Charley Green
Class of 1937
By Dave Thornton
"...suddenly we got word of a surprise air raid
and raced for cover. Then we felt the ground shake, from deep down,
as if there were an earthquake. There was a succession of tremors,
and we heard deep, dull booming sounds coming from the direction of
Kokum.... "I raced for the open and saw a towering black cloud
mushrooming over the trees in the direction of Kokum.
"The cloud of smoke mounted higher into the sky,
and then we heard the news: The "Calhoun" had been hit by Jap
bombers. They had come in three waves, a total of sixteen bombers,
and the little auxiliary transport had been hit squarely by three
bombs. She had sunk almost immediately."
Those are the words of Richard Tregaskis, war
correspondent of WW II. He had landed on the island of Guadalcanal
in the South Pacific, right behind US Marine Raiders, who had been
sent in to capture and hold an airfield---we called it Henderson
Field---recently completed by the Japs.
Japan, at the height of her powers, repelled the
Naval support vessels. For some weeks the Marines were isolated,
fighting and holding out without support, as the powerful Jap Navy
sunk or drove away the American ships.
From his inside view of this classic crucible of
American courage, the unknown Tregaskis fashioned a national
best-seller, "Guadalcanal Diary".
SPECIAL INTEREST
His description of the sinking of the USS Colhoun
was of particular interest to one Charles Green, US Navy, late of
Old Cambridge.
Green was under that towering black cloud,
assigned to the APD-2 (transport "Colhoun" (Tregaskis spelled the
name wrong).
Charley Green was born in 1916 on the Center
Cambridge farm of his parents, Jay and Bertha Green. He started
school in the Center Cambridge Schoolhouse (now the McGreevy home).
It was 4 and a half miles to the Union School in
the Village and there were no buses in those days. When he was old
enough, Charley rode in on the wagon every morning when his father
brought milk to the creamery. In the afternoon, he got home as best
he could, usually with his cousin, Atwood Allen, who lived on the
nearby Allen homestead.
Still, he managed to play football for Coach Paul
Dollar and to run track. It took three tries, but he made the
National Honor Society, and he graduated with the Union School class
of 1937. Green joined the Navy at Scotia Naval Depot on December 7,
1940, exactly a year before the Jap sneak attack upon Pearl Harbor,
Hawaii.
The US was already preparing for war, so the Navy
didn't waste Charley's time with boot camp. He went straight to
radio school in Stamford, Conn. Three months later he was assigned
to an old WW I destroyer, the "Colhoun". It had been converted to a
transport to help carry the lst Marine Division. Charley served as a
radioman on the "Colhoun" until the end of August, 1942.
The "Colhoun" participated in landing the lst
Marine Raider Btn. on Guadalcanal. Jap opposition was formidable.
Subs---large, small, two man, everything--- "were thicker than hair
on a dog's tail", he recalled.
Near Leyte the night of the landing the Japs sunk
four US cruisers. Charley and shipmates stayed on deck all night to
watch the battle.
Civilian Australians, whose job it was to unload
supplies on Guadalcanal, went on strike. Charley and friends found
themselves patrolling for subs around an Aussie merchant ship loaded
with volatile aviation fuel that was desperately needed by Marine
pilots who had flown into the captured Henderson Field, and that
should have been unloaded days before. Of course the transport was a
prime target.
"GOT TO US"
Aussie Coast Watchers reported the approach of
Jap planes, and the Americans went to battle stations. But the
waters around Guadalcanal were shallow. Maneuvering was further
restricted by the numerous surrounding volcanic out-croppings and
islands.
As a result of this Jap attack, the US fleet
would withdraw to safer waters and leave the small Marine Raider Btn.
on its own, to fight off continuous Jap attempts to retake Henderson
Field.
The US fleet, supported by Marines flying off
Guadalcanal, shot down many Jap planes in that initial attack, but
some got through.
"They got to us," Charley recalled, "and that
ship went down in three minutes." Three bombs landed on the fantail.
Any sailors off watch below decks died instantly. Thirty-eight
shipmates died that day.
Charley was lucky to have been on duty in the
radio shack. He stepped out of the shack. "I swim like a stone," he
admitted. But when he couldn't find his life belt, he climbed upon
the forecastle, stepped into the warm Pacific water and paddled
away.
Charley was afraid of being blown apart by US
depth charges. All around, Navy destroyers pursued attacking Jap
subs, rolling 400 pounders into the sea, where they exploded,
sending aloft great geysers of sea water.
But whether from the panic of the strike or from
a concern for swimming sailors, those depth charges that rolled off
nearby ships had not been armed and did not explode. That saved the
lives of the l00 sailors who were able to get into the water.
They were picked up in life-boats and transported
to the Island of Tulagi.
The survivors of the "Colhoun" were then placed
aboard a ship taking Jap prisoners of war to another island in the
Solomon chain, Espirito Santos. There they were handed shovels and
told to dig their own foxholes.
The only thing he had left from the sinking was
the Marine blanket they wrapped him in when he came out of the
water. He still has it and carries it in his car wherever he goes.
At Pearl Harbor he was reissued Navy gear and
returned to the US. There Radioman lst Class Green was assigned to a
recently commissioned ship, the USS Stevens, a 2100 ton, Fletcher
class destroyer.
The "Stevens" sailed to the Pacific and Charley
resumed the war, supporting troop landings on Guam and in the
Marianas and fighting night and day in the Philippines.
SETTLE DOWN
He fought with the "Stevens" to the end of his
service, after the surrender of Japan. Before he was through,
Charley participated in ll distinct naval battles, two in the
European theatre and nine in the Pacific, and was never wounded.
Like most combat veterans of WW II, by the time
he had the points to be discharged, Charlie had seen enough of the
world. He had but one thought in mind: settling down.
In April, 1945 he married a Stamford, Conn. girl.
As soon as his discharge was final he went to work for Machlett Labs
in Stamford (later Raytheon Corp.) making x-ray and radio tubes.
Thirty-two years later he retired.
He has one daughter and two grand-kids and still
lives in Stamford.
Charlie Green was a frequent visitor to the
place of his birth to visit his many relatives, especially his
cousin Atwood Allen, who served in the South Pacific with the US
Marines. For years Charlie came to Atwood and Sally's to hunt the
fat deer that thrive in the low, green hills west of Coila.
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