AUGUST 25, 2016 // 7
Local author relects on 71st anniversary of V-J Day
By BRIAN D. RATTY
In the dark, early days
of World War II, my family
moved to the North Coast. I
was just a young’un in short
pants at the time and had
many heroes. They included
Roy Rogers and Gene Autry,
of course, but my biggest he-
roes were the brave and bold
Navy pilots that I watched
working with my father at
the Astoria Naval Air Station.
That’s what I wanted to be: a
Navy pilot.
Astoria played a pivotal
role in helping America win
the war. This bustling little
ishing and logging commu-
nity on the Columbia River
helped provide a leet of 455
ships and thousands of ight-
er planes to the war effort.
Shortly before America
entered the war, in 1940,
American industrialist Henry
J. Kaiser secured a contract
to build 31 cargo ships for the
British government. The Brits
were in a bad way, standing
alone as they fought the Nazis
in Europe. They needed help,
and the American government
was beginning to provide
them with much-needed war
materials.
With the British contract
in hand, Kaiser searched the
communities of the West
Coast for the best locations
to build his shipyards. The
sites had to be on a naviga-
ble waterway, with a large
local workforce and a good
transportation system. In
addition, the locations had to
have access to cheap energy,
as his shipyards would run 24
hours a day. His irst selection
was 90 miles upstream from
Astoria, on the shores of the
Columbia River, next to Port-
land. This area offered low-
priced hydro power and had a
large population nearby, with
excellent rail connections.
As the shipyard was being
built, Kaiser and his nautical
engineers designed the irst
Liberty ship. Their concept
was simple: Make the ships
durable, inexpensive and
easy to build. During the
course of the war, 18 Amer-
ican shipyards would build
2,710 Liberty ships, using
the Kaiser design. On May
19, 1941, Kaiser’s Oregon
Shipbuilding Corporation
launched the irst Liberty
ship, The Star of Oregon.
However, the irst ive ships
built that year all sunk in
action within months of their
commissioning. England was
losing the war.
After the surprise attack
by the Japanese on Pearl
Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941,
America entered World War
II. As Kaiser’s company
constructed another shipyard,
across the river in Vancou-
ver, Washington, he and his
engineers designed a new
type of aircraft carrier that
would become known as
the Casablanca-class Escort
Carrier. The “baby-lattops”
were built using the standard
hull of the Liberty ship with
a light deck on top. These
small carriers were used for
convoy duty and to resupply
the larger leet aircraft car-
riers with planes and crews.
The concept was again
simple and easy to build.
Within months of inishing
the plans, Kaiser had a U.S.
Navy contract to build 50
ships. During the war, Kaiser
also expanded his operations
in Oregon and built more
Liberty ships, landing crafts,
and T2 tankers for the U.S.
Maritime Commission.
Aircraft carriers need
planes and crews, and that’s
where Astoria came in.
The Navy already had a
naval air station on Tongue
Point, just east of town,
where PBY Catalina sea-
planes arrived for coastal
patrols and anti-submarine
operations. In addition,
Astoria had a good-sized
municipal airport with room
to grow, and the Navy wel-
comed the town’s deep-water
location, so near to the mouth
of the Columbia River. Best
SUBMITTED PHOTO
The PBY Catalina was one of the most widely used seaplanes
of World War II. It was one of many types of planes that Navy
pilots and escort carrior crews trained with at the Tongue Point
Naval Air Station in Astoria.
of all, the entire estuary was
protected by the 249th Coast
Artillery. Fort Columbia
and Fort Canby stood on the
north side of the river, with
Fort Stevens on the south
shore. Those units also main-
tained and mined the mouth
of the Columbia River. This
“iron triangle” of defense
made Astoria a formidable
fortress.
My grandfather, Harry
Ratty, had worked many
years for the U.S. Navy,
maintaining lighthouses up
and down the coast. In 1940,
he became the head of civil-
ian construction at Tongue
Point Naval Air Station. He
and his crews built barracks,
chow halls, shops, movie
theaters and administrative
buildings. Prior to the start of
the war, my father, Dudley
Ratty, did the same kind of
work for the Army in Alaska.
Early in 1941, with the war
looming, all non-essential
civilians were ordered back
to the lower-48. After the
war started, Grandfather got
Dad a job with the Navy as a
civilian carpenter.
The primary mission of
the Tongue Point Naval Air
Station in Astoria was to train
Navy pilots and crews on the
new types of combat planes
that would serve on escort
Brian Ratty
carriers. They would also
instruct the pilots on short-
ield landings and take-offs,
in preparation for the small
decks of the baby-lattops.
Additionally, the Navy had
training schools for aircraft
maintenance and radio
operation, a naval hospital, a
receiving station, and many
other U.S. Navy ofices at
the airield. The runways
were lengthened, new ones
were added, and hangars
were built to handle the lood
of arriving aircraft. Asto-
ria’s naval air station was
a fast-growing city with its
own police force, chow halls,
barracks and movie theaters.
New planes arrived
every day from aircraft
manufacturers up and
down the West Coast. Each
escort carrier required a
minimum of 28 planes.
Soon, the gray skies around
the airield illed with all
types of aircraft: Grumman
F4F Wildcat ighters, the
Avenger torpedo bombers,
the Douglas SBD dive
bombers and, from Tongue
Point, the Catalina lyboats.
As the pilots and crews
trained, there were many
accidents. Some planes
went down during their
training lights, while others
crashed upon landing or,
as my father told me years
later, some pilots undershot
the runway and ditched in
the shallow, muddy waters
of Youngs Bay. This was a
dangerous business, with
young, inexperienced pilots
at the controls.
On the home front, the
tiny Astoria railroad station
illed with strange faces
and voices from all around
America. These men and
woman had different accents,
uniforms and lifestyles.
They illed the quiet streets,
bars, shops and waterfront,
turning Astoria into a diverse
crab-pot. There was rationing
of everything: food, gas, rub-
ber and scrap metal. And as
the local men marched off to
war, the local women stepped
forward, taking over their
jobs. There were women
ishermen, lumberjacks, bar-
tenders and auto mechanics.
While Portland had Rosie the
Riveter, Astoria boasted the
resourceful Daughters of the
Columbia. Everyone pulled
together for one common
cause: the war effort.
After the escort aircraft
carriers were completed in
Vancouver, they steamed to
Astoria for sea trials across
the Columbia River bar.
If the carrier performed to
the high standards set by
the many Navy supervisors
aboard, the ship would be
commissioned into the leet.
Once this was accomplished,
the carrier sailed again for the
open ocean and waited for
its aircraft and light crews
to arrive from the Tongue
Point Naval Air Station.
This marrying of ship and
planes on the open sea was
another dangerous time for
the untested pilots. Some had
trouble landing on the small
light deck while others over-
shot the deck and crashed
into the cold sea. Carrier
pilots had to have nerves
of steel. Finally, with all its
planes recovered, an escort
carrier, with a complement
of just over 900 oficers and
men, would steam toward
their irst combat assignment.
In less than two years,
Kaiser’s company built and
delivered all 50 carriers to the
U.S. Navy. At the end of the
war, America had lost 12 air-
craft carriers to enemy action.
Five of those sunk were Casa-
blanca-class escort carriers
built on the Columbia River.
Today, unfortunately, not one
of these ships has survived the
years. They were all scrapped
at the end of the war.
I never did become a
Navy pilot, but I served in the
Oregon Air National Guard
as a photo reconnaissance
photographer. Today, with my
chin whiskers gray and my
hair snow-white, I realize that
my early heroes should have
included all of the men and
woman, in or out of uniform,
who helped defeat the tyranny
of our enemies. They pre-
served our freedoms and our
American way of life.
Aug. 15 was the 71st an-
niversary of V-J Day (Victory
over Japan Day) and the end
of the war. The surrender was
announced Aug. 15 around
the world, and the oficial
surrender document was
signed Sept. 2. As we all pay
tribute to the World War II
generation, let us never forget
that we share our tomorrows
because of their yesterdays.
Brian Ratty is a local, award-winning
author of historical iction, and has
just released his ifth novel, “Voyage of
Atonement.” For more information, visit
www.DutchClarke.com