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U. S. S. NORTH CAROLINA BATTLESHIP COLLECTIONJoseph E. Iacono Interview

June, .25, .1975

[Joseph E. Iacono]My name is Joseph E. Iacono, I live presently at 329 Thornacroft Ave.in Staten Island, New York. I enlisted in the Navy in November 28, 1940.I was seventeen. I was on what they called a minority cruise or kiddy carcruise and I went up to Newport, Rhode Island, training station up there.From there I was assigned to the U.S.S. Camden which was a receiving shipfor the North Carolina, somewhere about commissioning time which wasApril 9, '41. We went aboard somewhere around that time. I served fromthat time until September of '43; we were at Pearl Harbor at the time,At that time I was an apprentice seaman on one of the working parties.The Navy was new and I was in a deck force at the time. The food wasgood. Navy's good food, I don't care where you go. My battlestationat that time was in the magazine room of number three turret; and thenagain all you did, was as far as I was concerned, was take a bag ofpowder out of a canister and pass it into a hopper.

I must have been a stupid kid because I don't remember being afraiduntil the day after. we were torpedoed. We had been in an air attackprior to that and the day after was the first time I remember the incidenttoo. I was sent back aft. I worked in the machine shop at that time,and I was sent back to the starboard catapult to check out a crack thatprobably happened when we were torpedoed. I was straddling the catapultand in my mind the guy on the P.A. system was screaming "all hands standclear of the starboard side." Well we were so well trained to go forwardon the starboard and aft port. My battlestation was down in damage con-trol on the third deck, Practically at the location where she was hit.Here I am running down the starboard side down the ladders and finally

to the third deck, and all the time hearing this fellow say "stand clearof the starboard side." I sat down against the bulkhead, and it wasbetween compartments, and I said to the fellow next to me, I said "JesusChrist, a guy could get killed around here." That was the first timeI really woke up. Really, I was a stupid kid but that's the way it was.

[Interviewer]Do you recall when the ship went through the Panama Canal?

[Joseph E. Iacono]Yes,

[Interviewer]Where were you?

[Joseph E. Iacono]Well like I said originally, I came aboard in the deck force. TI hadgone to a trade school, so I wanted down in the black gang which I woundup doing later, but I think I was in the deck force at the time. I don'tremember too much except going through it.

[Interviewer]You mentioned the day after the torpedo. Where were you when theship was torpedoed?

[Joseph E. Iacono]I was working in the machine shop on a big eighteen inch gap lathe.She runs from port to starboard and I don't remember what I was doing.But I do remember all the tools that I had on the carriage jumping upand everybody just took off for their battlestations. I remember whatwent through my mind, I never thought of a torpedo. I thought of anothership in the distance laying one into us, you know. I remember runningaround the shop shutting machines off and then taking off for my battle-station which was in that area. I had gotten through that door. Itwas closed off already. So that's the last door they kept sealed offbecause forward of that compartment they had, if I can remember right,they had cracks in the bulkheads and they had to shore it up. So ourstation was moved aft a little. My first impression was that therewas a sea battery that had hit us. The ship went into an immediatelist and seemed that she came out of it as fast as she went into it.

[Interviewer]Did they ever announce over the P.A, system that the ship hadbeen torpedoed?

[Joseph E. Iacono]Not that I remember. I think that through that scuttlebutt,we knew it was a torpedo rather than what I thought.

[Interviewer]Do you recall being under air attack?

[Joseph E. Iacono]Yes, I was on a one point one, I was an ammunition passer onthe one point one. That is the last mount on the port side betweenthe last five inch mount and the sixteen inch chart. There is fortymillimetre up there now. They put them on at Pearl, but that was aone point one and that was my battlestation at that time.

[Interviewer]You don't remember much about it except firing away?

[Joseph E. Iacono]Kept passing the ammunition as they said.

[Interviewer]You were on the ship from 1941 until 1943, is that right?

[Joseph E. Iacono]That is right, September '43,

[Interviewer]Do you remember any unusual incidents or humorous stories,that might be worth putting down?

[Joseph E. Iacono]I don't know what the heck is unusual. Well, if you thinkcatching a sand shark off the stern is unusual, I caught one onetime with a line and a hook, I had a friend in the machine shop, hisname was Fritz, who had a friend of his who was a cook, Naturallyeverybody on the stern says naturally you don't eat sand sharks. Welljust because we don't eat them, we're going to, and we did.

[Interviewer]How big was the shark?

[Joseph E. Iacono]He wasn't too big, I guess he was about three or four feet.So he got his friend to cook up and it was delicious. I rememberit being delicious. It had to be different, right?.

I was in the refrigeration. gang for awhile and we had-a littlepickings out of the refrigerator once in awhile when we would get the

keys under the roost and check in the coils and be able to get thefood right and cook it up in that little compartment back there. Itworked out real well. We ate good,

[Interviewer]Where were you?

[Joseph E. Iacono]I think we were at anchor and I guess we were around Wewak atthe time. If I remember right we did stop in there a few times, itwas more or less the staying area from what I remember,

[Interviewer]What else do you remember?

[Joseph E. Iacono]Well, you know, just to give you a little idea of what I thinkof these people, I'm now an assistant chief mechanic in the city ofNew York, for the mechanical division of all the motor equipment inthe Department of Sanitation. We have over five thousand pieces ofequipment; and, well the department top strata is the director, twochiefs, and I am one of the assistant chiefs. So I'm pretty involvedin the mechanical works. Through the years I've learned a littlebit anyway; but, you know the older you get the more you realizeyou don't know. Anyway, the point I'm getting at is that they had thechief machinist mate in that machine shop, his name was Laurence Schwack.They had a first class, I don't remember his first name, his name wasMacy. If it wasn't for those two people, I wouldn't be doing what L'mdoing today. They taught me the fundamentals you need at the machineshop, and I think they made a pretty good mechanic out of me. Macywas in service and then he went out and then he came back in. Hecame in just before the war. Schwack was a professional. He laterbecame ensign, and I don't know how far up the line he went. Samething Masegee, followed in the same footsteps. Til this day I don'tsee people around that have the expertise of those two people.

[Interviewer]Evidently the machine shops were well run on board that ship.

[Joseph E. Iacono]Well, we worked a seven day week, a regular eight hour day. . Theyproduced a lot of work and they did beautiful work. You don't realizeit at the time but when you look back and you see what is going on inindustry now, you realize how professional they were. They were reallyprofessional. We did some jobs down there that were really unheard of.I remember one job they put me on was they reconstructed an enteralgear from scratch. They had nothing to go on, It was just a matter offiguring it with formulas and the little bit that they had.

[Interviewer]What was the gear for, do you know?

[Joseph E. Iacono]I think that is was something in the turbine. It had just wiped outall the gears, You could do just about anything down there. They madea feed pump shaft for the U.S.S. Blue, Destroyer Blue at one time. Shehad burned up one of her fuel pump shafts, feed pumps, and they madeone down in the shop for her. It was made strictly from prints. Whenyou're making something out off nothing or stainless steel, what ever thematerial was, it was one of the two, I don't remember which, and youare cutting large threads like three and four inches and so manythousandths and nothing to try it with. Two men were working on it inteams sort of around the clock, and it was crated and sent over. It had,you know, will it fit? And this thing they got a radio message back andfrom what I understand and the pump was running on the line so thatshows how much expertise was there. Mainly it was perhaps Chief Schwackand his first class.

[Interviewer]These were the men who ran the shop, they were the professionals,You had people coming in who probably had little or no experience andthey worked with then.

[Joseph E. Iacono]Well, they had some experience. I had some I worked in the trade

school in the same line. Later on there was another fellow, I thinkhis name was Conrose. He came out of Dearborn, Michigan. He workedfor the Ford Motor Company and he was of the same caliber. Of courseI had gone from apprentice seaman to machinist mate first myself on theship and eventually I wound up on a destroyer. I was the chief machinistmate on the destroyer, but even the replacements they just had it. Maybe,you know what they say, how an unusual ship this was, unusual ship, Thiswas an unusual ship. You know everybody has there little petty gripes, butby-in-large the morale was good. I would say, after a while you were alittle bit bored I guess, when we used to run that so called torpedojunction, just running back and forth, back and forth.

[Interviewer]When did you have liberty, or did you have liberty?

[Joseph E. Iacono]I don't remember any liberty. I remember going ashore on Wewak.We did go ashore a few times. It was a day time deal until we went toPearl, then you had regular liberty there,

I don't know too much about what she did after I left her, althoughI did screen for her for awhile. While I was on a destroyer, we werebasically in the same task force. We screened for everybody, and attimes we screened for the Carolina.

W. S. Maxwell was the chief engineer and I partly owe my job tohim, too. I'm sorry I didn't mention him. When I had gotten out of theservice I needed some documentations that I had worked on the machineship to show that I had five years experience to start off in the job.I had written to the Bureau of Naval Operations and asked them if I couldfind out where Maxwell was at that time. They sent me a letter back that

he was assigned to the American Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, and I forward

a letter to him. He was a captain at that time and he wrote me back anice letter, two letters, a personal letter and the other letter thathad given me the information that I needed. Incidentally he lives inBrooklyn. He was quite a man. He was a great man; I guess you couldSay everybody loved him. Well respected, well liked. Well he had agood crew and it was part of his doing. I did pick up the pieces abouthim later. I saw something in the Inquiring Reporter. It is a New Yorkpaper where he had written in at one time. At that time he was rearadmiral retired and he had something to say. I don't remember what itwas but I remember he was in charge of smoke control in the city ofNew York. Then he had gotten another appointment, something to dowith the environment for the state of New York. So he was a very activeman even after he left the service.

When I was on the Destroyer Wedderburn, the 684, I was down in theengine room on watch and we were under air attack. I don't rememberwhen it was, it had to be around the time of Okinawa I guess. You alwaysseem to brag about your old home which I did on that ship, and they pipedover the loud speaker, "the North Carolina just shot one down;" and I'mjumping around, "see that fellows, you know." "Correct that, that was oneof ours,"