Page 24 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2018- Online Magazine
P. 24

Carl Webb
                                                               Three Years on the Water

                                                               by Larry A. Williams





                                                       Petty Officer Webb was    four 5” guns.”  The Gridley also
                                                       a Gunners Mate 1st        helped rescue survivors from
                                                       Class.                    the USS Helena in Pareso Bay in
                                                                                 July 1943.  Then she served as
                                                       Carl Wayne Webb was       an escort for an infantry landing
                                                       born in Quanah, Texas     on Tambatuni, New Georgia,
                                                       to Carl and Mary Webb     where the ship bombarded shore
                                                       on January 3, 1921.       installations near the invasion
                                                       He attended school in     beaches.  The Gridley’s logs
                                                       Quanah and “made          record numerous entries of
                                                       it through the 11th       “sounding general quarters”
                                                       grade.”  He grew up in    and “commence firing” and the
                                                       a large family.  (Two of   number of rounds fired from the
                                                       his brothers, Harold in   5” caliber guns. The destroyer
                                                       the Army and Weldon       also assisted in the bombardment
                                                       in the Seabees, also      of Makin Island before heading
                                                       served during WWII.       back to Hawaii for repairs.
                                                       Harold survived the
                                                       Battle of the Bulge
                                                       in Europe.)  Wayne
                                                       moved to Lubbock in
                                                       1939 and was working
                  he USS Gridley (DD-380)              at Wylie Drugstore
                  saw a lot of action in the   when he received his draft notice.
            TPacific theatre during            Electing not to go into the Army
            WWII.  Lubbock resident Carl       as a “ground pounder”, he had a
            “Wayne” Webb served on the         friend who was a Navy recruiter
            ship and was involved in six       who said he “could get me into    Webb asked for a transfer from
            engagements with the enemy.        that branch with no problem.”     the Gridley in late 1943 and
            He even has copies of the ship’s                                     attended Advanced Hydraulic
            logs from his stint on the Gridley.   After eight weeks of basic     School in Washington, DC.  He
            She was a 1500-ton destroyer       training in San Diego, Wayne      married Evelyn Raybon “while
            with an advanced power plant       boarded the troop ship SS         on a 10-day leave” in February
            and could achieve close to 42      Lurline (SS for steam ship), a    1944.   Back in San Diego in the
            knots, making it one of the fastest   converted ocean liner, for the   spring of 1944, Wayne joined the
            American destroyers ever.          voyage to Hawaii.  After a short   seaplane tender USS Kenneth
                                               stint loading ammunition on       Whiting (AV-14) and “became
            Her main job was to escort         board the USS Whitney, he
            aircraft carriers                            spent 18 months         a plank owner by being among
            such as the                                  aboard the USS          the first crew on the ship.”
            Enterprise,                                  Gridley.  Recalling     The ship arrived in Saipan on
            Nashville,                                   the bombardment         August 14, 1944 for operations
            Saratoga,                                    of Japanese-held        in the Marianas. She steamed
            Yorktown,                                    Kiska in August 1942,   to Okinawa, arriving on April
            Princeton and                                Webb said, “We shot     25th, and commenced combat
            many others.                                 off 535 rounds with     and search operations.  “We
                                                                                 picked up 29 Korean prisoners




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