The Sailor From San Felipe

February 14, 2008
By Bill Sontag
Feature Writer

A few milestones fix Onésimo Adame’s long life in perspective. In his birth year—1924—Calvin Coolidge was elected president, J. Edgar Hoover was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation, and Will Rogers’ s homespun humor and philosophy made a nation smile.

The boy and his parents were far removed from such moments. But only 20 years later he would have a center-stage role in history as a “hot shell man” on an American destroyer, tugging scorching-red brass from the butt of big shipboard guns. Thousands of rounds of 5-inch munitions found and destroyed German emplacements burrowed into the coast of Normandy, France, on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

Despite the horrors that attended the largest military coastal invasion ever staged, Adame takes satisfaction from a job well done aboard a ship that earned and still enjoys a distinguished reputation in naval combat history, the USS McCook, DD-496. “They called me ‘Pancho’ because I was the only Mexican on the ship,” Adame said, grinning. Had things gone differently, Adame might have been carrying a rifle on the beach instead of servicing the McCook’s No. 1 gun.

Adame’s formative—at times tumultuous—youth in Las Filipinas Barrio presaged a life demanding toughness and resilience in war, hard toil, poor health, and natural disasters. As with thousands of men and women who grew up in border neighborhoods such as Del Rio’s San Felipe community, Adame rose to meet challenges more out of necessity than inspiration.

Not simply longing to see the world, he was nearly court-martialed for joining the Navy, instead of showing up for Army induction. He never knew his mother, Lucia, who died at the age of 16 when Adame was 2 years old. And eight years after he completed a long career with the Southern Pacific Railroad, finally settling into retirement in his childhood home, everything he owned—including World War II citations and medals—was swept downstream in Del Rio’s tragic Flood of ’98. In 1995, Adame had bypass heart surgery, and last year, he suffered a stroke and was temporarily paralyzed.

The happiness and tranquility that show so readily on the weathered faces of Onésimo and his wife, Mary, reflect their gratitude for lives well-lived and three grown children, all successful in their professions. Celebrating his 84th birthday this month, Adame chuckled, remembering travails that shaped his resolve to provide for his family.

On her deathbed, Adame’s mother asked Rumaldo Adame, Onésimo’s uncle, to care for her son, and the boy moved in with him at 305 Taini St. where a wooden footbridge crossed the turquoise waters of San Felipe Creek. It became the home of his childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. When Adame was a boy, a “parlor for dominoes and cards” thrived in a house between Rumaldo’s home and the creek. “They sold tequila and beer over there, but I was allowed to go over and sing for them,” Adame said. “It was during Prohibition, and those guys were called ‘The Untouchables’ because the sheriff and Texas Rangers used to hang out there, too.”

Rumaldo Adame died in 1934. Onésimo was 10 years old, attending La Escuela Amarilla, the yellow-walled Catholic School (now demolished) behind Our Lady of Guadalupe Church when he went to live with his father, Severo Adame. He was not permitted to attend public school then. He had no birth certificate because his mother had been attended by a midwife who was not bothered with paperwork.

Five years later, after only six weeks at San Felipe High School, Adame dropped out. The family needed money, and Severo sent Onésimo away to shear sheep on ranches near San Angelo, Sanderson, and Dryden, Texas, then to labor in cotton fields around Corpus Christi. Between picking seasons, Adame returned to the family home on Taini Street. A draft notice arrived, so he took the physical exam, but he was allowed to work briefly for Seattle, Wash., defense contractors. When he resigned, he was ordered to report to Fort Bliss, near El Paso, for induction. Instead, the 17-year-old traveled to San Antonio, found a U.S. Navy recruiter, and joined up.

Photos of the USS McCook DD-496 are scarce, but this undated top view shows men at work on deck of the destroyer alongside an aircraft carrier. The topmost five-inch gun was the McCook’s number one weapon where Adame worked removing shell casings after each firing. His only “wounds” included a burn on the cheek that healed and asbestos in his lungs that plague his health today. (Contributed photo/National Archives) (click image to enlarge)

The battleship USS Texas BB-35 is underway off the coast from Norfolk, Va., March 1943. Fifteen months later, the Texas stood in dark waters off the coast of Normandy, France, alongside the British cruiser HMS Glasgow, like big brothers behind the destroyer USS McCook, all pounding German gun placements with heavy ship artillery rounds. (Contributed photo/National Archives) (click image to enlarge)

The still scene of the landing at Omaha Beach during the invasion of Normandy, France, belies the chaos and trauma that preceded this photo when American troops began to hit the beach under heavy German fire in pre-dawn darkness on June 6, 1944. Here can be seen amphibious vehicles, barrage balloons (to interfere with enemy aircraft approaches), landing ship, tank transports, minesweepers, and—on the horizon—destroyers and battleships. (Contributed photo/National Archives) (click image to enlarge)

Following war in Europe, the destroyer USS McCook DD-496 was modified in Philadelphia to become the minesweeper DD-36, and set out to sea again, headed for the War in the Pacific. Japan surrendered before she got there, and Onésimo Adame switched in the Marshall Islands to a “liberty ship” of the merchant marine to return home and be discharged. (Contributed photo/National Archives) (click image to enlarge)

Adame did basic training at Great Lakes, Ill., then more specialized training before he finally boarded his first and only assigned ship, the 348-foot-long, brand new destroyer McCook at Bremerton, Wash. Despite the newness and spiffy paint, the destroyer’s thin metal sides and smallish size earned them—as a class—the nickname “tin can,” and crew members were “tin can sailors.” Adame and about 275 enlisted men and officers steamed south along the West Coast, locked through the Panama Canal, and headed north to Norfolk, Va. Less than a month later, the McCook began the first of many escort duties across the Atlantic, the first to Casablanca, North Africa. Then back to the United States, and the next convoy escort of 80 to 90 ships, as Adame recalls. “I must have crossed that ocean eight or nine times,” Adame said.

North Africa, he believes, was a staging area where naval vessels were amassed in preparation for the assaults to re-take France from German forces a year later. “We also escorted the 2nd Infantry Division on transport ships to Belfast, Ireland, and all my buddies from here in this neighborhood were in that division,” Adame said. “Then we went to Portugal to help the Battleship Texas and Battleship Arkansas where they were being harassed by German submarines.”

One escort Adame recalls with a smile was not from America to Europe, but from North Africa to the United States. “There were beautiful women over there, with the mix of Spanish and French blood,” Adame said. “They spoke perfect Spanish, and soldiers were marrying them. Three ships in one returning convoy of troop carriers had these wives as passengers, taking them to the United States to wait for the post-war return of their husbands.”

After 64 years, Adame still admires the bravery and skill of the captain of his ship, Lt. Cmdr. Ramey. In a fragile copy of The Saturday Evening Post, July 8, 1944, war correspondent Martin Sommers reported from London about his observations of the McCook’s performance in the D-Day invasion at Normandy. “The invasion of France was to be the forty-eighth landing operation for redheaded Lt. Comdr. Ralph L. Ramey, skipper of the destroyer USS McCook, and when I boarded her on the night of Wednesday, May thirty-first, it looked as if he might be cheated out of his spearhead position,” Sommers wrote.

On May 28, 1944, only a week before the D-Day invasion, German aircraft found the destroyer in Weymouth Roads, England, and bombed her, causing only minor damage, though severe enough to keep the ship out of combat. “Captain Ramey was a very gung ho guy, and he wanted that ship fixed because he didn’t want to miss out on us being at Normandy,” said Adame. In a tale of seamanship and determination that has become naval legend, Ramey’s ship returned to port, where a day-and-night scramble by dedicated repairmen put her back to rights, and Ramey headed again for his frontline position off the shore of France. Four propellers and two props moved the McCook at a top speed of about 32 mph (37 knots).

June 5, 1944: “We sailed to the coast of France—to Cherbourg –and that’s where we started forming up,” Adame said, describing a mass of ships—cruisers, battleships, destroyers, minesweepers, landing craft—that milled around into hours of darkness before moving into assigned positions on June 6, off the coastline of occupied France. Sommers’ article, “The Longest Hour,” refers to the 60 minutes before dawn when Ramey finally opened fire on shore targets that gave themselves away by muzzle flashes from German pillboxes and gun placements.

Sitting in the darkness, Sommers reported, anguished sailors queried, “Why won’t they fire on us? Why won’t they fire?” Ramey squawked into the ship’s communication system, “This is the run this ship was built for, men. This is the run you were trained for. Every instrument must work perfectly, and everything has got to—got to—go right. Men, you’ve got a front-row seat for the greatest show on earth! Defend it!”

Ramey reassured his men that aerial cover would be overhead and bigger ships backed up the line of destroyers so close to the shore. The McCook was closer than was authorized according to Adame. “From here to the creek [about 100 yards],” he gauged. Though Ramey reported his firing station as 3,500 yards offshore, Adame is certain Ramey disobeyed orders to get much closer to his targets. “We went in at high tide, and as it went to low tide we could see obstacles in the water much better, so we got closer.”

Sommers described the Allies’ aerial bombardment meant to soften up the beachhead: “To starboard and to port, thunderous explosions rolled along the shore, followed by high bursts of multicolored flak, and then a geyser of flame here, another there . . . The shore line became a broken necklace of flame.” But still, rolling in the inky darkness, the men of the McCook waited for firing orders. One spoke to Sommers, “I guess this is about the longest hour in history.” In dim light, McCook’s crew could see the British Cruiser Glasgow and the American Battleship Texas moving into position behind, preparing to pound inland German batteries.

Adame remembers the early morning of June 6, 1944 as feeling like a sitting duck whose best defense was simply to sit in the dark quietly. “We were decoys, and they were supposed to fire at us so we could fire back at them. We were supposed to be quiet, but soldiers were landing on the beach, getting fired at from pill boxes, so Captain Ramey decided to start firing without waiting for orders,” Adame explained.

Sommers: “One tremendous roar shakes the sea for miles around. We blink and steady ourselves—that must be the Glasgow and the Texas. It is. Now [McCook] Gunnery Officer Jim Arnold, in his fire-control tower atop the flying bridge, gets the word he’s been waiting to hear. Our 5-inch guns speak as one, and to us they sound louder and truer than any we’ve heard.” The McCook carried five 5-inch guns, six 127 mm guns, six 20 mm anti-aircraft guns, 10 torpedo tubes, and two depth charge tracks.

Sommers describes the elation of finding pillbox targets: “They can be as large as a New England town hall, with walls 6 feet thick, and most of them are stocked with food, water, and ammunition sufficient to support a sizeable defense force for a month.” The ship’s third salvo nails a pillbox, “cascading into the air in fragments.”

He describes the relief, then the heartache of watching B-17 “Flying Fortress” four-engine bombers massed overhead, enroute to targets, many found first by German guns. “Flame and smoke spout from one Fort. It flounders and circles pathetically, losing altitude. We feel acute pain, watching … Another Fort goes the same way. Now three, now four. During the next two days we are to spend sweating it out with the troops who are taking a shelling on the beach, nothing cuts quite so deeply as the sight of those four beautiful Forts going to glory,” Sommers reported.

For two days, Ramey maneuvered the McCook up and down the coastline looking for more “targets of opportunity.” Adame said the captain, not so anxious to take advantage of the big guns’ 10-mile range, insisted the McCook seek close targets that threatened troops wading ashore, such as Army Ranger battalions struggling to take out German shore batteries. Before the McCook left Normandy, the ship’s score on enemy targets included 10 pillboxes, 13 machine gun nests, 11 shore gun emplacements, and 10 stone houses concealing machine guns and snipers.

Adame spotted a German Luftwaffe officer’s cap. “It was real nice, and it had a picture of his wife and family inside. There were some scrambled eggs (gold bill decorations signifying officer rank) on the front. The captain kept that,” Adame said, ruefully.

Adame said the McCook remained engaged until fuel and ammunition ran low, and Ramey ordered a return to Portland, England, to re-supply. Ready again, the McCook steamed to Naples, Italy, to prepare for liberation of Southern France, where Adame recalls engagements at the Mediterranean coastal towns of Marseilles, Toulon, and Saint Maxime, going ashore there and seeing the ground littered with abandoned German weapons and munitions.

There were no injuries on the McCook during the European engagements, a record Adame attributes to Ramey’s skill, learned in part from losing three ships in the Pacific before he was assigned to the McCook. Today, Adame appears robust and content, but there is asbestos in his lungs. “My gloves [to remove the blazing hot shells from the McCook’s guns] were asbestos, our overheads were asbestos, all the ship’s pipes and conduits were wrapped in asbestos,” Adame explained.

Roll along, ‘little tin can,’ roll along!
Hit them waves, hit ‘em high, hit ‘em low.
We will sink them submarines,
We will sink them as we roll along.
Roll along, ‘little tin can,’ roll along!

All the crew will stand by you, ‘little tin can,’
All the crew will depend on you, ‘little tin can.’
You will take us to Japan, and You will bring us back again.
Roll along, ‘little tin can,’ roll along!

– Machinist’s Mate 3rd Class Onésimo Adame, aboard USS McCook, 1945

 

The ship and crew sailed back to the United States on Oct. 4. Adame came home to his sweetheart of many years, Maria Urabazzo. Though he is a member of the Assembly of God Church (as is Mary, now), they married at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on Garza Street, San Felipe, on Oct. 10, 1944. Then the McCook resumed convoy duties across the Atlantic, completing six more crossings by May 1945. Then she steamed into the Philadelphia Navy Yard and the destroyer was converted to a minesweeper.

In September, 1945, the McCook was assigned to the war in the Pacific, and set out for the Panama Canal once more. Enroute, Adame composed the poem, “Roll on, Little Tin Can.” Ramey became aware of it, liked the descriptive prose, and asked for the original. Adame agreed, having already committed the verse to memory. Shortly afterwards, Japan surrendered, and Adame was free to return home, though the McCook sailed on to neutralize mines in Pacific waters. He disembarked at the Marshall Islands, and caught a merchant marine “liberty ship” back to the states.

Adame set foot on American soil for good in October, 1945, and was discharged at 1:45 p.m., Nov. 20, at Camp Wallace, Texas, receiving $100 for “mustering out pay.” “Then, I went back to sheep shearing and picking cotton,” Adame said, chuckling. “But I told my wife that I wanted our kids to get a good education, and I couldn’t do that with picking cotton.” He applied for work with the Southern Pacific Railroad, and began as an apprentice painter on Christmas Eve, 1948. “And by May, I was a painter!” Adame recalled with pride.

His best remembered task was painting the new Southern Pacific high bridge, 250 feet above the Pecos River. Relying on suspended scaffolding in a wind-exposed position below the bridge, and suspended from a bosun’s chair for columns not accessible from the scaffolding, Adame and his co-workers gave the bridge its first coat of paint in 1957. “And you know what? They haven’t painted it since then, either.” Adame said, laughing heartily.

His gratification now is focused on the children he raised by working 44 years for the Southern Pacific. His son, Rumaldo, named for the uncle that raised Onésimo, is a petroleum engineer in Houston; Yolanda is a teacher in San Antonio, and Hilda is secretary to Del Rio Mayor Efrain Valdez.

Author's Note:

Edward Marquez, Adame’s son-in-law and husband of Hilda Adame, assisted with these interviews. A 24-year U.S. Army veteran, Marquez understands and helped interpret the significance of Adame’s wartime experiences.