DANIEL TYLER GOODEN

PHOTO 1: the U.S.S. Pursuit is where Whitney “Spike” Vicknair served during World War II. The Pursuit was a minesweeper dedicated to protecting it’s fleet. Vicknair served as a soundman watching for the enemy above, below and on the surface of the great Pacific Ocean. With memories of a devastating world war still fresh in the minds of allied countries, who would have dared imagine that the world would again spill so much blood? In the midst of a world depression Germany rose from total economic chaos to invade Poland on the first day of September, 1939. On Dec. 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was decimated by a surprise Japanese air raid. The United States of America was pulled in two directions, as soldiers were asked to defend their country and their allies in lands halfway around the world from their homes. Those ordinary men and women who stepped up to win the fight for freedom, television anchorman Tom Brokaw called the “Greatest Generation” of this country. These were our fathers and grandfathers who fought and died in countless numbers. These were our mothers and grandmothers who stepped up on the homefront to insure supplies and tackle jobs never before assigned to women. They rose from a depressed economy to win a world-wide war, and forced the German surrender in Paris on May 8, 1945 and the Japanese surrender aboard the battleship U.S.S. Missouri, Aug. 14, 1945. Our triumph came in winning the war and continued in building a strong country which would later serve as the backbone against communist intrusion across the globe. These are the warriors of our country whom we honor and give thanks for this Memorial Day. Whitney “Spike” Vicknair, 80, has trouble remembering day-to-day things, “but things then, I remember every bit of it.” Vicknair was born and bred in St. John the Baptist Parish. His nickname came in a most unusual way. When he was 6, Vicknair was struck by a bloodweave stalk on the John L. Ory School playground. “An older boy, about 15 or so, was throwing the stalk and root and hollering here goes a spike buck,” said Vicknair. The boy who was over-enthusiastic about hunting dear struck Vicknair just between the eye and the temple. With blood running from the cut, the boy carried Vicknair to the nurse and the name “spike buck’ stayed with him. Vicknair finished high school and joined the Navy at age 22, six months after Pearl Harbor was bombed. “I fished all the time, loved the water, loved the fish,” said Vicknair. There was no question the Navy was the service for him. PHOTO 3: RIGHT TO BE PROUD, Whitney Vicknair, St. John Parish born and bred, looks through his pictures and remembers the service he and many other men like him, paid their country in World War II. (Staff Photo by Daniel Tyler Gooden) The Navy put him through months of training. First there was boot training in San Diego followed by machinist school. He was transferred to Seattle for gunnery school, where he learned to shoot 20-, 30- and 40-millimeter anti-aircraft guns. He also learned to operate sonar, surface radar and aircraft radar. When the training was over and he was waiting for placement on a ship, Vicknair was sent into action as a mail clerk. “They used everyone for anything they could,” said Vicknair. On April 30, 1943, Vicknair’s ship was ready. The U.S.S. Pursuit, a minesweeper, was commissioned in Winslow, Wash. Vicknair was assigned as soundman and for six months, they cruised the Pacific, performing convoy and escort duties. “I crossed that ocean God knows how many times,” said Vicknair. In October of that year, the ship was assigned to the Fifth Amphibious Force, and in November led the way into Tarawa Lagoon, Gilbert Islands. The U.S.S. Pursuit was one of 15 minesweepers in the convoy. They were positioned as a wedge in front of the group to search and destroy the mines which could sink any of the hundreds of ships behind them. The sweepers would work in teams in the lagoons, using a wire to cut the mines from their anchors. As the mines would surface, the team behind would shoot and detonate them. “Water would shoot sky-high,” said Vicknair. In Tarawa Lagoon, they helped the Marines land on the beach, acting as a control center to direct the landings. “They figured it would be high tide when they were landing the barges. When they were going in, they got caught up on the coral reefs. The Marines had to jump in with their packs on and many of them drowned. There was a guy from Reserve that happened to,” Vicknair remembered. After the landing the ship served as a waypoint for the wounded. Vicknair and his fellow sailors would pull the Marines back aboard from the transports and doctor them up as best they could before sending them on to the hospital ship. As soundman for the U.S.S. Pursuit, Vicknair would be assigned to the sonar one day, the surface radar the next and then the aircraft radar. When enemy planes approach-ed, the general quarters (GQ) order was given and each of the 110 sailors moved to their designated defensive position. “Every man had a life preserver and a steel helmet. Even if you were showering and they gave the GQ, you’d come running. People would be running plum-ass naked,” said Vicknair with a laugh. During GQ, Vicknair was a trainer for a 40-mm. The gun took two men to aim, one adjusting the horizontal plane, the other on the vertical plane. Vicknair and his partner, Eddie Barnes, an American Indian from Oklahoma, would pump the hand cranks and swing the gun toward the enemy Zeros. Three other men were in charge of loading the gun. Two would pass the four cartridge clips up to a black boxer from Iowa, named Taylor. “He told us, shoot them down, don’t worry about anything being in that gun,'” said Vicknair. Taylor always had the gun loaded, he added. The Japanese Zeros would come in swarms. “Sometimes they’d sound GQ and by the time you got to the gun they were everywhere. You’d hop on and start shooting. The 40-mm had a wall around the base to catch the spent shell casings. “Sometimes you’d shoot so much, it would fill up with casings until you could feel them hot around your legs,” said Vicknair. Life on the U.S.S. Pursuit wasn’t always tense with preparedness. Vicknair’s pictures from their tour show sailors dressed up in coconut bikinis, as sea gods and sea creatures. One photo shows New Orleans boxing champion Joe Brown laced up for sparring. He served aboard the U.S.S. Pursuit as well. One tradition which fills Vicknair’s photograph album is the initiation from Pollywog’ to Shellback.’ Sailors weren’t true seamen until they crossed over the equator. On that day the Shellbacks would seize the ship for initiation, gathering up any Pollywog from captain’s rank on down. Vicknair served as the barber for the ceremony. Pictures show him with scissors in hand and a wide grin on his face. He’d cut the hair off one side of the victim’s head and half the mustache on the other side. As an extra surprise for the Pollywog, the chair was hinged in the back to spill them over into a pool behind him. “We had a lathe spinning a generator which ran through a copper wire to the chair. It was soldered to a copper plate at the seat and when I was finished, I’d hit that button and they’d spring up out of their seat and back into the pool,” said Vicknair. One photo even shows a smiling Captain Al A. Mattera of New York, in Vicknair’s improvised barber’s chair. The U.S.S. Pursuit saw a good deal of action through the course of the war. After the Tarawa Lagoon, she continued on to the Marshall Islands. She continued to lead the fleet, advancing ahead to clear lagoons and beaches for invasion. In October 1944, the crew joined other minesweepers in Mine Division 13 and helped lead Gen. MacArthur as he pressed the Fifth, Seventh and Third fleets back to Manila. In each case, the U.S.S. Pursuit swept the way before the fleet. By this time she had cut 44 Japanese mines with no casualties. After the Philippines tour the ship joined the invasion force that eventually took Okinawa in March and April. On the north end of Okinawa, the crew cleared seven mines and shot down one kamikaze Zero headed for their vessel. They also assisted other ships by shooting down a few others. In that battle, the U.S.S. Pursuit took one shell in the bow. With all the noise, “we didn’t know about it until after it was all over,” said Vicknair. The explosion did not reach the water line and the vessel continued on until it could be repaired back in the States, three months later. Soon the war was over and Vicknair was honorably discharged at the rank of Third Class Petty Officer. He married his girlfriend, the former Annabell Jacobs, on April 27, 1946. They just celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary. Vicknair hired on with Shell Oil in St. Charles Parish at 98 cents an hour. He retired from the machine shop in 1981. Last year he met with surviving U.S.S. Pursuit crewmates in New Orleans. “That was a good time I’m telling ya’. That was something,” said Vicknair. His time in the Navy is a point of pride for Vicknair. “You never forget it, what we went through. At 80, my memory’s poor of daily things but I remember every bit of then.” Remember Vicknair and those who served in the battles or at home. Look about you this Memorial Day and give a wink or a wave to those proud individuals who still wear the name of their service, ship or regiment on their person. Give them a smile and remember them in your prayers, those who are our Greatest Generation.