Operation Underworld (2 page)

Despite the fact they all seemed to have the same look about them, this army of welders, fitters and carpenters were not dressed in a cohesive uniform. As the sporadic conversation and occasional joking of the scattered clusters of men became progressively louder, the serenity which signalled the prelude to the daily routine was suddenly shattered by an unscheduled outburst.

Just outside the gate a young couple, the woman cuddling a small wailing bundle, were heard exchanging insults. After a brief stare-off, the man turned his head and noticed the cluster of workers propped against the chain-linked fence observing he and his wife’s public displays of affection. Knowing better than to attempt the last word, he terminated the argument and stormed away in the direction of the workforce. Not far behind, a metal lunch pail sailed through the air after him and although these tin alloy containers were never designed as missiles, in the right hands their aerodynamics were appreciable.

Landing on the ground just behind the disillusioned young husband, the pail burst open and spilled its contents onto the asphalt. As he stooped to rescue the only food he would have for the next twelve hours, his co-workers seized the opportunity to offer their support.

“Ain’t love grand?” one of them called out in a mock romantic voice and the floodgates opened.

“Hey Doll! Yankee try-outs next week!”

“You must be so proud being married to one of those new, modern women.” As if to rescue him from further humiliation, the change of shift whistle blew and the horde of labourers and tradesmen slowly migrated towards the small gate leading to the dock. The narrowness of the gate was not an oversight on the part of the Third Naval District engineers. It was an intentional design to control pedestrian traffic in order to increase security on the strategically critical pier.

As the night shift filed out through an adjoining gate, spilling out onto the sidewalk under the West Side Highway, a glaringly evident look of fatigue on their faces, it was obvious that these men had begun to reach the point where it was no longer the hours or the physical output required of them which caused them to grow older than their years. It was instead the relentlessness of the work. Day after day, night after night, with nothing to break the tedium of the routine. All knew, without being told, that the shipbuilding would go on and on and on until, at some unknown point in time, in the distant future, the war was over. One way or the other.

Shuffling through the gate with an orderly sense of urgency, the off-going shift migrated out onto the streets and beyond. The on-going crew, which had now swelled to over 2,300 members, displayed a diversity not normally seen in times of peace.

Aside from civilians representing all walks of life, there were over 1,100 men in active duty Navy, Coast Guard and Reservist’s uniforms.

As a means of proving who they were and foiling potential saboteurs, everyone was required to have some form of ID. The military men carried standard issue armed forces cards with photos and serial numbers. The civilian workers and tradesmen, however, had each been issued a small brass medallion, about the size of a silver dollar, as their means of ID. Stamped into each coin were a series of five numbers as well as the name of the shipping line each worked for. Some held their medallion in their hand and flashed it to the guard as they passed through the gate. Some pinned it to jacket lapels and still others had them attached to baseball caps bearing the logo of their favorite ball club, each member of the labour army attempting to express a measure of individuality in an ocean of sameness.

After about ten minutes, when a couple of hundred men had already passed through the checkpoint, the line suddenly stopped moving. Heads peeked right and left of the line to observe the short, slight man standing in the threshold of the gate, frantically frisking himself in an attempt to locate his medallion. Arms folded across his chest, the stocky Marine corporal stood glaring at the man.

“Hey Fitzy, take your time! Nobody’s got nuthin’ ta do here!” someone called out from down the line.

“Yeah, no rush. Hitler’ll wait.” Sporadic laughter added to Fitzy‘s consternation until, finally, he was able to locate the all-important item and was waved through. With the line once again flowing freely, the seemingly endless stream of work boots paraded past the guard and fanned out across the pier, making their way towards the behemoth-like luxury liner looming in the berth before them.

A large, rectangular wooden sign hung on a pair of thick, square timbers, adjacent to the main gangplank amidships. As an afterthought, a dirty grey tarpaulin had been lashed over the sign, but one end flapped loosely in the breeze revealing the words, New Troopship, and Lafayette. As if to reinforce the contradictory pattern which had thus far characterised the US war effort, high above the sign, prominently embossed across the bow of the ship, was the name, NORMANDIE.

By way of protesting her forced makeover and imposed new identity, the magnificent vessel had stubbornly sulked in harbour for nearly three years while argument after argument ping-ponged off commanders’ desks as to what to do with her.

The Generals wanted a new troopship to ferry troops into the European Theatre, while the Admirals reasoned that, after Pearl Harbor, a new carrier fitted the bill.

Her official designation up until now was AP-53 and, despite the fact that politicians of the highest level were involved, no one could possibly guess that the events of the next few hours would result in her remaining in harbour for the rest of her life, after which she would emerge as a symbol of poor judgement and wasted effort.

As each of the men gravitated towards their respective work stations, no one seemed to notice the lone figure who carried no lunch pail, his unscuffed boots, peeking out from long-hemmed, crisp Levi denims, shuffling across the creosote-soaked timbers. He carried a small, grease-stained brown paper bag at his side. The lanky individual walked directly towards the gang plank amidships.

Focused on the sheaf of papers clutched tightly in his fist, the Site Foreman was far too angry to notice the new man as they crossed paths. Making his way to the Site Overseer who stood behind a partially sheltered podium, the irritated foreman stared at the man hunched over his work and was greeted with forced cordiality.

“Morning, boss. How’s… Holy shit! What now?”

What now?’ As if you‘re the only schmuck in the yard that doesn’t know! Where are they?”

“You talkin’about the riggin’the fire hose, fake leak in the hull thing?”

“I’m in no mood, Eddie!” thundered the Foreman. “Do you know what this is? It’s a report! And guess what’s in it? Where are they?”

Eddie inadvertently glanced over his boss’s shoulder and turning, the Foreman spotted his two victims. “Never mind!” He anaesthetised the Overseer’s agony and re-directed his fury. “
YOU TWO, BUD AND LOU! HERE, NOW
!” The two workers were taken completely off guard and hesitated before slinking over to the gallows.

“I just spent twenty minutes explaining to ten people that we really don’t have a leak in the forward hold!” By way of response, the shorter of the two was seized with a sudden urge to scratch his head.

“See this? This is our quarterly safety review which happened to occur exactly the same day you two morons
GAVE UP GOOD JUDGEMENT FOR LENT
!”

“But Boss, Lent ain’t til’…”

“
STOW IT!
”

“Stowing it, boss.”

“Boss, we have no idea what you’re talkin’ about,” the tall worker responded with near sincerity.

“I told you it was a bad idea,” prompted the co-accused.

“The Personnel Department says I’m to sack you two jerk-offs! Friday. But I, in my infinite generosity and benevolence, I told them there are no more fitters down the hall.
DON’T MAKE ME CALL ’EM BACK
!”

“Boss, we’re sorry. It’s just… the freakin’ boredom!”

“It’s not really so much the boredom as it is the tedium!”

“Just get your shit together, will ya?” he pleaded. “This big grey taxi has ta be ferryin’ dog-faces by mid-March and my Damage Control crew runnin’ around playin’ sophomoric pranks, disruptin’ operations don’t exactly help matters. Besides…”

“It’s all fun ‘n’ games till somebody gets an eye poked out,” Tall Man interjected.

“Then it’s a sport.” Shorty nodded in affirmation.

“Get the hell outta here!
Assholes
!”

The work on the vessel proceeded until the lunch break, when the loud cacophony normally present gave way to a relaxing silence. To avoid the long journey back down through the labyrinth of the vessel’s passageways and onto the pier, everyone more or less sat and began eating where they had been working. The topics of conversation ranged from the usual war news, to the tragic death of Carol Lombard in a plane crash in Las Vegas. Then, shortly after work had resumed, the routine on the 49th Street Pier, as well as the American war effort, was irreversibly altered.

Insidiously, a narrow but widening plume of thick, black smoke slowly crept its way down the port-side passageway leading from the promenade deck. Ominously, the treacherous dark cloud rolled along the deck contained only by the freshly painted bulkheads as small red-orange flames crackled behind it, fighting to gather momentum. A minute later, the plume was a blanket covering the 50 or 60 square feet of the deck.

Awelder’s helper shuttling tools back and forth for the workers rounded the corner and came out onto the promenade, and a wall of flames exploded out into the open air and over the rail 100 feet over the dock.

To the crew members working on the pier, the trouble was not immediately apparent. However, as the yelling and the chaotic activity on the upper weather decks grew louder, an electrical sensation crackled through the air and was instantly recognised as something drastically out of sync. With animal-like instinct, each man of each crew throughout each successive deck level stopped what he was doing, raised his head and listened. Then, either smelling smoke or sensing the steadily mounting pandemonium, they ran for the exits. In less than ten minutes, the port-side promenade deck was completely engulfed.

The mild breeze which blew that afternoon fed the flames enough oxygen so that by half past two, all the weather decks were involved. To add to the rapidly mounting problems, the freshly applied coat of paint allowed the entire main deck to be consumed only minutes later. The resulting 1,000 degree temperatures were in stark contrast to the 33 degree levels of the ambient air of the harbour. To appalled observers, the involvement of the lower weather decks meant that anyone working above those levels, if they had not yet escaped, was suffering the most horrible death imaginable.

By now several things were occurring simultaneously. A number of men working at pier level began to realise what was happening, and three of them ran for the guard shack, which housed the only land line. As they burst through the door, they discovered that the alert young Marine had already notified the NYPD, the fire department, and was currently in the process of dialling the Harbor Master on his emergency line.

“Did you call for the docs?” one of the men asked in a frantic voice. The big guard held out his index finger while he finished dialling.

“Yeah! The police are going to notify the hospital to prepare a triage team.”

Talking into the telephone the Marine continued. “Harbor Master, this is Lance Corporal Deuth, Pier 88, Luxury Row. We‘ve got a code two emergency. Yes sir, yes sir. Already done both of those! Thank you, sir!” As he hung up the phone, the Marine instructed two of the men to return to the ship to help, and one of the men to stand by the main gate to prevent anyone from blocking access by parking in front of it. As they ran back to the ship, one of the men turned the other,

“Hey, Harry!”

“What?”

“What the hell’s a triage?”

“I don’t know, but they better get a shit load of them out here!” With Normandie longer than the width of Central Park, the 2,000 foot long dock, plus the additional two to three hundred feet to the main gate, was a distance few of the men had given any thought to until that day. Running from the guard shack towards the ship was not only complicated by the bitter cold, but wading through the crowds of workers moving in the opposite direction while wearing heavy work boots and heavy winter coats made it a triple effort. Tools and gear and canvas fire hoses littered the dock, half of them covered in ice and men tripped and stumbled regularly.

Several workers, noticing that all four gang planks were clogged with fleeing workers, immediately set about erecting ladders against the hull at appropriate hatchways.

Through the unending stream of panic-stricken workers, the Foreman fought his way back up the starboard-side forward gangplank. Halfway to the Quarterdeck he recognised the exhausted face of his chief engineer. Taking the awestruck man by the shoulders, the Foreman looked straight into his eyes.

“Mac, what’s our status?”

Gasping between phrases, the out of breath engineer stared through the Foreman as he responded. “Bilge to ‘C’ level is clear. But if it reaches the POL stores, everything from Jersey City over to Broadway’s gonna be a fuckin’ airfield!”

“You’re sure there’s no one else below?”

“Only those two lunatics.”

“Which two lunatics?”

“How many lunatics you got working Damage Control?”

As the Foreman continued to struggle his way through the Zfleeing workers deeper into the ship, it occurred to him how easily a man could vanish into one of the thousands of human-sized pigeon holes the partially stripped down ship had become. Fighting through the passageways below decks, he spotted an OBA case on the port bulkhead. The Oxygen Breathing Apparatus would buy him at least fifteen minutes of breathable air while he searched for his two derelict ship fitters. Grasping at the latch handle, he stared in dismay as the case opened and in lieu of the life-saving device a large, pink inventory tag appeared.

“Fucking bean counters!”

After an eternity of choking through the ever thickening grey smoke, he reached the Paints, Oils and Lubricants cages and his attention was immediately diverted as he detected singing in the far corner of the large storage area.