Subject: IN-FORUM Article
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 16:22:38 -0500
From: bernard Turchin<turch@bektel.com>
To: GROBBINS18@COX.NET
THIS IS AN ARTICLE OUT OF THE FARGO FORUM (FARGO,ND)
THOUGHT YOU MIGHT ENJOY IT BERNIEBob Lind column: Neighbors: Jacket leads to many memories of USS Twining
The Forum - 08/13/2002
Alleen Rinowski answered the doorbell at her West Fargo home.
The woman there quickly made it clear she wasn’t selling anything. She was just looking for the man who wore a certain jacket she’d seen the day before at a parade in West Fargo.
Alleen’s husband, Harry, walked out and announced he was the guy. And a very special jacket it was. On its back were the words “USS Twining.”
That was the ship on which Harry served during World War II. It also was the ship on which “Sunny” Odegaard served. And Sunny was the woman’s brother.
The woman was Marian Ferch, West Fargo. The story comes from her and Sunny’s brother, Arthur Odegaard, West Fargo.
Art says Marian saw the Twining jacket, checked with Art to make sure that was the ship their brother had been on, then went to the house she’d seen the man with the jacket enter.
Yes, Harry had been on the Twining, and yes, he knew Sunny.
Both manned guns aboard the Twining, although Harry had additional duties ! as a signalman.
The Odegaards and the Rinowskis have been together, as a result of the jacket, to talk about Sunny, who died after the war, and about Harry’s war experiences.
Harry and his wife, Art says, are “just super wonderful people.”
And Harry has super stories to tell. One of them is that his ship may well have been the one that fired the last salvo of World War II.
The Twining was a destroyer. It saw its initial action in World War II, went on to fight in the Korean and Vietnam wars, then was sold to Taiwan. Harry figures it must have been scrapped by now.
When it was new and went on its shakedown cruise, Harry was aboard. But this 17-year-old kid out of Greenbush, Minn., was not used to the high seas. He got sick, and then some.
A shipmate, trying to be helpful, offered him a cigar. No thanks, Harry politely (we assume) told him.
Then he was advised to try to eat something. But the meal was greasy pork chops and raisin pie. You’ve got to be kidding, Harry thought.
Finally, though, he tried it.
It promptly came up, and then some.
Eventually, however, he managed to keep a meal down, and he never was seasick again … even during a typhoon off the Philippines, when the waves were a hundred feet high and the ship rolled at an 80 degree angle.
Harry was on the bridge as a signalman during that storm for two straight days and nights with no sleep. He and a buddy tried to make coffee, but they couldn’t keep the pot on the burner, so they mixed the coffee grounds with cold water and drank it to help them keep awake.
Harry participated in 10 battles aboard the Twining. He was never injured, but he had close calls.
One in particular: An attack by Japanese kamikazes off the coast of Formosa (now named Taiwan).
Harry was manning a twin 40 mm gun when he saw a kamikaze bomber head straight for the Twining.
“I swung the gun over with the trigger down,” he says. “We hit it square. It blew up and went down 20 feet from us.”
On Aug. 20, 1945, the Twining was one of three destroyers patrolling off the coast of Japan.
Japan had surrendered the week before, although it would be another two weeks before the formal surrender documents would be signed.When a Japanese bomber appeared, the crew thought little of it, since fighting had stopped.
But for this Japanese pilot, the fighting hadn’t stopped. He attacked the ships.
The skipper of Harry’s ship radioed fleet Adm. “Bull” Halsey for advice.
Halsey replied, “The war is over. But if he insists on fighting, shoot him down …
but do it in a friendly manner.”“So we shot him down,” Harry says, “but we did it in a friendly manner.”
And that’s why he believes his and the other two destroyers may have fired the
last shots of World War II.If you have an item of interest for this column, mail it to Neighbors, The Forum, Box 2020, Fargo, ND 58107; fax it to (701) 241-5487; or e-mail rlind@forumcomm.com