USS Electra (AKA 4)

Off the Coast of Casablanca, November 15, 1942

Thanks to Debbie Cook, who transcribed her father's recollections of the torpedoing and the days following, we have this fascinating story of the incident from the viewpoint of the ship's Supply Officer:

Ensign W. Douglas Cook's account of the torpedoing of the USS Electra: November 15, 1942. It was early in the morning of my 27th birthday. I was in the Navigator's room with Warrant Officer Perryman, lying on the chart desk when the torpedo nailed us in the number three hold on the starboard side of the ship. (Weeks later, as we sat next to the Jetée D'Alure, the hole looked to be 45 feet wide by 25 feet high.) The explosion was enormous; it blew the hatch covers and supporting strong backs off the hole and you could hear the parts hitting the deck like a rain of steel. It threw me off the chart desk and I fortunately came down on my feet. Mr. Perryman and I looked at each other and he started putting on his "Mae West" belt (a narrow belt that had two carbon dioxide canisters that would fill up the flotation device.) I thought that looked like a good idea, so I put on mine. I also fastened on my gun. I remember that we shook hands and then I didn't see him again for two days. I then got physically scared and got dry from my mouth to my anus. The scuttlebutts were out and I figured there must be something to drink in the ward room. I did not drink coffee but since it was the only thing I could find, I grabbed a cup and with one swoop, chugged it down. To this day, I can remember the awful taste and I still do not drink coffee. As I proceeded to the supply office, water was slopping over the deck. I opened the safe, removed the money, put it in my Abandon Ship canvas bag, along with all my pay records, but then found I could not lift it (to make it still heavier, the bottom was lined with lead). Luckily, along came my strongest storekeeper and he and I were able to boost it up to the main deck. There, on the fantail, was the Captain and all of the crew, looking aft. Along the stern of the ship I could see a trail of objects, vests, clothing that had been thrown overboard and left in our wake. I remembered instructions and the plea of the assistant doctor, "please make sure that the milk pail with my new uniform is thrown overboard so that it doesn't go down with the ship." I obliged the guy, picked it up and heaved it over the rail to join all the other flotsom. Of course afterwards he asked me "Why the hell did you do that?" (Later, he and the rest of the crew got reimbursed for what they lost. I did not lose anything except a favorite picture of my future wife.) Thanks to the efficient work of our radiomen, within a half hour, the USS Cole came alongside. We had taken on enough water that we could walk from the deck of the Electra to the deck of the Cole. Ordinarily we towered over a destroyer's deck. Two men volunteered to stay on the Electra while it was tugged into Casablanca, prepared to cut the towline from the USS Cherokee, if the ship went down. (It was later suggested that the reason the ship didn't go down was because we were carrying thousands of army gas cans that provided some buoyancy.) The sight in the Casablanca Harbor was something I will never forget. Above water in the bay were the masts and funnels and any other spars that came up from the many ships that the Americans had sunk. The only exception was the French ship the Jean Bart. She was sunk on the far end of the bay, hit by a shell in her bow that slid along the reinforced armored inner bulkhead sliding all the way to the stern where it exploded. The explosion damaged a large wheat silo causing wheat to spill out all around. When we came in on the Cole, I had all my money (approximately $100,000) and books of account. I got a boat and got over to the USS Augusta where the supply officer provided safekeeping for the night. I was able to go back to my own quarters on the Electra and spend the night in my own bed. Everyone below my deck was quartered in the French warehouses on the jetty. For all of us, the next few months were a time of cooperating with the salvage team flown in from the US. We had to repair all the equipment, generators, pumps, and replace all the gauges that had been damaged by the water. It was necessary early on for me to go to the French admiralty for some of my contacts. The first trip I took ashore was with one of my storekeepers. We both wore our guns and hoped we wouldn't need them. The first person we met was a young boy who was peddling perfume. "Chanel Numero Cinq, Chanel Numero Cinq," he cried. When we showed no interest in the perfume he added, "or my seester?" One of my jobs was to line up someone who could repair the dozens and dozens of ship's gauges that had been damaged. Fortunately I had taken some French in high school to assist me in my many trips into the city. I was able to find a jeweler who appreciated the opportunity to do something for the Americans. He hated the Nazis who had dominated Casablanca life. I am eternally grateful for all the help he gave us and to the crew that did a heroic job cleaning out all the muck below deck and preparing the ship for its return to the states. They worked like hell for weeks and weeks. (Dictated to his daughter, Debbie Cook, in August 2005.)