“Ghost Ships” Soon Will Be Fighting Japanese, Sioux City Sailor Declares
Veteran of Year in Wartime Navy on 15-Day Leave
By Wesley Pedersen
Japanese navy men are due for a shock—they’re going to find themselves fighting “ghost ships” one of these days.
Those “ghost ships,” says Seaman Second Class Keith W. Locke, will be United States warships which the Nipponese claim to have sunk, but which really are still afloat, although some have needed extensive repairs.
Seaman Locke has been in the navy almost a year, serving much of that time aboard a destroyer tender which traveled the Pacific Ocean from Pearl Harbor to Kodiak Island, both huge naval bases. The son of Mr. and Mrs. H.E. Locke of Berkeley, California who lived here until three months ago, Seaman Locke is visiting his brother, N.D. Locke, 2651 Sheridan Avenue, while on 15-day leave.
Flag Still Flys
At Pear Harbor, Locke says, the United States flag still is kept flying from the masts of the naval vessels struck and partially sunk by Japanese bombs last December 7.
Those ships are being repaired by navy men determined to send them against the Japanese.
American seamen, he adds, scoff at Japanese reports of sinking of United Nations vessels—particularly Uncle Sam’s. True, he says, there have been some American ships sunk, but on the whole the Japanese claims are false.
On Convoy Duty
Seaman Locke served five weeks at Pearl Harbor, with his ship, the destroyer tender, anchored near Hickam Field, scene of some of the most vicious attacks by the Japanese last year.
The tender than was sent to convoy a tanker to Alaska. The job especially dangerous since the tenders, main duty of which is to carry supplies, fuel and ammunition for destroyers is not heavily armed. Together, the tender and the tanker would have made an ideal target for the Jap submarine or an airplane based at Kiska.
But, says the Sioux Cityan, the sailors on the tender were not worried. They were confident they could handle anything the Japanese might send against them.
It turned out however, that the trip to Alaska was uneventful.
Although he has been under their very noses at times, the Sioux City sailor has never taken part in a battle against the Japanese, and that rather annoys him.
Source: The Sioux City Journal, December 10, 1942
