My name is Forrest E. Landis and I served aboard U.S.S. Kendrick DD612 as Radioman 2/c from April 15, 1943 until June 21, 1945. There are several points mentioned in the write-up (DANFS), which my recollections are somewhat different.

As I recall, Kendrick was part of a big convoy heading through Gibraltar, destination Sicily, I suppose. Kendrick was assigned to patrol the rear of the convoy to protect primarily against submarine attack. I recall the time was about 9pm. The convoy was approximately 100-200 (guess) miles east of Oran, North Africa. It was still light enough to see the blue-gray outline of the African coast starboard of the convoy. At that time, I was assigned to the main control area on the bridge, which included the radar, sonar and radio detection equipment. My job was to listen for radio signals from German subs in order to get a fix on their positions and fire depth charges.. if signals were close enough to the convoy to intercept. As such, I had a pretty good position to know some of the actions around the bridge area.

It was just getting dusk, when the intercom gave a "yellow" alert followed immediately by a "red" alert. The crew was already at general quarters because of earlier reports of enemy activity. No sooner had the "red" alert been given when I heard a sound like "zinga-zinga-zinga, repeatedly coming I believe from the sonar operators equipment. I heard the officer yell, "It's a torpedo. It's a torpedo! I heard them in the South Pacific!"

No sooner than he said that we heard the command from Commander Caulfield, "Hard right rudder. Hard right rudder." And no sooner was this command given than we heard a tremendous explosion on the ship. We were being torpedoed by what I believe was a JU88 (not a dive-bomber). The German fired two torpedoes, one of which I understand missed forward, the other knocking out our fantail-rudder section. After the bombing, the plane tried to strafe the bridge, but was unsuccessful, so then he tried strafing the gun crews and the 40 and 20-millimeter guns. As I understand, on the second or third pass, one of our gun crews got him going away (I think the 40-mm gun crew).

The report in DANFS indicated that there were no casualties at the time of the explosion. I recall that one man in the after steering room was killed. He was buried at sea. Can't for the likes of me think of his name. I know he was from Philadelphia and I once went with him on liberty. He had an Irish name but I just can't remember.

Meanwhile, Kendrick was pretty much a sitting duck as we lost our steering control (remember I mentioned about the man who was killed in after-steering). We found that we could maneuver in long turns using our screws, but the shafts were probably knocked out of alignment and made a helluva noise. They would overheat making us having to stop occasionally to let them cool off while heading back to Oran unescorted (I believe).

On one of the periods where the screws were stopped, one of the deck gunners said he heard a man in the water with a heavy German accent calling for help (obviously the shot down pilot of the plane that got us. The command was given to "throw him a life ring, but don't attach it to the ship." And, in this manner, we made it back to Oran where we spent several weeks making a temporary fantail and rudder repair. Later, Kendrick was towed back to Norfolk.

Funny incident, when we pulled into Portsmouth, the crew thought we would be out of commission for quite awhile (we all did get 21 days leave) but as we were entering the port facility, there was another fantail waiting to be fabricated onto our ship!

One other somewhat funny story at the time of the bombing... There was a young crew manning the lower ammunition handling room. And usually, the chief boatswain usually dogged the hatches from the outside. Apparently, through the excitement of the fracas, communication was lost with these people temporarily so that it wasn't until 7AM the next morning that it occurred to someone that they forgot to relieve these men. Believe me, they sounded relieved because a bang like that must sound awfully loud under water.

Other information:

U.S.S. Kendrick and U.S.S. Laub were escorting U.S.S. Philadelphia when in the Mediterranean when Philadelphia rammed Laub DD613 back in 1944. Probable cause was a maneuver error. Laub was almost split in two and Philadelphia had a big chunk out of her bow. We used to listen to "Axis Sally" on the radio system of our ship. Shortly, after the accident occurred, Sally broadcast something to the effect that " we don't have to bomb the U.S. ships, they destroy themselves." Sally had a pretty good fix on Philadelphia's movements, as that ship was part of a bombardment group during the allied advance up the boot of Italy.

Want to thank you for the great work you are doing with restoring these histories.

Sincerely,
Forrest E. "Foss" Landis
The Galloping Ghosts of the Sicilian Coast
Dog Dog 612-the Mighty "K"