THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 19, 1994 TAG: 9406170207
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Tony Stein
DATELINE: 940619 LENGTH: Medium
But he hopes that when late October is here, there will be more than a passing remembrance of the battle of Leyte Gulf and the men who fought in the Pacific. He was one of them.
{REST} The clash of American and Japanese fleets in Leyte Gulf in October 1944 was a climactic battle of World War II. Historian Hanson Baldwin wrote that it broke the back of the Japanese Navy. It also altered Bill Simmons' course for the rest of his life.
He survived a Japanese suicide plane attack on his ship during the battle. ``I made the Lord a lot of promises that day,'' he says. He did his best to carry them out as a minister and administrator of the Congregational Christian Church. And though he's retired and pushing 70, his World War II ship and his shipmates are still very much a part of him. He has compiled two books of wartime stories about that ship, the USS Santee.
The Santee was an escort carrier, a strange sort of war baby. It was a converted oil tanker. In one of his books, Simmons says the ship was capable of its theoretical top speed ``only with the wind at her back, going down hill with all hands pushing.''
There wasn't much glamour about the Santee, Simmons admits, but she was a ship with a heart. Her crew came to call her ``queen of the escort carriers,'' though one of Simmons' books calls her ``goddess.'' He explains that queens don't work to earn their titles. Goddesses, on the other hand, have great charm, more than human attributes and power and are pretty much indestructible.
That describes the Santee, Simmons says. It survived that shattering hit at Leyte and served well during the rest of the war and on through the post-war period. But it met an unglamorous, inglorious end in 1962. It was broken up for scrap in a German shipyard.
However, remembrances of the Santee have a life of their own in Simmons' books. He tells, for instance, about the emergency reformation of a fellow crew member:
The ship was under attack by Japanese suicide planes, and Simmons took cover behind a thick, metal rack. There was enough room for one skinny sailor, says Simmons. Suddenly someone dove on top of him.
``As the kamikazes roared overhead, my visitor began praying aloud,'' Simmons writes. ``His voice rose above the thunder of the guns. I had never heard such praying. He confessed to God what a miserable sinner he was, how unfaithful he had been to his wife, how many women he had slept with and how he was going to change his ways if he got through this attack.''
And when the attack was over, Simmons discovered that his buddy behind the rack was none other than his favorite officer, known to the crew as ``Mr. Tough Guy.''
Another of Simmons' stories is called ``Incredible But True.'' You judge.
It was after the Japanese kamikaze plane had hit the Santee. Simmons says he came to with fire raging all around him, but he was unable to move. Then, he says, he saw a blurry shape and heard the voice of his girlfriend screaming at him to get up or he would die. ``She took me by the hand,'' Simmons says, ``and suddenly I began to move, just slightly at first.''
One of the firefighters later told Simmons that if he hadn't moved when he did, they would have left him for dead.
Though that girl married someone else after the war, Simmons still has occasional contact with her. He and his wife, Ramelle, have been married 47 years.
Then there's the story called ``A Surprise at Homecoming.'' Simmons tells how he arrived in Los Angeles as the Santee ended its World War II career. He headed for a four-day train ride back to North Carolina, but never let his parents know he was on his way home.
He got to the cotton mill where his mother was at work on the evening shift. When he spotted her, he thought he would surprise her by sneaking up behind her. He did, but what happened was not what he expected.
She turned, saw him, screamed and fainted. Two weeks before, the Navy had told her that her son was missing in action. It turned out to be a confusion with another L.B. Simmons. As far as Simmons knows, the official record has never been corrected and he is still missing in action.
The walls of the print shop behind his home blend into a sort of time machine, taking you back five decades with their mass of photos of the Santee and the men who served aboard.
Yes, says Simmons, the war was the defining experience of his life. ``I was a kid,'' he says. ``I had never been away from home. I didn't know how to take care of myself. I came out a man.''
by CNB