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| JOHN PAUL ELLIOTT, SR.
(1899-2005) Pharmacist Mate, H Division U.S.S. TEXAS BB 35, 1917-1919 |
| I went right from Great Lakes training camp to the TEXAS, my first and only ship. I was only a kid of course and you just took things as they came. I went aboard the TEXAS in Yorktown in 1917, in March or April, I think.
When I first arrived with a big assembly of men, we were assigned deck duty. After about four weeks, we were given the opportunity to choose what occupation you wanted to go in to. I chose the hospital and I transferred to the hospital corps [H Division] at that time. There was no official training; we just learned right there. You read books and attended classes, but you learned aboard the ship. The hospital area was located on the gun deck [second deck] on the starboard side. I was in charge of the surgery, of the operating room. My main job was to assist the surgeons but I also helped take care of the sick and wounded. We would always have a few of those. The operating room was pretty well equipped for its day, with sterilization equipment and such. I think we had four doctors most of the time, and I think six or eight pharmacist mates. We also had one dentist but we didn’t have much to do with him. The dentist was a doctor but he didn’t have anything to do with the hospital. He had his own room. Yes, we had a few serious cases. We had one man who lost an arm in the lower handling room in a turret. And I remember we had a drunken baker who got his arm caught in a bread mixer. After the war, a man fell out of the superstructure down at Guantanamo Bay, breaking a kidney. We had to take the kidney out. Otherwise, they were mostly minor surgeries. One time we had an attack of influenza on the ship. I was up for four days and four nights without sleep. But we didn’t lose anyone. We did have to operate on some poor fellow while the ship was in a bad storm. In those days, the Navy used linoleum on the decks and so we had big rolls of it on board. One of those rolls got loose during the storm and fell over on a sailor, crushing his leg. We had to operate while the ship was rolling back and forth. I administered the ether to him during surgery. I’m not sure if it was the ether or the hot dogs and sauerkraut they had served us for dinner, but I got to feeling pretty sick. I lasted through the surgery, but just barely. This was all part of working on a battleship. I slept right there in the hospital. All the sailors on TEXAS slept in hammocks. Each division had their own area. I slept in the sick bay beds if available; usually the beds were not full. We ate out on the gun deck. We had our own table set up where we were served by the regular crew. The tables were set up and put away for each meal. Interview by Ephriam D. Dickson III, February 22, 1998. Portrait by Will Michels Editor’s Note: For additional scuttlebutt about H Division aboard the U.S.S. Texas BB 35 during World War I, see the book Ground Swells: Of Sailors, Ships and Shellac (New York: Exposition Press, 1949) written by Elliot’s shipmate, Mark R. Murnane (1897-1972). |