Speaker 1: Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbas. Our guest in
Speaker 1: this edition is military historian and author Carol Engel Averette.
Speaker 1: She's the author of numerous military history books, including Coffin
Speaker 1: Corner Boys, about her bomber crew shot down over Europe
Speaker 1: during World War II, and Marine Raiders. Today, she's here
Speaker 1: to discuss her new book, Midnight in Iron Bottom Sound,
Speaker 1: the harrowing World War II story of heroism in the
Speaker 1: shark infested waters of Guadalcanal. It's the story of the
Speaker 1: heroism of Charles Jackson French, a mess attendant aboard the
Speaker 1: US S Gregory who saved the lives of more than
Speaker 1: a dozen men after the ship was sunk by the
Speaker 1: Japanese in September of nineteen forty two. It is our
Speaker 1: custom on Veterans Chronicles to feature the veteran telling their
Speaker 1: own story. But mister French is no longer with us
Speaker 1: to tell his story, and this is one that needs
Speaker 1: to be told, and there's no one more qualified to
Speaker 1: tell it than Carol Engel Averette. Averette says the story
Speaker 1: of Charles Jackson French first came to her attention while
Speaker 1: she was researching the heroism of the Marine raiders in
Speaker 1: the South Pacific.
Speaker 2: And as I studied and read, I kept running across
Speaker 2: a little sentence here and a little sentence there about
Speaker 2: these amazing destroyer transports conversions actually, that were even known
Speaker 2: by the sailors then as the brave little ships, and
Speaker 2: they carried the marine raiders and of course others in
Speaker 2: the war, but primarily marine raiders from one island to another.
Speaker 2: I just became fascinated with them, and of course, as
Speaker 2: I was doing Marine Raiders, I touched on that just
Speaker 2: a little bit. But when that book was complete and published,
Speaker 2: I thought, you know what, I'm going to go back
Speaker 2: and do some in depth study of these destroy transports
Speaker 2: that called APDs. They were convergents lo and behold. I
Speaker 2: zeroed in on one particular ship, the USS Gregory, and
Speaker 2: began to do a deep dive because one or two
Speaker 2: places had mentioned something about some of the crew. Greg
Speaker 2: one of the most remarkable, important stories that I have
Speaker 2: ever had the honor and privilege to write about.
Speaker 1: Charles Jackson French didn't have much growing up in southern Arkansas.
Speaker 1: He lost both of his parents while he was still
Speaker 1: a kid, and the Great Depression was very hard on everyone,
Speaker 1: but Averette says French had one thing nearby that would
Speaker 1: prepare him very well for his biggest moment, The Red River.
Speaker 2: Charles Jackson French was a young black American born in Foreman, Arkansas.
Speaker 2: His father was a sharecropper, and he was raised in
Speaker 2: what's known as the bottom lands of the Red River,
Speaker 2: the iconic Red River, one of the longest rivers in
Speaker 2: our country. But as a young boy, he and his
Speaker 2: friends didn't have, you know, the option of football teams
Speaker 2: or basketball teams at that time, and so on and
Speaker 2: so forth. So their play consisted of being out in
Speaker 2: nature primarily. And the Red River had any incredible reputation
Speaker 2: for being a very very dangerous river. Currents and there's
Speaker 2: a kind of a silt that forms the bottom of
Speaker 2: the Red River. It's not exactly quicksand, but it acts
Speaker 2: like it sucks you under and with the currents. In fact,
Speaker 2: I had the mayor of Foreman, Bill Hart, tell me
Speaker 2: that there's so many drownings in the Red River, and
Speaker 2: the bodies are usually never found, they're just simply swept away.
Speaker 2: And so Charles, I'm certain was as a young boy,
Speaker 2: admonished many times you know, don't you go into that,
Speaker 2: You know, those dangerous waters. But like most children, and
Speaker 2: oftentimes you do what you're not told to do. And
Speaker 2: so he ventured into those waters and that was where
Speaker 2: he learned to swim and how he became such a
Speaker 2: great swimmer, and that's key to what happens to him
Speaker 2: later on when he is a crew member of the Gregory.
Speaker 1: By the time French was eighteen years old in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty seven, Averette says he was more than ready to
Speaker 1: join the Navy.
Speaker 2: This is Depression era. He was born in nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 2: lived through the Depression, and of course not much available
Speaker 2: in the terms of work for young black men at
Speaker 2: that particular time, and so he, likes so many other
Speaker 2: young men during the late thirties, decided to go into
Speaker 2: the military and he joined the Navy.
Speaker 1: French would actually serve and then leave the Navy, only
Speaker 1: to rejoin after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was
Speaker 1: then that he was assigned to the USS Gregory. The
Speaker 1: captain of the Gregory was Lieutenant Commander Harry Bauer, who
Speaker 1: took a very different path into the Navy and was
Speaker 1: a highly regarded leader.
Speaker 2: And he got an appointment to Annapolis, and so went
Speaker 2: to the Naval Academy scored high, and all of his
Speaker 2: classes began to teach there, and then of course the
Speaker 2: war broke out, and almost immediately, within just a few days,
Speaker 2: he was given his own ship, and his ship was
Speaker 2: the USS Gregory. He of course was absolutely thrilled to
Speaker 2: have his own ship and to be in charge of
Speaker 2: his own crew, and was just had the reputation for
Speaker 2: being just a really incredible person. He established a culture
Speaker 2: on the ship that was everyone included. He loved to
Speaker 2: get to know his crew and tried to get to
Speaker 2: know as many of them as possible, as fate would
Speaker 2: have it. That was the same ship that Charles Jackson
Speaker 2: French was assigned to as a mess attendant, which at
Speaker 2: that time in our navy, as you know, it was
Speaker 2: segregated and really about the only thing open. In fact,
Speaker 2: the only thing open for young black sailors was in
Speaker 2: the galley, either as a mess attendant, if you served
Speaker 2: the men, or if you had done very very well,
Speaker 2: later on, after you'd been in for a while, you
Speaker 2: might be promoted to a steward who would serve the officers. Then,
Speaker 2: so you had Lieutenant Commander Harry Bauer as the highest
Speaker 2: ranking person on the ship, and you had mess Attendant
Speaker 2: Charles Jackson French, who was actually the lowest ranking.
Speaker 1: The USS Gregory served as a destroyer in World War
Speaker 1: One and was put back into service after Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 1: But as Averette explains, it was modified in ways that
Speaker 1: were both practical and more than a little concerning.
Speaker 2: It had been in mothballs for twenty years. The navy
Speaker 2: head was called, you could say, flat footed when Pearl
Speaker 2: Harbor happened, and they needed very quickly to replenish and
Speaker 2: to substitute ships to come in and begin to help
Speaker 2: with amphibious landings and so on and so forth. So
Speaker 2: they looked to thirty two of these destroyers. They were
Speaker 2: actually called four stackers because they had four smoke stacks
Speaker 2: at the time in World War One, or flush deckers
Speaker 2: because they had a flush deck. They took thirty two
Speaker 2: of these and converted them into transports. The actual crew
Speaker 2: of that particular ship was about one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: give or take, but you're talking about adding an additional
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty marines raiders with all their gear
Speaker 2: and all their equipment and all their weaponry so they
Speaker 2: had to do something. They took out two of the
Speaker 2: smoke stacks, two of the boilers, which greatly reduced the
Speaker 2: speed of those destroyer transports, and almost all of their
Speaker 2: are They left them with some, but they were virtually
Speaker 2: without a lot of ways to defend themselves. But it
Speaker 2: was such a necessary use of those destroy transports. They
Speaker 2: were renamed APDs Auxiliary Personnel destroyers. They were really the heroes,
Speaker 2: you know. They were not upfront on the front part
Speaker 2: of the stage, but they were what had to take
Speaker 2: place behind. As General Vandergriff said, they were pivotal without
Speaker 2: which those brave little ships and their brave crews we
Speaker 2: simply could not have gotten from island to island.
Speaker 1: As Averette mentioned, the guns and smokestacks were taken out
Speaker 1: of the APDs to make room for more Marine raiders.
Speaker 1: It was still jam packed, and she says the raiders
Speaker 1: and the crew of the Gregory developed a very close
Speaker 1: bond on their way to the South Pacific and Guadalcanal.
Speaker 1: The Marine Raiders landed at Guadalcanal on August seventh, nineteen
Speaker 1: forty two. The Gregory dropped off eraidors on the island
Speaker 1: of Tulagi, which is across Sea Lark Channel from Guadalcanal.
Speaker 1: The Gregory and a sister ship then tucked themselves away
Speaker 1: from the main part of the channel near Tulagi. Averyett
Speaker 1: says that kept them protected from a massive Japanese attack
Speaker 1: against other vessels in the channel.
Speaker 2: This is known as the Battle of Tsavo Island. All
Speaker 2: of the ships, our ships, Japanese ships, Australian ships were
Speaker 2: filled these waters became very, very dangerous. In fact, it's
Speaker 2: really a unique chapter in naval history. I start off
Speaker 2: with a wonderful quote from an author who did a
Speaker 2: lot of research and actually was there. He was an
Speaker 2: embedded journalist for a while. But it's an interesting chapter
Speaker 2: in naval history because we took a beating. Really basically
Speaker 2: what it boiled down to, lost many many ships, many
Speaker 2: many airplanes. All these engagements mostly were it not mostly
Speaker 2: surface engagements, almost head to head the way they used
Speaker 2: to fight in the seventeen hundreds, when they just line
Speaker 2: up beside one another. And that's basically what happened many
Speaker 2: times in the channel Sea Lark Channel and at Tsavo Island.
Speaker 2: We lost so many ships. In fact, the carriers, these
Speaker 2: remaining carriers who were located in the secret location withdrew
Speaker 2: completely from the Solomon Islands, and as a result, it
Speaker 2: left the Marines on Guadalcanal, the Army on Guadalcanal that
Speaker 2: had been dropped off, and the marine raiders on Tulagi
Speaker 2: that had been dropped off, really without any any way
Speaker 2: to get additional food or supplies or ammunition or whatever.
Speaker 2: And so at that point, these small destroyer transports, including
Speaker 2: the USS Gregory and her sister ship, the Little began
Speaker 2: doing blockade running at night to resupply and bring additional
Speaker 2: AMMO as they could as they could get through that
Speaker 2: Dane's dangerous waters with all the patrolling that the Japanese
Speaker 2: were doing, and to drop off additional supplies for the
Speaker 2: men who were basically at that point more or less
Speaker 2: stranded on those islands. Very dangerous. They knew every time
Speaker 2: that they went from Numeya back into Sea Lark Channel
Speaker 2: that there was a very good chance that they would
Speaker 2: run into destroyers or even cruisers Japanese that were and submarines,
Speaker 2: and so just a very very dangerous missions that they
Speaker 2: did to help supply those that were on the islands fighting.
Speaker 1: That's Carol Angel Averett, author of Midnight and Iron Bottom Sound.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we'll find out how the USS
Speaker 1: Gregory was lost. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles.
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Speaker 1: This Iss Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest is
Speaker 1: Carol Angel Averette, author of Midnight in Iron Bottom Sound
Speaker 1: Just a Moment Ago told us about the devastating Japanese
Speaker 1: attack off Guadalcanal in August nineteen forty two. She now
Speaker 1: explains the toll suffered by the US Navy on that
Speaker 1: night and throughout the war, and how Sea Lark Channel
Speaker 1: earned a different name.
Speaker 2: According to the records that I've looked at, we lost
Speaker 2: almost forty ships that night, and the Japanese also lost
Speaker 2: even more than that number. By the end of the war.
Speaker 2: The end of the time that we left Guadalcanal, over
Speaker 2: six hundred planes of ours had been downed and over
Speaker 2: six hundred Japanese planes had been downed. So that instead
Speaker 2: of calling it Sea Lark Channel, the sailors and the
Speaker 2: Marines began calling it Iron Bottom Sound because there is
Speaker 2: so much iron in the bottom of that channel. So
Speaker 2: many ships went down from the battle that you're talking
Speaker 2: about Savo Island, so many planes went down, material jeeps, tanks,
Speaker 2: and so forth. It is really considered the number one
Speaker 2: what it is, the number one maritime grave site in
Speaker 2: the world. It is also the most sought after dive
Speaker 2: site in the world. Twenty of those positions have been identified.
Speaker 2: They believe that they have found perhaps either the Gregory
Speaker 2: or the Little, but it has not been identified where.
Speaker 2: I'm hoping that within the next year or two they
Speaker 2: can actually identify completely which one of those APDs they
Speaker 2: that went down the night later that we'll talk about
Speaker 2: in September that was either the Gregory or the Little
Speaker 2: that has already been discovered. But it's so deep and
Speaker 2: the currents are so difficult that it really takes it
Speaker 2: really takes more than just amateur divers to try to
Speaker 2: get down to it. So I'm hoping eventually it will
Speaker 2: be identified. But as I say, it is the largest
Speaker 2: maritime grave site in the world. A lot of people
Speaker 2: don't realize that, and we lost more men in the
Speaker 2: water than we did on land on Guadacanal.
Speaker 1: After a month of harrowing blockade running to and from
Speaker 1: the Solomon Islands, the USS Gregory dropped off marine raiders
Speaker 1: on Guadalcanal on September fourth, nineteen forty two, but stuck
Speaker 1: around instead of leaving the area. Averette explains why they
Speaker 1: stayed and what happened the fateful night that Gregory.
Speaker 2: Was lost earlier. They thought that a submarine had been
Speaker 2: spotted and the Gregory and the Little because they had
Speaker 2: become so close to these raiders after they transported them
Speaker 2: from Tulagi over to Guatecanal, they decided to instead of
Speaker 2: going back to the safe harbor and relatively safe harbor
Speaker 2: at Tulagi, they decided to stay through the night and
Speaker 2: patrol the shoreline to protect the raiders that were camping
Speaker 2: there along the edge of the shore of Guadalcanal. During
Speaker 2: that time, there was a spotter who thought he spot
Speaker 2: the submarine, and so they sent up a pby. One
Speaker 2: of our planes set up a peby to go out
Speaker 2: and try to scout to see if he could spot
Speaker 2: that submarine during the night, and he shot off five
Speaker 2: flares to see if he could highlight the submarine, and
Speaker 2: unfortunately he didn't realize he had no way of knowing.
Speaker 2: He didn't know the Gregory and the Little were down there,
Speaker 2: and he lit up instead of the enemy submarine, he
Speaker 2: lit up these two destroyer transports back lit them, and
Speaker 2: so immediately the Japanese patrolling that area looks often they
Speaker 2: see two of our APDs and they come storming down,
Speaker 2: and of course they've got full armor, they full weaponry,
Speaker 2: all of their cannon, and they they begin to shell viciously,
Speaker 2: both the Gregory and the Little, and really within I
Speaker 2: forget the exact time, but in an around an hour
Speaker 2: or so, both ships were rolling over and were going
Speaker 2: down already the call for abandoned ship had come out.
Speaker 2: And it is during that night a terrible, terrible night
Speaker 2: began around probably around eleven o'clock to midnight and then
Speaker 2: went all through the night. The Japanese came down. As
Speaker 2: wounded soldiers began jumping off the Gregor and the Little
Speaker 2: and into the water, the Japanese came down, and of
Speaker 2: course the machine gunned a lot of the ones survivors
Speaker 2: trying to save themselves, and I mean it was a melee.
Speaker 1: Badly wounded Lieutenant Commander Harry Bauer was the picture of
Speaker 1: self sacrifice in his final moments.
Speaker 2: Well. Harry Bower, of course, during such a time as
Speaker 2: that a surface engagement would be on the bridge as
Speaker 2: the commanding officer of the ship. When he realized that
Speaker 2: the ship was rolling he immediately called abandoned ship. He
Speaker 2: himself had been struck and he was bad wounded, and
Speaker 2: two of his men came to him and wanted to
Speaker 2: try to get him in the water. And about the
Speaker 2: time they were trying to help him into the water,
Speaker 2: they heard another sailor, one of his crew, yelling for help,
Speaker 2: and Bower ordered the two men to go and save
Speaker 2: that other sailor, and they did. They got him into
Speaker 2: the water and onto a raft, but when they tried
Speaker 2: to come back, the ship had already rolled over and
Speaker 2: Bower was never seen again.
Speaker 1: And for all the sailors jumping into the water, there
Speaker 1: was another big problem. There were sharks. Lots of sharks.
Speaker 2: It was full of sharks, and I used the term.
Speaker 2: In fact, a gentleman said to me. He said, well,
Speaker 2: it wasn't real. It couldn't have really been infested because
Speaker 2: sharks were where they were supposed to be. Well, well, actually,
Speaker 2: actually there were so many sharks. I read of an
Speaker 2: incident where the marine raiders were trying to land on
Speaker 2: another island, Georgia Island a little bit later, and they
Speaker 2: had to use hand grenades to get their rubber rafts
Speaker 2: through the sharks. They literally were practically lying one on
Speaker 2: top of another. So I felt like in this particular instance,
Speaker 2: shark infested was as good a description as you're going
Speaker 2: to get. But it was full of sharks, is the point.
Speaker 1: That's Carol Engel Averette, the author of Midnight in Iron
Speaker 1: Bottom Sound, in a moment the incredible heroism of Charles
Speaker 1: Jackson French. I'm Greg Corumbus, and this is Veterans Chronicles.
Speaker 1: This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
Speaker 1: this edition is military historian and author Carol Engel Averette.
Speaker 1: Her latest book is Midnight in Iron Bottom Sound, the
Speaker 1: herrowing World War II story of heroism in the shark
Speaker 1: infested waters of Guadalcanal. It tells the story of the
Speaker 1: heroism of Mess Attendant Charles Jackson French on September fifth,
Speaker 1: nineteen forty two, following the Japanese sinking of the USS
Speaker 1: Gregory and the USS Little in Sea Lark Channel, which
Speaker 1: is often referred to now as Iron Bottom Sound. Earlier
Speaker 1: we noted the selfless heroism of Lieutenant Commander Harry Bauer,
Speaker 1: who was mortally wounded from the Japanese shelling of the
Speaker 1: bridge on the USS Gregory. A young ensign on the
Speaker 1: bridge that night was Bob Adrian he survived and literally
Speaker 1: lived to tell the story of Charles Jackson French, of
Speaker 1: which he was an eye witness. Averette takes us through
Speaker 1: French's courageous and selfless actions.
Speaker 2: Bob Adrian had been able to get in. He actually
Speaker 2: had a lot of shell fragments in his face in
Speaker 2: one eye particularly, but he had been able to get
Speaker 2: into the water. In his sort of paddling around and
Speaker 2: trying to figure out where which direction to go in
Speaker 2: and all, he saw a rubber raft that looked like
Speaker 2: it had a couple of wounded soldiers in it, and
Speaker 2: he get gets up to it and he recognizes Charles
Speaker 2: Jackson French's southern accent. Evidently he had a very just
Speaker 2: like mine from Alabama. He had probably a very noticeable
Speaker 2: Arkansas accent. And so he yells out to him, and
Speaker 2: Charles says, you know, yes, sir, you know, come on
Speaker 2: and let me help you in. And so he pulls
Speaker 2: Adrian into the raft and then they are together the
Speaker 2: rest of the night, and Adrian says to Charles, we're
Speaker 2: drifting towards shore. He said, I don't know what we're
Speaker 2: going to do. The currents are taking us. The Japanese
Speaker 2: are gonna are there. They're gonna take us prisoner. We
Speaker 2: sure don't want that shoot us. And so Frint starts
Speaker 2: taking off his clothes and Adrian says, what what are
Speaker 2: you doing, man? And he said, I'm getting in the
Speaker 2: water and I'm pulling us, and so he does. Now,
Speaker 2: the reason he takes off his clothes is because one
Speaker 2: of the things that you're taught, they were talked in
Speaker 2: the navy, is that sharks will go to flapping clothes.
Speaker 2: And of course they're barel bottomed pants and all of
Speaker 2: that would have flapped in the water. So he strips
Speaker 2: down and he takes the rope from the raft and
Speaker 2: ties it around his waist and he begins to swim.
Speaker 2: And Adrian has got one eye, and he says, because
Speaker 2: he wants clothed with all the shrapnel in it. And
Speaker 2: he said, okay, he says, Charles, I can help you
Speaker 2: best I can, but you've got a one eyed navigator here.
Speaker 2: And so Charles began to swim and pull the raft
Speaker 2: away from the shore, and in the meantime he's coming
Speaker 2: across more wounded sailors. So when he comes across one,
Speaker 2: he takes him and he picks him. You know it
Speaker 2: helps push him up into the raft and Greg by
Speaker 2: the end of the night. Bob Adrian later in his
Speaker 2: journal said there were at least fifteen soldiers that Charles
Speaker 2: had managed to pull wounded out of the water and
Speaker 2: pull them up into that raft. So you've got enemy
Speaker 2: on shore. And Charles kept saying, man, these currents are incredible,
Speaker 2: and Adrian would say, now you can't pull us. You
Speaker 2: can't allow us to be pulled out to see because
Speaker 2: if we get out in the South Pacific, they'll never
Speaker 2: find us. So he's he's fighting the currents. He's fighting
Speaker 2: the currents trying to push him to shore where the
Speaker 2: Japanese are. And then just for you know, the icing
Speaker 2: on the cake, he's got sharks that begin rubbing him
Speaker 2: all around his legs, on the bottom of his feet,
Speaker 2: and they would leave and come back. It was just
Speaker 2: the strangest thing.
Speaker 1: Averett says it's hard to know exactly how far French
Speaker 1: swam for a number of reasons, reasons which make his
Speaker 1: actions even more impressive.
Speaker 2: He's trying to stay away from the shoreline of Guadalcanal,
Speaker 2: which is a Guadalcanal is a fairly long island, so
Speaker 2: he's trying to stay away from the shore because they
Speaker 2: don't really know it's full of Japanese. This is, you know,
Speaker 2: before we even really had control of Henderson Field, so
Speaker 2: it's you know, anybody's guess where you would run into.
Speaker 2: One Tokyo expressed during this month, we're bringing down five
Speaker 2: thousand to six thousand fresh troop and depositing them on
Speaker 2: the island every night, so you could not go ashore.
Speaker 2: That was the thing. And I suspect that it just
Speaker 2: simply was a back and forth, just trying to stay away,
Speaker 2: stay out of trouble, stay low, don't get pulled out
Speaker 2: too far to sea, and for Heaven's sakes, don't put
Speaker 2: your feet too low in the water because those sharks
Speaker 2: are down there.
Speaker 1: Averette says, the most meaningful part of the story for
Speaker 1: Charles Jackson French happened the next morning after he and
Speaker 1: the rest of the men in their raft were brought
Speaker 1: safely on shore at Guadalcanal by marine raiders.
Speaker 2: The raiders had pulled all of these men on shore
Speaker 2: as they you know, dawn came and they saw that
Speaker 2: the raft was full of wounded and so they got
Speaker 2: them on shore and began to apply first aid and help,
Speaker 2: getting their medics to help them. And about that time,
Speaker 2: it's probably a little bit later in the morning, this
Speaker 2: cheek comes wheezing down and it's full of MPs, and
Speaker 2: so they yell at, you know, Charles Jackson French, you know,
Speaker 2: and said, you know, you've got to come with us.
Speaker 2: The black camp is on down the road. You don't
Speaker 2: belong here. And about that time, when the raiders began
Speaker 2: hearing these MPs about to drag Charles Jackson French off,
Speaker 2: a couple of the raiders stand up, come in and
Speaker 2: they say, you know, hey, hey, hey, man, you know
Speaker 2: what's going on here. And then a couple of other
Speaker 2: sailors from various places, and one or two of the
Speaker 2: wounded men that could walk come walking up, men that
Speaker 2: he had saved, and they're looking, hey, wait a minute, wait, wait,
Speaker 2: get your hands off that man. And so the MP said, no,
Speaker 2: he's got to go down to the you know, this
Speaker 2: is segregated. He's got to go down to his camp.
Speaker 2: And then one of the raiders said this, you're not
Speaker 2: taking this man in. He's staying here with us because
Speaker 2: he's one of us. And Charles Jackson French said later
Speaker 2: in fact, he was known to when he repeated this story,
Speaker 2: he could never say it without just tearing up and
Speaker 2: just almost choking with emotion over it. It was the
Speaker 2: sentence He's one of us.
Speaker 1: Averett says that moment of brotherhood and solidarity is a
Speaker 1: critically important moment in the story. She also says that
Speaker 1: when considering all of the details of this ordeal, the
Speaker 1: most important lessons can be learned by watching both Charles
Speaker 1: Jackson French and Harry Bauer.
Speaker 2: And so Greg. You know, as I was pulling this
Speaker 2: book together and doing the additional research and some subsequent
Speaker 2: follow up stories, and all I thought to myself, what's
Speaker 2: at the heart of this story? You know, what can
Speaker 2: we this many years, eighty years, eighty three years later,
Speaker 2: what can we learn from this story? And really it
Speaker 2: bowls down to just courage has no color, It has
Speaker 2: no prerequisites, because valor comes from within. You had the
Speaker 2: highest commanding officers show incredible valor. You had the lowest
Speaker 2: ranking mess attendant show a night of courage that is
Speaker 2: just unparalleled. Many many heroes out of World War Two,
Speaker 2: but this one really stands up there with all of them.
Speaker 1: French's story became a sensation back home in the fall
Speaker 1: of nineteen forty two, while French was on a thirty
Speaker 1: day leave after the sinking of the Gregory. And Averette
Speaker 1: explains that his story, as it became more widely known,
Speaker 1: inspired Americans of all backgrounds.
Speaker 2: I have two letters that we reprinted in the book
Speaker 2: from a twelve year old young black child who read
Speaker 2: about Charles Jackson French and it was so important to him.
Speaker 2: It made such an impact on him that he decided
Speaker 2: to write the President of the United States, of course
Speaker 2: President Roosevelt at the time, but it was from and
Speaker 2: I would just give anything. I'm even hoping that maybe
Speaker 2: some of that family member will show up. Kenneth Dominic
Speaker 2: was his name, And he said to the President, he said, please,
Speaker 2: can you tell me anything more about this man? And
Speaker 2: this is what now this young boy said in his letters,
Speaker 2: So I'm repeating what he said. He said, I'm a
Speaker 2: colored boy too, and it's the bravest thing that I've
Speaker 2: ever read. So you had you had this young man
Speaker 2: so impressed by this, but you also had a very
Speaker 2: wealthy man in the Orleans read the same article, say
Speaker 2: Mayp in his newspaper down in New Orleans, and he
Speaker 2: was owned a very wealthy brokerage house, a financier, and
Speaker 2: I suspect probably knew Roosevelt personally. So he writes Roosevelt
Speaker 2: and he says, I want you to know that this
Speaker 2: young man needs to be awarded. He needs to be
Speaker 2: recognized for this incredible and I just want to make
Speaker 2: sure that you've seen this article and know his story.
Speaker 1: But if there was so much interest and attention paid
Speaker 1: to French and his story of heroism, why was it
Speaker 1: nearly lost to history? How was it suddenly forgotten in
Speaker 1: the annals of World War II? Averette says there are
Speaker 1: a lot of reasons for that, including the fact that
Speaker 1: French died young in nineteen fifty six, But she suspects
Speaker 1: there is a very simple explanation for the oversight.
Speaker 2: You see, this was the very beginning. This was nineteen
Speaker 2: forty two. The Normandy invasion is two years off, that's
Speaker 2: not until forty four. By that time, nineteen forty four,
Speaker 2: all eyes were turned towards Europe, even though the fighting
Speaker 2: was still ferocious in the Pacific, And of course, if
Speaker 2: you had relatives in the Pacific, that's what you look for.
Speaker 2: But the eyes of this nation turned toward the invasion
Speaker 2: of Europe. And you also can see just you know,
Speaker 2: between the two invasion forces. The number of convoy that
Speaker 2: invaded the Solomon Islands on August seventh, nineteen forty two
Speaker 2: was about eighty plus ships thereabout, all right. The invasion
Speaker 2: force convoy that was gathered together for Normandy was nearly
Speaker 2: eight thousand, and that's including everything. So you can see
Speaker 2: how and I think just with all that was happening
Speaker 2: in Europe, as the atrocities began to surface, of what
Speaker 2: was going on really going on in Germany and so
Speaker 2: on and so forth, with the camps and different things,
Speaker 2: it was these early stories from early in the war
Speaker 2: simply just got they floated down to the bottom of
Speaker 2: Iron Bottom Sound. It was not that they were trying
Speaker 2: to ignore it. It just had been turned elsewhere during
Speaker 2: that terrible long war.
Speaker 1: Now, thanks in part to Averette's book and the efforts
Speaker 1: of several other people Charles Jackson, French is finally getting
Speaker 1: some of the acclaim he so richly earned more than
Speaker 1: eighty years ago. Averette says the Navy already has plans
Speaker 1: to honor French, and there's a push for more posthumous honors.
Speaker 2: It does say in his records that he was his
Speaker 2: original records, naval records. I've got a copy of them
Speaker 2: that he was recommended for a ribbon. But to my
Speaker 2: knowledge and to his family's knowledge, he never received that.
Speaker 2: He did receive a letter of accommodation from Admiral Halsey. Now, however,
Speaker 2: the good news is that just two months ago the
Speaker 2: Secretary of the Navy, Carlos del Toro, the current Secretary
Speaker 2: of the Navy, Carlos del Toro, announced at an official
Speaker 2: White House ceremony, and the gentleman that wrote the ford
Speaker 2: for our book, Admiral Sedric Pringle, attended that ceremony. There
Speaker 2: is going to be a ship, one of our highest
Speaker 2: advanced destroyers in probably twenty six twenty seven, is going
Speaker 2: to be named after Charles Jackson French. It's going to
Speaker 2: be the USS Charles J. French Destroyer. His family is
Speaker 2: so thrilled. I'm so thrilled for them, and there is
Speaker 2: some renewed interest in seeing that he gets posthumously a
Speaker 2: medal of honor.
Speaker 1: Averette says, the main reason this story survives today is
Speaker 1: because Bob Adrian, that ensign who helped Charles Jackson French
Speaker 1: navigate the waters of Iron Bottom Sound that night, wrote
Speaker 1: it all down years later after he came home. She
Speaker 1: says she wrote the book because she believed this was
Speaker 1: a story that needed to be told, but she is
Speaker 1: also determined to help French get recognition for his actions
Speaker 1: all those years ago. She says, his story ranks right
Speaker 1: up there with any other account she's seen from the
Speaker 1: incredible heroes of World War Two.
Speaker 2: But all of this is recorded in Adrian's journals later
Speaker 2: on when he got out of the war. So what
Speaker 2: is so wonderful about this story? Greg? You know, a
Speaker 2: lot of times some of these stories are not really
Speaker 2: you don't have a lot to go on. But in
Speaker 2: this case, Adrian's family allowed me to look at all
Speaker 2: of his journals, his notes, and so these are not
Speaker 2: made up stories. This is eyewitness account of what actually happened.
Speaker 2: For Charles Jackson. French just heroic beyond belief. I put
Speaker 2: it up there with you know, other stories that we
Speaker 2: have heard World War II, some of the Medal of
Speaker 2: Honors stories that I had read about marine raiders. Of course,
Speaker 2: there's the Dory Miller's story that is so incredible, You've
Speaker 2: got the red tails, But this one not much known
Speaker 2: about it. People need to read it so that they
Speaker 2: can know what happened. It is up there with all
Speaker 2: the other incredible stories of the unsung, unknown heroes of
Speaker 2: World War Two.
Speaker 1: That's Carol Engel Averette. She's a military historian and author.
Speaker 1: Her previous books include Coffin, Corner Boys, and Marine Raiders.
Speaker 1: Her latest book is Midnight in Iron Bottom Sound, the
Speaker 1: harrowing World War II story of heroism in the shark
Speaker 1: infested waters of Guadalcanal. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is
Speaker 1: Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg Corumbus, and thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of the American Veterans Center.
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