Serving aboard a carrier escort in 1944, he survived “the granddaddy of all typhoons” in the Pacific with sustained winds of 124 knots (143 mph). He survived the bruising storm, still manning his station, and then assisted in retrieving the lost and conducting solemn burials at sea.
Born in Temple in 1925, Dickson was fresh out of Temple High School in early 1943, when he started as a civilian employee at the newly created Camp Hood. He didn’t like what he saw. “I’d see them eating C-rations out of cans and bathing in their helmets. I’d hear them talking about rattlesnakes,” he said. Nope, no Army no how, he decided.
He considered joining the Merchant Marines, but his father urged him to enlist in the Navy because at least Navy ships carried guns for protection. So, at age 17 and weighing 117 pounds, Dickson signed up.
He had picked up telegrapher skills from his father, who was a railroad telegraph operator. Completing training as a radar operator, Dickson reported for duty to the USS Oliver Mitchell, a carrier escort. Escorts hovered about five to six miles from aircraft carriers, “making sure they were not, could not be attacked by Japanese submarines,” he said.
Unlike carriers and destroyers, escorts were more stable craft, less powerful with large hulls, lighter armaments and lower centers of gravity. Because of their construction, they could withstand rough seas better than their massive companion aircraft carriers.
Then, in the Formosa Straight on Dec. 7, 1944, the crew met the real enemy head-on – a typhoon, a Pacific-spawned hurricane packing more punch than any U.S. coastal tempest.
The radar operators were essential to the ship’s survival, he said, “because we were the only ones who know our location. We could see that there was no way out for us.” The captain said the only way the ship could stay afloat was to head straight into the storm. “If we ever paralleled with the waves, we’d be capsized,” the captain told him.
As the winds swirled higher for two solid days, the Mitchell labored hard against the violent waves, pitching furiously and uncontrollably at 45 degrees. Water broke through to the sleeping quarters with 3-inch flooding. At its height, the storm measured record 17 on the 12-point Beaufort scale, a nautical measure for wind speed based on observing sea conditions.
With visibility down to zero, only the radar operators could keep track of where the other ships lay. Collisions at sea were a continuing threat during the storm.
As the winds subsided, Dickson walked out on deck to survey the damages. The sea was mirror-glass smooth, glinting against the horizon. The ship lost her mast, railing and sonar gear, but no men. The Mitchell had survived her hours in a watery hell, but other nearby ships were not as fortunate. As it headed to dry dock for repairs, the crew began to realize the horror of the storm’s aftermath. The typhoon left 790 seamen dead or missing. “We began to see bodies floating – the worst sight I had ever seen,” Dickson said. “Sharks and barracudas were eating the flesh off those boys’ bodies.”
Dickson and others cranked up machine guns to ward off predators. Then he and his buddies retrieved the bodies.
Next came the grim task of burials. “The radar people were called on to be pallbearers,” he said. On the following grim Sunday, Dec. 10, the Mitchell’s crew gathered deck side. The captain read scriptures as bodies lay on boards covered in U.S. flags. “While I was holding up a board with a body, waiting for the signal to dispose [into the sea],” Dickson said, “blood ran from under the flag and onto my hand. That was not easy to take.”
After a few weeks, the Mitchell received orders to the impending Battle of Iwo Jima, where she circled the island to ward off enemy subs and ships.
During that last assignment, Dickson fell sick and was eventually sent stateside on a hospital ship filled with 3,000 wounded soldiers. “The odor in our sleeping quarters was so foul, I couldn’t sleep. We were served only one meal a day and had to shave and bathe in salt water. I went to the radar shack and made a deal with the radar fellows - I’d take watch for them in exchange for a good place to sleep, good meals and a shower and shave in fresh water. Man, that was good.”
After discharge in 1945, Dickson returned home, where he worked for the railroad, eventually opening and operating several businesses, including a package liquor store in Morgan’s Point and a restaurant supply store.
His first cousin, Anice Vance, retold his wartime story in a self-published book, “Clements War Heros,” which she completed in 2007. Her book tells of their three common ancestors from the War Between the States and both world wars.
“I just thought their personal accounts from each war were unusual,” Vance said. “I was really proud of them and wanted to honor them. C.C. is the only living one in that group. It was a wonderful story of how he fought nature in that terrible typhoon.”
pbenoit@temple-telegram.com
