Howard Dugas, Theriot:
**technical difficulties in beginning; truly begins at 01:36; will jump and skip around throughout; highway and lawn care noises in background**

Pearl Harbor
-Was shooting pool that Sunday when someone ran in and told them the news
-Figured everything would be settled in a couple of days, they didn’t really know what was going on
-Had turned 18 and just graduated from high school so Dugas joined the Navy
-There was more volunteers than ships so new recruits were put in the Coast Guard
-There was a lot of areas along the coast and Lake Pontchartrain to patrol for submarine sightings

-Boot camp at Harrihan, La which was the New Orleans Army base
-They had to share as the Coast Guard had no place and things were moving fast
-Explained to them that the Coast Guard and Navy was one unit
-Sent to Lake Charles and ran small boats and kept the bridge closed or open for shipyard workers

-Started a new patrol in Cameron, La; couldn’t drive cars as it was a black out area to hide from submarines
-Assigned to a Destroyer Escort “SS Mosley,” for patrolling and standing watch; also patrolled on horse in swampy areas and to keep from having to use lights
-In the early part of the war German U-boats were sinking 1-3 freighters a day in the Atlantic
-This was before the Destroyer Escorts could take over for protection

-Patrolling on horseback Dugas thought it was too easy and asked to be assigned onto the “SS Mosley,” the Destroyer Escort (DE) they had been patrolling for
-Always on alert but most of the crew had no experience with sea duty and neither did Dugas
-The Captain had been an office man and had only 90 days of training in school before taking over their ship
-Once the crew felt comfortable manning the ship they went out to sea to Bermuda for a shakedown cruise; there might have been two ships that went

-A DE was established for escort duty and submarine warfare and maybe some aircrafts
-Had 3 one inch guns, a 40-mm and 20-mm machine guns, K-guns, depth charges and a hedgehog in the back
-Before leaving, a lot of assembling for operations was done along the East coast by Virginia, the Carolinas, and Massachusetts
-Also where the German U-boats, never saw one in the gulf
-Dugas’s group was the first to escort convoys using Des
-Escorted 90-100 freighters at a time bound to the Mediterranean; never lost a ship to engine breakdowns
-They knew submarines would follow them all the way to the Straits of Gibraltar waiting for them to stall or lose a ship in a breakdown to shoot them

-Made serval trips from January 1944 to May 1945 bringing men and materials

Missions (22:40)
-On one mission to North Africa and Italy was asked to break away on the African Coast and look for a fishing boat
-They didn’t know what language the other boat used so the Captain asked Dugas to speak some French but the other boat called back and asked “What’s the matter, you don’t speak English?!”

-Went by Casablanca but didn’t see Humphry Bogart or Ingrid Bergman
-The Germans were further east by then to Tunisia thanks to the British; Hitler had his forces spread out too thin

Only Mission with Severe Causalities (26:35)
-Around dusk in the Mediterranean the lead ship of the convoy had radar (to intercept enemy or friendly planes) and saw a blinking light of unidentified planes that were coming in too low
-They figured because it was getting dark that the planes were going to make one pass and try to hit the freights
-The planes were coming too low anyway for the ships at the front to shoot so they let the planes fly over; Germans were well organized
-A freight at the very back started shooting 20-mm with tracers that could be seen in the night and then everyone was shooting but it was too dark to tell where they were shooting at
-The first ship hit was a troop ship and it had bombs and about 600 soldiers on board and it was hit by a torpedo
-The second wave of attacks hit two merchant ships (materials) and third wave hit the screening ship, hit with a torpedo—all three were beached but not sunk
-Dugas’s ship, the Mosley, laid up smoke screens at dusk to confuse the planes but it was too late
-After that every night they laid up smoke screens in case they got attacked again but they weren’t, just a few submarines

-This trip might have been the third or fourth trip

-Another trip along the African Coast and at night the radar picked up a surface signal for a boat and sent a message out that a convoy was coming and to get out of the way
-15 minutes later a torpedo cut the lead ship in half; couldn’t stop to pick up survivors in the water, they had to keep going

-Lost a lot of people during the war; too inexperienced and many mistakes made, very unprepared compared to the Germans
-By the second to last trip the war was almost over and there wasn’t much need for materials being sent out all over, it was all concentrated in Europe by then
Didn’t have much news on how the war was going, sometimes picked up BCC broadcast yet they never said anything about the war but mostly heard Axis Sally (German propaganda)

-Passed through the Strait of Gibraltar (he thinks) 8 times

-The Mediterranean was beautiful and at night they could see the phosphorus in the clear waters; Dugas’s captain was always excited to it

(38:00) Shore Duty
-After about a year at sea, Dugas was transferred to shore duty in New York
-Really enjoyed it as New York was the place to be for entertainment, could do anything or see anything all year around
-Like music and sports and he could go see stuff anytime
-Was sent to Port Security School to learn to patrol docks and check ships for explosives and fire hazards
-The German submarines they figured had been pulled out of their waters and were closer to home, as submarine warfare started phasing out
-It was a good duty, as they could have fun and take breaks; “always a bunch of girls somewhere”

(42:00) Trip to Greenland
-Towards the end of Dugas’s service he was sent on a trip to Greenland
-Was aboard a Coast Guard Icebreaker—it had a knife at the bottom to break the ice

-They were going to check something out; the ship had already taken a trip to Greenland and captured a German radio station
-On the way an engine went out and a 4 day trip took 2 weeks
-The wind was against them and one engine couldn’t push through it and had to watch for icebergs constantly so someone had to stand outside to look for them
-No clue why he was picked to go on this trip; people were always being sent around, sometimes with no place to go
-Once in Greenland as they came in, had to help a fishing boat break out of the ice, they followed behind them for 2 days
-It was cold but they had good clothes of 3 layers; but the worst was when up in the bridge and the wind blew on their faces and burned them; it was always so windy

-Didn’t stay too long as they had to get the Captain of the North Atlantic patrol was stationed there but he had a nurse with him (his girlfriend) and they had to take her too
-Then they just killed some time as it was Christmas time and by protocol so much of the crew had time off and the radio stations stopped

(51:15) Back in Boston
-People were being sent home on the point system as the war was ending
-Was sent to Baltimore and was waiting around to be discharged back to New Orleans
-Took a train to New Orleans and his parents met him and took him back home to Parks; **tape starts skipping around**
-As things slowed down went to work off shore for a while
-Learned to how to cook and was cooking for the rig then and worked about 15-16 hours a day so he got some good money

(55:15) Talking about what he did after the rig, his leukemia, his family, and answering some questions from Theriot

**hard to hear with tape skipping and background noise**

Transcription Begins:

Howard Dugas (9/9/01)
Parks, La.
Born: 8/13/22
Coast Guard/USS Mosley (DE-321)
Atlantic Ocean going escort

On Pearl Harbor Day I was shooting pool in Parks, La. It was December 7th, a Sunday. Anyway, that's when we heard the news. Somebody came down the road and said that they bombed Pearl Harbor. We said, "Auh, we'll finish that thing in a couple of days." Nobody knew really what was going on.

I had graduated high school and I was 18-years old at the time, so I joined the navy with a friend of mine. We took a bus to New Orleans. There were a lot of volunteers. To begin with there weren't enough ships to assign everybody too, so that's one of the reasons why they put the new recruits in the Coast Guard. There were a lot of areas that needed to be patrolled along the coast. The Coast Guard had a lot of small craft and they were equipped for patrolling the waters. (There were subs all over the gulf.)

We were sent to boot camp in Harrihan, La., which is an Army base in New Orleans. Actually we had to share space with the Army, because the Coast Guard had no other place to train.
After boot camp I was sent to Lake Charles and we mostly ran small patrol boats, mainly to keep the bridge open at peek hours so that the shipyard workers could get to work faster.

Early on, ships were getting sunk off the coast [by submarines] because of the silhouette from the city lights. Later, we were sent to patrol the beach area near Cameron, La. That was a blackout area. (Bayou Boys-Torpedo Book.) We couldn't use cars or trucks to patrol at night, plus it was too swampy, so we used horseback to patrol. They called it the Animal Husbandry detail. We were about 15-20 men patrolling along Holly Beach. People were volunteering for the navy so fast, they didn’t have any place to put them. So they put us with this unit patrolling the coast until the navy could build enough ships. It was easy duty, but I wanted to do something more.

We were getting tired of sitting on the beach and riding horses. So a couple of us asked the chief to see if we could get assignment for sea duty. We had heard that they were building and commissioning destroyer escorts in Orange, Texas. And sure enough, a few days later we were assigned to a Destroyer Escort, the SS Mosley (DE-321).

We were very inexperienced. The Japanese caught us by surprise. The crews of the destroyer escorts were half navy and half coast guard. John Mcloud from Parks, La., was the storekeeper on the Mosley. He and I were friends.

We were always making preparations. We were on full alert, but a lot of that crew had no experience with sea duty. Being from South Louisiana I had been in small boats, but sea duty is really something different. Even the Captain was an office-man who they sent to a 90-day school before he took over the ship. But this was going on everywhere.

During the early part of the war, the German U-boats were sinking anywhere from 1 to 3 freighters in the Atlantic a week. These freighters didn't have any protection; they would sail on their own. This was before the Destroyer Escorts took over.

Once we felt comfortable enough to go to sea we went on a shake down cruise to Bermuda. That was nice, generally speaking. I think there was another DE with us. It was rough going there, but that's how you learn the ship, you go on a shake down cruise. There were only three cars on the island. Everybody traveled by bicycle. It was a beautiful place. The DE was established for escort duty and submarine warfare. We had three inch guns, and 40-mm and 20-mm machine guns for defense. We had K-guns on the stern to roll out depth charges, and we also had what they called a hedgehog. It was right in front of the flying bridge. It would (fire) shoot-up 24-small torpedoes at one time. We trained with all this while in Bermuda. We used as much of the equipment as we could while we were there.

The first mission was to escort a convoy out of Norfolk, Va., to Texas Gulf ports and back, which we did. Then starting in January 1944 we began escorting ships across the Atlantic through the Mediterranean and on to North Africa and Italy. Most of the convoy operations for the shipments of supplies and soldiers across the Atlantic were based along the coast of the Carolina's, Virginia, and Baltimore. That's where the convoys would assemble, and that's where a lot of U-boats would patrol. We were one of the first groups to escort convoys [using DE’s]. We were escorting 90 to 100 freighters at a time, bound for the Mediterranean. We had Navy ships and Coast Guard ships. In a year-and-a-half we made quite a few trips across the Atlantic (Starting January 1944 to May 1945). We made several trips. These convoys were bringing men and materials to the Mediterranean.

We were lucky though. None of freighters ever had engine troubles or breakdowns, so not one ship ever got left behind the convoy on the trip across the Atlantic. If one would have broke down, we couldn't have stopped for it. It would have been a sitting duck for the subs. Enemy submarines would follow us all the way to the Straits of Gibraltar.

Once we were ordered to break off from the convoy and sail along the African coast to look for an important fishing boat. (This fishing boat was friendly, so we pulled up to it and our Captain told me to speak French to them over the radio, and this other guy spoke Italian to them. The guy in the fishing boat came back and said, "What's the matter, you don't speak English!") We located the boat and escorted it to port.

And we went by Casablanca, but I didn't see Humphry Bogart or Ingrid Bergman. We stayed there at port for a couple of days. By this time the British had pushed the Germans further to the east in Tunisia. Hitler had his forces spread out too thin. I think that's one reason why he lost the war, because he was fighting on too many fronts and he ran out of gas.

(April 20, 1944) We were carrying everything in those convoys, even troops. In April we sailed with a convoy to North Africa. It was dusk as we passed through the Straits of Gibraltar along the Algerian coast. The lead ship picked up a surface contact in front of the convoy and sent a blinking light to the ship ahead of us to tell them that a convoy was coming—big mistake! German bombers attacked us in three waves. We used radar to recognize the enemy planes from friendly planes. But these planes were coming at us low to ground level and we couldn't identify them on the radar. They were coming at us from about 20-feet off the water. They were JU-88's. They came right down the line in our convoy and we were in front so we didn't shoot at them at first, but the ships behind us identified them as enemy and started shooting. One of the planes dropped a bomb and it hit a merchant ship carrying demolitions and troops. “The first attack blew the troop-loaded merchantmen Paul Hamilton out of the water, killing 580 men; the next wave hit two more merchant ships; and the final strike sank the screening ship Landsdale (DD-426) with a single torpedo. The Mosley laid covering smoke and opened up with anti-aircraft fire during the strikes. Her guns splashed one JU-88 and damaged another German bomber during the first strike.” (Source:) We got credit for that. We couldn’t stop to pick up survivors that were in the water; we had to keep going. There was lot of confusion and inexperience that caused this. After that incident we would put up barrage balloons and lay smoke screens at night for protection, and we never had another incident with German planes after that. But we ran into a few submarines.

One day we picked up a signal on with our sound gear. It was a German submarine. So we and another DE dropped dept charges. A little while later the debris came floating up; oil and trash from the sub. We were credited with, along with the other DE, for sinking that U-boat. That's what is terrible about war. A lot of people were lost during that war-50 million people died during WWII. On our last two trips we didn't have any problems, because the war was being concentrated in Europe. Hitler had pulled everything out of Africa and the Mediterranean and brought it all in close to Germany.
The Mediterranean was beautiful. At night you could see phosphorus in the clear waters.

(Inexperience and mistakes is what made the war last so long. We were unprepared in a lot of ways and our equipment wasn't as good as the Germans. There was no comparison between our tanks (Sherman) and the German tanks (Tiger/Panzer). The Germans had tanks, real tanks. Those things were monsters compared to the toys we had.) After about a year or so at sea they transfered a few of us to shore duty in New York. New York was a heck of place to be especially back in those days. I like music and sports, and New York was the place to be for all that. They had three ballrooms and all the great bands would come, and Madison Square Garden had great boxing fights. You could do whatever you wanted anytime of the year there.

While I was in New York they sent us to Port Security School. By this time the German submarine warfare had eased off. They sub's were also being pulled closer to Germany. We patrolled the docks and we checked ships for explosives and fire hazards. It was good duty. At the end of my service I went on a trip on a Coast Guard Icebreaker to Greenland. We were going to check something out over there. Before I went on that trip, this same ship and its crew had captured a German radio station in Greenland. We had engine trouble on the way. A four-day trip took us two weeks. It was real cold up there, but we had good clothing.

Back in Boston, the war was ending and they were sending people home on the point system. I got back to New Orleans on a train. And then I came home.