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
24 Lubbock Senior Link