WWII

HENRY BONNER'S GAMBIER BAY STORY

Henry F. "Hank" Bonner

MM 3C

U.S.S. GAMBIER BAY

A - Division (Inert Gas Station)

I went in the Navy June 6, 1943 in Oklahoma City, at the age of 18. Basic training was at The Naval Training Station at San Diego, Calif. After boot camp, I was sent to the Machinist's Mate Training School in San Diego and graduated with a Fireman First Class rate.

From there, I went to Bremerton, Washington, to an engineer's class using the type of equipment that was aboard the Gambier Bay. I was made the Inert Gas machine operator, trained by men who had operated the equipment on sister ships of CVE 73. I went aboard the Gambier Bay as the first "skeleton" crew of engineers (I don't remember if it was at Bremerton or Astoria, Oregon). The ship was being demagnetized. Later, we took the ship up the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean, where we went down the coast and picked up full crew, planes, ammo, supplies, and then to the Pacific War. Of course, I was at Saipan, Tinian, Guam, Palau (and all the stops in between), then to the Philippine Invasion.

My General Quarters Station was on the tank top level (on top of 200,000 gallons of aviation gas) manufacturing Inert Gas to put in a void space which was around the gasoline tanks. 

This Inert Gas (gas that won't support a spark of a flame -- no oxygen) is made by taking the exhaust from a little 4-cylinder Hercules engine and by washing it and filtering it through activated charcoal and aluminum chips. We took all oxygen from it and put it around gasoline. We also had two large storage tanks in the Inert Gas Shack to store an extra supply over and above what was in the void tanks. I had equipment to test the gas that was in the void tanks to make sure it was oxygen free and no gas fumes and at the right pressure.

My General Quarters job was to make these tests and bring them up to proper pressure and pureness. I did this during every call to G.Q., and I monitored these tests all during the battle in which we were sunk. (By the way, there were no aviation gas explosions of fires during the time we were sunk.) The last three months before we were sunk, I had an assistant named James Burcher (Fireman F.C.). We were also on the same raft together. 

Here is what happened.

After checking all my equipment and gas, I continued to monitor and make checks after every hit that we were told about by the chaplain or that we could feel down there. After a long while, a shell came through the port side at our level-no explosion (that I heard), and knocked a gaping hole in the side of the ship. 

We were the only ones in this part of the ship and there was no way we could control the flow of water, so we went up to the next level through the open hatch and sealed off this officer's quarter and Inert Gas Shack level. We met a repair crew on the next level and tried to assist them in repairing another large hole at this level. Being unable to repair it, we all went to the next level through a small escape hole in the hatch. 

One shipmate had on a large kapok life jacket, and wouldn't take it off. We couldn't talk him out of it, but with a lot of grunting and groaning we all pushed him through the hole. 

We finally ended up on the hangar deck near the forward elevator which had been knocked out and wouldn't go up to the flight deck. The elevator had an aircraft sitting on it. The hangar deck had about two inches of water on it, where they had put out a fire earlier. After passing the forward elevator to about mid-ship, a shell hit the aircraft on the elevator, and I was hit with a large fragment from the explosion. 

I knew I had been hit but it didn't seem to hurt. The ship was listing badly to port. I didn't look at my wound but ran to an open hatch to a sponson, which by this time, even though this was a hangar deck level, was only about three or four feet from the water. I jumped off. 

I had on all my clothes, shoes, and a small waist-size life belt. This was the same life preserver that was issued to me the first day aboard. Never thinking I would ever need it, I guess I didn't take very good care of it. At any rate, I blew and blew on that thing for 10 minutes and it wouldn't hold air. 

I would try to swim away from the ship and would be slapped right back underneath the gun sponsons above me and up against the side of the ship. We had always been told to get away from the sponsons and away from the ship fast. I finally got away and spotted a raft some fifty yards away and headed for it. I thought there was no way I could swim fifty yards then, but I did. I felt like I made it with my last stroke and grabbed a shirttail that was flapping from the back of a shipmate. They helped me into the raft and I finally looked at my leg and got very sick. 

All the flesh had been torn off the left side of my left leg from about two inches below my knee to my ankle. Both bones were exposed the entire length of the wound, and flesh between the bones had been torn out, exposing one of the tendons that operate the foot. It was bleeding badly, so the men on the raft put a tourniquet made from a belt on it to stop the bleeding.

We lost all our supplies that were on the raft except a small 5-inch shell casing that had a little gauze, one bottle of malt tablets, and two syrettes of morphine. They gave me one of the morphine and put me in the bottom of the raft. 

We ended up with 67 men aboard this one raft and its two floater nets. I was really very lucky, because I was the only one who was badly wounded, so I had some good guys watching after me. Until my leg stopped bleeding, we had some shark problems, but we were in good hands and God watched over us and we had no damage or deaths from sharks the first day. 

The ship sank after I had been on the raft about thirty minutes. They were still firing on the ship after I reached the raft, and after we had been on it a few minutes one of the marker shells that they were firing hit about ten feet from our raft. I had no idea what it was. I thought that it had hit us and what I was seeing in the air was blood (it was red), then I thought it might be gas. At any rate, most of the others and myself went off the raft and under the water to escape the "red." Just before I felt like I was going to drown, I came up and it had cleared. After awhile, the Jap task force that sank us came right back by us steaming back to where they had come from. I figured they would see and kill us all, so under the water we went again. I know they saw us as they were that close, but they just kept going.

The rest of the first day was spent organizing, knowing we would be picked up soon, watching the dog fights between our planes and Jap planes. Then it started to get dark. The men on the outside of the raft would take turns and change from raft to nets and nets to raft.

The first night was miserable. We had burned up during the day, but at night being wet I got very cold. My teeth chattered so long and hard that the ends of my teeth were sore. No sleep. Just whispers. The second day finally came. I sure was hungry, but more thirsty. We knew we would be picked up today. No more sharks. Some men said they could see ships, but none were there. I couldn't see anything, as I was lying in the bottom of the raft. A First Class Signalman was holding my head out of the water. (I'm sorry I cannot recall his name). The Corpsman checked my leg but couldn't do anything else for it, so he gave me the other morphine. The first day we could see other rafts, but today we couldn't see any of them.

The second day dragged on and some of us were doing some funny things and seeing things that weren't there. I was becoming delirious from fever as I had infection in my leg, and had some weird dreams and would pass out from time to time later in that second day. 

One dream was that I could see an island and on it was a big water tank truck like they wash city streets with. I could see the water coming out of the sprinklers on the truck and he was settling the dust on the island with the water. I knew we would get some when we got there. 

Another dream was that I broke away from the raft and swam to the island and picked up some beer and swam back to the raft, and in my dream I was trying to get the men on the raft to take some beer. Some of the men said I was really handing them something (empty hand of course), and they couldn't figure out what I was doing. So I decided to keep it and drink it all myself. Every time I would come to my senses from one of these dreams, I would tell the man holding my head that when I pass out I'm not dead so don't throw me overboard, and he would assure me that he wouldn't.

The Chief held on to our only food until later the second day. He felt it would lift our morale if he gave us a malt tablet, or a piece of one. I couldn't chew mine because my teeth were still sore from chattering the night before, but I managed to get it down. No water.

Well, here comes the second night. We had fired what few flares we had the first night because we just knew they were looking for us. I think it was finally decided later that we were answering another raft's flares. So we didn't have flares to give us hope the second night.

I wasn't looking forward to more chattering teeth and pain from my leg (no more morphine). After the night dragged on, a few dreams and passing out a couple of times, we spotted the searchlights from a ship. You never heard the shouting and waving and carrying on we all did. Finally what seemed like hours, and it was a long time, the ship (a patrol craft smaller than a D.E.) had his spots right on the raft.

There had been numerous ships sunk in the area the last several days, so they shouted out and challenged us with "who won the World Series." The Signalman who was holding my head signaled back the correct answer. Then the Skipper of this ship informed us that he was overloaded and couldn't take us aboard but that he would radio our position, and he left. You have never heard the hollering, swearing, and waving of arms, including mine. But, nevertheless, he left. It seemed to all of us that he could have given us a cask of water and medical supplies, fruit cocktail, or something to eat. But he didn't. 

It was (I was told later) about five hours before another ship (same class) arrived. He came along side and threw over a cargo net and all but two went up the net first. The two were the First Class Signalman, who was helping me, and myself. Some of their crew members came down and got me up the net, and we were saved.

On the way to Leyte, our little ship was attacked by Jap aircraft. When the ship's crew started firing at the planes, I figured back in the water, but they chased them off.

Late the third day, I was finally put aboard an L.S.T. that was rigged for operating on wounded. A young Dr. Hershey looked at my leg and said "Son, I don't know what I can do but I'll do my best." Several hours later I awoke and saw five toes on my left leg. I was very drowsy, but happy.

The doctor talked to me the next day and said we had a new miracle drug - penicillin - so he left my leg on to see if the penicillin could kill the infection and get the wound to granulate for skin grafts.

I was later put on the hospital ship "Hope" (I think that's the name) and taken to New Guinea for about three weeks. Then I was put on the luxury liner "Lurline" and eventually dropped off at the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland, before being sent to the Naval Hospital in New Orleans, which was the nearest hospital to my home that had a skin graft specialist. 

I spent the next eleven months in New Orleans where they fixed my leg up best they could and gave me a Medical Discharge on January 6, 1946. I still get a 40% disability compensation from the V.A.

—Henry Bonner, 1982

(Lightly edited for clarity and spelling.)

Henry Bonner at far right (with walking cane).