YORKTOWN, Va. (AP) - In the early days of World War II, Ray Duley and his shipmates on the USS Vincennes didn’t think much about the future.
“You took it day by day,” the Yorktown resident said. “I don’t think anybody really worried about what the outcome would be, or what would happen to them. They just more or less took it as it came.”
What came on Aug. 9, 1942, was nothing short of disaster.
Japanese warships ganged up on the Vincennes during the Guadalcanal campaign. As shells and torpedoes slammed into the ship, Duley remembers the shock of the explosions and sailors dropping into the water as the ship rolled over and sank.
“There was no big problem getting off,” he said. “You could just about step off the side of the ship into the water.”
More than 300 sailors died on the Vincennes, but Duley survived.
He kept taking it day by a day.
He recently turned 99.
After the Vincennes, Duley returned to the states and married Ruth Garland, whom he’d met on a blind date - technically, he was a fill-in for the first guy who couldn’t make the blind date.
They’re still married, and the couple celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary in December. She’s in a nursing home now, having turned 100. She does not lack for visits from her husband.
For the record, Duley has no advice when it comes to longevity. Maybe he’s still taking life as it comes.
“I don’t know if the man upstairs is treating me good or if I did something bad and he’s punishing me for it,” he said with a chuckle. “That’s a question I can’t answer.”
One answer comes from John Frankenburg, who knows Duley through the Fleet Reserve Association, a social and civic group for Navy, Marine and Coast Guard veterans. Duley was instrumental in securing the building that serves as the FRA branch Yorktown.
Frankenburg considers Duley a consummate gentleman. Well-dressed when he attends meetings. The kind of guy who makes you want to shake his hand.
“If you’ve met Ray, you’ve met life,” Frankenburg said. “He is the epitome of life.”
Duley grew up in Indiana and enlisted in the Navy in October 1939. War had just broken out in Europe with Hitler’s invasion of Poland, and as Duley saw it, the writing was on the wall for the U.S.
He grew up on a farm along the Ohio River, where he watched the steamboats coming back and forth. His love of water drew him to the Navy.
After initial training, he was ordered onto the Vincennes, a heavy cruiser, and worked in a turret on an 8-inch gun. The ship was two days out of South Africa when Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor, drawing America into the war.
The Vincennes eventually joined a task force centered around the aircraft carrier USS Hornet and soon found itself on a historic mission. The cruiser escorted the Hornet toward Japan for the famous Doolittle raid, which involved medium bombers taking off from an aircraft carrier.
“I watched every one of those planes take off from that carrier,” Duley said. “Never saw that before. It never happened before. We couldn’t figure out what those twin-engine planes were doing on that carrier.”
Then came the pivotal Battle of Midway, where the Vincennes sustained some damage but defended itself while helping a sister ship, according to the World War II database.
A few months later came the campaign for Guadalcanal.
On Aug. 7, 1942, the Vincennes began bombarding the beach to pave the way for Marines to invade. The ship was ordered to stay on station and guard the transports as the Marines continued to land.
The next day, an imposing sight greeted the crew. More than 30 twin-engine Japanese warplanes dropped over the mountains of Guadalcanal and raced toward the Vincennes, no more than 50 feet off the water, wingtip to wingtip.
An 8-inch gun was not designed to shoot down aircraft, but Duley and his crew improvised.
“We weren’t shooting at the planes,” he said. “We were shooting under them, throwing up big geysers of water. They were plowing into the water and tearing their planes up. We shot down every plane they had.”
Their luck ran out in the early morning hours of Aug. 9. Japanese warships armed with searchlights picked out the Vincennes and opened fire. According to the online World War II Database, the Vincennes was quickly disabled. Its bridge and radio antenna were disabled during the initial salvo.
That’s how Duley remembers it, too.
“It was a lost cause from the first shot,” he said. “You could feel the ship getting hit.”
He was manning his 8-inch gun at the time, and the ships were only a few hundred yards apart.
“Something’s going to tear loose in a hurry,” he said. “The guy that gets the first shot is going to be the winner.”
More hits from the Japanese sparked a fire, and the ship began to list. The order to abandon ship came at 2:30 a.m. Despite the damage and dozens of dead, Duley recalled that abandoning ship was a fairly orderly process.
“Nobody was hysterical,” he said. “They just took life as it is. What’s gonna be is gonna be. They went along with it.”
Besides, “When the ship’s rolled over, you got to go someplace.”
He swam about a hundred yards to a life raft, which had ropes to allow survivors to hang on. The Japanese had pulled away, and the next morning, the silhouette of a ship came through the fog. The surviving sailors didn’t know if the ship was friend or foe.
It turned to be an American destroyer.
Then came a return trip to the states, and his marriage on New Year’s Eve in 1942. The couple had been dating since that blind date in 1940, which had been arranged by Alvia, Ruth Garland’s sister. Alvia had been dating a sailor aboard the Vincennes while it was docked in Philadelphia and she set up Ruth with another sailor.
But that sailor went on emergency leave, so Duley was tapped as a last-minute replacement.
“I was the fill-in for him,” Duley said. “And I’ve been filling in ever since.”
After his marriage, he continued serving aboard the USS Santa Fe in the Pacific, participating in a number of major battles.
Duley served 23 years in the Navy, retiring in 1962 as a senior chief petty officer. He eventually landed a position at Naval Weapons Station Yorktown.
One more story from the Duley archive is a tale of untold riches.
After war broke out in Europe, but before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Vincennes was dispatched to French Morocco to pick up a shipment of gold. Tons of gold were loaded onto the Vincennes, both in bricks and coins.
Duley recalls it was 350 tons. The World War II database lists it as 200 tons from French reserves.
Bottom line: It was a lot of gold.
“One of the bags fell off when they were loading it, and gold went everywhere,” Duley said, smiling at the memory. “But the Marines were right there on top of it - with guns. Sometimes you can’t get away with anything.”
Looking back on his rich experience, he wouldn’t trade the military life for anything, including gold.
“It was a good experience,” he said. “I had some of the best people in the world to work with, just average Americans, but they taught ’em their way. They didn’t care how much education a guy had. All they wanted for you to be was an honest guy, and try.”
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Information from: Daily Press, http://www.dailypress.com/
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