The below information is reprinted from the spring 1997 edition of the Benham Salts.
Anyone wishing to receive a copy of their military records or military medical records can write to the following:
National Personnel Records Center Military and Medical Records 9700 Page Road Blvd St Louis, Mo 63132 Include the following information in your request Name and social security number Date and place of birth Branch of service Date entered and date released from service Service number Address and telephone number Note authorizing the release of records.
Veterans who would like to replace their lost "Ruptured Duck" pins may receive one free of charge by writing:
National Personnel Records Center 9700 Page Blvd St Louis Mo 63132
The following article was published in part in the Benham Salts newsletter. It is contributed by Nick Camenares RM2C 1944-45 Benham crewmember.
It so happened that two deaths had occurred during 1945. On April 17, while we were at GQ, a Japanese plane crossed our bow, and was quite low, we were hit by friendly fire from an adjacent destroyer using the 5" proximity fused shells. Apparently, the adjacent ship continued to fire at the plane as it was going over the Benham and our bridge set off the shell to explode. James Helt, radioman striker from Pennsylvania, was up on the bridge handling a 20mm gun was killed and buried at sea. Lt. Commander Poindexter has not identified him at all in his summation of those receiving medals. His name was James Helt. He was assigned to the radio shack such as I.
Shortly after the signing of armistice in Sagami Wan, we had to leave the anchorage and get underway due to a typhoon that hit that area of Japan. After a few days, the storm subsided and a personnel check was made. A gunners mate was missing and our ships dog, Ladybug, was also gone. Word got around that the gunners mate was afraid of the ship rolling over. He went up to the 40mm gun mount back aft in front of the 5" gun mount where he apparently would be free of the ship in case of a roll over. I don't know this gunners mate's name and he is also not listed in Poindexter's information concerning the ships log.
To get to the lighter side of the conditions on the ship, the radio shack had the phonograph which was connected to the speakers. I remember that when we played the "V" disks, which were large 78 rpm records, we had a problem at times. When popular music was played for a while, the crew from the southern part of the US would complain. Then, we would be playing the hillbilly music for a while until the northerners complained. I guess we should have gone one on one to have made it even.
At times we would get one of the stewards to get us a loaf of bread from the officers mess. Then we would acquire onions from the locker on the main deck below the radio shack. Delicious sandwiches were made and they tasted great; since we didn't have a choice of pizza or a hamburger. Since we all indulged in the festivities, no one smelled a thing!!!
Another episode which I cannot recollect very well was the day that the ships were getting oil while underway. Our ship had our turn and two of our shipmates were pulling in the oil hoses from the oil tanker but our ship was drifting away. The sailors were holding on so drastically that they both went over the side. The aircraft carrier on the other side of the tanker threw life rings to them as they were sloshing in the ocean. Another destroyer heard the man overboard on the TBS and picked up both. We had just got out of a typhoon the day before and luckily the sea was calm.
I guess if I reminisce, other memories would come to mind. It has been a long time and since I did not keep a log or diary I have to rely only on my memory. Hopefully, some of this information maybe matched up with some of your other sources.
Nicholas Camenares/RM2C
This article is published in relation to the previous article by Nick Camenares concerning the death of a shipmate by friendly fire.
I recently came upon a documentary on one of our local educational television stations in my area entitled "The Deadly Fuze: The Story Of World War II's Best Kept Secret." The contents of this presentation brought back memories of my naval service on the U.S.S. Benham DD796 during WW II. We were utilizing the Proximity Fuze in connection with the shells used with our mark 32 5" guns against enemy aircraft.
While temporarily assigned to gun mount 5-1 upper handling room, I became aware of these shells because of the black plastic nose cone. Due to my inquisitiveness, I found out that these shells had a miniature transmitter and receiver that would allow the shell to explode if it approached within the vicinity of a metallic object. The transmitted signal would bounce back to the receiver and detonate the shell. Even though the shell could be up to 50 feet away from the target, it would explode and the shrapnel would damage the airplane sufficiently to disable it. At that time, I did not realize the importance of the Proximity Fuze until I saw this documentary. I then became aware that our safety was drastically improved from enemy aircraft bombing and strafing. Our ships were able to shoot down the Japanese airplanes effectively especially the "Kamikazes" and provide us with the cover to protect many of our ships and personnel.
During the war, my ship was attached to Task Force 38.4 (Admiral Halsey) or Task Force 58.4 (Admiral Spruance) in the Pacific theater depending on who was in command at the time. It involved us in being a highly mobile force wherever needed. Most of our action was dealing with the Japanese planes that were either carrier or land based attacking our ships. While on picket duty, our destroyers were forward and out of sight of the battleships, cruisers and carriers. Our mission was to locate enemy aircraft by our radar approaching the task force. Radio contact was made to the larger ships alerting them of the oncoming aircraft. We would fire ur mark 32 5" guns and were able to disable or bring down many before they could proceed behind our picket station. Eventually, the enemy aircraft were bombing the picket destroyers in order to get through to the larger ships. Can you imagine the difficulty it was earlier in the war to make a direct hit or to estimate the range of a moving plane so that the non-proximity mark 32 5" shell could be set for maximum effectiveness. Well, the odds were not very good for the U.S. Navy prior to the Proximity Fuse being invented until they were introduced in the latter part of 1942.
I wonder how many of us had any idea of the effectiveness of this firing mechanism and how many lives were saved due to the effectiveness of the Proximity Fuze? Yes, we all know of the capability of RADAR in fighting the Japanese Navy but not one word of the Proximity Fuze. During the war, this invention was one of the best held secrets. For obvious reasons it was not publicized and we in the Navy were not aware of the full benefits. When the British learned of the Proximity Fuze, they requested it for their use. It was required to improve the elimination of the German V1 & V2 rocket bombs that were being sent over London during the war. At that time, the British had an extremely difficult time to bring down these rockets except for sheer luck or excessive fire power.
In December of 1944, our army ground forces fighting in Europe, initiated the use of the newly developed Proximity Fuze for some of their firepower, the mark 45 shells. These proved to be very effective in use as anti-personnel weapons against the ground forces of the German army and had a pronounced significance in shortening the war in the European Theater.
It is estimated that the war was shortened by a year due to this secret military invention. Those dedicated persons involved were instrumental in saving many lives of our Armed Forces and also many British citizens. The irony of this is that it also shortened the war for the Japanese military personnel.
A few of the persons who I was able to identify in the Fuze development are: Dr. Ralph B. Baldwin, Astronomer; Dr. Wilbur Goss, a University Professor; Dr. James Van Allan, Nuclear Physicist; and Ralph Robinson, Engineer and ham radio operator W5FDF. There were many other persons involved with this project in supporting rolls. At the wars end 22 million Proximity Fuzes were produced in over 100 manufacturing plants in the U.S.
Since I did not have enough information in the development of the Proximity Fuze, I had scanned the Internet and found that Dr. Ralph B. Baldwin wrote the book entitled "The Deadly Fuze: the Secret Weapon of World War II" back in 1980. This book is not available now according to the publisher, Presidio of San Rafael, CA. In a call to one of the principals above I found out that a new book is now being prepared and will be titled "Americas Wake Up Call" written by the same author. This book is in manuscript form at this time and has been sent to the publisher. It is anticipated that it will be published in the very near future.
I was able to obtain a VCR video of "The Deadly Fuze: The Secret Weapon of World War II" from WGVU Merchandise Sales (Grand Valley State University) at 310 W. Fulton, Grand Rapids, MI 49504-6492 (800 442 2771) for a nominal fee. This video is the basis of my article. Additional details can be derived from the video.
Submitted by......Nicholas Camenares, RM2C
The following article by Leon thompson was published in the Spring of 1997 edition of the Benham Salts.
I was a Surgical-Medical technician from 1947-49 in the 237th Medical Dispensary headquartered in the Meiji Building on Avenue A in downtown Tokyo. We took "cell sliders" from victims of the Hiroshima bomb. I saw mutated vegetables grown in contaminated soil and flew over Hiroshima two years after the bomb. It still looked like a garbage dump.
One hot summer day in the park outside Japan's Imperial Palace I met up with a Mr Papps, an OSS Officer. His office was just a few doors down from General MacArthur's office and he invited me to see this office. There I saw three top American atomic scientists going over a large diagram of a device. Mr Papps said it was the actual diagram of the Japanese atomic bomb. I asked if it was workable, and he said "yes, it is just like ours and very workable."
He also showed me Japanese orders to use the bomb on the Allies when they came into Japanese waters.
Purportedly, a German submarine was on it's way to Japan with plutonium to make the bomb more powerful, but it surrendered to the Americans in the Atlantic before reaching the Pacific.
Had we waited two weeks to drop the bomb, the Japanese bomb might have been used on our Allied fleet. This was one of the reasons they kept dragging their feet to give up. When they knew we would drop the third bomb on Tokyo they began to talk peace.
It was really a shock to our scientists to learn that the Japanese could have beaten us to the draw. We nearly lost it all. Two weeks made a big difference. I know because I personally saw the actual diagrams of the Japanese atomic bomb and they did intend to use it on us first.
Two recollections I would like to pass on occurred while on watch in the radar shack...The first was on the way to Cuba for training, I think it was 1953, but it could have been 1954. While standing the mid-watch we made a very unsual contact on the airsearch SC radar. We were in the normal sea lanes off the Carolina's Coast and shipping was fairly heavy, so we were watching all contacts closely. The aerial contact was plotted and flew a rather odd back and forth course, certainly not in any kind of pattern. But, here is the real kicker. The air speed would vary from 0 knots to over 1000 knots in a single rotation of the antenna, which was about 8-10 seconds if memory serves me correctly. After several minutes the officer of the watch had it reported to the bridge so they could view it on the bridge radar repeater. The bridge messenger on the sound powered phones reported they had it visually and confirmed the erratic actions/speeds. It was duly noted in the watch log and forgotten in a few days. I guess that was my first UFO.
Another time, in the Mediterranean, also probably on the mid-watch, it was a clear beautiful night. Few if any contacts were held and so things were rather dull. But, not for long. Mr Hoffman was on the bridge, which was good information to have, and an ET, Tony Stauss, was on the phones in the combat information center. Tony received a call from bridge and he responded, "combat.. wait" He looked at the plotting board and the radar screen and then responded "bridge..combat, we don't hold it on our scope".
Very shortly we were all lectured rather severely and received a few extra chores and lessons. Mr Hoffman had decided to test the knowledge of the combat center personnel, and had sent down the question, "What is the bearing of Polaris?" Tony, being an ET, was not familiar with navigation methods and so had looked for a radar contact.
A copy of the 1952 Cruise book can be viewed at the Naval Historical Center located at 901 M Street SE-Washington Navy Yard, Washington DC. Presently over 5000 such publications are included in the collection. These are not available for loan purposes, but may be viewed at the Library. Other locations where cruise books may be found are the New York Public Library and the Naval War College Library at Newport, R.I.
What is the midshipman pay scale? The Navy pays for tuition, room and board, and medical and dental care of Naval Academy midshipmen. Midshipmen also enjoy regular active-duty benefits including access to military commissaries and exchanges, commercial transportation and lodging discounts and the ability to fly space-available in military aircraft around the world. Midshipmen pay is $558.04 monthly (1998), from which laundry, barber, cobbler, activities fees, yearbook and other service charges are deduced. Actual cash pay is less than $100 per month plebe year, increasing each year to over $300 in the First-Class year.
Source: 1997 – 1998 Catalog
The above is in answer to a FAQ from the USNA homepage
