My name is Floyd Cramer. I was a Quartermaster on the USS Electra AKA-4 during 1954 and 1955. These words are being written some 47 years after my experience as a member of the crew. I have only my memory and a few mementos to help me in recalling the following events. Should any former crewmember read this account and remember it in more detail, I would hope they would not hesitate to correct or amend this narration.

PRIBILOF RESUPPLY EXPEDITION

I reported aboard ship in May of 1954 as a new graduate of the Quartermaster School in Bainbridge Maryland. The Electra was my first ship. I remained on board until her final decommissioning in May of 1955. I was one of the last few crewmembers to be on board until the very end. I was then transferred to the San Diego Mothball fleet for the remainder of my enlistment, receiving my release from active duty in September of that year. During my assignment to the Moth Ball Fleet, I was able to board the Electra one last time as a member of a work party. I may have been the last crewmember to go aboard.

The Electra made one training cruise, in June, sailing off the coast of San Diego, leaving in the morning and returning in the evening to moor again between Buoys 49 and 50. Shortly thereafter it was announced we were scheduled to leave on a resupply expedition to the Pribilof Islands that were located in the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska.

On our way to Seattle, Washington where we were to pick up our cargo, we traveled up the Columbia River to Portland, Oregon. This was a “goodwill” visit for the Electra. During our brief stay, we played host to several hundred people who toured the Electra. I can remember one soldier, stationed nearby, that had gone on one of the tours and stayed to eat in our mess. He said that the food was outstanding compared to what he got in the Army mess hall.

After we left Portland, we continued on up the coast through the Strait of Juan de Fuca into Puget Sound to the city of Seattle where we tied up, I believe, at a civilian pier where stevedores were scheduled to load all of our five holds with enough cargo including food, fuel, and supplies to last the Pribilof natives for a year. I understand the only other visits made to these islands, at that time, was by a monthly trip by airplane. The loading of the cargo took about a month. After the holds were full, hatches covered and battened, two “Sno-cats” were placed on top of Number three hatche for delivery to St. George Island. We left August 9, 1954, sailing along the Gulf of Alaska through Unimak Pass in the Aleutian Islands. We passed close enough to the coast to see Kodiak Island. At one time we could see snow capped mountains, a glacier and a volcano in the background. I was in the chart house when we passed over the Aleutian trench, which was over a mile deep at that point. We never got a return “ping” on the Fathometer it was that deep.

We were scheduled to arrive at St. Paul Island on the 16^th of August. I am not sure exactly which day we did arrive but it was at night when we got there. There wasn’t anything at all like a harbor and we anchored off the island. I was assigned to the first landing party. We took the R-boat from the ship to a very small concrete and stone pier to set up operations for off-loading. The pier contained a small rough shed that housed a gasoline driven engine that powered a primitive winch. There was a boom consisting of a wood pole with block and a cable to the engine. That was only the power to raise and lower the hook. The boom had to be moved from side to side by sailor power at the end of a line attached to the boom.

At that time of the year dark came about 11:00 PM, or I should say 2300, and dawn was about three hours later. There were two landing parties, one to work from 2300 to 1100 and the other to work from 1100 to 2300 providing 24 hours of offloading. When it came time for our landing party to return from that first trip, we discovered our R-boat high and dry on the rocks. It was low tide. First we tried to drag the R-boat off by a towline from an LCM. This effort proved futile. We couldn’t move the R-boat off the rocks without damaging it. So we were stuck until enough tide returned to float the R-boat again. The weather on the Pribilofs, at best, is miserable with cold, rain and fog most of the time. I believe there were thirteen in our landing party, which was commanded by a CPO. We spent the next several hours crowded together inside the winch shed. I don’t recall whether we had any heat or not. We did have some K-Rations and canned water, circa WWII, which was fortunate, as we had not eaten since the night before on the ship. We all had been issued cold weather gear that included foul weather jackets, rainproof hooded parkas, leather gloves, and boots. We all wore turtleneck sweaters under our dungaree shirts and woolen watch caps on our heads. That kept us more or less dry and comfortable.

When the first loaded LCM arrived at the dock, there were a number of Inuit men from the village that came to help unload the cargo. Their initial system was to wait until a cargo net was set onto the dock, then each man would take something from the net and walk up to the warehouse that was located about a hundred yards away. But it was very slow. Someone in our landing party got the idea to organize all of the Inuit men into a brigade line. Cargo was passed from man to man all the way to the warehouse. The offloading of the boats went much quicker.

Along with the Inuit men were a number of young boys attracted by the excitement of the visit of the ship and our offloading operation. It wasn’t long until every sailor was “adopted” by one or two of these children. I was “adopted” by an eleven-year-old boy named Nicky who dogged my every step during the time I spent on the island. We used to bring oranges and apples and other treats, saved from meals aboard for our little friends. That practice was probably the reason for the “adoptions”. I can recall one conversation with Nicky who told me “The weather was pretty good, see, I only have one jacket on today.” This was August?

We took advantage of some of our “off-time” to go down to the seal rookeries. There were literally thousands of seals covering the hillsides and the beaches. Their noise was constant. It reminded me, somewhat, of the sound of sheep as the females and young seals made a kind of “baaaaing” sound. Interspersed with the “baaas” was the roar of the bulls. We avoided going near the bulls, as they weighed five hundred pounds or more and tended to be more protective of their areas. The new seal pups, at that time, weighed about twenty-five to thirty pounds. When we would get close to a herd of seals the adults would move away from us leaving their young asleep on the ground.

I think it took a couple of weeks to offload everything that was destined for St. Paul. We then shifted the ship to St. George Island. Their offloading facility was a definite improvement over St. Paul’s primitive pier. There was a much larger pier and it had a mobile crane. The crane may have been surplus from an LST. I was also assigned to the first landing party on St. George Island. St. George was much better organized and we were not all required to man the pier. From then on, I worked in Electra’s holds loading cargo nets for the rest of the time spent at St. George Island. It was hard and dirty work. It was mostly coal in burlap bags at the lower level of the holds. At the end of the shift we looked more like coal miners rather than sailors. There was an unofficial competition between the night and the day shifts to see which party could move the most cargo. The night shift won by offloading over 250 tons of cargo in one twelve-hour shift.

We did manage to get over to St. George for another visit by sacrificing some “sack time”. George Koestel, QM and I hitched a ride on one of the loaded LCM boats and spent an afternoon out beyond the village looking at their seal rookeries. It was as impressive as St. Paul’s rookeries. We returned to the pier, boarded one of the empty LCM boats to return to the ship, which was anchored about a mile off the island. About half way back, the ship radioed the boats to return to the pier. The sea was getting too rough and the ship’s anchor was dragging. The pier then radioed us not to return as high waves were breaking over the top of the pier. There were three boats that were returning to the ship. We had to sail in a circle for a couple of hours until the sea became calm enough for the ship to return to the anchorage and we could then get back on board.

Getting on and off the boats was an adventure in itself. We would board the LCM by climbing down a cargo net slung off the side of the ship. At the bottom of the net, we would wait until a swell brought the boat up close to the side and high enough to be able to drop into the well deck safely. The return trip was just as difficult. Then we would have to wait for the swell to bring the boat up high enough and close enough to the side to be able to reach the cargo net. I remember at the beginning of one shift when the sea was too rough to board the boat using the net. The landing party got on board the LCM while it still was on the ship’s deck which was then lowered over side using the cargo booms. It was still dark and the boom operators didn’t notice when a swell came up under our boat and caused a slack in the cables. When the swell went down, the ship rolled back and yanked the LCM back up out of the water. We slammed against the ship’s hull with a resounding crash. We all ended up piled in a heap in the bottom of the well deck. A lot of the boats received damage during the offloading operation and it was not unusual to see an LCM on deck with welders at work repairing the damage.

On St. George Island, the ship allowed a number of villagers to come aboard during the day to purchase items from the ship’s store. They bought everything that was edible and non-edible including officers’ insignia. They cleaned it out. Most of the natives worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service in harvesting the seal herds. They really had no place to spend their earnings except for ordering items from catalogs. That was the only occasion when we saw the Inuit women and girls. They were usually not allowed near the offloading operations.

We had carried a number of passengers, from Seattle, with us to the islands. They were replacements for Fishery and Wildlife personnel, Weathermen, and Teachers that were hired by the Government to teach the Inuit children. On our return trip we brought the people who had been replaced back to Seattle with us. I can recall they were very happy to leave the Pribilofs.

The offloading at St. George also took a couple of weeks. After all of our cargo was offloaded, we then loaded tons of bales of seal fur and barrels of fertilizer that was processed from the seal carcasses. These were loaded into the sealed deep tanks at the bottom of the holds. By this time, the ship was getting low in the variety of food we had left. I know the galley did it’s best but beef tips and carrot stew gets monotonous after a week or two. Roy Battle, BM was in charge of the crew’s mess deck and he would change the menu board every day. One day it would read “Irish Stew” the next day “Yankee Stew” then some other kind of stew the next day and so on. Whatever he called it though it was the same old stuff.

When we arrived in Seattle, our cargo of seal fur and fertilizer was quickly offloaded. We arrived late in the day and were on our way back to San Diego within twenty-four hours. I don’t believe anyone received liberty while we were there. I know I didn’t. I had been looking forward to going ashore and getting something to eat besides stew.

One noteworthy event happened on our return voyage. We got caught in a violent storm. I recall being awakened just before midnight for my mid-watch as quartermaster on the bridge. The whole ship seemed to be rattling and shaking as well as pitching up and down. I was told to report to the bridge through “officer’s country” as no one was allowed out on deck. Captain Hartman was in his chair on the bridge. As soon as I had relieved my watch, he ordered “Quartermaster, what’s the wind speed?” When I had it plotted I replied, “100 knots, sir”. In a few minutes he would repeat, “Quartermaster, what’s the wind speed?” I spent most of that mid-watch plotting the speed of the wind. The lightning was almost constant but the roar of the waves drowned out any sound of thunder. When we were in a trough the waves towered above the ship. The bow would almost disappear as the ship met each wave and then when the stern rose out of the water, the whole ship would shake from the vibration of the screw. We were in the storm for over twenty-four hours. I don’t remember exactly how long. I do remember that during a slight course change the next day; we took one 21 and half degree roll as indicated on the wheelhouse inclinometer. This happened just before noon. I was at the chart table and immediately grabbed the table rail and several binoculars that were lying there. Except for the OOD and the helmsman, who had the wheel to hold him up, the rest of the watch ended up in a tangled pile on the starboard side of the wheelhouse. I could hear crockery crashing on the mess deck. We immediately received a call from Captain Hartman from his cabin regarding the ship’s extreme movements.

We arrived back in San Diego around the middle of September, our cruise lasting about three months. We were certainly glad to be back between Buoys 49 and 50 again, especially those crew members who had families in San Diego.