ANDREW CHESNUT

Andrew Chesnut was born in St. John, Washington where his dad and uncle operated a garage until 1928.  They moved to Colfax where Andy graduated in 1942.  Some of his classmates dropped out to enlist but Chesnut felt it was important to graduate before he moved on.  So in early December he enlisted in the Navy and was sent to Farragut Naval Training Station near Sandpoint, Idaho on December 31, 1942. 

The navy had searched for an inland training site safe from possible Japanese attack.  Rumor had it that Eleanor Roosevelt picked the site, but it was selected by three senior naval officers after a two day study.  The President and some staff toured the site on September 30, 1942 while work was in progress.

During the war approximately three hundred and sixty thousand Navy personnel were trained at Farragut on its five basic training sites, separated by the forested geography of Northern Idaho for safety and security.  Each site was self-contained with its own mess, rifle range, sick bay, parade grounds, drill hall, and barracks.  Nearby Lake Pend Orielle was used for rowing instructions.  About thirty thousand men were there when Andy reported for Basic Training on January 1, 1943 in snow three feet deep, but Basic Training commenced anyway.  He learned first of all how to wash and stow his clothes according to the Bluejacket Manual which contained all it took to learn how to be a basic trained sailor, including being able to swim twenty-five yards before boarding ship.

Chesnut next was sent to Iowa State College at Ames, Iowa where Navy Instructors and college professors taught electricity.  The first class each day was a math class.  After graduating and being promoted to Petty Officer 3C (PO3C), he was sent to Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay to Gyro Compass School where he graduated in October 1943 and was eventually sent to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington to wait while his ship neared completion at Bellingham, Washington.  During the wait, he was sent to Aerial Gunnery School at Pacific Beach, Washington, over-looking the ocean.  Planes towed targets while all types of anti-aircraft guns practiced shooting at them.

His new ship was built out of wood, double hull, one hundred sixty-five feet long, fifteen feet draft with a crew of sixty-five.  It was designated an Auxiliary Tug Rescue (ATR).  On the second deck were two turbine-driven fire pumps each capable of delivering two thousand gallons a minute at two hundred and fifty pounds pressure.  It was well equipped to fight fires on ships.  It also carried one thousand gallons of a liquid to make foam to fight oil fires.  The crew assembled and the ship was commissioned on October 30, 1943.

Having loaded their supplies aboard, the ATR crew took her to Lake Union to have a rear main shaft bearing replaced.  While there, it was tied in front of a Russian ship where there was a custom agent at the gangplank at all times.  Sixty percent of the crew were women.  "No one wanted to mess with those women.  They looked big and mean," smiled Andy. 

They left for San Pedro, California with a barge in tow.  Eight hours north of San Francisco they were letting out more cable when the sailor operating the towing winch failed to disengage the electric motor from the cable reel.  They had about fifteen hundred feet of two and one half inch diameter steel cable out.  As they played out the cable it spun the motor so fast it threw out all the windings on the rotor and tore the pole pieces off the frame of the motor.  They put in to San Francisco to get a new one hundred hp motor.

They continued to San Diego for shakedown tests.  Experts came aboard to test all the machinery to make sure it would stand Navy tests.  The ship was the first one completed and it had to be tested to make sure that class of ship would do the required tests.  While they were maneuvering, their sister ship made a close turn and rammed their ATR on the port side in back and damaged some timbers, which meant time in the San Diego shipyard for repairs.  They then returned to San Pedro to accompany a Merchant Marine tug towing a dry-dock across the Pacific.  The other tug had a range of fifteen thousand miles.  Their ATR only had a range of four thousand five hundred miles, but it had armament. 

They crossed the equator with suitable ceremonies to King Neptune, then crossed the date line on Easter Sunday, both tugs traveling at six knots.  They stopped at Samoa to refuel, then steamed on to Milne Bay, New Guinea.  A week later they picked up a dry-dock to tow to the small US Naval station at Cairns, Australia.  There were two ten-gallon cans of fresh cool milk on the dock when they arrived.  What a treat that was for them!   They were at Cairns a month, giving the men time to look the area over, ride some horses, go to the horse races, and take a Red Cross excursion to the highlands above Cairns.

They went back to New Guinea to tow all kinds of barges -- repair, fuel, refrigerated -- all along the north coast of New Guinea.  Andy and the other two electricians stood four-on eight-off watches on a piece of machinery called a vapor compression still.  It made fresh water out of sea water.  Their ATR was steam powered so they had to have fresh water for power as well as for the crew. One time going along the north coast of New Guinea, they noticed the water looked brown.  It was a fresh water river, several miles wide, running into the ocean.  On each side of the brown river was a line of coconuts, some sprouting small trees.  Another time they were running low on fresh water as their still needed to be cleaned.  When it rains in the tropics, it comes down hard, so they rigged some canvas and caught rain water to use in the boilers. 

As the US Army moved north, the ATR followed with supplies and gasoline barges full of aviation gasoline for PT boats, arriving in the Leyte Gulf in the middle of November.  They had to go to general quarters at dusk and sunrise since that is when the Japanese planes usually made their attacks.  They were assigned to the Seventh Fleet Ship Salvage, Fire Fighting and Rescue Unit, in which there were ten ships. 

The US Army had landed on the east coast of Leyte and tried to go inland over the hills,  The Japanese had landed on the west coast.  It was decided to fight them on the west side by invading it.  They were part of that invasion.  They pulled several landing ships out after they had discharged their cargo of men and material. 

It was during the Philippine Island Campaign that the Japanese brought Kamikaze planes into use.  They flew one-way trips to destroy American ships.  During the invasion on the west side of Leyte at Ormoc Bay, the ATR crew stood by to assist.  Andy was in the damage control party standing by in case they were needed. 

As they stood alert, three single-engine Japanese planes came in low on the left side.  The ATR shot down two of them but the third dove into the bridge of the USS Lamson, a destroyer.  The officers and crew dove into the water to escape the flames and explosions.  The ATR men received orders to pull alongside and assist with putting out the fires, rescuing the men in the water, and getting the injured men aboard.  They used their fire monitors to put out the fires and their whaleboat to get the men out of the oil-soaked water around the ship.  They also transferred the injured men and the Lamson's doctor aboard and placed the injured men needing surgery in their officer's ward room. The head quarter-master went through the ward and reported blood running six inches deep. 

They took the destroyer in tow to the other side of Leyte, staying close to shore out of enemy sight.  They passed off the ship to a fleet tug and took the injured men to the USS Mercy, a hospital ship.  The men of the ATR received the Naval Unit Commendation award for that action.

A week later they were headed north for the invasion of Mindoro, an island south of Luzon, a staging place for the capture of Manila.  They were at the back of the convoy to help any stragglers with engine trouble.  They towed the LST-460 for seven miles until the ship's crew got her engines working and could proceed on their own. The convoy flagship, USS Nashville, a cruiser with the flag of the Admiral on board, steamed In the middle of the convoy.  Two days before the invasion, they were moving north when a plane was seen way off to the right just above the water.  It kept coming but no one shot at it for fear of hitting one of their own ships.  When it got close it climbed up and dove into the Nashville, killing one hundred and twenty seven men.  The ship pulled out of the convoy and the flag went onto another ship.  Again at Mindoro the ATR assisted the invasion fleet as needed. That invasion was the first time Andy saw a rocket attack on a beachhead.  He recalls it was terrifying to see and hear. 

They continued to tow barges around the Philippines and were in Subic Bay when the A-Bomb was dropped signaling the end of the war. The ATR left the Philippines on December 29, 1945.  When they had passed under the Golden Gate, the ship was rammed by an oil barge and had to go into dry-dock for repair.  It then went through the Panama Canal to Galveston where it was sold to Peru for $32,000.

Chesnut joined the Ready Reserves, served in Korea, and was called in 1955 to attend a school that the Navy was setting up to qualify instructors to teach mobilization schools.  He left the service as an E-6 First Class electrician, ready to pass that knowledge on to future Navy electricians.

The man who was the Colfax American Legion Commander first in 1958 is currently serving a third consecutive term in that office.  When asked what his title is, however, he will tell you it is "Civilian."