NOW HEAR THIS
by Norval P. Caples

After months of taking the fight to the enemy at full tilt every day, World War II ended with a suddenness that took us all by surprise. Now, at peril only from nature's elements, many warships could be moored alongside makeshift docks or each other while awaiting further orders, repairs, or for re-supply.  
                        My enlistment in the Navy had worked out pretty well, but the actual experience wasn't quite what I'd led myself to expect from the full color recruiting booklet I'd been given at 17-"Want Action? You'll Get It In The Navy" which showed a seaman on the cover dressed like the sailor on Cracker Jack boxes, jamming a huge shell into a ship's cannon amid the fury of battle-but it came close.
                        With the war over and having gained a little maturity at 20, there was now time for looking ahead and creating new day dreams. There was a tinge of uneasiness that came with the realization that the military wasn't exactly for me, and now here I was aimless and about to be cast adrift in life, possessing little in the way of education or social skills. But for now, sobering thoughts could be put aside, and the days sped by, filled with stimulating experiences.
                        Now that war had been replaced by peace, even the bad times were pretty good. Our ship was moored alongside docks or other ships much of the time, and during two 4-hour "watches" each day, I'd serve as messenger for the "Officer of the deck." My badge of authority was an army type ammunition belt (empty), and I'd memorize and relay any message the watch officer would assign. This was fun. I'd depress a short lever and the loudspeaker would come alive with a pulsating hum and static while I excitedly said, "Now hear this" and then announced the movie for the night, mealtime (chow down), paged various people to report to such and such a place, and announced whenever a ship's boat, sometimes called a motor launch, was pulling alongside. I had some problems with this job, enjoyable as it was. For one thing, I'd never learned exactly where the "quarterdeck" or the "bridge" was-I'd always get them mixed up. From pictures of old time sailing ships, I could have pointed out the quarterdeck straightaway, but not on this sleek destroyer. One learns to adjust. If we were steaming and underway, I'd always come out okay by heading straight for the pilot house (where the ship's steering wheel was) and finding the Captain or the Executive Officer to receive the message. (These two officers were not summoned or paged over the loudspeaker for routine, peacetime matters--it just wasn't done.) With the war now over and our ship at rest much of the time within a long row of almost identical ships, our on-board communication activity centered around the loudspeaker location which then came to be variously called the quarterdeck or the midship passageway.
                        One day, our ship was on the outside of a formation of moored ships and we had our gangplank down-I was on watch and how it happened I don't know-- and suddenly, appearing as if from nowhere, was this neat as a pin Japanese naval officer with a briefcase, politely inclining his head forward and bringing his heels together the way Germans do and reporting to ME. Help showed up and our officers greeted him with polite protocol and escorted him to the wardroom and was I ever glad because I didn't know if I had a prisoner on my hands or what. The Japanese disarmed the few warships they still had and were now using some of them to help us locate and destroy the mines they had !aid in the waters around Sasebo, an important shipbuilding city on Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan's three main islands, and the Japanese officer's visit had to do with the next days minesweeping assignments.
                        The Japanese officer, who spoke excellent English, apparently never mentioned that he wasn't given a reception at the gangplank befitting his rank, so I got away with the lapse of attention.
                         On the face of it, there shouldn't be much difference between a message announced over a sound system and one delivered in person, but there was. The loudspeaker announcements were easily done, but a message conveyed in person could be something else. We were having movies shown on deck one evening and a crowd had gathered early seeking out good vantage points from which to watch. A complaint had come to the watch officer that a bunch of rowdy sailors had climbed onto a gun turret and were cavorting around on still wet paint that had been applied earlier that day. I was sent to get those guys off and was about as effective as Barney Fife. These guys ignored me, paying no attention whatsoever. What could I do now? If I couldn't get the order carried out, maybe someone else would help me. I found an officer nearby, saluted, and lied a little, "Mr. X, the officer of the deck wants you to clear those men from the freshly painted gun turret." The officer I'd approached listened carefully and I became hopeful. Then he eyed me coldly and suggested that I return and allow the O.D. to rephrase the request, substituting the word "requests" for "wants." Making a retreat and thinking, "Oh, what a tangled web we weave...." My strategy would have worked too if only I hadn't approached an officer who happened to outrank my guy. How could I realistically keep beating a dead horse? The O.D. would have other concerns on his mind by now. With my tact and resourcefulness tested to the hilt, I did the exact same thing then that I'd do today-a half century later- and said, "The hell with it."
                        Darkness was closing in now and the captain was being escorted to his seat; those roistering sailors would be quieting down now. I eased back to my post in the mid-ship passageway. Thankfully, the officer of the deck didn't mention my latest mission and neither did I. The movie for that evening had been announced earlier on the P.A. system and for the remainder of my watch (until 8 PM) not much activity was expected. There were probably two guys remaining to be paged and once that was done, we expected to be ready for the next watch to take over.
                        The time remaining provided an opportunity to ponder some things. Why did we always page two particular sailors so much? They were both petty officers, second class and, no doubt, had essential skills, but to call them twice daily, on the public address system yet, couldn't they be kept up with or accounted for in some other way? Our ship was 365 feet long and had about that same number of crewmen. In our living compartments, we weren't really intermingled all that much. The sailors in my compartment (just under the number 3 gun turret) were all folk that I saw and worked alongside every day, and the engineering people were billeted in much the same manner. We'd nil received escorted tours of the engineering area and were awed by the complexity of the machinery and the huge steam boilers, but we weren't welcomed on those iron mesh catwalks uninvited because of potential danger to ourselves and to vital valves and gauges.
                        Thus it was that the two most sought after members of the H. A. Wiley crew were largely unknown. Their names were E. E. yon Dung and J.R. Piscor. They were often paged together..."Now hear this-will yon Dung and Piscor !ay aft (go back) to number 2 engine room (or wherever else they were needed) immediately."    
                        Nearly 50 years later, I've met up with a popular and likeable fellow who also served on the H.A. Wiley, but we didn't know each other back then. I see George Senn once or twice a year now and we talk, thankful for W. A. Zinzow, who originated and successfully carried through with amazing tenacity and resourcefulness on his mission to locate and bring together his surviving shipmates. I related to George my recollection of Piscot and yon Dung and asked if he'd known them. George knew von Dung well and knew a great deal about him. E.E. yon Dung's father was part owner of a Brooklyn, N.Y. heavy equipment shop where babbitt bearings were produced for railroad rolling stock. Von Dung worked in the business until he entered the Navy and had invited George Senn to join him in Brooklyn after the war and help make bearings. George didn't go, and years later he learned yon Dung had died.
                        George couldn't recall Piscor but was sure he was equally able and talented. Having learned this much, I relaxed recently in the company of two good friends and former shipmates (George and H. L. Elliott, my brother-in-law). Thinking back and letting my mind wander, I thought of another unsolved mystery pondered over for years. Once, way back then, some unknown person delivered this message over our P.A. system..."Now hear this-will the 'Jack of the dust' report to the officer of the deck. Who was "Jack of the dust?" What was he wanted for?
 N.P.C.'94