Musser Communications


Torpedo Junction

Spurred by the clips we've seen on YouTube of Tom Hank's "Greyhound," (still haven't seen the whole thing), we've decided to finish "Torpedo Junction," a screenplay about the war for the Atlantic in WWII started with a co-writer who made 40 trips across as Master or Exec, including 10 into Murmansk, and who was in the English Channel on D-Day refueling landing craft.

This effort bolstered by the recent receipt of his Merchant Marine and U. S. Navy records (200 pages, including all the ships he served on) from the Coast Guard.

(BTW, Older brother John retired as a CWO-4 after 28 years, on the deck of the the Hornet in Alameda Harbor, with three other guys that had a total of 120 years in.)

He was also the youngest Merchant Marine Captain in history when he graduated from the Pennsylvania Schoolship Academy (26, in 1940, during the accelerated buildup to World War II), although he was beat a year later by his younger brother, Jimmy, who became port captain of New York for 30 years for Sinclair Refineries.

When he was converted from a Merchant Marine Skipper in 1944 by action of the War Department into a United States Naval Reserve Officer, he became the oldest (and most experienced) Lieutenant in the Navy at 30-years-old.

Who was that man?: Dad.

He's gone now, but this is another story I promised to finish, and like it or not, Tom, we were first.

(BTW, it might become a novel, too!)

And although I had wanted a story about the skipper of a destroyer, like "Greyhound," my father advised that the war for the Atlantic was the story of the Canadian Navy's Flower-Class Corvette and the U. S. Naval Armed Guard.

So, here is as far as we got, although I have extensive notes from a man who refused a Bronze Star for ramming a U- boat with his T2 tanker.

40% of the time in World War II that sent the tanker to the bottom, too.

RIP, Dad.

Executive Officer John F. Musser

Torpedo Junction
Captain Guthrie
Torpedo Junction Notes  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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