Battleship Massachusetts, called Big
Mamie by its crew, was built by the Bethlehem Steel
Co. at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Mass. She was delivered to the
Boston Navy Yard in April of 1942 and commissioned the
following month on May 12th. She was 680 feet long,
displaced 35,000 tons and could travel at 27 knots. Her
armament consisted of nine 16" guns, twenty 5"
guns, twenty-four 40 mm guns and thirty-five 20 mm guns.
The ship had a complement of 2200 enlisted men plus
officers.
Seaman Tom Petrillo was assigned to be a shellman or
shell loader on one of the 5" guns. It was his job
to load the shells into the breech just ahead of the
powder charge. Each shell weighed between 64 and 74
pounds, depending on type. There were three types of
shells: anti-aircraft, armor piercing and explosive.
At this point in his service, Tom was being paid
$21/month. Out of this he had to pay for insurance,
haircuts and other miscellaneous items. He says there was
only enough left over at the end of the month for about
two beers.
For the first two or three months, Tom and the rest of
the crew practiced their jobs while the ship stayed
dockside. Then, finally, they went to sea. He remembers
sailing up off the coast of Maine for gunnery practice.
Some days ships would tow targets far behind them for the
gunnery crews to shoot at. Other days it was airplanes
towing drones for aerial target practice. All this would
be put to good use in the coming months. Tom says that
with perfect timing the gunnery crew could get off 60
rounds a minute with the 5" gun.
Then, on October 24,
1942, the Mas-sachusetts left Casco Bay, Maine and headed
south to rendezvous with the ships of the Western Naval
Task Force. BB 59 was to become the flagship for Admiral
H. Kent Hewitt as the task force head-ed east for the
Allied invasion of North Africa. Known as Operation
Torch, this was the first landing of American troops in
the European Theater. General George Patton was in
command of the American GIs as they opposed the
Vichy French then allies of the German Army.
Early in the morning on November 8th, 1942, the
Battleship Massachusetts arrived off Casablanca, Morocco
and took the defenders by surprise. The Massachusetts had
orders not to fire first, but then the French Battleship
Jean Bart, moored at the dock, fired her 13" guns at
the American ship. The Massachusetts responded with her
16" guns and after five hits silenced the French
ship. These were the first 16" guns fired in battle
in World War II.
The Massachusetts then opened fire on other ships trying
to flee the harbor. It sank two de-stroyers, two merchant
ships, a floating dry dock, and destroyed shore
bat-teries including an ammu-nition dump. During all this
action, the Massa-chusetts was hit by four shells, but,
fortunately, there were no injuries to the crew. At 2300
hours the night before the battle, Tom remembers that he
and the crew were fed a steak dinner. He spent the night
in the gun mount preparing for action. However, he did
get a break to attend Mass early the next morning before
the battle began.
By late on November 8th the shooting had ceased and that
night the Massachusetts headed back across the Atlantic
to Norfolk, Va. to take on a new supply of ammunition.
While docked there, half the crew from the southern part
of the country was given a one-week leave. Then the ship
headed north to Boston to repair the damage it incurred
off Casablanca. Here, also, the half of the crew from the
northern part of the country including Tom
got a one-week leave.
In Decem-ber of 1942 the Massachusetts left Boston and
headed north for two days of trials off the coast of
Maine. Then it turned south towards the Panama Canal for
eventual action against the Japanese in the Pacific. It
took two days to traverse the canal and Tom remembers it
well. He says the Massa-chusetts was so wide that it
brushed the sides of the locks and the crew had to hose
down the contact points to promote slippage and thus
prevent any damage.
Halfway through the canal, the ship an-chored in one of
the canals lakes for the night. Tom remembers
natives coming out in canoes selling bananas for $1 an
entire bunch. You lowered a
rope to the canoe and the natives would tie bananas to
it. The money was transferred in the same way. Some
sailors would throw coins into the water and watch the
local natives dive for the money.
After leaving the canal, the Massa-chusetts headed out
into the Pacific. On March 4th, 1943 the ship arrived at
the French island of New Caledonia. The harbor at Noumea
was horseshoe shaped with two ships on either side of the
entrance. They would open and close the harbor with a
submarine net as ships entered or left the naval base.
The Massachusetts joined a fleet of carriers, cruisers
and destroyers. It was the only battleship present.
Tom says the residents of Noumea were friendly. They
spoke French and Japanese. You could go ashore and buy
lemonade and fresh fruit. The town also had a local place
called the Pink House where ladies would
entertain the troops. Tom says the Army
soldiers from a nearby camp were always lined up at the
entrance to get in. The Navy, however, had commandeered a
nearby island and set up baseball fields, picnic tables
and other recreational pursuits. When the Massachusetts
was in harbor, a third of the crew would be rotated to
the island every third day for R & R. The sailors
would come to call this island their Shangri-La.
During the period Tom was at New Caledonia, the
Battleship Massachusetts primary task was to shell
Japanese installations on the islands before our troops
made an amphibious landing. He says there were many such
small islands and landings as the U.S. Navy and Marines
started reclaiming the South Pacific from Japanese
forces.
The Massachusetts would usually join with several
cruisers and 4-5 destroyers on these missions and be gone
for 2-3 days. The ship would then rendezvous at a
designated meeting place and await the next invasion
order.
By now it was the summer of 1943 and Tom had been on the
Massachusetts for sixteen months. While docked in New
Caledonia one day, an announcement suddenly came across
the intercom. It listed 109 sailors and said they had one
hour to get their things together and disembark from the
ship. They were to return to the states for a new
assignment. Tom Petrillo was on that list.
He and the others were put on a Merchant Marine ship
headed back to San Francisco. When he arrived he had
leave and so took a train across country to visit his
folks. In September of 1943 he was back in Methuen for a
brief stay. Then he was told he had 21 days to report to
Naval Station Bremerton in Washington state for his next
assignment. That would be aboard the USS Midway, an
escort aircraft carrier just being completed in the
nearby Kaiser Shipyard.
In next months continuation of Tom Petrillos
story, we will see how the USS Midway became the USS St.
Lo and how it was sunk off the Philippine coast in the
Battle off Samara.
*Send your questions comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com
The March 2007 Edition
of the Valley Patriot
The Valley Patriot is a Monthly
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All Contents (C) 2007, Valley Patriot, Inc.
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Thomas Petrillo Part II
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