Al Barton
Radioman on
TBF Avenger
Al Barton
Radioman 2nd Class, U.S. Navy
1943–1945
Seaman Al Barton
Victoria, TX, 1943
I was a radioman in a TBF Torpedo Bomber. We crashed over the side once…. I don’t know if we skidded off or the ship rolled. We hung over the side and then the tail hook came loose and we flipped on our back…. Water was coming in like a firehose in your face.
I was born in Lubbock, Texas. My dad was in construction work, and I lived all over Louisiana and Texas. I graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in Port Arthur in 1942. From there I went to radio school. I was making C’s and D’s and repeating courses, so I finally told Dad I was going to join the Navy. This was 1943 and I was 17. I went to boot camp in San Diego.
I got shipped into a squadron. Since I had some electronics, I got into a combat aircrew. I was a Radioman 2nd Class, and I ended up being pretty good. I was aboard the Mission Bay, an escort carrier, in the North Atlantic and the Guadalcanal in the South Atlantic. Then I got transferred to the Pacific on the Anzio for the Okinawa Campaign and the Home Island (Japan) Campaign in 1945.
In the North Atlantic, we did anti-sub work. My crew did not get any German subs, but the overall squadron sank some. The same squadron was transferred to the Guadalcanal and went to the South Pacific. We went to Okinawa and did some anti-sub work, some bombing, and strafing.
We flew just about every other day. I was a radioman in a TBF Torpedo Bomber. We had a crew of three: the radioman, a gunner and the pilot. The fighters were small enough they took off flying down the deck. The TBF, being a bigger plane, was catapulted off. We crashed over the side once. We made a good landing, bounced over number 2 cable, bounced over number 3, then picked up number 4. I don’t know if we skidded off or the ship rolled. We hung over the side and then the tail hook came loose and we flipped on our back. I couldn’t find any of our survival gear. Water was coming in like a firehose in your face. I finally figured out that if there was that much water coming in, there must be a hole up there. I pulled myself upstream. There was a hole in the center cockpit. I broke a bigger hole in the plexiglass and swam out. The pilot and the gunner were already sitting in the life raft. A destroyer escort was about 100 yards out and picked us up.
All the rest of them were pretty routine except for some of the bombing and strafing runs. We sunk a Japanese freighter at Okinawa. We had it much better than the Marines and the troops on the ground. When I got back from patrol I was on a ship, I had a bed to sleep in, and good eats. I never had to sleep in a foxhole or eat K-rations.
We were on board ship around Japan when they dropped the atomic bomb; we heard it on the radio. We had no idea what that was. We thought it would probably shorten the war, then they dropped the second one. We went back to the States and got our 30-day leave and were discharged.
I got out in 1945 and came back to Texas. Went to radio school on the GI Bill and got my FCC license and went to work for radio and TV stations. I worked for Channel 5 and then Channel 4 in San Antonio running the video and audio boards. After that, I worked for an oil well servicing company as a field engineer for 10 years. My sons were ready to enter high school and my then wife said it was time for me to stay home and raise the kids. So, I bought a Gulf Service Station in 1972, and ran it for 10 years. Then my oldest boy and I bought a video store. If I found something I could do, I would stick with it. {02-14-2017 • San Antonio, TX}