No Ordinary Joes
Authors: Larry Colton
ALSO BY LARRY COLTON
Goat Brothers
Counting Coup
Copyright © 2010 by Larry Colton
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Crown is a trademark and the Crown colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Colton, Larry.
No ordinary Joes: the extraordinary true story of four submariners in war and love and life / Larry Colton.—1st ed.
1. Grenadier (Submarine) 2. Submariners—United States—Biography. 3. World War, 1939–1945—Naval operations—Submarine. 4. World War, 1939–1945—Prisoners and prisons, Japanese. 5. Prisoners of war—United States—Biography. 6. Prisoners of war—Japan—Biography. 7. Palmer, Bob. 8. Cox, Gordy. 9. McCoy, Tim. 10. Vervalin, Chuck. I. Title.
D783.5.G75C65 2010
940.54′51092273—dc22 2010013572
eISBN: 978-0-307-71724-5
Insert Photo Credits—C
OURTESY
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IM
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OY:
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OURTESY
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ARBARA
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ALMER:
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OURTESY THE FAMILY OF
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ERVALIN:
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OURTESY
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ANICE
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Map by Jeffrey L. Ward
v3.1
To Dick Solomon,
friend and adviser
To Lieutenant William J. Yetter, a dedicated parent
and heroic World War II pilot
To Gordy Cox,
Tim McCoy,
Bob Palmer,
and Chuck Vervalin
Any man who may be asked what he did to make his life worthwhile can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction: I served in the U.S. Navy.
President John F. Kennedy
I saw the submariners, the way they stood aloof and silent, watching their pigboat with loving eyes. They are alone in the Navy. I admired the PT boys. And I often wondered how the aviators had the courage to go out every day and I forgave their boasting. But the submariners! In the entire fleet they stand apart!
James Michener
, Tales of the South Pacific
C
OMMANDER
S
UBMARINE
F
ORCE
U
NITED
S
TATES
P
ACIFIC
F
LEET
30 June 1944
My Dear Mrs. Palmer:
The Commander Submarine Force, Pacific Fleet, has the honor to award the Submarine Combat Insignia and to commend in absentia Robert Wiley Palmer, Yeoman first class, for service set forth in the following:
CITATION
The USS
Grenadier
on an offensive war patrol in restricted waters, heavily patrolled by the enemy, failed to return as scheduled. It is not known how many successful attacks the
Grenadier
made on this patrol; but, as she has had a splendid record since the early days of the war, it is believed that she was engaged in delivering the same relentless attacks against the enemy up until the time she was reported missing.
As Yeoman first class of the USS
Grenadier
, Robert Wiley Palmer’s performance of duty materially contributed to the success of this vessel against the enemy. The Commander Submarine Force, Pacific Fleet, forwards this commendation in recognition of his splendid performance of duty, which was in keeping with the highest traditions of the Naval Service.
Please accept my deepest sympathy in your great loss, which I assure you I also consider a great loss to the Naval Service.
Most sincerely
,
C.A. Lockwood, Jr
.
Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy
T
he waters felt unsafe to Bob Palmer. Too shallow. Too close to land. Too risky, given the ship’s unreliable torpedoes. But who was he, a twenty-one-year-old, to question the strategy of his submarine captain, a graduate of the Naval Academy and respected by every man on the ship? Palmer worked hard as the sub’s yeoman, but he was a high-school dropout, and he wasn’t privy to the radio messages the captain received.
It was early evening, April 20, 1943, and the USS
Grenadier
was nearing the end of its sixth war patrol. Bob longed to get back to port in Fremantle, Australia; he was tired of the confinement, the foul smell of diesel fuel, and the constant stress of running deep in enemy waters. Back in Fremantle, there’d be large pints of Emu ale waiting in the bar at the Ocean Beach Hotel, as well as beautiful young Aussie women enamored of American sailors. Yes, he was recently married to his high-school sweetheart and loved her dearly. But this was war—a war on the other side of the world, and every time he and his crewmates left port there was the real possibility they’d be blown to bits.
As the
Grenadier
ran full speed on the surface through the Java Sea and the narrow Strait of Malacca between Malaysia and Sumatra, the lookout spotted two worthy targets—a pair of large Japanese freighters silhouetted on the horizon. The sea was calm, the sky bright from a full moon. Surprisingly, the vessels appeared to be unescorted, an opportunity almost too good to be true. The Japanese had recently taken Rangoon, and the Japanese ships plying the important supply route between Burma and Singapore were usually well guarded. But not these two.
The
Grenadier
’s captain, Missouri-born James Fitzgerald, a ballsy former boxing champ at Annapolis, was eager to confront the enemy, and he had decided to ignore warnings that these waters were much too easily
guarded by Japanese planes from nearby bases for his ship to be running on the surface. A month earlier, a sub had been sunk, taking sixty-five men down with it. But Fitzgerald wanted a kill before heading back to port. At this point in the war, with the Japanese racking up victory after victory in the Pacific, American naval forces were desperate for any small victory.