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During a recent phone conversation with Ed Simpson EM1, who was a Slater crew member during 1944 and 1945, he related an interesting sea story (or was it a port story?) concerning the Slater. It seems that there is a small controversy (at least in one man's mind) about whether the Destroyer Escort returned to the Hudson River by the DEHF is indeed the USS Slater! It is true that several DEs were transferred to the Greek Navy along with the Slater*. An ex-crewmember of one of the other DEs has asserted the ship now in the Port of Albany is his old ship and not the Slater. Now, to the casual observer, one DE might look just like another, and after 55 years memories can be forgiven for fading just a little, but Simpson's memory is sharp and clear and he claims incontrovertible proof of the Slater's identity! Simpson recalls that while Slater was in the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1944, a pair of yard birds with flashlights awakened him in his bunk at 2 am. " Are you Simpson?" "Yes" says Simpson. "Is your space the IC and Gyro room?" "Yes" says Simpson. "Well you better roll out and come with us then, because the yard fire watch has spotted smoke and we think it's coming from the IC room and we don't have a key". Now Simpson is afraid he knows what it is right away. It seems that on a DE a place to press your uniform is not that easy to find. Simpson had a nice wooden bench in the IC room kind of tucked in between the ships gyroscope and the "Now Hear This" amplifier that was just the right size. He also had two good buddies, Balkin and Blackwood, who used to press their uniforms there with him. Down through the hatch in the mess deck to the IC room with the two yard birds close behind, Simpson unlocks the door and, sure enough, there is the red-hot iron burned right through the wooden work bench! No big deal, no fire, and the compartment |
is soon cleared of smoke, but there still remains the hole burned in the bench. "Oh dear" says Simpson (well, maybe not his exact words). "My division officer will find out about this tomorrow, he'll tell the Captain, I'll get a mast, get busted and won't get a liberty until 1950!" The two yard birds get their heads together and after a short conversation one of them says to Simpson, "Well, nobody but the three of us needs to know about this, meet us on the pier at 0800". So Simpson is on the pier at 0800 and there are the two yard birds with a neat steel plate that they have fabricated to fit over the hole in the bench. The plate gets discreetly installed, covering the evidence, and nobody is the wiser for the next 55 years. And there the story would end except for the allegation that the ship now in the Hudson River at Albany is one of the other DEs and not the Slater!
Well, in April 1999 the former Slater crew held its annual ship's reunion onboard Slater and the first thing Simpson did was make it down to the IC room to check out the workbench. Sure enough, undisturbed, and just as it was 55 years and untold thousands of miles ago, there is the wooden workbench with the steel patch still hiding the evidence. Jerry Jones ET, Slater Volunteers 1/1/2000 |
| NEW INFORMATION: In the summer of 2000 the USS Slater finally got her upper hull scrapped down and repainted. During the finishing touches it was discovered that the welding guidelines for her original "766" bow numbers were still in place and had not been ground off by the Greek Navy. |
| Frank Slater & Family | Construction & Launching | World War 2 Duty | History to Present |
New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs: USS Slater
last modified: 5 January 2000 (mjs)
URL:http://www.dmna.state.ny.us/slater/history/identity.html